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On my second job, I made 2.5x what I made at my first engineering job (which ended 3.5 years ago). At my 3rd job I jumped my salary by 10s of thousands of dolla
by rxhernandez 5y ago
On my second job, I made 2.5x what I made at my first engineering job (which ended 3.5 years ago). At my 3rd job I jumped my salary by 10s of thousands of dollars over what I was making at my 2nd job. At my 4th job, I now make 8x my first job. I am now consulting (with way too many clients) and have the choice of making six figures by working less than 4 months a year.
Technical skills almost solely put me in the 1%. Although, I am sure that if I stayed at my 1st job I would have gone nowhere due to my lacking interpersonal skills. I also sincerely doubt that I would have made millions if I had mediocre technical skills and mediocre interpersonal skills instead of my pretty good technical skills and subpar interpersonal skills.
- jhatemyjob 5y agoTo me it seems your interpersonal skills helped you find and secure your 8x job.
- dna_polymerase 5y agoI guess your communication and people skills aren't too bad if you are in consulting now. Technical skill sure got you there but if you wouldn't be able to communicate them properly there is just no way you'd still be on the job.
- tchalla 5y ago> Technical skills almost solely put me in the 1%. What percentile would you rate your technical skills?
- rxhernandez 5y agoI wish I knew. Besides generic praise (like saying I'm a rockstar at my job) a few of my managers said that they loved how they could drop me into a situation with little to no information and have me come out successful. Other than that I really don't know how to measure myself. Sometimes I've pulled off things that other engineers said (to the product manager) were impossible; a couple times I've had humiliating failures that still make me sad to think about; most of the time I get my work done.
- buran77 5y agoInterpersonal skills are like salt in your food. It makes the food better, and sometimes it may cover up some imperfections. Sure, some absolutely bland food will be better to eat than a pile of salt but thinking it has to be one or the other is not the right approach. For full time employees going through a career with no interpersonal skills is very hard, they stick around with the same bunch of coworkers for a lot longer than consultants. If your technical skills are top notch and you lack interpersonal skills, doing consultancy not only makes more sense financially, it's also much easier.