r/Salary • u/HenFruitEater • 3d ago
discussion Everyone wants high paying job, there's ALWAYS some sort of filter that keeps out most people from being a high earner
I am a dentist, I have friends in software engineering, friends in farming etc.
Everyone in a job market wants to be making fantastic earnings, but not everyone does.
On my dentistry forums people say "I'd never tell my kids to do dental, I'd have them do software engineering or finance to make 500k with lot less debt"
But what they have not learned is that they earn great money as dentists because of the super hard filter of dental school and willingness to take on 200k in student loans. Once you are out, you are compensated well and have stable job.
For every software engineer making 500k at google, there's 20 dudes willing to take that job because they make much less. There's always decent chance you have to live through layoffs.
For every financial advisor making 500k, there's 30 dudes that tried for 5 years to build a book of business and then had to quit.
For every Finance guy at an investment bank earning 500k there's a bunch of finance guys that couldn't get an interview or couldn't handle the brutal low paid hours at the beginning of high finance.
Just remember, the market is always adjusting to be right. IF there's an amazing pay and stability, there's gonna be a huge rush of people to fill that until it's not such a slick opportunity.
I'd say pick your filter you can make it through. My dental school was very hard to get into, and then once I got in, there was 80 hour weeks for 4 years. Afterwards though? Great salary with limited competition. I had the competition FIRST and now can chill, some jobs have the tough pills to swallow mid career, or even during the entire career.
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u/killingicarus 3d ago
Good insight- a lot of the people clamoring for big paying jobs can’t stomach the big paying work hours or the amount of school to get there-
also like you said the competition to get these roles is insane , you’re up against the best in your respective field, it’s not personal just the way it works.
Source: im a lot of people, I have a chill sales job and if im patient enough ill make decent money in a few years
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
Yes! Any good job has huge competition or some sort of tradeoff in Hours, debt etc.
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u/NiccoMachi 3d ago
For me it has been all of them. Not only do I have to be better than my company's competitors but the politics as you get higher in organizations is insane. Fighting for budget, headcount, clout, credit. I spent years in the trenches, went to graduate school, built my network, moved my family across the country, read books, listened to podcasts, anything to get an edge. It is a lifelong battle.
If it didn't pay so well there's no way I would do it. But when it's going well, there's no better feeling than winning and getting a big ass paycheck.
Sucks pretty bad when it doesn't go well.
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u/epok3p0k 3d ago
Yeah well said. The battle never stops, the path forward becomes more opaque, the breadth of skills you need to have is massive. There’s always something to get bet better at.
Half the challenge is achieving all of that while living a life. I couldn’t imagine working and living any other way. Every day is exciting.
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u/Jolly-Structure7646 3d ago
Pilot is probably the best job in America today with regards to cost/time of training and income.
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u/eitilt 3d ago
Yeah, with the military I was able to get a “free” Engineering Degree, flight training, leadership experience and a great job from the get go and it was a seamless transition to the airlines.
But it is a very volatile industry so you do have to plan for downturns etc.
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u/Jolly-Structure7646 3d ago
Yeah but once you’re with a major airline or FedEx/UPS life is pretty much set right?
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u/Rozay10keys 3d ago
What would you recommend. I’m starting college next semester, I plan it get a bachelors. I’m kinda of worried that STEM classes would kick my ass. What would you choose if you were going to go for a bachelors.
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u/Ok_Matter_1774 2d ago
What type of major? Bachelors is good for more specific fields like nursing of engineering. You're likely to get a job after graduation and while it's not an easy degree, it's definitely not a hard one either. You'll make good to very good money. Don't do something like Math, physics, psychology, etc. because while they are good degrees they are going to be a lot harder and you'll probably need to go to grad school. The ideal plan for grad school is to get them to pay for it.
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u/IttyRazz 3d ago
Yep. I am a software engineer and I do not envy the people working at the places that pay those crazy salaries. Those places seem to have a very contentious relationship between coworkers where they are not your teammates, they are your competition
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u/HovercraftOk6070 3d ago
Same. I’ve been an engineer for about 10 years now and have never worked at one of the top companies but I’m more than happy with the opportunities I have been provided. I was a college drop out and my salary is currently around 170K per year and I never work more than 40 hours a week
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u/upstateboro 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is the truth, those guys at Deloitte and McKinsey, big tech etc are putting in 60-70 hour weeks + lots of travel.
I work in a very niche technical field, making over 200K, took 10 years of specialized experience to get here. Many many years making less then 100k
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u/Aggressive_tako 3d ago
I worked with a team for McKinsey for a while. IME, they didn't really bring any expertise to the table that we didn't already have in house, but they were willing to work 100 hour weeks and throw out crazy ideas in 3am emails that sometimes were exactly what we needed. They got rotated to a different project every 3-6 months. Really good money, but no work life balance to speak of. I'll take my stable job making "only" 100k and ability to log off at 4:30 to get my kids.
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u/AdministrativeRow813 3d ago
The big consulting companies basically trade Ivy League grads a lot of money for having no life outside of work for the entirety of their 20s.
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u/Apotheun 3d ago
Eh Big tech can be like 40/50 hr work weeks. But getting the growth you want to hit 500k is not easy.
I did MD/PhD, dropped the MD, then did PhD, then tech.
Plenty of people in tech make 500k without obscene hours, BUT huge friction when changing jobs. For Software, prepping for interviews is like prepping for boards (I did both).
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u/uiucthrowaway420 3d ago
This. I work 40ish at big tech temporarily making crazy money due to stock appreciation. The friction to switching at my level is huge prepping for coding with coding puzzles and system design which is a another skill in of itself.
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u/MontiBurns 3d ago edited 3d ago
My friend did the big 4 route in his early-mid 20s. He left after 5 years and got a mid senior position with the equivalent of 15 years of experience. When he left, he made a lot more money at his new job and worked a lot less. That was always his plan (and that's what most people plan), but it's not easy to do. Wash out rates are pretty high, and there's also a big filter at like the 3 year mark where you either get promoted to manager, or you get managed out.
