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Comment by Roritharr | Hacker News Reader

I don't know what world you live in, but I have yet to see a company which let's anyone reach 2x of their starting salary in less than a decade.

Might be because I'm european, but the idea sounds crazy to me.

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I've doubled my compensation every time I switched jobs, plus doubled once through internal promotions, and another 50% increase through stock appreciation since most recent rehire. It's been about 5 doublings over a 20-year career. Most recent employer is in my username, and income history is here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10760918

(Plus $630K in 2020 and about $900K in 2021.)

I believe you. But, the point isn't "is there someone out there who can do it?" The point is "is this typical, and can I do it." And, the answer to the latter is clearly "no."

God I wish I could make anywhere close to that. I'm 3 years in and my highest TC offer was about $300k at Square. I ended up taking slightly less for a more interesting startup but even that's still just $275k.

Life at the bottom rung is not pretty in the slightest!

I don’t know if this is satirical or not but 275k for 3yoe is near the top of that band (assuming the startup equity is liquid). I think the parent has very generous stock appreciation going on, as $GOOG roughly tripled in the past 3 years

It's not liquid, and probably won't be.

I used to be at Amazon and my TC was only $200k.

Depends when in your career, and what the company is doing. I went from my first starting salary of $72k at age 23 (in 2003) as engineer #2 to $150k as chief architect about 5 years later. After another 5 years we sold the company, and I was making better than $300k salary plus bonus in 2013. So that’s two doublings in 10 years. But it’s also probably the exception that proves the rule.

I’ve more than doubled my salary every 4 years in Silicon Valley. I’m 11 years in and 16x my starting salary my first year out of college. Yes this includes equity comp, but this is not dominated by appreciation. My current employer stock performance hasn’t been great or even mediocre. But my career growth has ensured that doesn’t matter.

Silicon Valley is insane, but that's nothing new, when I look at the money offered elsewhere, I really regret not trying harder to move there in my 20s.

2^(11/4) = 6.7x you might want to check the math there :)

I guess you could have meant by "more than doubled" as 2.75x, that would work out. Pretty impressive.

Within a single company? If so, thats pretty neat.

At the same company though?

Fellow European here. Indeed possible but unlikely.

Started working for 43k (Euro) directly out of university. Joined SV startup 2y later with 50% higher salary (60k). Now four four years and one promotion in, almost doubled my salary at 110k.

This is also before considering equity.

Every salary increase I had so far has been 2x. Once I hit a ceiling, I got 2 gigs in paralel, so I 2xed again, I guess. Even so, I did not reach SV income level. I cash in about 100k a year. I am comfortable though.

I'm sure it's harder to get when you're more senior, but I started working as a graduate in London for £30k 3 years ago and am now on £60k. I think this is pretty typical in London.

Okay if you start THAT low I can see it, but most start at 40-60 here, getting up to 80-120 is used to be at least a decade away.

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