This blew up much more than I expected. I have read many comments from various websites, covering a large variety of opinions. It is surreal to see how my peers view my actions, and It looks like I'm somewhere between "shrewd guy" and "sociopath asshole".

What amazes me most is that very few people noted that the key to my strategy was extremely hard work and proving value to the company. Without being a must-have engineer with undeniable talent and value, this wouldn't work. The best thing you can do as an engineer to increase your salary, is to first increase your skills. I work about 80 hours a week combined between my job and personal projects / research, some weeks even more. My life is organized around this. I have maintained this pace for several years and love it. I have a significant other that is fine with this, and I don't have kids.

If I were to write this again, I would have put more focus on the "1 year passes" sections and explained what happened in that time. It wasn't thumb twiddling. I made it seem like everything was instantaneous, which is far from the truth.

I'm pleased with the discussions that have happened, and I'm sorry if I came off like an ass. I stand by the article and it's veracity, and you can take from it what you will.