Plan a career in IT: goal - £100k PA.

I became a jnr dev last year (age 37) on 30k, bumped to 35 after 6 months and hoping for another bump to 40k later this year.

I'm comfortable with my earnings / stress (or lack thereof) and probably won't e looking to take on more in the future.

I can afford my hobbies and have plenty of time during the day and evening for them if needed.

I'm North East based.
 
montymint said:
I became a jnr dev last year (age 37) on 30k, bumped to 35 after 6 months and hoping for another bump to 40k later this year.

I'm comfortable with my earnings / stress (or lack thereof) and probably won't e looking to take on more in the future.

I can afford my hobbies and have plenty of time during the day and evening for them if needed.

I'm North East based.
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I wish to copy your path!

How did you get into the role?
 
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Bassmansam said:
I wish to copy your path!

How did you get into the role?
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I got in via the support helpdesk.

I did first line stuff for a few years in my late 20's / early 30s when I still didn't know what I wanted. Moved to my current firm in Aug 2018 as a second line support. Used that to learn SQL and C# (for bug finding / minor fixes) on the job and Nov 21 went to development full time.

I will note when I started in 2018 I knew how to do a select statement in SQL at most. My current firm have been very good at allowing me to learn on the job.
 
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randomshenans said:

Junior analyst - SQL/Python - up to 40k
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SQL + Python is defininitely hot at the moment, and is a great set of skills to build a career on. I work in technical pre-sales for one of the big cloud database providers and we are continuing to recruit heavily for Sales Engineers with this combination of skills (plus a bit of Data Science too if possible). Total package for people with the right experience is well above the target figure for this thread ;)
 
Selekt0r said:
SQL + Python is defininitely hot at the moment, and is a great set of skills to build a career on. I work in technical pre-sales for one of the big cloud database providers and we are continuing to recruit heavily for Sales Engineers with this combination of skills (plus a bit of Data Science too if possible). Total package for people with the right experience is well above the target figure for this thread ;)
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Do you work for *********, MongoDB, or another similar company? By "Well above the target figure", are you suggesting 50%+ or perhaps more than 100%+? Either is awesome, but I'm just curious how high the numbers go.
 
jon86 said:
Do you work for *********, MongoDB, or another similar company? By "Well above the target figure", are you suggesting 50%+ or perhaps more than 100%+? Either is awesome, but I'm just curious how high the numbers go.
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Pretty sure it's the one you that has been filtered out by the infamous forums content filter. :D

To be honest I don't know how high the numbers go, as salaries/packages don't tend to get discussed and I'm not in a managerial role to have visibility of wider numbers. Between the two percentages you mention is definitely doable and I'm sure that there will be some at more than 100%+. That's in the UK - I don't have any visibility on equivalents in the U.S.
 
Selekt0r said:
Pretty sure it's the one you that has been filtered out by the infamous forums content filter. :D

To be honest I don't know how high the numbers go, as salaries/packages don't tend to get discussed and I'm not in a managerial role to have visibility of wider numbers. Between the two percentages you mention is definitely doable and I'm sure that there will be some at more than 100%+. That's in the UK - I don't have any visibility on equivalents in the U.S.
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Nice! That's great compensation for the UK. If I was still living in the UK, it would be mighty compelling to pursue a career track like that.
 
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I’d guess an SE there would have an OTE in region of 165k-180k maybe, on a 70/30 split.

It is a pure guess, but for a non manager SE role it seems like it’d be in that sort of ball park.

Either way, being an SE isn’t a bad route to take ;)
 
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I've managed to hit this mythical figure through a PAYE job and a business.

I'm 35 now, started my job in IT as a support analyst when I was 19 on 14K. Moved into a Jr BA role when I was 22 on 22K. Managed to get promotions to Snr BA with PM to be on 52K when I was 30. Got made redundant during COVID when I was 32. Had a decent redundancy package and redundancy insurance so took a year off to finish off and launch business in 2020. Started a new role as PM in April 2021 on 60K. Hopefully will be my last PAYE role.

My SaaS business has been growing over the past few years and now generates additional income to put me on about 115K with my day job. My business partner works on it full time and is loving life, he's earned 130K+ contracting but has never been happier.

My wife and I got married last year so are contemplating children, if this happens she will take my half of the business income to replace the 50K she currently earns. While this step makes sense, it also puts me back from finally working for myself. She will return to work but I need to plug the hole in the short-term.

I'm not chasing a huge income every month, I'm chasing the freedom to work for myself and break the 9-5 grind. I had a preview of it when I was between jobs during COVID and it's so liberating. I'd love to be able to take long holidays, finish at 16:00 on summer days and be around to see friends and family a bit more. As it's a SaaS product, the actual day to day work can be very light depending on where we are with a release.

My next steps are going to be growing the business so hopefully it brings in 100K a year for my wife and I to split and have a good life on.

As our company is registered off shore, our corporation tax levels are very small so 50K each has the same take home as 62K if it were a UK company. I figured a household of 124K should be comfortable for us.
 
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MG42Maniac said:
My SaaS business has been growing over the past few years and now generates additional income to put me on about 115K with my day job. My business partner works on it full time and is loving life, he's earned 130K+ contracting but has never been happier.

As our company is registered off shore, our corporation tax levels are very small so 50K each has the same take home as 62K if it were a UK company. I figured a household of 124K should be comfortable for us.
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Well done. May I ask what product your SaaS business is offering to the market?
 
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dowie said:
Apparently recruitment at Meta was pretty chilled not too long ago; $190k for chilling out and "learning" with no expectation that they'd even recruit anyone for the first 6 months to a year:

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Being employed to fill a quota, not to actually do work.

Then they are the first ones on the chopping board when the tech companies needs to "Trim the Fat"
 
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dowie said:
Apparently recruitment at Meta was pretty chilled not too long ago; $190k for chilling out and "learning" with no expectation that they'd even recruit anyone for the first 6 months to a year:

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Pretty much every internal recruiter in my connections have been laid off. Even companies that didn't do big layoffs are letting their recruiters go. There won't be major big tech hirings in the next 6-12 months.
 
LiE said:
£100k in IT isn't easy, most senior roles sit around 80K for techies who are **** hot. I work in a niche area of IT where salaries are highly competitive due to not enough talent in the market. I've got 13 years experience doing this and to get £100K I'd need to move into a lead architect role. I'm on £68k now by choice but maybe moving and jumping up to a package over £80k.
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100k in IT is easy. You need to work for vendors rather than on the enterprise side. Eg pre sales etc

Entry tech roles are £60-80k alone..

You can earn 150k ote in less than 3 years if you work hard and £200k in 5..
 
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kitkat9933 said:
100k in IT is easy. You need to work for vendors rather than on the enterprise side. Eg pre sales etc

Entry tech roles are £60-80k alone..

You can earn 150k ote in less than 3 years if you work hard and £200k in 5..
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By entry you don't mean someone with 0 skills surely?
 
kitkat9933 said:
We pay analyst sales engineers 60k ote with no experience but the right personal skills and a good background understanding of tech.
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Would your company take on Pharmacists, I'm no tech expert by any stretch however the IT helpdesk and data analysts generally trust me to perform tasks around the department as it saves them time. Not sure how I could show that in my CV though?
 
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