About

Growing up I was always skeptical of the word ‘career’. Athletes had careers. Criminal Lawyers too. At least they had either personal bests or were able to count the amount of wins they had notched up. I came to the conclusion that the word was used by rich business owners to give us simple folk the illusion of something we were in control of. A lie that incentivised us to trade the best years of our lives for a miserable job. While they were flying around the world in their private jet or out playing golf, we were stuck in an office for 8 hours (perhaps more) every day slaving away to earn a pittance and build our ‘careers’.

While my skepticism is, at least in some cases, justified, it meant that I failed to consider two important things. Firstly, most business owners and CEOs have made immense sacrifices to get to that position. Secondly, I had been so intent on rebelling against the system that I had completely missed the point of a job – to earn as much money as possible. Instead I chose to do work that I enjoyed rather than look for positions that were paying well. After years of living in limbo between paydays, in 2018 I finally decided to seek out work that paid better. Here is what my journey looked like:

2018: I left my position in a travel company paying around £20,000 a year and joined a major eCommerce firm paying a base salary of £28,000 and commission totalling around £12,000.

2020: Almost 50% of employees at the eCommerce firm, including my entire team, were made redundant during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the time I was furious for being let go, but then I landed a new job in a SaaS company paying £33,000 base plus nearly the same in commission – around £65,000 total.

2024: The big one. After seeing my requests for a salary increase fall on deaf ears (despite the fact that I had smashed targets and generated large amounts of revenue) I switched to a Cloud Communications company that paid me a total of £175,000 – £100,000 base salary plus around £75,000 commission.

2026: The next step. I took a break from being an employee and launched an events company specialising in tech meet-ups, hackathons and networking with a close friend of mine.

TL;DR: I went from £20,000 to £175,000 in just six years.

It made me think what I could have achieved if I had adopted this mindset straight after graduating from university. While I still baulk when people say the word ‘career’ what I will say is that there is a game to be played. A sort of stepping stone dance, if you like. I am not talking about stepping on other people to achieve what you want – this is wrong. I am talking about using companies to learn and earn.

Companies replace us all the time. Merger or acquisition? You are no longer needed. You’ve been there for 15 years? “We appreciate your loyalty but it’s nothing personal”. Missed your target last quarter? Best case scenario they’ll put you on a performance improvement plan which normally ends in you jumping before being pushed. Companies are not your family. Most do not care about you, especially the large corporations. You don’t owe them anything and, to be fair, they don’t owe you either. Ladies and gentlemen, this is business. While the days of working for one company your entire life or long gone, staying at the same company for more than 5 years is now also questionable.