Your son should look at going to work for Federated Insurance.

Sales/Project Management, no caps on commissions.

Focusing on enjoying the job and your customers first will help the money part work itself out. That's the trick, in my opinion.

On the other side of the scale I work as a process operator at major oil refinery. Hit that pay mark the last three years and going to hit it again here soon. Decent amount of overtime helps you got that number, but still great pay with out OT, great benefits, pension, 401k. You'll work you ass off though, sweating it off or freezing it off.

We'll start our hiring process again in a few months for our next batch of operators starting next year.

Starting a new gig in a couple weeks. Will make slightly less than $200k base comp, and well north of it with variable pay and stock.

PhD in chemistry. Worked for big chemical most of my career and just swapped to tech (analyzer hardware). Wife is an emergency vet and also makes comparable pay (day practice vets make under $100k amazingly).

My best friend has not taken a single hour of college credit, but changes companies every 4-5 years to get a promotion and also makes north of $200k.

DRE06 said:

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Entry level jobs as an oil and gas pipeline scheduler (coordinating movements of oil through pipelines from point A to point B). Any bachelor degree can get you a job. You'll start really low. Offensively low. Almost as a test to see if you are willing to work hard for cheap just to get to where you are going.

Learn the pipeline business and after 2-3 years in a scheduling role move over to a commercial/business development role negotiating pipeline or storage deals with oil and gas producers to move their oil and gas on your assets of responsibility.

Change companies twice and you'll be $200+ within 6-8 years. With some personal skills and luck you can easily be $350+ within 10 years.

You just have to be willing to start at the bottom. And you need to do it before you are too old for a company to give you a chance at that entry level job.

Downside is you are stuck in Houston or Oklahoma until you retire.

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This is excellent advice and 100% legit. You could also become a gas/crude controller instead of a scheduler and follow the same path to high income. That was my path.

Job?

IT sales, as previously mentioned, but i guess its buried in the thread at this point.

Well the obvious answer to your FIRE question is that retirement comes a lot faster when you have a bigger shovel.

Definitely don't disagree with the misery of being in a job you hate despite being highly compensated. Tough place to be in for sure.

Edit: I just realized you may not have been replying to me. Disregard this.

I'm close but it is due to switching companies for promotions instead of grinding away at the same one forever waiting on people to retire to move up. Went from $135k as individual contributor, to $180k now as Manager, and keeping an eye out for Director level that will push to low-mid $200k's. Married to a teacher thats been making ~$60k for 15 years so trying to compensate for that.

Start or buy a small business. That's what I did.

Econ degree and MBA 10 years after the bachelors. Work in pharma.

I was in sales for 15 years then transitioned to Field Reimbursement. I think one of the quickest ways to get to $200K+ is through sales. I know quite a few IT sales folks and damn they do well.

DRE06 said:

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Entry level jobs as an oil and gas pipeline scheduler (coordinating movements of oil through pipelines from point A to point B). Any bachelor degree can get you a job. You'll start really low. Offensively low. Almost as a test to see if you are willing to work hard for cheap just to get to where you are going.

Learn the pipeline business and after 2-3 years in a scheduling role move over to a commercial/business development role negotiating pipeline or storage deals with oil and gas producers to move their oil and gas on your assets of responsibility.

Change companies twice and you'll be $200+ within 6-8 years. With some personal skills and luck you can easily be $350+ within 10 years.

You just have to be willing to start at the bottom. And you need to do it before you are too old for a company to give you a chance at that entry level job.

Downside is you are stuck in Houston or Oklahoma until you retire.

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This was me on the gas side.

The first 5 years was a serious serious grind, but it's crucial in this industry. Once you have the base-level knowledge, depending on your assertiveness and skillset, there are a number of roles that can get you to $200k+. Hell, I made $200k my last year as a scheduler after bonus; albeit I felt like I deserved to make twice that given the hours I was working.

Depends on what you mean by "make".
Do you define 200k+ through corporate salary? Or do you include all sources of income like rental income, investment income etc etc.

I am not yet 200k+ on base but at times I cross in total comp when the bonus is good. However these numbers are dwarfed by my investment income for the year (not this year though, I made some mistakes).

Salary

DRE06 said:

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Also, my wife is a journalism major who somehow ended up working in warehouse inventory management for electrical distributors. Her employer was interested in implementing a new IT system (Salesforce) so she took it upon her self to learn coding/software development on the Salesforce platform via free YouTube videos. She used free YouTube learnings to springboard into software development career now making $250+.

There are many paths to make more money. Just have to be willing to work hard and keep your eyes out for opportunities. Don't be afraid to change.

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This is key. I wish someone had given me this advice years ago. I am change-averse and have paid the price. But now I am looking to blow things up and take some risk. It is late but not too late.

DR06, what location lets you make 250k for software programming? Unless it is the Bay or Seattle, I don't know of any.

hedge said:

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Salary

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While you have a point about salary, make sure you think about other streams of income. Especially ones that are in your control (to the extent possible), not in the hands of some manager or CEO. That way your future is no longer in the hands of one person (who may be an idiot). What is really important is the top line amount you can pull in. And how smart you are in legally shielding from taxes.

Eliminatus said:

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powerbelly said:

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What were you doing? What do you like to do?

I am happy to chat offline, I may not be able to help, but I will try.

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Ah. yeah I guess that would be helpful huh.

Bachelors in electronics engineering, not quite two years working in defense before the axeman came. I was an explosives tech previously.

