37M - team lead in software engineering

Nothing inspirational. Here to talk about this particular field and career, and some common/traditional ways of entering.

$90k of the post tax deduction is vested stock compensation that I cashed through a separate system. Payroll uses post tax deduction to account for those. So take home is $290k.

  • Bachelor degree, CS major (lucky because I switched to it purely out of interest)
  • Parents paid for college (not super rich but comfortable+frugal, so, lucky)
  • Developer (10yoe) to engineering manager (5yoe). Met many smart people along the way, learned many things from them. Also lucky

Started in a bank, and now a second tier technology company. Massachusetts.

Software engineering is a good career if you are kinda introverted, good with logic, and like to solve puzzles. You also need dedication but it comes easy if you are interested. The only time I'm not constantly distracted is when I code, even when I just started with my CS111 class.

Many people around me are from all kind of background. A lot of people have non-CS degrees. Some had some coding background (hobby, other engineering degrees). A lot of people switched career by going to coding academies. Often started with non tech company and just kept job hopping. Local company / small start up / bigger non-tech corporation / tech. Even in those cases, you can break 100k within 2-3yrs. If you are west coast CS major with good grades, you can break 150k year 1 pretty easily, if not 200k.

Go to levels.fyi to find all the salary information of various types of companies.

Nothing inspirational. Here to talk about this particular field and career, and some common/traditional ways of entering.

$90k of the post tax deduction is vested stock compensation that I cashed through a separate system. Payroll uses post tax deduction to account for those. So take home is $290k.

  • Bachelor degree, CS major (lucky because I switched to it purely out of interest)
  • Parents paid for college (not super rich but comfortable+frugal, so, lucky)
  • Developer (10yoe) to engineering manager (5yoe). Met many smart people along the way, learned many things from them. Also lucky

Started in a bank, and now a second tier technology company. Massachusetts.

Software engineering is a good career if you are kinda introverted, good with logic, and like to solve puzzles. You also need dedication but it comes easy if you are interested. The only time I'm not constantly distracted is when I code, even when I just started with my CS111 class.

Many people around me are from all kind of background. A lot of people have non-CS degrees. Some had some coding background (hobby, other engineering degrees). A lot of people switched career by going to coding academies. Often started with non tech company and just kept job hopping. Local company / small start up / bigger non-tech corporation / tech. Even in those cases, you can break 100k within 2-3yrs. If you are west coast CS major with good grades, you can break 150k year 1 pretty easily, if not 200k.

Go to levels.fyi to find all the salary information of various types of companies.