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Comment by aristofun | Hacker News Reader

Don’t bother yourself too much about salaries while you’re junior. The most important asset for you is - experience. Look for better experience, not for better salary.

Then you raise your income and career by switching companies (yes, this is the only scalable way at the moment).

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This is best response. By miles. Later in your career you can make the big bucks. For now the best experience is the best thing.

And, changing companies is the best way to get the salary bump, unfortunately.

It's not the right advice for a consultant that works in a large consulting firm. In that situation all that really matters is years of experience at level. The best thing for an early career consultant to do is get promoted ASAP.

Fair point.

I'm conflicted as to whether experience is as important as money. It really depends on whether you're planning to stay at your current company long-term.

I took a rather large pay cut to get my first job. The experience as invaluable. And then I went to another job and saw a huge jump in pay. If I stayed at the first company, I'd have to have seen 400% raise over three years to compare to my current salary.

In a business culture where raises are typically a percent of your current salary (plus bonus/RSUs), starting pay and your first couple of raises have an enormous impact on your long-term earning potential at that company. A poorly compensated junior developer becomes a poorly compensated mid-level developer -- unless you start job hopping.

if you are still struggle even with that advice, just try calculate your bare-minimum monthly cost of living and add 1-5 percent for additional savings and that'd be your initial wage.

Might not be applicable in the US, I guess.

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