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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about becoming wealthy
 
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metztli
Mar 19, 2006
Which lead to the obvious photoshop, making me suspect that their ad agencies or creative types must be aware of what goes on at SA

Ytlaya posted:

Does the label "software engineer" actually cover all programmers? I feel like that only represents a specific type of programming job.

I work in academia (though as an employee) and develop both the back-end and front-end for a web application biologists use to do stuff like gene mapping, correlations, etc and make just $35k (though I'm in a pretty cheap city, but it's still probably at the super low end in terms of programmer salaries). To be fair I could probably make more, but I'm aware of the fact that I'm a pretty lovely programmer (at least compared with the other programmers I know*) and would feel bad asking for a raise.

*Granted, all the other programmers I know work at Google or start-ups in NYC/Silicon Valley making way over six figures, so my sample isn't exactly representative of the average programmer. But I definitely know that I'm not good.

I'm a mediocre developer with no STEM background at all, entirely self-taught, and I make > $100k with a bit under 4 years experience, in the mid-west. Ask for a raise, you're probably a hell of a lot better than you think you are.

Edit: Regarding the topic, other than starting a business and having good luck and timing, I would say look for ways to make your money work for you with little attention on your part (saving/investing) or look for other ways to passively make money. A smallish project I did for fun 6 years ago or so and put maybe 200 hours into initially and now maybe 2-4 hours a month into for maintenance, generates ~$7500 a year for me. Really though, most of the things I work on for fun and try to monetize are way smaller scale - something might only make me $5/$10 a month in profit, but if I don't have to do anything to keep it coming in indefinitely, I won't turn my nose up at it. And who knows, maybe one of them will hit it big. :shrug:

metztli fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Mar 7, 2017

* # ¿ Mar 7, 2017 00:48
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metztli
Mar 19, 2006
Which lead to the obvious photoshop, making me suspect that their ad agencies or creative types must be aware of what goes on at SA

baquerd posted:

I literally just posted this in another thread. Unless you are utter crap as a developer, 9/10 times you need better interview skills, not actual directly relevant skills.

God yeah, that. I'm fair-to-middling as a dev - adequate at the technical parts of interviews - but I'm great at the soft skills stuff, and I'm freaky good at interviews. Too many devs eschew the interpersonal skills as being not worth it, but I will tell you, they translate to money and lots of opportunities.

* # ¿ Mar 7, 2017 01:09
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about becoming wealthy