I grew up in Moscow, Russia; but have lived my entire adult life in NYC. I'm a US citizen. No education. 2002-2005: As a teenager, I've done odd jobs here and

I grew up in Moscow, Russia; but have lived my entire adult life in NYC. I'm a US citizen. No education. 2002-2005: As a teenager, I've done odd jobs here and there, never adding up to more than a few thousand per year. Built some websites, set up some networks. Nothing serious. 2005: My first real job at a startup that sold whitelabel music stores to radio stations paid me $40k/year. No benefits, no bonuses, no equity. 2006: My second real job at the technology arm of a major sports league paid me $60k/year + benefits + a nominal annual bonus. There was a good pension plan too. 2009: After becoming a father, I begged for a pay increase to account for the costs of raising a kid in NYC. Got raised from $60k to $90k. Management called it a "salary correction". 2010: I left the sports league at $112k and joined a fintech startup where my salary went up to $120k. 2014: The fintech startup was amounting to nothing. My "very generous" option grants were turning out to be worth zero. There were occasional end-of-year cash bonuses that after taxes paid single-digit thousands. I left the company at a base salary of $140k and took three months off. 2014: Joined a major financial/media firm owned by a certain former NYC mayor. They paid me $150k in base salary, full benefits, and a promised annual bonus of $35k. I joined in September, so I got a teeny tiny prorated bonus for that year, but the following year I was forced to leave in December and wasn't paid the annual bonus. 2016: Joined a boring Canadian investment bank here in NYC at a base salary of $160k. No bonus, no equity. Terrible benefits. Stayed there for 4 months and didn't write a line of code for work because they didn't know what they wanted me to work on. 2016: Joined a startup that sold home security cameras. I ran a team of a dozen people there, and got paid $170k in base salary. Lots of equity was promised, but they never wrote my equity grant. Great benefits though. After a year at this company I had been forced to lay off some people from my team and had to help some others to find new jobs because they were worried about job security. The company was doing very poorly, so I left too because I have bills to pay. 2017: Joined a $20B hedge fund at base salary of $200k, promised annual bonus of $100k. After two months, the fund began a scary nosedive, and laid off myself and my boss and two other engineers. 2017: After a frantic job search I joined the adtech firm where I currently work. I get paid $180k in base salary, okay benefits, and an annual bonus of about $20k before taxes. I work mostly from home and really like it. I've been here for a year and don't plan to leave.