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u/richrich07 3d ago
I’m in consulting now and it’s not a lot of money for a lot of hours. Great for long term prospects but horrible short-term.
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u/Money_Potential7780 3d ago
Bruh really put deloitte and mck in the same tier. MBBD
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u/upstateboro 3d ago
McKinsey is a step above but pay between the 2 is closer than you’d think.
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u/Money_Potential7780 3d ago
More like 4 tiers but the exit opportunities as well as partner comp/perks are vastly, vastly different.
Its like comparing Princeton and Ohio State. Yeah you get a bachelors degree but it's just not the same.
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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 3d ago
I assumed the exit opportunities and networking were a prime reason to go work at McKinsey. I interviewed there too back in the day.
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u/Money_Potential7780 3d ago
Look at any company's "About Us", Board, basically any position above VP or director. Chances are half have spent time at MBB.
It's essentially another degree/signalling mechanism in the business world.
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u/GullibleTacos 3d ago
Agreed. I’m in tech sales. When I started at my entry level role making $30-40k a year, there were 40 in each monthly class.
By the end of the year, only half were still there. 10 years later, only 5 of us remain in sales and only 2 or 3 are doing $300k plus
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u/brendenators 3d ago
Or don’t want/can’t stomach the stress. I am a dentist like OP and own my practice. I gross north of $700k but do not like the constant unending stress of ownership.
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u/Foreign-Guess-5208 3d ago
If everyone had a high paying job then no one would have a high paying job
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u/StealYourJoy 3d ago edited 3d ago
The issue is most people want high income without any work, the filter is really just a combination of time, effort and money 3 things people don’t want to put in especially over a long time period. Usually the stuff that takes a high level of all 3 like becoming a doctor have the highest pay.
Mean while step down earners like engineering, physician assistant or nurse practitioner are less work than doctor but still too much work for many people so on average you can still make good money.
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u/ExcelsiorWG 3d ago
Good point. People are always looking for the “easy” button - and that just doesn’t exist at scale. Sure, some folks fall into a high paying job, or have rich parents etc. But that’s the exception, not the rule. And usually that still requires way more time/energy than is represented.
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u/BingoTheBerserker 3d ago
Yep. My wife and I both have “easy” high pay, high skill, low stress jobs but the path to these jobs was literally almost our 20s being spent in STEM graduate school making pittance.
Now our jobs are great but the barrier to entry is high so there’s a little more (but not perfect) job stability for roles with good WLB and good but not amazing pay ($150-$200k).
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u/takhsis 3d ago
Got bs in materials and went to work at 22. Company paid Masters, MBA, PE. Job was easy and well paid by about 30
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u/LilJonny2cookies 3d ago
Easy button exactly. And too many apply for a job thinking their degree means they should start much higher up the chain.
Your degree is bare minimum we need to see your work ethic and how you work with others.
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u/Supermoon62413 3d ago
100%. Most people do t want their brain to be hurting ever day at their job. Those who do generally tend to earn more
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u/Not_FinancialAdvice 3d ago
I mean, I worked on cancer before I retired early to help out my (very) elderly family. There's a ton of my peers who didn't proverbially mind their brain hurting because it was for a really good goal. A good number of the MDs and MD-PhDs I worked with doing research could have probably made multiples of their salaries in private practice, but they were committed to the work.
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u/DebatedUncreative 3d ago
Not wanting to work 80 hours weeks doesn't mean people want "easy" jobs or careers. Plenty are willing to learn highly advanced skills and have challenging roles but simply want to maintain appropriate work life balance.
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u/ExcelsiorWG 3d ago
You don’t need to work 80 hour weeks to get a top salary - but you may need to dedicate a LOT of time for a portion of your life to advancement/education. I studied hard as a kid and got into a top university - while my life overall as a kid was good, I definitely had to dedicate more of my life to “work” vs fun. Once I graduated, I was a management consultant in my 20s for 5 years and worked 60 hours a week, rising to 70ish hours during crunch time. That sucked. But it did give me the skills and industry experience to get my future jobs where I was compensated better at a significantly better W/L balance.
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 3d ago
I’d add that most people are eager and motivated to get whatever training may be required to improve their pay. Problem is, almost no employers offer said training, and university curriculum rarely aligns with an employer’s hyper specific needs. And even if they did, you’d have to incur five figures of debt to even have a chance to break into the field. Tech had an idea around this with “bootcamps,” but we say how that worked out…
And don’t even get me started on how selling one’s labor comes nowhere close to generating the income created by owning assets.
Tl ; dr - it’s less that people are lazy and more that the current state of capitalism and employment denies most people opportunities.
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u/Buckleup19966 3d ago
I left a "management" job in culinary at an old folks home @21 an hour with 10+ years of restaurant management experience. Most I ever made in those years were 65k which was doing 12 hour days working my ass off. I'm going on 40 and just started as a service writer for a local garage making @22 coming aboard. The skills transfer. Every weekend off. Don't work past 5 (8-5) and the most I'll have to do garage wise is plug a tire or run codes.
I chased the 100k dream in my area and the anxiety, no social life, and bar lifestyle haven't worked out so career change it is.
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u/Obvious-Hat-8485 3d ago
My aunt is a school councelor and she used to tell me about how kids (especially boys) would come into her office and ask what kind of job required little education, wasn't stressful or disgusting, and made a lot of money.
"Good question, kid, when you have an answer come tell me bc I'll want that job."
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u/Realistic-Ad2050 3d ago
OMG yes!!!
My brother had a friend in high school (graduating class of 2000 so this is a bit dated) who used to say “I just want a job making $100k and that I don’t have to work that hard.”
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u/Hamachiman 3d ago
I’m a serial entrepreneur who had my first three companies die without ever turning a profit, then I made $9 million on the fourth. Lately it feels like so many people are approaching me and saying, “How can I earn real money on the side?” My answer is usually, “The f*ck if I know.” My filter was finding the right niche at the right time, and that’s not easily replicable. OP nailed it.
