What is your depth of knowledge in? You say software?
Law would be an risk idea if you don't love it with all your heart, even people who love law hate it by the end of law school.
competitive in other parts of the US, perhaps, but for serious dyed-in-the-wool devs it's piddly
I've started two companies, exited one and technically have the skills of a "senior engineer". I've managed teams of engineers and have architected remote factory production systems for one of my companies along with a dozen or so relatively complex web apps in the fintech space.
Maybe your attitude is why you can't find a job?
Nothing in your post indicates you're "in the bay", and in the other 99% of the country $150k is a decent salary.
But most large orgs look at my resume and run since I have multiple two year stints and stints starting / running my own companies.
I'm also fully willing to admit that relative to "senior engineers" of today, maybe I just suck. In that case, idk how to move to what's next. I'm social, but not exactly normal. Also willing to see the humor in your comment that points to my potential conceit.
To me that doesn't really say that you have senior engineer skills, i.e. designing scalable systems (both in compute and development-wise), leading multi-person projects, considering trade-offs, etc.
It's the cymbals - lose 'em!
Maybe there is something to that after all.
How much do you upcharge people for your services and "products" (often virtual)? What is acceptable to you?
If you had to have a physical copy of the apps you work with, in your truck, had to buy them in advance, pay shipping, store them, then take the right copy with you to a client's house. If they paid $3 would you be OK with $30? $60? You seem incensed with $75
I used to work retail. Belkin cables were under $2 each for the store, they sold them for $39-$69 depending on what it was.
If you work in a professional role, your markup on services (almost no costs involved) and products (usually very low costs) is probably many many thousands of times more than the hardworking tradesperson you think ripped you off when they were solving an issue you needed help with and had the expertise, time, and parts to help.
If the tradesman wants additional income, I have no problem with that, bake it into their hourly rate.
> had to buy them in advance, pay shipping, store them, then take the right copy with you to a client's house.
A warehouse/shipper already does all of this, perhaps not for $3 but for $3 + shipping.
For this purpose in my relationship with tradesmen, I just pay them whatever their rate is to identify what the problem is, and then fix it myself at my own leisure using my materials, unless it involves something hazardous or requires a license.
> I used to work retail. Belkin cables were under $2 each for the store, they sold them for $39-$69 depending on what it was
You certainly don't have to explain these banalities to me (I also worked retail and ecommerce for 11 years) and they don't really contribute to the point. There are scenarios where you can get away with charging exorbitant markups and maybe 1% markup, and everything in-between. The question here is should you take advantage of under-informed homeowners
For professional services, I do mark up my time, obviously, but it is not a 25x markup as in the capacitor case.
If I calculated strictly my bare necessities to live (e.g. mortgage/food/healthcare/utilities), my rough markup would probably be around 2.5x-3x.
I know good developers who’ve done more impressive stuff than that, making at or under this $150k cut-off.