In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young people more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.
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Age: 34 Location: New Jersey Current industry and job title: Ad Tech, Product Manager Current salary: $165,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 16 years. I began working full time at age 18, and at age 21 I decided to pursue my undergraduate degree. I was living independently since 18, just a few short months after graduating high school, so I had to continue working while pursuing my degree. I graduated with my bachelor’s in 2014, but it took until 2016 for me to get a permanent, full-time job.
Starting salary: $20/hour Biggest salary jump: From $20/hour to $70,000/year in 2016. This was a temp to perm position that I had held as a temp for around eight months. I told my manager I needed to pursue a full-time position and had another offer in hand, and she quickly pushed for not just a permanent position, but a promotion in one fell swoop. The benefits from this company were also incredible, it was the best healthcare coverage I’d ever had, and the 401k match was 6% vested immediately. They also reimbursed phone, gym, and home internet.
Biggest salary drop: From $35,000/year to $11/hour in 2014. I left my full-time job in retail management for part-time work while I finished my undergraduate degree. After getting my associate’s degree, I had made the decision to finish my bachelor’s full-time. I still needed to work, but could only manage about 20-25 hours a week in between classes. I was taking six classes per semester and doing full-time summer sessions to graduate as quickly as possible.
Biggest negotiation regret: In 2021, I was promoted to lead my team when my manager left for another company. It was my dream to get this title (director) but they only offered me around $12,000 more than I had been making. I was very soft in my negotiation and we ended up at a $15,000 raise. I left less than a year later, and I heard my (external hire) replacement was being paid around $50,000 more than me.
Best salary advice: There’s always more money out there. If you work in retail, like I did, you might be making $50,000/year and think it’s great money. There are plenty of retail managers who make $100,000 for the same job. Your salary is not your worth, it’s what the company you work for is willing to pay you. I work far less in tech than I ever did in retail and I make five times more. Don’t be afraid to pursue other opportunities, even lateral moves, to climb the salary ladder.
I graduated college at the end of the summer semester of 2014, so a bit later than most. I feel I missed my cohort’s application season and when I began job hunting, I really struggled to get job interviews. I was living in New York City and wanted to work either in advertising or real estate. Through a friend of a friend, I found a $20/hour temp gig working a pop-up gallery in Chelsea. I did this through the fall until the gallery wrapped up. It was a really low key job and I met some of the most eccentric people in NYC.I wasn’t able to find a salaried position in real estate or advertising, so I decided I’d try to get a piece of the real estate pie on my own. While I tried for about 1.5 years, this was ultimately a failed venture. I was working in retail part-time to make ends meet, and real estate in Manhattan is brutal. Advertising fees on major real estate platforms are based on zip codes, so I couldn’t even afford to buy leads (I believe the cheapest package was $3,000/month). The deals I did make were mostly through rentals, referrals, and friends.After contacting a temp agency, they placed me in a temp-to-perm position at an advertising firm. Finally, I felt I was on a path I could continue down after a long time of treading water. The money wasn’t much, but it was consistent and the experience would be a welcome addition to my non-sensical resume. Little did I know, I’d spend the next six years of my career here. Landing this job and working here was truly a transformative experience.My boss brought me on full-time and promoted me to account manager with my full-time offer. I had another offer in hand for much less for a job I really didn’t want (an entry level corporate job at a fashion house I had once worked for on the retail side). I happily signed my offer and worked closely with our advertising clients for a few years.After working cross functionally with our other teams for a few years now at this point, I ultimately came to the realization that I really wanted to move into the technology side. Pivoting to tech was easy with this promotion, as I’d be brought under the wing of my new boss, our head of technology, and my first order of business was helping to translate business needs to actual technology solutions for our developers.There was no major change in responsibility from this role versus the last, though over the years I had learned how to build the solutions myself in conjunction with our developers. This promotion was more a merit raise than an actual change in responsibility.My boss left the company and I was offered her position. After a resounding “yes, please” my new boss informed me I’d still have to formally interview and formally negotiate my salary. I had wanted the title of director for years, and I was thrilled to have finally made it. Unfortunately, the workload was tremendous, my boss was calling me all hours of the night, and it was not worth the mere $15,000 raise I earned. After about three to four months in this position, I began planning my exit strategy.After working around the clock as my manager became more and more intense over the years, I decided it was time for a change. I needed to find a job that wouldn’t call or text me at 3 a.m. My mental health was taking a huge hit as I was burnt out. I had given birth just a few years prior and felt incredibly overworked. Luckily, after a short search, I landed the perfect remote role as a sole contributor, and was assured by the six interviewers I spoke with that the work life balance was unparalleled. They were right, because after completing three projects, there was nothing else for me to do. I spent the next few months touching my keypad to keep my laptop from going to sleep, and watched as many rounds of layoffs impacted my other coworkers, while I, inexplicably, was still employed.
With the uncertainty facing tech workers, I would be thrilled to find a remote job with the same salary as I make today ($165,000) and that job search is underway. As a tech start up, my company has been greatly impacted by the recent downturn. My goal is to bring my skills in-house in a more stable industry, such as healthcare, while maintaining remote work status.
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