you never know how old those people are 
I started with 30k less than 15 years ago and now it’s probably 10x.
It’s already amazing. Focus:
- hard work (smart work is just a buzz work for a young person. You need to be seen working hard and developing your own experience and bank of knowledge, then you will be able to work smarter)
- develop the right skills of the future, even at the expenses of a marginally lower salary
-build your network. Over the long run, it is way more important than your Cv
-get some big names on your resume, it always help and help with working through matrix and complex org - be always positive and kind with everyone and never comprise on integrity
- while you need to work hard, set boundaries on your health
Have a great life!!
6 Likes
Hey don’t be ashamed, we don’t start at the same age with the same education and with the same opportunity. Take a glance about my salary historic (a bit above 
)
I should probably be at 110-120k at my age, but life is what it is
Wow your story is very inspiring. I’m glad it worked out eventually! Thanks for sharing.
1 Like
Hey, long time lurker. Finally decided to sign up and share some data points on my end. Software engineer at a US tech co, 7 years of experience. Zurich.
While the numbers do look good and are beyond what I ever imagined, I’m putting in a lot of effort, trading fun, interesting work and long term employability (developing new skills) for that. Stress levels are also quite high. I simply hope I can take it for long enough to go a long way towards fire and transition to a role with better life-work balance some day, likely as a solo dev, indie projects, or freelancer.
2017 CHF58,000 Started as intern in 2017, half year
2018 CHF140,000 Hired full time
2019 CHF159,000
2020 CHF266,000 Promoted
2021 CHF416,000 Promoted
2022 CHF410,000
2023* CHF622,000
* projection
The above brings me to 1.3M CHF in net worth (all invested in VT, excluding 2nd pillar), unfortunately not much more than the 0.9M I got out the job after tax and the 0.3M inherited 
Still waiting for that exponential to kick in and take me to ~3M.
I’d love to discuss topics around opening a consultancy / one-man company and transitioning to contractor-type work. I guess there’s forum section for that 
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Depends on whose life it is. If you are a chef to Putin then it might be quite lucrative (at least until your plane falls out of the sky!)
Here’s mine:
You can see the point where I stopped chasing work and decided to aim for work/life balance and then a few years later when I discovered FIRE and decided to aim for FI.
I started another thread to share side hustle progression:
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Out of curiosity, why the jump? Have you been promoted again (or very high perf rating)? Retention refresh grant?
(Otherwise sounds impressive for what I assume is equivalent to L6 at Google, my total comp has mostly been going down over the past 3 years given the grant refreshes/stock market)
No, actually my performance this year might be the worst so far. It’s just decent stock grants in the past years coupled with great market performance. If things stay as they are now, I might break the 700k mark next year before heading down to 500. Don’t think I have another promo in me, it’s also getting extremely hard to gain more influence and scope after some time.
You’re at big G? I guess there’s no hiring going on anymore, right?
Yeah not much hiring, should be able to tell from external job postings (and reading external news, seems like they laid off people from the recruiting org? 
)
Hi there! I thought about doing this and asking you for some recommendations on how to increase my salary. Here goes my salary progression:
2019 (23 yo): 21.490€
2020: 23.590€ (+9,77%)
2021: 26.460€ (+12,17%), in June 31.500€ (+19,05%) w/ promotion
2022: 33.600€ (+6,67%), in February 130.000 CHF by moving to Zurich
2023: 130.000 CHF, Bonus 6.500 CHF
I moved to Switzerland as part of my FIRE plan, and I was expecting to move on a ~100k salary and to remain that way through 2023. So in the end I am better than I was expecting. However, I also have friends who work in tech companies and I know there’s a lot more money to be made. So I was wondering if tech is the only way, if consulting can also reach those levels of salary, or if you have any other suggestions for me. Here are a few things worth knowing:
- I don’t have a technical background but I do work well as a consultant inbetween business and tech
- I work in banking and I’m not very interested in moving away from financial services
- I’m not expecting major salary increases except with one promotion in the coming years
- Fintech companies don’t really pay much better (I guess?), nor do other banks
- I realize my friends in tech also work much harder than I do, so in order to accept that additional amount of work, it really needs to be well compensated
Do any jobs or companies come to mind? 
Thank you!
3 Likes
Not a progression, but a small update from me. Changed company and moved to a slightly more technical role: Down to 145k/year (from 155 and 135 in the last two jobs)
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From Jannuary i will work in the banking sector.
Projected 165k
I still don’t exactly know the expectations for my new role, but i hope i can perform at my best.
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Small update + projection
If my compensation continue to grow, I will hit the double of my initial compensation in 2028 
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I can update my numbers:
2017: 52k (started PhD in machine learning)
2018: 53k
2019: 54k
2020: 55k
2021: 56k
2022: 145k (first job)
2023: 149k (increase of 2.5% instead of the 5-6% average I was promised)
2024: 246k (new job)
For my 30th birthday last month I signed my new contract and quit my current job. I was clearly underpaid for my skills.
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Here are my rough numbers:
2017: ~5k
2018: ~10k
2019: ~8k
2020: ~20k (internship)
2021: ~40k (internship & first job)
2022: ~50k (work, research, shifting to
2023: ~84k (work, running non-profit project)
I will likely take a voluntary pay cut in 2024. I am no longer prioritizing FI because I want to focus on projects that I find much more important than my personal finances. But I plan to optimise my investing/etc. from what I learned from the FIRE community while not optimising for FI.
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2018: ~50k (internship, unemployement benefit, fixed-term employment)
2019: ~50k (fixed-term employment, unemployement benefit, trainee lawyer)
2020: ~50k (trainee lawyer, open-ended employment, unemployement benefit)
2021: ~45k (unemployement benefit, trainee lawyer)
2022: ~40k (trainee lawyer, DPO internship)
2023: 99k (Legal Counsel in the public sector)
2024: 103k (Legal Counsel in the public sector)
As working in the public sector, the salary will never increase more than 2% of my maximum class. For 2024, it will be 3% because of the inflation though.
Despite this (could be worse and I’ve already known worse in the past), I’m really happy with my work (got a new project), colleagues and managers. There is a welcoming and trustful atmosphere and I’ve started a new education in order to become a CSI/SSK Tax Expert. Also, I’m very satisfied that my previous CAS (data protection and digital finance law) are useful for my department.
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Well done. ML skills are in high demand, make the most of them until the party lasts
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Little update from my side:
This will probably my last career jump before FI, not sure if I will continue or just do what I like. I might be able to jump up to general management (my boss is retiring in 4y and is lining me up), but hey, let’s see where life goes.
4 Likes
Congrats! That is a massive change within the same industry. Can you share some details about how did that? How did you negotiate at your new job? What changes at your role will happen, like responsibilities, etc.