[innomansland]

using my throwaway account but have some comment history on my career (i did a Ask HN post on pivoting my "career" last year). I saw someone from Sydney posting their history so I thought I add my perspective from another Australian lurker:

Date - Company ID | Starting Salary | Percentage Increase Role | Role

2005 - Company A | $20/hour | 100%! :) | Part Time Tester

2007 - Company B | $48,000 annual | 20.0% | Graduate Engineer

2009 - Company B | $65,000 annual | 25.0% | Engineer

2010 - Company B | $70,000 annual | 16.7% | Consulting Engineer

2011 - Company B | $78,000 annual | 11.5% | Consulting Engineer

2011 - Company C | $120,000 annual | $53.8% | Engineering Specialist

2012 - Company C | $125,000 annual | 4.2% | Team Lead

2013 - Company C | $128,000 annual | 4.5% | Team Lead

2014 - Company D | $210,000 annual | 64.0% | Solutions Architect

2015 - Company D | $225,000 annual | 7.1% | Solutions Architect

2016 - Company D | $195,000 annual | -1.3% | Solutions Architect

2017 - Company D | $205,000 annual | 5.1% | Solutions Architect

2018 - Company E | $150,000 annual + bonus | -26.8% | Management Position

edit: took out notes since it wasn't relevant and rearranged fields to look more uniform. If you have any questions, on each role, feel free to AMA.

[iopuy]

2014 - same locale or moved to a different cost of living? Congrats, that's a very nice progression.

[innomansland]

thanks! and good question - same locale but jumped ship to be a contractor.

I was a team lead prior and dealt with a lot of vendors where I was approving their time sheets so I saw how much they were being paid. Told myself.. WTF, why aren't I doing this?? Paid twice as much, way less accountability (parameters of work are all defined per project or per SoW) and I don't have to be stress out about the politics within the company. Also.. as a contractor, my schedule consist of half the time on customer's premises and the other half dealing with internal dev teams which gave me loads of flexibility of WFH.

This is the unfortunate reality for IT positions in any industry in Australia - Full time positions have not many upsides and contracting is the best way you can capture as much $$$ as you can. There are some downsides but upsides outweigh it by a mile!