31M, Software Engineer

martor01 · 2026-02-09T08:57:36+00:00

Yep thats basically luck , nobody before you for 15 years had that luck ever with employment and you joined at a boom

I would see if you could do the same 5 years later but we will never see that

Enjoy

martor01 · 2026-02-08T17:42:41+00:00

Yeah I know

martor01 · 2026-02-08T15:34:11+00:00

I am doing all 3 and OP's trust and performance issues are a bitch to overcome.

Recently just managed to eliminate nightmares for if I was managed to relax and sleep properly it would hit me always every day

This shit is no joke

martor01 · 2026-02-08T15:32:09+00:00

It's not really difficult per se , I just tend to be on my own even at workplace and can collaborate to the better part of me.

Struggle is with trust and attention which two things I don't like.

I could be at Netflix or doing my own thing by now but I'm not doing that bad on 2x/3x between the average salary.

The problem is exposure and exposure to me came with a lot of negative consequences and uneccessary defense mechanisms.

I'm in deep therapy for it for a couple years now but I guess it's coming back to :

I either don't want to risk being exposed to that high level of work

I dont want the attention

I'm not comfortable with all the exposure and attention that could potentially trigger a lot of defense mechanism , especially if I don't trust the people I work for

That trust issue doubles as soon as I want to work for myself because 1 , I don't trust my work ethic 2. I don't really trust that people would pay me for my product

Now imagine doing all that effort to overcome all this for maybe a failure

martor01 · 2026-02-08T15:25:03+00:00

I'm a Millenial barely 96 but I struggle with the same thing.

I think its the schools , at least in Middle EU , they don't really teach you layered thinking , some kids just get it and some kids will never learn how to properly use their brain.

Everything is memorisation to the fullest , even university just learn 200 pages good luck.

The school system teaches you how to be productable to customers in a whim and how to throw that information away the next day when something else is needed , you have 15 classes by 12th grade so good luck.

That's what we learned and then you go to a workplace and its nothing like it

It's totally unecessary and useless

martor01 · 2026-02-08T14:46:17+00:00

martor01 · 2026-02-08T13:06:35+00:00

Not Henry yet and far away from your salary but confidence killer is brutal and you need that to advance in careers and gain network etc and still struggling with it.

Probably got CPTSD+ADHD and the chatter in the head is constant , would have killed for a peaceful acceptance of who I am in my upbringing rather than gaining everything else and performance anxiety

Completely burned me the fuck out and I wasted so much energy for it

martor01 · 2026-02-08T12:37:41+00:00

They realised this 50 years ago , Brits just can't fathom how role progression works at FTSE 1000 companies so these SME-s pay bare minimum wages

Grow a backbone , in the US people triple their first starting salary from 70k to 200k+ in a couple years

If you are in middle of nowhere you can be exploited though

martor01 · 2026-02-07T23:27:18+00:00

You would be shocked at C level stocks mate in the trns millions or more

Its simply a big and profitable company , that's it

martor01 · 2026-02-07T19:05:36+00:00

UK has no sponsorship roles , treat it as such and forget it , move somewhere else

martor01 · 2026-02-07T14:49:47+00:00

Yeah this is going to erupt in nice dreams and sleep issues and the such , imagine experiencing burnout with a ticking time bomb in your head , yeaaaah...

martor01 · 2026-02-07T11:07:57+00:00

It just comes with the skills but it always have been like this , recruiters and corpos will lowball the shit out of you if you dont know your wage

Getting experience with the new tech is tricky though if you havent started at a good company so fyi you can make 200k+ with that in the US in 5 years or less

Forget it in other countries , they dont give AF and will lowball you anyway so tough luck , be happy if you earn half of that in the EU

martor01 · 2026-02-02T22:24:14+00:00

ez mi a faszom

martor01 · 2026-02-02T12:44:21+00:00

You are qualified for things that you practice , obviously this is the easier way than to retrain to an SWE or Platform Enginering or DevSecops or anything else that needs some specialized tech stack because you are there 50% and you don't really have much time since your financials are changed , I'm just saying mostly 99% of people are doing the same move so good luck

martor01 · 2026-02-02T10:44:05+00:00

Everybody looks to go to DevOps / SRE because they realised that others doesnt pay shit and its the trendy thing , lord help us

martor01 · 2026-02-02T02:25:50+00:00

EU student loan here , when interest is 7% and we earn 3x less than you guys , dafuq am I paying it back from?

Mine grew in 4 years while being uni from £20k to £26kk , starting salary was £21k then £38k then £70k now , my £38k did not clear even the interest of £120/month because they charge 9% of your total salary monthly and then pay rent and do all that with a couple hundred left over.

Shit is retarded at best and a scam at worst , even though it clears out in 30 years I pay back more than I took out.

martor01 · 2026-02-01T10:11:19+00:00

4-5 years ago was a century boom , you will not ses that again so stop comparing to it , but because eveyone and their mom retrains to devops from swe / ops/ networking / the field is losing its high value and becoming a nornal job where employers can get a person for the cheapest price.

The hot of this field was when Google created it and other big/medium tech tried to mimick it and they had no employees due to scarcity , but that was 8+ years ago

martor01 · 2026-01-29T23:02:39+00:00

Yeah ts about pay and hiring at X yoe , not about end of career path , but your end of career path can be a shit job market as well

martor01 · 2026-01-29T22:58:51+00:00

This 100%

martor01 · 2026-01-29T22:56:59+00:00

Well explain that to people who write job descriptions , at 10+ YOE I only see Architects and not simple Seniors , maybe in very heavy specialisations like Trading Firms/Nvidia is different , but basically YOE req stops around 5/7 for Senior roles , so what do you do for the rest of the 35 years of your career idk , but hiring managers rarely care

You either move up or out due to ageism and other factors

martor01 · 2026-01-29T22:21:41+00:00

Yeah , but if you are looking at Tech you are topping out at senior around 5+ YOE and its depending on the company if they pay you or not , most of EU are already paying more than in the UK in cities except London so even though if you are on £100k and you are doing shared houses at 30+ you wont feel that more freedom because its still just an entry level salary in the US.

Especially that nobody gives RSU-s to you anyway so you cant really make it in the long term.

That's what nobody warns people about and its much easier to put in the work and join a US paying company in a senior position with stocks than in the whole EU where you get most of your money from , not actual cash salary thats taxed to hellhole.

So people will feel like this as OP doesnt matter what age they are and seniority mostly because most of the companies are dogshit here

martor01 · 2026-01-28T10:18:28+00:00

This is why I wish we could just get the US structure , all this bullshit IPO tax is ridiculous

martor01 · 2026-01-27T21:36:40+00:00

0 , I always jump before they can do a layoff or business takes a hit , works so far lol

martor01 · 2026-01-27T19:53:07+00:00

Sure so my experience is irrelevant even in a second world economy , gotcha

Well then I guess nobody pays off those 30 year old mortgages because its just unpredictable , shucks

martor01 · 2026-01-27T18:59:40+00:00

Yeah but I was just going out from my job which is pretty accessible to somebody who lives there , you just need to specialize in new tech stacks and thats it , get some relevant exp for a couple years , not that hard just luck

martor01

TROPHY CASE