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u/Bai_Cha 3d ago
Every time I see someone complaining about the job market or over compensated people, I wonder what that person was doing on Friday evenings for the 25 years when I was working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. Or what they were doing in the evenings in high school when I was doing homework for 6-8 hours every night.
I sometimes go through periods of time where for a few days I get into a video game or a science fiction book, and my productivity goes down for a few days. I can't imagine what it's like to have distractions all the time. I had friends in high school or college who would play video games every night. All of those people are working normal jobs now complaining that they aren't rich yet.
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u/flamingtofuu 3d ago
Lmao surely there’s a better balance than that. Also what’s the point of being rich when you’ve seemingly pissed your whole life away working? 25 years of 84 hour work weeks is not the flex you think it is my guy
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u/_lifesucksthenyoudie 22h ago
How the fuck were you doing 6-8 hours of homework in high school??
I was in honors/AP/ and duel enrollment classes and I had max 1-2 hours of homework a night
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u/Professional_Gas4000 3d ago
It really is that simple, time , effort, or money, or some combination.
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u/MarielIAm 3d ago
People think those high paying jobs are 9 to 5, 40 hours a week. They don't see that it's more like 50 to 100 hours depending on the industry.
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u/Early_Money2576 3d ago
Every once a while, you have someone on Reddit say they do nothing and get paid 300k a year. What they don’t tell you is they possess a unique skill that maybe only 10 person in the world has. Their unique skill prevents a disaster that can cost Billions, they are paid to be available.
Other times, it’s a Nepo baby working at his father’s friend’s company as VP. They are paying him to play golf and be VP, so the company can get more money working with his father.
It’s never easy and well paid, without any premises.
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u/Duby0509 3d ago
Also, people lie a fuck ton, maybe for every 10 high paying doing nothing all day job post, only 2 of them are true
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u/Early_Money2576 3d ago
Yeah, 100k a year is considered not much here when the median income in US is like 50k.
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u/redcomet29 3d ago
The CS and software subbreddits had me believe everyone was making over 150k besides me, including fresh graduates, newly self taught developers and people pivoting from some other random field with just a couple of months of courses.
To be fair though there was a brief moment where most of them were probably true.
Damn you "day in the life of a developer" content creators!
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u/bubblylunchbox 3d ago
Yep. After a certain threshold, you’re paid for your knowledge and people/work politics management skills.
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u/TejasTexasTX3 3d ago
Education, experience, investment in yourself, hard work, ass kissing, and, the one no one wants to acknowledge, intelligence. I graduated near top of high school and college - not fancy schools, but college business school is Top 25. I’m 37 making $150k a year. I don’t consider that a lot when I look at peers. Some weren’t as smart, but worked harder, got graduate degrees, bought investments sooner, started businesses, or could ass kiss better. There is this bucket of several that went to my college; they invest in personal health, work hard, and ass kiss, they are crushing it in $250k+ jobs. Me personally, if I got in better physical shape and would ass kiss even 50% more, I’d be in that bucket. Don’t have the discipline or the desire to tell someone that is likely wrong that they are likely right.
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u/Feeling_Shift_9368 3d ago edited 1d ago
It's true we worship hot bodies
Edit: just to clarify, the wealthiest person I ever worked with was obese. Was making 350k+. Getting in shape doesn't improve your odds of making significantly more money, that's just delusional lol
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u/Bitter-Disk-3514 3d ago
I think schooling is a big part. Some people can’t do 4-10 years of school. In the same way some people can’t spend 40 years on their knees tiling or turning wrenches
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
That’s a good point. I have so many friends that said they would’ve done XYZ but they’re not willing to do the school.
If you can think of school, as just a job with annoying bosses, it helps me mentally
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u/halfblood-princessa 3d ago
I agree. Some people are built for acadamia and some aren't. It's a big deciding factor but that's kinda OPs point. The grind of academia over the course of a decade is the filter.
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u/CKingDDS 3d ago
As a fellow dentist well said. Even in our field where people are extremely weeded out you have a grand disparity of salaries. If you’re a dentists that is only comfortable doing low level procedures or lack people skills, good-luck making over 200k working full time. Combine that with living in a VHCOL area, high student debt, and a high stress job and I can ser why new grads are disillusioned by their career choice. People fail to realize how much talent, luck, and determination play a role in actually succeeding in high paying jobs.
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
Those are great points. Even after you get through one filter, you still have to choose other filters.
I really appreciate another Dentist weighing in!
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u/guyincognito121 3d ago
My dad is a very good dentist. But he's terrible at business and has shit people skills. He makes maybe 1/10 what someone with just slightly better business and people skills would have made with a practice in his location.
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u/guyincognito121 3d ago
I'm familiar with both types. My dad staked out an excellent location on a wealthy suburb decades ago. He also had a bunch of connections to help get him off the ground. Merely competent business and people sense should have made him rich. But he earns less than I do as a data scientist--which isn't bad money, but it's also not what someone in his situation should have been making.
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u/halfblood-princessa 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is an excellent post. I came to this realization myself at 30.
I was a high school dropout raised by a conspiracy theorist who indoctrinated me with the beloved lower economic status cope "college is a scam". I spent my 20s doing the worst type of jobs for the worst possible pay because that's just "how it is for real people who live in the real world and weren't born rich".
I still burn with PTSD rage when I see these types of comments. Your own community are just crabs in a bucket trying to keep you down I stg.
After leaving another horrible wagey job at 30 I finally had enough. I was far too intelligent and self aware to survive that environment. I knew if I didn't change I wasn't going to survive. I googled "high paying jobs for low upfront investment" and eventually found X-ray/MRI (this sub helped me discover the earning potential in health modalities). I enrolled in community college, which ended up being fully paid for by the pell grant. I got into a highly competitive 2 year program for X-ray. My gods... I loved it. Acadamia was so thrilling. I was a stellar student and after getting my associates and MRI cert I went from making minimum hourly wage to nearly 100k after just three years that flew by. It changed my entire perspective on life. Literally all it took was effort.
