INTJ – Salary Progression

Hi.

It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?

The world is on fire and I’m sitting in my office typing this to you. I hope I can share my financial journey with you openly and transparently while I chase certain milestones.

Income

Let’s talk finances, income specifically, but first let’s provide some context:

I always had a dream of making a six-figure income when I was younger. It’s all I thought about and you would assume that a kid dreaming of money would have done things in his best interest to make as much of it as possible as early as possible. I even covered this a few years ago here.

Well, life is funny that way.

I was 17, aimless, and failing out of high-school. I had lost all interest in studying and I wasn’t going to graduate anyway, so I dropped out. In hindsight, this was not the best idea.

I studied for my GED and figured I’d do enough work to survive for a while. I loved to learn, but I did not enjoy the traditional education system and I hoped that obtaining my GED and going to University would be the best possible route for success. It turned out to be right for me, but not right away.

In the end, I graduated with my degree in finance from a public, non-target university with roughly 40K in debt. I was 24. I was absolutely broke, I was broker than broke, I was negative. It took one solid year of interviewing for anything in the finance realm to finally get an offer…

The Six-Figure Climb

I recently turned 29 and I hit my financial goal of $100K by 30.

The truth of it is; I’ve been lucky, I’ve been prepared, and I’ve been reckless.

$36K – $41K

I’m a late bloomer. I started my career solidly in my mid-20s and I always felt behind; however, everyone starts somewhere. I was handed a six-month contract at a Big 4 Accounting firm for 36K. I was ecstatic, but I was nowhere near where I wanted to be and I was essentially losing money after looking at the debt I was in.

I spent two years in public accounting and I was severely underpaid working 60+ hour weeks and after a few raises I capped out at $41K. There is something magically empty about driving to work at 7am in the darkness of the morning and never seeing the sun. I remember wrapping up my work days and walking into an empty garage to drive home after the sun had set.

I would soon realize I was too ambitious and impatient for my own good.

$65K – $67K

I was suffering in public accounting. I lived my life in spreadsheets and I was extremely bored.

I needed a change, but I didn’t think staying in accounting was the right move and I wasn’t returning to university for an MBA to reset my eligibility into high finance.

So I did what any rational person would do. I lied. I lied my ass off and attempted to pivot into business analytics. It kind of actually worked.

I was always interested in technology and working with computers and I never really capitalized on that ability. That changed when I was remote through the beginning of the pandemic and realized I could turn a few computer tricks into a career.

I started applying for Business Analyst roles and got lucky. I learned SQL in my off-time and picked up PowerBI and Tableau to be able to collate and visualize data and made small projects to increase my comfort working with as well as explaining data in an easily digestible manner.

This was very fun. I ended up as a Business Analyst at a Cybersecurity startup and it opened my eyes to understanding that my original goal of 100K was possible. It was still targeted for 30 and I was only a couple years away. I started scripting with Python here.

I was nearly a year into my tenure, I had hit my stride, I was up for Senior in the next few months.  

I would soon realize I was too ambitious and impatient for my own good.

I knew, from working a high-profile project with a VP, that typical promotions were only paid out at around 10% with year-end adjustments falling at 3%. This would leave me in the mid-70s and while that was an excellent increase and salary, it wasn’t going to allow me to coast to 100K by 30.

In my mind, I had no choice. I needed to make a move.

$85K

So, I did.

I used everything I learned in my public accounting career and my stint as a Business Analyst to land a role as a Business Intelligence Engineer. This was the defining moment in my career. I had reached a certain level of mastery with SQL and PowerBI that I was now a Subject Matter Expert or SME.

I calculated that if I could work diligently for the next two years that I would barely hit my goal of $100K by 30 through regular annual raises and a promotion. I started off really well and delivered a few automations and improvements. This did not last long.

I was fired after about six months.

I became complacent and started lagging behind in my projects due to distractions like the pandemic, working entirely remote for the first time, and generally not paying any attention whatsoever. It was a wonder I lasted as long as I did.

I was 28, without a job, not going to hit my goal by 30, and needed to figure out what to do next.

This may have been the first time I truly failed and I’ve always been afraid of failure. I failed when it mattered, but could I also be successful when it mattered?

I was lucky. I had been released into a labor market that was beaming with opportunity for a person with my skillset and I was receiving interviews and offers that were beyond my expectations and I became reckless.

