Recently there was a thread about someone making ~$500k/year at a FAANG company and seeing that there's people who hang out here and make ~$300k/year I always have questions for high income earners. Since I don't know any personally (or at least I think I don't) I'm hoping some are lurking and willing to answer some questions. I've set it to $300k because I think at this range the salary is exceptional even in LA/SF/NYC.

These are my questions and I'm adding my own answers though my income is not really in this range; some are slightly fudged to prevent de-anonymizing.

* What do you do?

* What is your job title?

* What is your total comp?

* Who do you work for?

* Where do you live (assuming you don't work from home)?

* How long did it take you to get here?

* How did you get here (networking/raw technical skill/job board/dumb luck, etc.)?

* What do you do?

- I do frontend development for financial applications; think trader dashboards, openfin, etc. I have done backend work previously and actually prefer it to frontend work

* What is your job title?

- Associate; a generic corporate title in banking

* What is your total comp?

- Last year I made $118k including my yearly bonus and 401k matching

* Who do you work for?

- JPMorgan

* Where do you live (assuming you don't work from home)?

- A large Texas city; one of Dallas/Houston/San Antonio

* How long did it take you to get here?

- 5 years from my first job as a developer

* How did you get here (networking/raw technical skill/job board/dumb luck, etc.)?

- It's been a gradual climb; whenever I feel there's no more to learn at my current job I look for another, each move included a pay bump. This job I managed through an acquaintance who offered to put my resume in although I was not looking for a job at the time