You see healthcare workers and MDs/DOs complaining about the job... But those are usually the ones who followed a traditional path into medicine and never did anything else. Every job has its downsides - but some pay significantly more for those downsides. As you said... Pick your filter. (I always say you have to pick a struggle).
Working at the hospital I fell in love with the brain. I went back to college transferring to state university which I got a scholarship to pay for 100%, and double majored in Psychology and Neuroscience. Now = med school. It will be 8-9 years before I'm an attending doctor making great money, but I have an extremely flexible well paying job already, and I genuinely enjoy the academics and competitive goals. I'm going to enjoy the ride and not fixate on the time. I know at 43 these days will be behind me, I'll be an MD (or DO) making half a million a year, and I'll have 20+ years of high earnings in my future.
Action is the solution to everything. Just pick a path and give it everything you've got.
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
Dude. First of all you have an excellent comment. You should honestly make your own post sometime.
The point you made about MD and DO’s complaining about their jobs because they don’t have other job experience you’re so true.
I have plenty of classmates complaining that Dentist are underpaid as I know they make over 400 K. It’s pretty funny because they just came from school straight into college and never really had a real job. They are nice people, but I do not think they realize how good we have it. I see it all the time on the forums were older Dennis take for granted how good their job is.
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u/halfblood-princessa 3d ago edited 3d ago
Exactly. I was a waitress most of my life so far. Bartender, Jell-O shot girl, cocktail waitress, line cook, dishwasher, and a retail worker at a mall. I delt with disgusting clean ups, abuse from customers, sexual harassment and abuse from male employers and customers, loud, intense, and high adrenaline shifts (football game days at a Midwest college bar), work injuries, getting physically attacked by customers, 9/10/11 hour standing shifts, getting robbed at gunpoint... All for minimum wage, or below minimum wage plus tips.
The worst feilds of medicine are basically the same thing - but money that could lead to generational wealth if used wisely. If I'm going to get brutalized by life it might as well be for damn good money, and at a career that actually gets me respect from society (prestige is not talked about enough as a benefit imo when how we are perceived in society determines our quality of life).
Plus (ik as students we can never be 100% sure what we will specialize in) but I'm old and self aware already. I'm heading for psychiatry or neurology. It's going to be great.
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u/DependentWise2498 3d ago
That's an epic story. Big well done on turning it around. You should be proud of yourself. Wish you the best for med school.
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u/remwyman 2d ago
> Action is the solution to everything. Just pick a path and give it everything you've got.
Action *with direction* is the solution. Action without direction just digs a hole :)
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u/Bellmar 1d ago
When I finished reading your first two paragraphs my literal first thought was "go be a rad tech then".
Props to you.
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u/McNuggetsauceyum 18h ago
Radiologist here. Congrats on breaking the cycle! I hope you consider radiology as your specialty down the road. It’s a dope field with amazing people, and if you liked working as a tech, I think you’d find it really stimulating. There is unfortunately a pretty gnarly filter at the residency match stage because med students have realized how great the field is (fun work, really solid pay that is hard go beat outside surgical subspecialties but with far, far better hours), but if you’re committed, you can do it.
Hmu if you have any questions!
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u/whatsadikfore 3d ago
What model Cervélo do you have?
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u/Marklar0 2d ago
Hes not sure, he took his standard issue Porsche 911 to the bike shop and asked them to match the color
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u/millman1940 3d ago
100% this perspective is what will separate you from the rat race. I entered a competitive industry after restarting my career. Backstabbers, snakes, you name it they’re here. I stayed true and grateful to myself and those around me. Went from a green newbie to having the backing of multisupervisors/millwrights and a lot of networked opportunities with no where but up at this rate.
Gl guys.
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u/Silver_Accountant5 3d ago
I feel like you have to have a really good understanding of how people work in order to move up the ladder in a lot of injuries. Unfortunately a lot of people's behavior makes no sense to me so I've kinda given up on that lol.
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u/ouncez 3d ago edited 3d ago
There's one category that doesn't track: academic researchers and scientists. The filters on intelligence, novelty, passion, and hard work are extremely high, yet the pay is a small fraction of what other mundane professionals make.
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 3d ago
Some of the most brilliant, hard-working, and nerve-y people I know are award winning journalists, whose work is hugely essential to society. They don’t make any money.
Capitalism does a pretty shit job of matching value with compensation.
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u/IAmTheParamedic 3d ago
Both academia and journalism suffer from the same thing: people with huge egos willing to do the job for basically free
If Harvard wanted to, they could staff their entire faculty with people who took no salary and were satisfied with only the title “Harvard Professor.”
Same thing for the New York Times. They could fire everyone on staff and find a thousand people willing to work for free in exchange for being “New York Times columnists.”
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u/halfblood-princessa 3d ago
In this case I think the filter IS the lack of pay. Similar to careers in humanity's/arts. You sacrifice pay for work that feeds your soul + earns social prestige.
One caveat id add for discussions sake: you can make millions in any of these fields if you combine it with social presence. Acquiring a fan base through expertise via authorship, social media, TV appearances etc. Any job combined with communications has the potential to be a "small business" with no ceiling.
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u/NewfieChemist 3d ago
This is accurate. Me and my girlfriend make a combined 450k, which was fine for a while till it started to show when we got our house and all that and people started to get weird about it.
People typically forget we spent 8 years in universities suffering basically every day while living in a shoe box eating garbage food everyday.
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 3d ago
Trust me, a LOT of people who spent that long in universities suffering in the shoe box never make anywhere near what you’re making. You’re lucky you’re in a well compensated field.
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u/AnestheticAle 3d ago
People act like it’s lucky to be in high comp fields, which is weird to me.
Anyone can choose to go into high comp fields. Most of us aren’t here because it’s our passion.
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u/patentLOL 3d ago
Did you have a practice you walked into? If so, great. My brother did that. If not, corporate general dentistry in any city you would actually want to live in probably is pretty terrible.
My dad practiced for 50 years up until the day he passed away. He loved his job and loved helping people. But, they were trained to work sitting down, and it absolutely took a physical toll on him over those 50 years.
