Most times two people with similar background and position in the same company will not have the exact salary. The reason is the perceived value of the individual. Surest way to improve the base pay is to have a personal ‘campaigner’ within the organization, and individually making oneself indispensable within the company. ie. creating value for the company’s bottom line, learning the pain points of the company and providing solutions ‘even when it is not part of the job description’. At least these are the take aways IMO for anyone making huge salary jumps within a company.
Kev, I don’t know what your objectives are. If you do find a higher paying job what’s next when the peer salary bracket increases? For there is always a bigger fish in the pond. Yes node.js, express etal is not necessarily difficult to learn, but to consistently command higher pay one needs a broad experience in multiple disciplines – server app, client app, responsive design, database, aws/cloud management, high availability server maintenance, trouble shooting, data analysis to list the basics.
The only way to get out of the salary doldrums is to figure out the objectives, pick a path and jump right at it 🙂 However imo to foolproof future salary bracket, is to pick an up and coming area (not yet trendy) to build the experience. For example the ruby/node.js, ios/android guys (and gals) making high figures today typically started when the sdk’s and platforms were in version 0.x.
In my 20 odd years of work experience the W2 high salaried folks fall into two camps – 1) riding the trend wave 2) working on mind-numbing monotonous projects. Nothing wrong with either camps, and to be successful in either camp comes down to one’s personality.
Someone asked about 175 base salary. Yes it is possible in non managerial engineer positions in some SR companies. The number sounds great on paper, but in reality the monthly take home is roughly 8-ishK after deductions. Comfortable but not extraordinary for a single income family.
Kev, not sure if this helps at all. If the intention is to just make more money why not consider supplementing income? e.g. few days ago I received a udemy top courses list where a guy talks about making 100K a year drop shipping eBay goods, and emulating Tim Ferriss lifestyle.