I was jobless. I had no right to be picky, but I had money saved and knew I could make it, if a bit lean, for a few months. I began screening phone interviews and throwing out ridiculous numbers; I won’t interview for less than $95K, next call? $105K, call after that? 115K.

And then it happened.

$120K+

I was deep into interviewing, in the final stages with a number of companies, in negotiations with a few others. I saw a Sr. role in a Fortune 500 company that aligned perfectly with my data skillset and my finance background.

I turned down a company I’d been chasing for years to get into at an astonishing $95K offer with a signing bonus + up-front end of year bonus that would have totaled somewhere in the low $100s.

I turned down another Sr. role at $105K.

All while pending an offer from the Fortune 500 role. And then they called and gave me a verbal offer, and I thanked them and declined. It wasn’t enough. I was reckless. I turned around and called the recruiter and thanked them for the offer, for the opportunity, but I wouldn’t take less than $120K.

The next hour was the longest of my life. I was an idiot. I turned down sure-fire $100K roles and negotiated with nothing as real leverage while I was out of job and my cash reserves were running out. I do not recommend this strategy.

It was 4:50pm. Their office closed at 5 and I figured I was done, that was it, I blew my chance by being too greedy. Could I call the other companies back that I was in the offer stage for? Would they even want me?

And then she called.

And they agreed to bump the offer to $120K.

—

I went from making $36K to $120K in three years and it taught me a lot. I hope my career progression has been interesting to you. I am going to continue this finance-centric content and share my other buckets; expenses, savings, and spending soon.

My goal for the next two years is to hit $100K invested.

Thanks for reading!

Monday Vignette 03

The truth about Altruism

Every selfless act has a selfish intent. It is that simple; humans are genetically engineered to focus on the preservation of self and immediate lineage. Altruism, or the act of random kindness, is an evolved survival tactic that has been proven by George Price’s Theorem.

That is all.

Meaningful Work

How does the nature of genetic evolution in social behavior translate to having meaningful work? And what if you were forced to downgrade your lifestyle in order to do so? The attainment of that which is worthwhile is subjective; it is largely dependent upon what you determine as meaningful work.

What are you willing to sacrifice, and whether or not you can fulfill your need to do something greater than yourself outside of your career? Philanthropy would be a serviceable option. An avenue to pursue where your monetary resources can be utilized for the benefit of society (or on the much smaller scale of community) while understand that the career you are in is a means to an end.

And the removal of INTJs in society

I have only outlined two INTJs whose contributions to society were invaluable.

Nikola Tesla:

• Alternating Current
• Induction Motor
• Various other convenient inventions

If we just remove Nikola Tesla we can eliminate alternating current which would potentially leave us with an inefficient variant of direct power. We can safely assume, as well, that the induction motor would either not have been built, or built poorly, and not have survived to become the basis for Tesla Motors. Ironically enough, the CEO of Tesla, Elon Musk, is an INTJ.

Isaac Newton:

• Laws of Motion
• Calculus
• Refraction of Light
• Improved Telescope

Isaac Newton is the driving force behind how the modern civilization, in terms of physics and mathematics, understands the world. There are countless pioneers in both subjects, in both generations, but without the steadying influence of Newton or Tesla our world would be lagging behind.

Of course, it is all relative. If Newton or Tesla did not exist then we would be blissfully ignorant of the progress that could have been accomplished. The general theme for INTJs are the ability to balance incremental thinking with a long-term view of how society should be like, and strive towards the betterment of civilization, at all costs. It does not always work out, but when it does amazing things happen.

This is not to assume that their particular contributions to society would have come from someone else, but it is the eventuality of such occurrences.

Eventually is the key term of which the actual time it would of taken to be created is speculative. Newton did not create Calculus alone, but rather was able to take an idea then improve it, for lack of a better phrase.

On a long enough time line, the induction motor, and alternating current probably would have been created out of sheer necessity for an efficiently sustainable future. Although, I doubt either invention, and or improvement, would have been as well made and implemented as it were without some INTJ influence. I am not crediting INTJs with the singular advancement of civilization, but our presence – while admittedly marginal – in the grand scheme was beneficial for society.

Both of these brilliant minds were ahead of their time, and understood that in order to create something that lasts for centuries – as I noted earlier – must be coupled with a forward-thinking mentality. Tesla may have been contracted under Benjamin Franklin to improve upon direct current, but that could of resulted in a simple DC variant. Tesla, rather, understood that there is an infinitely better process that can be achieved without sacrificing the potency of energy.

~ By no means is this all-inclusive, but it is an interesting thought, none the less.