Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by dominic_cocch 4758 days ago
Become a full-stack dev and learn to negotiate your skills. If you want to build skills quickly, you can always become a contractor. That way you learn a new skill/framework/etc every 3-6 months. Contractors also make good money, but may not always get the greatest vacation benefits.

I live in Minneapolis, and I've noticed that the bigger companies pay more. Best Buy, 3M, Pearson, Microsoft and Oracle are notable ones near here. If you don't mind giant, slow moving corps then an easy way to make more is to work for one.

100k for a front-end or JS developer is very doable, especially if you know the MVCs and a backend language. Node.js might be a good path as its growing quickly and it's done in a language you already know.

And lastly, build cool stuff in your spare time and list it all on a nice website. Use those projects as proof and reference during salary negotiations.