May seem like a crazy jump, so I’ll explain a bit. I graduated into 2020, working a classic web dev full stack job, full remote, benefits, 90k salary. Larger company, typical agile. Freelanced the whole time for additional income / to develop more skills, bc daily work was easy & remote. Received promotion by end of year to 110k salary, but immediately left for a role which had work that seemed more interesting to me, on a very small team. Although pay was much worse, hours much longer, and work super tough - I took it as I could develop niche and in demand skills aligned with my passions, in a very new field. Was a big fight the entire 1.5 years I was there, with my dad / mom who thought I was being an idiot throwing away sure career progression for a startup. Welp, jokes on them, now that I have 300k+ TC this year lined up & received multiple high paying offers during a tech recession. I was playing the long game.