The sad reality is that you will need to switch jobs lots of times in this industry just to get your compensation to where it needs to be. There is no other wa

The sad reality is that you will need to switch jobs lots of times in this industry just to get your compensation to where it needs to be. There is no other way to do it. Don't worry about it though. I found my "dream job" a few years out of school, then again a few years later for double the money, then again a few years later for double again, and again at around 10X the total comp from that first one. Trust that it'll keep getting better, and go. Another important point is to make sure you always work for a Profit Center and never for Cost Centers. That is, build the product that brings in the revenue. Never build tools for the accounting department. If you pay attention to developers talking about the industry here, you'll notice that some see software as a miserable place where you get taken advantage of and treated as a replaceable cog. Others see it as an amazing gig where people are constantly fighting to pay you more money to build cooler stuff. Dig a bit and you'll see that those two camps are pretty clearly split along that Profit Center/Cost Center axis. Make sure you get yourself on the right side of it as early as possible. Good luck!