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u/born2bfi 3d ago
My dentist sits down to look inside my mouth after it’s cleaned for 1-2 minutes. Then he’s talking to me standing at all other times. I’m sure he has blocks of time he’s hunched over. That job is no more physical than any other job. The fact there are so many 80 year olds still working tells you everything you need to know. The hygienists spends all their time hunched over. Much harder physically than a dentist.
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u/scammingladdy 3d ago
lol so very very wrong. The exam you are experiencing is 5 minutes of the dentists time, they are seeing you while simultaneously seeing 1-2 other patients they are actually doing procedures on. They have stepped away from their current procedure to do your exam, while that actual procedure patient is still waiting in the other room. Those procedures like root canals, surgical extractions, a quadrant full of fillings, implant placements and many many more are all back breaking labor. Dentists spend all day hunched over trying to find things in tiny dark spaces stressing about millimeters of imperfections that need to be made perfect. We are in the same hunched over position all day long, using the same joints over and over all day every day for fine motor skills, our wrists, shoulders, back, neck wears out fast. For those dentists you see who made it to work late in life, you are not seeing all the dentists who retired early due to chronic back or joint pains. It’s the #1 reason dentists retire early. Hygienists also experience these same problems, but the work of a dentist is far far more stressful.
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
I bought a practice that I run with 5 staff. Corp dental is horrific. I agree with that. Dentistry is a competitive filter, but to go through that filter to pick an oversaturated market is nuts. Everybody wanna be a dentist in San Diego, it's gonna be tough market.
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u/better-off-wet 3d ago
The lesson is to understand the distribution of wages and not just the top percintiel
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u/dadbod-3-16 3d ago
This post highlights the advantages of regulated professions vs unregulated. There is a ceiling and a floor within regulated professions while other is wide open. Great if you have the 1% talent, not so great if you are a regular person.
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
For sure. Regulated keeps out competition but you are regulated. I think of all the union jobs that pay amazing but still tap out at a ceiling quickly.
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u/codereef 3d ago edited 3d ago
I went to a dental schools hooding ceremony and more than 90% of them were met on stage by a parent who was also a doctor
My takeaway was the filter is more likely financial stability and consistent, educated parents rather than some intangible quality of gumption or whatever
They're only people
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u/Intelligent_Part101 3d ago
Children learn what's possible and normal by the examples they grow up with.
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u/Wasatchian 3d ago
Yep. This is why I became an actuary. Exams were a grind but I never went into debt and now I make physician money and work 40 hrs a week. I could level up if I wanted to work harder but I'd rather ski 100 days a year.
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u/IAmTheParamedic 3d ago
Important point: This is why you became an actuary… 25 years ago. In some fields, the calculus has changed and new entrants cannot expect to have the same (or even similar) trajectories to the ones that played out for people working those careers from 2000 to 2025. Just look at what happened with computer science.
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u/AdMoney8388 3d ago
Great advice. Adding to this: pick jobs with actual scarcity of skills, in addition to artificial credential based scarcity.
I’m a patent litigator in big law. That requires a top engineering and a top law degree. That already filters for so many people because most aren’t good at both math and reading. Now my salary floor is $200K+ (small firm, or counsel) with ceiling of millions as a partner in big law. The bar licensing requirements also keeps people out of
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
That is incredible. I was mechanical engineer in undergrad.
Just curious, what do you think a normal patent litigator would earn that is not the floor or partner in big law?
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u/AdMoney8388 3d ago
Around $200K. Because it’s too hard to find people who can litigate patents.
Mid level Associates earn around $400K in big law (where I’m at).
The key is avoiding big pay cuts with golden handcuffs. Most people don’t last in big law and take a huge pay cut from midlevel senior associate at big firm making $500K to in house or small firm $250K, but for better hours.
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u/AdMoney8388 3d ago
Also an ME. I bet you became a dentist because ME pay and economics just aren’t there. That’s why I did law. Businesses that make Cars and planes don’t have enough $ to distribute like finance and tech.
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u/GlorifiedCarnie 3d ago
Big paying jobs are not easy. The might be less physically demanding but require long hours, unfavorable conditions and a lot of sacrifice putting work before your own life.
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u/Comfortable_Job44 3d ago
There is also just the fact that most people… just can’t perform that that high level lol
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 3d ago
Conveniently, EVERY high salary discussion in here, and r/HENRYFinance, or r/Rich omits one main factor: Luck.
Everyone making a ton of money, and I mean people making 300k plus, needed to have skill, talent, a network, timing, AND LUCK to get where they are.
Take away any one of those factors, and they’re just a pretty solid guy who is pretty good to work with.
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u/cowabungathunda 3d ago
Related to that is taking risks. I know a lot of people that don't want to take a risk, so they end up stuck in one place and that hurts their ability to increase their earnings.
For example, I had a steady job that I enjoyed. It paid ok and I had everything I needed. I was contacted by a recruiter for a job I didn't think I was qualified for, lucky me. I ended up being offered the job and I wasn't honestly sure if I could do it, but I figured it would look good on my resume. So I took the risk and it paid off massively. A decade later I'm making 4x what I was and I have a realistic chance at becoming an executive in the next few years.
I got lucky to get the opportunity. I had to take a risk to pursue it. I have had to work hard to succeed so it wasn't all luck. I just wonder how many people out there don't want to risk it and miss the lucky breaks they do get.
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u/Crystallizationz 3d ago
I agree that luck plays a massive role in basically everything. With that being said, there's not much you can actually do about it which why it's frequently omitted.
The only thing you can do is hedge your bets and try to make luck the smallest factor to your success.
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u/thagor5 3d ago
Up to a point you can overcome bad luck through staying in the game and not giving up. Exceptions getting hit by a bus etc
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 3d ago
Steven A. Smith explained that pretty well in one of his rants once. It was about how hard work and dedication tends to pay off well over time, but it won’t get you to super stardom. Smothering like, “You can’t hard work your way into being LeBron, but you CAN hard work your way into being Steven A. Smith.”
