| I'm in a similar boat. Rural Midwest. Worked for 23 years now in professional development. Started in big companies, then moved to smaller companies/startups. I'm very very good at what I do and my salary is up to the point where small companies are starting to choke on it a bit, and I'm just a tiny bit higher than yours. Been a senior, team lead, principal, architect, dabbled in some management. Also with successful product launches under my belt. If I want to move up in salary - it probably won't be in startup land unless I find a relatively big one and I'm CTO. More likely that I'm just going to start my own companies even if I have to do everything myself. It feels like jobs, while somewhat available, just aren't what I'm looking for anymore. And the market is turning, or has turned, unfriendly to the super senior. From my experience the 400k base is very very niche. Plenty of top end engineering talent out there available for less. |