As far as what I want to do, that's a damn good question. I have no real idea. I can see myself doing all sorts of things and that is the crux of my mental battle right now. I feel like I actually have a lot of routes I can pursue but can't figure out which one. Which is a weird problem to have. My interests are so wide and varied it's hard to apply them to narrow anything down. So open to all ideas right now. I am not quite ready to jump into a new job as I sit here right now but figure the time needed to knock out a cert or two will also buy me the time to be ready. So I am not quite 100% actively looking but also kinda am. If that makes any sense. I think my caution of getting this right is part of that too.

Appreciate the help so much, thanks.

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hedge said:

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What did you do (grad school, career move, job move, new skill, etc...) that pushed you into to that stratosphere of earnings?

Long story short I am not happy with what I make and am willing to do just about anything to move into a career that will put me in that level of income.

Id appreciate any tips or constructive criticism

Finance background

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Got a job in oil production. I set myself apart from my peers and predecessors by focusing on an area of the business that was sorely lacking.

If you are highly motivated I would look into getting into investing as a broad category for employment. The income for this area is insane.

Plus if you do hedge funds, you'd have the best "username checks out" of all time.

PhD in chemical engineering and work as a patent agent. I'm 20 years post PhD and was as close to $200k in salary last year as I've ever been (I was <$4k short). Prob will be just shy of that target again this year because the bonus was smaller.

I likely would have hit it sooner if I'd entered the work force with a BS instead of going for a PhD. I came out of grad school with no debt and a modest savings, though, so the only hit was to earnings and retirement savings.

I am probably close to topping out on salary. So, it took a while to get here, and I'm on the flat portion of my salary growth curve. With that said, there was a time when I didn't think I would ever hit the $200k target.

I am an individual contributor at my company. Salary would probably be higher if I was in some sort of management role, but I didn't (and still don't) want that.

Edited to add: $200k is salary and bonus only (bonus is variable, but usually around 10%-15% of salary). Number does not include 401k matching or company HSA contributions, which is my only other cash comp. I do t get a car allowance or stock options or anything like that.

Electrical engineer at one of the FANG tech companies in ATX

Not there yet but I just had a second interview that would put be within spitting distance of it. Fingers crossed!

infinity ag said:

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DRE06 said:

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Also, my wife is a journalism major who somehow ended up working in warehouse inventory management for electrical distributors. Her employer was interested in implementing a new IT system (Salesforce) so she took it upon her self to learn coding/software development on the Salesforce platform via free YouTube videos. She used free YouTube learnings to springboard into software development career now making $250+.

There are many paths to make more money. Just have to be willing to work hard and keep your eyes out for opportunities. Don't be afraid to change.

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This is key. I wish someone had given me this advice years ago. I am change-averse and have paid the price. But now I am looking to blow things up and take some risk. It is late but not too late.

DR06, what location lets you make 250k for software programming? Unless it is the Bay or Seattle, I don't know of any.

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We are in Houston. She works full time remote for a large insurance carrier exclusively on the Salesforce platform. Opportunities within the Salesforce ecosystem are limitless from what I can see.

Good luck!

hedge said:

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What did you do (grad school, career move, job move, new skill, etc...) that pushed you into to that stratosphere of earnings?

Long story short I am not happy with what I make and am willing to do just about anything to move into a career that will put me in that level of income.

Id appreciate any tips or constructive criticism

Finance background

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Why exactly are you targeting 200+? Is there some aspect of life you think it will solve or just randomly picked?

I'd say your first step is switching jobs with some regularity if you aren't being promoted with substantial pay raises. Employees leave tons of money on the table staying at a company for extended periods of time…

Getting into a field that has a significant barrier to entry is also a good step. Jobs that don't have access to an unlimited labor pool are usually a quicker trip to high salaries.

DRE06 said:

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infinity ag said:

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DRE06 said:

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Also, my wife is a journalism major who somehow ended up working in warehouse inventory management for electrical distributors. Her employer was interested in implementing a new IT system (Salesforce) so she took it upon her self to learn coding/software development on the Salesforce platform via free YouTube videos. She used free YouTube learnings to springboard into software development career now making $250+.

There are many paths to make more money. Just have to be willing to work hard and keep your eyes out for opportunities. Don't be afraid to change.

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This is key. I wish someone had given me this advice years ago. I am change-averse and have paid the price. But now I am looking to blow things up and take some risk. It is late but not too late.

DR06, what location lets you make 250k for software programming? Unless it is the Bay or Seattle, I don't know of any.

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We are in Houston. She works full time remote for a large insurance carrier exclusively on the Salesforce platform. Opportunities within the Salesforce ecosystem are limitless from what I can see.

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Wow, 250k in Houston is amazing. I would imagine she must be at VP or up for that kind of coin.

Executive head hunter SaaS space. Can't get there over night but wife is $300k. I dropped out of med grad school to get into SaaS Sales and work my way up from the ground up. The return isn't there yet, but I will be making 2x what I would have earned in a matter of a few years.

See if your industry knowledge will allow you to work for a start up that needs your experience from the field. I was an irrigation tech 10 years ago and now at a water management software company and they look at my experience as gold as I know the end user better than the other sellers.

I would say above all else, flexibility is the most important thing. Wife is fully remote and can work from anywhere. She has colleagues working all over the place for half the year, but she can't because I am hybrid. Doesn't matter how much money you make if you can't enjoy it.

Good luck!