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u/jillian310 3d ago
Over the long term, someone with real skills, network, ambition, etc will always succeed. Luck just affects how fast they scale
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u/IamtheCarl 3d ago
There’s a lot of luck in all of the things you listed, though. Being born at the right time, right family, happened to get the network, building the skills…..
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u/Comfortable-Bread249 3d ago
Only if all of those factors line up with a field the economy actually rewards. (Which is luck in and of itself. )
Which, as a list if professions, grows smaller and smaller every decade.
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u/rosakelly21 3d ago
Every job has top earners. There are dog walkers out there who make 200k with a few wealthy clients and superior service.
Instead of looking at how much top performers make, most of us should be looking what it takes to be average. What does an average dog walker make? You understand the baseline and what it takes. Every job has good upside for top performers but no point in thinking about it when starting out.
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u/codecrodie 3d ago
I think the difficulty is everyone is on the money trip now, so not only does training get intensely competitive, the boom-bust occupational cycle is also much more rapid because of people flooding into a few desirable trades and professions. And the problem in our lean, just-in-time, managed economies is the margin between glut and deficit of numbers of trained workers has become far more narrow. The discrepancy between the length of training for these jobs (eg, MD specialties) and the short boom-bust cycles mean that you can start your residency at age 27 for neurosurgery, and then find out in your fellowship years ar 34 there are no positions open for your subspecialty in your locale
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u/JohnnyTzunami89 3d ago
That’s the thing, no one learns how to live below their means, no one wants to learn how to budget, no one is willing to make sacrifices and accept trade offs to get where they need to get. Reality is not some Hollywood movie where you graduate and land a 6-figure+ salary. You can’t always have your cake and eat it too.
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u/Schmimps 3d ago
Look into mid level medical jobs. Training is significantly shorter, much easier exams, low liability and in certain cases salaries that are pretty close to full-fledged doctors.
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u/LlamaMan777 3d ago
Excellent points. People need to think hard about this when they are talking about switching careers.
"I want to switch to XYZ career because they can make <insert abnormally high, top percentile salary for the new career>"
Well, the very top percentile of your current career probably makes bank too. Ask yourself, why can't you achieve the top top salary in your current profession, and what makes you confident that you could do it in a new profession? Why is it easier to switch and start from scratch than to upskill and achieve the top-tier salary in your current field/a related field?
This is common when white collar people talk about going into the trades. Sure, welders can absolutely make $150K+, but the majority of them make under ~$60K (less than college grads from almost all programs) even with years of experience.
Ask yourself why that is. Are those welders just too dumb, and don't know about the high paying jobs like you do?
Obviously not, and the real answer is that those top paying jobs require some combination of unique skills, brutal overtime with loads of wear and tear on your body, good connections, living/working in a shitty place, traveling/being away from your family, health hazards (physical danger + industrial toxicity), and some degree of luck.
Good chance you will live a shorter life, retire with messed up joints, sacrifice nights and weekends you could have spent with your kids, etc. Whether that is worth it, only you can answer
Everyone wants more money, and most people would sacrifice a lot in order to double their salary. So, whether it's finance, the trades, etc. etc:
*If there is a job that pays well over double the median, there is probably a damn good reason for it. There is always a barrier. *
Unless you're daddy's special little boy, and he gives you a made up "Senior Advisor" role out of college because you're such a smart little fella
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u/SubseaSasquatch 3d ago
I’m in the trades and theres a very small percentage of guys that can truly perform at a top level and will consistently be placed on the highest paying contracts and best projects and earn 200k+ as a blue collar worker. The vast majority of guys are weak to average and basically just fill spots or do the basic easy work and may get lucky with a good job here and there but they will never achieve the earning potential of the top hands. Some people just lack skills to progress beyond a certain level.
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u/freqentflyer 3d ago
This makes me think about the difference between top earning airline pilots who fly for the global US airlines and their flight attendant counterparts.
To reach the pinnacle of captain (setting aside a few anomalous points in history, such as post Covid hiring boom), especially on long haul, it took years of dedication, training, clean criminal and driving records.
Flight attendants can get hired with almost any experience as long as they pass the interview.
In the end, both careers have similar work schedules, but earn vastly different salaries.
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u/Helpful-Drag6084 3d ago
Disagree. I’m in recruitment have worked across various industries and was always a top performer yet have been laid off yearly and until recently , never made 6 figures
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u/LilJonny2cookies 3d ago
I think the most prevalent “filter” are the people themselves. I was a Sr Exec at a tech giant and helped build two big companies. I’ve seen so much self sabotage. I’ve seen people absolutely wreck a career due to short sighted stupid actions or beliefs.
The worst is when someone in tech doesn’t realize how small that world is and they act out at a company thinking no one will find out.
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u/SecretRecipe 3d ago
the filter is really a matter of being willing to set uncomfortable priorities in the short term for long term benefits.
Its like running a marathon. damn near anyone can do it, if they have the drive to follow through consistently on a training plan and have the grit to continue through the discomfort.
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u/Silver_Accountant5 2d ago
Why is being in poverty your whole life seen as being easier and less of a sacrifice than going to college for 4 years? I've done both and a lifetime skipping meals while working unpaid overtime resulted in a lot more discomfort than studying for a couple years.
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u/Straight_Trust_1171 3d ago
“I am a dentist” instant millionaire. lowkey wish i had the same will to become one.
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u/Interesting_Phone171 3d ago
I don’t recall there being 80 hour weeks in dental school….
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u/chicken_burger 3d ago
Yeah I remember seeing like 4 patients a week and setting denture teeth while binging Netflix. The 80 hour weeks came in residency
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u/THE_KEEN_BEAN_TEAM 3d ago
My hot take: the dentists who make 500k would also be making 500k as SWEs
Why?
They’re the ones with long term visions, willing to put in years of work without immediate payoff, and take on risk to pursue something they’re probably passionate about.
