For someone making an engineering salary, “high five figures” is around a 50% pay cut.
I have friends with no degree at all pulling down $250k in software. I have a lawyer friend with a law degree and 10 years experience in corporate litigation who makes $125k (but has student loans on top of it, so take-home is way less). Given the amount of stress and long hours, I would view it as a poor move for burned out engineers.
I don’t know if the value proposition is there anymore, but when I burned out from engineering I went the MBA / tech executive route and that absolutely has been worth it from a comp standpoint. I work a lot less, I can delegate the tasks I’m not good at, and feel like I have control over my career in a way I never did as an engineer.
I have friends with no degree at all pulling down $250k in software. I have a lawyer friend with a law degree and 10 years experience in corporate litigation who makes $125k (but has student loans on top of it, so take-home is way less). Given the amount of stress and long hours, I would view it as a poor move for burned out engineers.
I don’t know if the value proposition is there anymore, but when I burned out from engineering I went the MBA / tech executive route and that absolutely has been worth it from a comp standpoint. I work a lot less, I can delegate the tasks I’m not good at, and feel like I have control over my career in a way I never did as an engineer.