Professionals and Managers - Is Your Pay above the Median?

puzzled: i know what you are saying. hopefully all of us come out of this recession ok. hang in there. btw, i’m late thirties and in IT management and guess i’m happy with my work/life balance. but it probably could be that i’m not very ambitious…lol

displeased: adiemuso and puzzled gave very good advices. you might want to reconsider before throwing everything you have for a chance to go into a risky situation. seems like you have a lot to put up to risk.

surprised: speaking for myself it’s just an advice. money should never trump love. my wife earn significantly less than me but i don’t care at all. however it does add a lot of pressure being the supporting bread earner. as we discussed before job security will be an ever growing concern for everyone.
but for displeased having an equally or better earning partner would help him to achieve his goals much faster?

displeased,

try trading your own money. start with 5k in a margin account. if u can do well consistently for 3mths, u can consider being a trader otherwise forget it.

like the others have mentioned, there are tons of experienced traders looking for jobs. its really tough for new hires. even if u are willing to work for free or miserable pay.

well i think it is a bonus if your partner is earning a high income as yourself but it is not a must have. i agree that love is more impt than $. why do we need to have so much $ if we dont have a partner whom we love right?

adiemuso: understand what you mean and i totally agree with you. that is why i am currently in the midst of something to achieve this goal of mine. hopefully it will come true in 1-2 yrs time.

life is short….and it sucks (think i sound like a typical singaporean - always complaining)

i’m not emphasizing that one should look for potential spouses with good income, but I’m talking abt household income (for family) in our case. be it sole or dual income, we’re more interested in the household income.

displease: Greed is good (according to Gordon Gekko). and I agree with adiemuso’s idea, if you can trade w/o fear you might make a good trader….3 months could be too short though. but remember a trader’s life is all abt risk-taking and risk mgt.

IT professionals make a lot of money. Sales, consulting services, sales engineers, engineering services make in excess of 100k a year, depending on your position and years of experience. All good respectable IT companies will pay their staff around that range.
I am making 150K a year and I am 31. I retired my wife so that she can take care of my kid and myself =) That’s my work life balance.

Yep, it appears that many people tend to bunch all IT people together without even any real understanding of what IT is all about. I am 31 years old, and I am earning 200K plus. I am also not a manager or VP or MD level.

I believe both 1 & 2 are the outliers.

Congratulations on being high income earners, but I don’t think the median (or even average) IT Professional is anywhere close to what you guys are making. I would say 80k is about right for a median salary for IT Professionals.

May I hazard a guess that both of you are working in big MNC firms or foreign boutique consultancies, possibly targeting high revenue industries like government, finance and telecommunications. Am I correct?

Where you work certainly makes a difference but up until a certain point. I’ve also worked across several industries now and the pay differences have been minimal. Many of my current colleagues are paid significantly less (around half or less), although there are some who gets paid more. I think what’s really important though is what you really do day to day. Taking an example: not every trader does the same thing and in fact I know for a fact that a lot of traders get paid less than myself. Remember that trading is a mostly a zero sum game and those who think otherwise are just fooling themselves, in other words for every winner there are tons of losers and that includes the professionals.

1 month $20K is good for me

Yea I’m not VP or director level, can imagine how much those folks make. My lifestyle is pretty stress-less too and I enjoy what I do, and there’s high value. Well IT3, I confirm my company does not operate in the sunset industries. And verticals, my friend, are already passé.