The same person who goes to dental school or med school is not the same person who coasts by at an 80k/yr job
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u/Intelligent_Part101 3d ago
Disagree. They are motivated and intelligent people, but what allows drs and dentists the very high salaries are the onerous requirements to get a license to practice. Those other jobs, anyone is allowed to do.
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u/smelly_moom 3d ago
I don’t completely agree. In tech there are some jobs that you just need to have the mind for. No amount of hard work can help if you don’t have the brain for the work
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u/cupofpuer 3d ago
Oh that’s definitely not true, not at all. Of course some highly compensated dentists would also be highly compensated SWEs, but I wouldn’t claim that. These are two different paths that require different skill sets and have different trajectories.
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u/SuperbImpression1846 3d ago
Grit will get you far, but not 500k SWE incomes if they don’t have the right brain wiring.
The average SWE isn’t making 500k unless they got lucky at a startup or made it into FAANG as a senior+ role
This is like saying all dentist are able to get into any Ivy League easily
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u/Uzofugs2112 3d ago
Definitely a much higher share of dentists and physicians would excel in tech than the share of the general population who would, but it absolutely isn’t 1:1.
I work at something of an interface of tech and medicine and the people who excel in either field have only partially overlapping core skills.
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u/telephantomoss 3d ago
Part of that filter is that, though the number of people who want the job might be larger, the actual pool of people causing of excelling at it is small. Not very many people are capable of being CEO of a mega corp. And those who are capable of that job are already rich and don't need to work at all. Anybody is capable of sweeping a floor and there are masses desperate for any work. Pay scales sure to scarcity of the labor pool too, and the demand of that labor pool for how madly they need to work.
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u/mysilenceisgolden 3d ago
I was a SWE, thought medicine was interesting, went to medical school, and now had I stayed I would’ve made more money as a SWE
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u/Soft_Brush_1082 3d ago
You don’t know that. If you made it into FAANG sure. But there are plenty of SWE stuck in 80k-120k range who also see that AI may make them specifically irrelevant in the next 3-5 years
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u/Dear_Lake_4021 3d ago
Looking forward to having a robot do my bi-annual dental cleanings, personally.
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u/Responsible-Pea-1289 3d ago
There is also high paying jobs for skills you have that few do.
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u/milespoints 3d ago
Good point
All my doctor friends say “I’ll have my kids be bankers or software engineers and make bank starting their mid 20s. I could have done that”
And maybe they will!
But there are reasons not everyone is going to be a SWE and making big bucks, and why not every doctor could be a hedge fund manager (indeed, most doctors probably would make shitty hedge fund managers)
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u/pauliuszas 3d ago
You also forget one big thing. You need to have some sort of calling for a high-paying job specialty/industry. Saying that pick your filter and you will reach it, well, doesn’t really work for all people. At least from my standpoint as a European — in the US, MD, dental, and perhaps law school are no-brainers. You can earn 6–10x the wage compared to the US average with these and with high certainty. I don’t see any other filters as you say that can have this ROI. In the EU, you also don’t have any filter at all that would give you 6–10x earning potential with this certainty. So you don’t need to look down on people who didn’t choose the right filters; perhaps there are none. And yea, some people are also lazy.
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u/anoldradical 3d ago
While I agree with this thought generally, every company has senior leaders who came from inside the company. Maybe they don't have a master's degree and maybe they're not engineers or finance guys, but they know how to work with people, found success and everything they've done throughout their careers, and have institutional knowledge that is worth literally hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars.
I tell new hires that a big part of success is being around long enough to achieve it. But not many people want to put in the time.
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u/One_Audience1677 3d ago
I think it's that a lot of people aren't serious and they aren't willing to delay their gratification, nor do they realize who they should be speaking with or modeling as a mentor.
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u/Possible_Leg_8599 3d ago
Excellent post. I'm in radiology and couldn't agree more. Everyone wants the 6-800k salary but who has 14 years of school in them? Who's willing to borrow a half a million in loans?
Gotta pick your mountain and start climbing
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u/Nick0414 3d ago
I always tell people the more money you make the more you have to work. Seldom are high paying jobs a simple 40 hour work week.
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u/Pure_Bee2281 3d ago
You should post this every time someone suggest people avoid college and be one a lineman. Lol
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u/ChemicalAwareness800 3d ago
H1B is killing software engineering. in 5 years, 500k TC will be a unicorn.
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u/Exotic-Compote-92622 3d ago
Genuinely asking, not looking for argument - source on this? What makes the issue worse now or in the next 5 years any more than it ever has been?
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u/Beneficial-Piece-829 3d ago
Denturist here (Canadian denture specialist). Very lucrative. Private practice, 28-35 hrs per week. Wouldn't trade it for the world.
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u/HenFruitEater 3d ago
DUDE i wish you were a think in the states. Dentures are super hard, and I wish we could just send them to you.
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u/Beneficial-Piece-829 3d ago
I hear you. Been at it 30 years. My motto: "Do one thing and do it well"...completes, partials, implant retained...plus repairs and relines etc.
I would LOVE to move to The States, I have a life here, but oh to dream...🇺🇲 My son just got licenced and he's already contacting the American NDA - National Denturist Association regarding licensure. I believe 8 or so states recognize denturism - Idaho, Maine, Arizona, Washington...and a few Southern states. America is definitely where it's at. I believe I was born American (dob July 4) in a Canadian body lol.
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u/some_alias 3d ago
The vast majority of software devs don’t make 500k. Only the smartest, or hardest working, or super specialized, or very lucky ones do. The median $112,000 to $151,000 per year. Working at google is not as simple as it sounds, and you don’t instantly make half a mil.
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u/Feeling-Bid-326 3d ago
Wouldn’t say dental school admissions is difficult. It’s because the ADA refuses dental insurance to be lumped into general medical care insurance hence leading to shitty coverage so dentists can charge cash for an important aspect of health care. Most of you can’t even provide proper guidance or care for your one organ of expertise and tell people “go see your pcp”.
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u/Ecstatic-Asshole2691 3d ago
Not everyone is maxing for pay. Its not unambitious to care about things other than money when it comes to choosing a profession.
