I think the main thing his experience showed is that if you want to make a lot of money, you need to position yourself to move into industries that can pay a lo

I think the main thing his experience showed is that if you want to make a lot of money, you need to position yourself to move into industries that can pay a lot. For software engineers that means 3 major options: 1. The US tech giants (the "FAANGs"). These companies are so insanely profitable and they can afford to pay a lot, though they all have become more cost conscious in the past couple years. 2. Finance. Again, they've got a lot of money, and especially for trading firms it's usually more straightforward to assign value to individual developers than in other areas. 3. Currently there is a big desire for AI talent, so if that's your industry one of the big startups (OpenAI, Anthropic) or one of the smaller well-funded ones should be able to pay you well. So I would say this person didn't so much "climb the ladder" as opposed to position themselves well to get hired at other companies that would pay them a lot more. And I think this person did it in perfect order, i.e. it's been said a lot on HN how "the startup deal" (i.e lower salary but more equity) is hardly ever worth it for IC software developers these days if you can also get a FAANG job, but it can be a great stepping stone to getting experience that leads to a better paying job at companies that can afford to do so.