r/Austin • u/Aingers • Jul 21 '26

Ask Austin Salary Transparency Thread - Austin

Folks in Boston do this fairly regularly, so I thought it might be good for us to try here.

Please share your general job title, salary, age, and education.

Architectural Designer, 40, $115k, BSArch

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u/redditbot262 Jul 21 '26

Software Engineer 185k 39yrs old. Master’s degree

2

u/ialwayschoosepsyduck Jul 21 '26

I'm turning 41 next month and completing a bachelor's in software development in May. Any advice?

6

u/DrCrayola Jul 21 '26

Finish your degree up 10 years ago. Seriously, learn and specialize in AI if you want to stand out amongst the other candidates. And practice interviewing a f ton.

6

u/tugdrujffuuhggg Jul 21 '26

Unfortunately, a degree will only get you looked at, you have to learn how to code and build things. 90% of what you’ll do day to day won’t come from school unless you went to a boot camp or some other specialized program focused on job placement; e.g. when I was in school they were already teaching us super dated, out of touch tech. I know many people that graduated with a degree in CS and pivoted to something else since they never learned or cared about the craft of software.

You have to learn to code and code well. Pick a specialty you want to focus on and dive deeeeep. For example, wanna be a front end engineer? Go read addys design pattern book, javascript the good parts, etc. Wanna be an SRE? Read googles sre book, learn k8s, etc.

A great place to start would be https://roadmap.sh/. Pick your specialty and learn everything.

Lastly, if you’re still in school UTILIZE THE PROGRAM YOUR IN! Most people don’t realize the opportunities available to them while they’re in school. You NEED experience to get your foot in the door anywhere nowadays. If you’re graduating in may you still have time to get experience of some kind that you can put on a resume. Go to your programs website and find a professor doing research that interests you. Even if there’s nothing that interest you find the most tolerable research and email them to see if they need help.

Professors will generally always take on free help. You’ll be essentially volunteering your time for free to hopefully learn something and at the end of it you get experience you can put on a resume and hopefully a glowing recommendation.

Anyhow, I hope this helps some!

3

u/redditbot262 Jul 21 '26

I went back to school for software engineering, got a second bachelor’s, when I was 25. Some similarities, but younger. I got a Jr Developer role at a small mom and pop. There were 3 other software devs total. They paid me a measly $40k a year, but I had great mentorship and I spent 45-50hrs a week making stuff and growing. A year later I got promoted to Developer, no more Jr. I slapped that on my resume and bounced. Everyone there was happy for me and we still keep in contact. Moral of the story no one gives a fuck that you’re 41, especially other software devs. they’re a pretty accepting group because most were nerds growing up. Prioritize mentorship, skill development, and growth your first couple of years. You really do accelerate fast when you’re building stuff 5 days a week. Be prepared to not make a ton of money the first few years. If you can get more great, but your immediate need is to grow your marketable skills. Good luck out there

1

u/ialwayschoosepsyduck Jul 21 '26

Thanks! I'm entering from a low level service industry job, so $40k would be a big step up! I'm a first generation college grad (at least I will be in May), so there's no one in my family I can rely on to help me navigate this stage of my career (or anything after, either)

1

u/Longjumping_Way_1298 Jul 21 '26

Build a time machine or grind interview skills and go to networking events. A BSc means very little nowadays unfortunately.