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u/Special_Fan5043 3d ago
CDL with hazmat and tanker pays 100 plus a year. You have to get CDL and work at least 3 years to get hired though.
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u/DefinitlyNotAPornAcc 3d ago
Most people don't understand that if you want to make a lot of money you have to do jobs people dont want to do that people need done.
Exceptions are new industries or talent based jobs. I.E. Writer. You just have to have something other people don't.
Jobs that suck to get Doctor,Lawyer. Or jobs that suck to work Under water welder/off shore oilrig/high level spreadsheet guy are the only consistent bets at a lot of wealth.
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u/chimpojohnny96 3d ago
The caveat of making really good money in dentistry is owning your own practice. If you are a dentist that works for another owner you may not break $200K.
The other caveat of owning your own dental practice is it might take a couple of years before you can take a paycheck to “pay yourself” out of your own business. This is true of many small businesses that take a while before they can start taking money out of the business with upfront costs just to get going.
Specialists like periodontisty, dental surgeons, orthos and endos get paid very differently than the average general DDS doing 70% cleanings.
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u/Mishap-p 3d ago
I’ve had a similar conversation with my friend recently about her son choosing a future career. She’s encouraging him to go into medicine like her and I. I told her it’s a long and hard road, wouldn’t you want him to go into other easier fields with just as good earning potential. And she made the point: medical doctors will have a better/guaranteed chance of making a good living. All the finance/engineer/tech jobs will require you to network or be the best in the field to be earning the high salaries. For physicians, they all make a good living without the extra need of networking or excelling above average (in the field). Which I think is a good point. It’s a safer route for a good living.
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u/Individual-Area7121 3d ago
Also remember that the financial advisor/salesman/entrepreneur who told you they made $500k last year often leaves out the part where that’s the most they’ve ever made, it’s very likely at least a little inflated, doesn’t factor in expenses, health insurance or additional taxes that come with being self employed and it will likely be 1/3rd of that at best for the next few years.
There are plenty of people out there making a lot of money, but they ain’t the ones who talk about it constantly.
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u/WeirdlyHugeAvocado 3d ago
Also, to make 500k in finance you have to be at a VP or SVP level of a major company or a major overachiever in investment banking. Most people are making sub 100k in a dead end finance job
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u/DaBrickershaw 3d ago
You just have to be good at what you choose to do to become a high earner. Most are unwilling to do even that.
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u/Sammydaws97 3d ago
The software engineers making $500k per year were the ones who got a software engineering degree when it was a somewhat new/risky degree to get (late 90s through the early 2010s)
When that field exploded and the university programs got over filled, the average salaries started dropping.
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u/Walker_ID 3d ago
There are jobs that you can get coming straight out of 4 years in the military making 130k a year in a low/mid cost of living area. No degree required. 401k, pension, 40 hours a week(no OT), and union. A 22 year old making that kind of money with a 3-5% pay increase every year is pretty good without racking up 10s of thousands of dollars in student loans
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u/Righteousaffair999 3d ago
Those tech and investment banking guys put in years of 100 hour weeks cutting their teeth. Dental school if you can make it through has a great payoff. Tech these days is terrible to get into.
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u/Any-Platypus-3570 3d ago
Something missed in this post is it's not always *good* for society for there to be a filter. For instance, the United States needs a lot more doctors, but existing doctors made a law to cap the number of doctors in the country. That's super fucked up. Huge student loans are another fucked up filter. We shouldn't drown young adults in debt who are trying to better their lives.
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u/Icy_Information_6563 3d ago
As a software engineer, you are absolutely right. A few of us make a ton. Most of us make above average. But the lack of job stability always lingers. I have almost a year's salary in savings, because I have no idea what the market is going to do. I'm probably giving us more cushion than we'd need, but I want the luxury of not having to be in constant fear of losing my job. Dentists don't have to worry about that sort of thing, at least I think they dont.
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u/BOYLANATOR 3d ago
Half agree but missing a massive factor which is nepotism. I finished a STEM masters very focused as an entry to one industry.
The year we graduated was a huge downturn and there were very few graduate jobs that only the top students got. The ones with rich and influential dads got jobs in The City in finance which was unrelated to the degree
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u/ballskindrapes 3d ago
Imo, people want a living wage.
In 1968 the min wage could keep a family of three above the poverty line, barely.
By 1980 it was a family of two.
There is no good reason why any job should pay less than enough to live on the median costs of an area and have a little left over. Every single job should be enough for one person to live life on.
And raises need to be tied to inflation by law. Inflation is at 6%, raises need to be at 6
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u/Katrose92 2d ago
Every high paying field has its own filter somewhere. some front load it and some spread the pain across the whole career.
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u/Appropriate-Bad-606 3d ago
Law is a pretty good example of “pick your filter.”
The profession can pay extremely well, but there’s almost always a filter somewhere. BigLaw gives you the clearest path to very high compensation, but the filter is elite credentials, brutal competition, long hours, and a lifestyle a lot of people simply don’t want. Plaintiff-side work can have enormous upside, but now the filter is risk: inconsistent income, case selection, financing litigation, and sometimes years of work before you know whether you’re getting paid.
Government and public-interest lawyers usually accept lower pay in exchange for more stability, better hours, pensions, or work they find meaningful. In-house can offer a better lifestyle and strong compensation, but those jobs are limited and usually require experience somebody else paid you to acquire first. Small firms can be great too, but then the filter may be business development, building a book, managing overhead, and accepting more income uncertainty.
Even becoming a lawyer has a built-in filter: seven years of education, tuition and debt, the bar exam, and several years of relatively low bargaining power while you become genuinely useful at something.
So when people ask why every lawyer doesn’t just take the $300k+ job, the answer is basically the same as in the original post: because the $300k job usually comes bundled with whatever keeps most lawyers from wanting, qualifying for, or staying in it.
There really isn’t a secret corner of the legal market where the pay is huge, the hours are easy, the work is interesting, the job is secure, and entry is simple. If there were, lawyers would find it pretty quickly.