It’s rough out there for a lot of workers, especially in the US. The cost of living is rising, incomes are stagnant, and layoffs are constant. Even if you’re doing well for yourself at a $100k+ salary…well, let’s just say that’s not going as far as it used to, especially if you live in a HCOL (high cost of living) area like the Bay Area or NYC. And if you have childcare costs (especially paying for college), student loans, or medical debt? Forget about it!
Apatow Productions
Let’s be real, $200k is the new $100k. So when Reddit user Huge_Ad_7606 asked, “People who make $200k a year, what do you do?” I was VERY curious to see what kind of jobs people are working that actually support a cushy life. And the people of Reddit did not disappoint! Here are the jobs that are netting $200k plus in today’s economy.
We also used some replies from this thread.
1. “I’m a film producer who mainly makes money producing commercials but loses money producing independent films.”
—u/Bubaa3
2. “Author. I make around $300k per year. I write CONSTANTLY lol, I publish about 10 books a year.”
—u/WolfWrites89
“What niche are your books, if you don’t mind me asking?”
—u/freshpicked12
“Romance. It’s where the money is at!”
—u/WolfWrites89
3. “One man crew wallpaper installer. I’m booked 1.5-2 months in advance all year long. My daily rate is about $1000.”
—u/Temporary-Hyena7893
JOKER/Martina Hengesbach/ullstein bild via Getty Images
4. “Geologist.”
—u/jackabeerockboss
“I didn’t know Geologists had game like that.”
—u/SirWaffl3
“They can also consult for real estate companies, assessing the quality of sites for big developments, stuff like that.”
—u/Smooth_Bandit
“Bingo.”
—u/jackabeerockboss
5. “I don’t know what I made in 2025 — probably a bit more than 2024 — but in 2024 I paid taxes on $207k while being self-employed. I was an electrologist, doing permanent hair removal. I don’t do it anymore, due to very recent circumstances, I’m retired at 43. It’s a 600-hour course, then passing a state board exam, then building clientele and reputation. No college required, just a GED or HS diploma. I did it for 12 years.”
—u/Witez3933
“Is that the same as laser hair removal or totally different? It’s cool hearing about a non-traditional success story like this. How did you even find out/decide to take this path?”
—u/louiekr
“Completely different. You insert a fine probe into the hair follicle and destroy the follicle with electricity. My best friend/housemate was having it done (she’s trans) and then started doing it. Eighteen months later, I started. I specifically worked with the trans community. Laser doesn’t get rid of all or even some of the hair. Some ethnicities and hair types don’t respond to laser. The same with the face. It’s also covered by insurance in my state.”
—u/Witez3933
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6. “Heavy machine operator. Seventy-five hours a week, but the family lives nicely.”
—u/Personal-Common470
7. “I own a small takeout/delivery pizza restaurant and currently net about $275K. I’ve worked in Food and Bev my entire life, often working two full-time jobs to support myself. I opened my restaurant eleven years ago and sacrificed everything to my name to get an SBA loan. I worked 70-100 hours a week for the first couple of years and often went without a paycheck to ensure I could pay vendors and make payroll. I lived like a pauper for a long time while I grew the business and paid down my debts. Things slowly got better, and now I’m in a nice position with a phenomenal staff that truly aids in my success.”
“I wasn’t even going to comment on this post, but felt it was important to emphasize how hard I had to work and the stress I had to endure to get here (literal physical work combined with mental stress that nearly drove me to the point of suicide) in addition to how hard I have to continually work to keep my staff happy (both in terms of pay and work life balance). Money is definitely out there to be made by people who aren’t afraid to work for it.”
—u/bld7308
YouTube Red/Premium / Starz
8. “Railroad Conductor.”
—u/HungryNetwork1789
“Same, on the passenger side. Made $201k last year. A lot of OT and aggravation dealing with the public, but the paychecks make it worth it.”
—u/Vegetable_Proof5854
“How did you land in this position?”
—u/DepartmentEcstatic
“If you are in the New York State tristate area, submit your resume to MTA.com/careers and apply to either Metro-North or Long Island Railroad. Locomotive engineers get paid pretty well, too, and also apply to Amtrak. Locomotive engineers over at Amtrak will be at $66 an hour before OT by 2028. The current hourly rate is $58, I believe, and that is nationwide.”
—u/HungryNetwork1789
“Just went to the website and applied.
Before the pandemic, it was very difficult, if not impossible, to be hired if you didn’t know someone working there or have some type of connection. Now, if you have a pulse and don’t smoke weed, you’ll at least get an interview.”
—u/Vegetable_Proof5854
9. “I’m a nurse, and I made 300k last year with OT because I live in California. Base pay was just 125k, though, so I did a lot of (easy) OT. I will make 250k+ this year and 200k+ for the rest of my career here, most likely. By the way, I work with travel nurses that make around $200k in six months. During COVID, they could make $600k+ a year if they worked every day.”
—u/SubstantialEffect929
10. “I’m in corrections nursing in HCOL state (WA), and I hit $201k last year with a bit of OT. I’m not even nearly the highest-paid nurse here. There are nurses with the WA DSHS that were close to half a million. Now that does require a good bit of OT, but it’s possible. Without OT, I’m at $140k.”
“The hospitals still pay a bit more, but the work is MUCH easier. As far as safety goes, I never see inmates unless there are a number of officers with me (policy), and it is much safer here than in the hospitals. I was assaulted at least 7-8 times in hospitals in 4 years, vs zero times at the prison in the past 7 years.
Corrections is the best kept secret in nursing and saved my career for sure.”
—u/Big-Okie
11. “I made $230k last year. I am an air ambulance pilot. My base salary is only like $160k, but I worked a fair amount of overtime. I have worked jobs where I have gotten paid more, but with this job, I am home every night, and there is a lot of value in that for me.”
—u/National-Suspect-733
AntaresNS / Getty Images
12. “If you love OT (overtime), look into being a lineman. I’m an apprentice and made 375k last year. Never went to line school. Got into my utility through entry-level jobs and weaseled my way to the electrical side.”
“I went in as a laborer in the maintenance side of the utility. Maintenance helper. Took night classes in electrical. I already had my commercial before. Some places have meter readers, laborers, helpers, etc.”
—u/Ibedubya18
“I have a friend who is a lineman. He went to lineman school. His base is $200k, before OT or emergencies. His union has shift, holiday, and weekend differentials. IIRC, if he’s working overtime on third shift, on a Sunday, that ends on a Monday holiday, he can earn over $1,000 an hour because his differentials are multiplied by one another, not added together.”
—u/FabiusBill
13. “I’m a senior video producer for a company in Silicon Valley. Base is around $160k with an additional $25k in bonus and roughly $40-50k a year in stocks. Honestly, though, it doesn’t feel like I make over $200k a year because so much of it goes to taxes. I have almost eight years of experience, but I started from the ground up and had zero connections. It was half hard work and half luck, in my opinion. Five years ago, I was making $17.50/hr, had $180k in debt, and was sleeping in my car. Now I’m debt-free and just bought a decent-sized condo. I hustled to turn my life around.”
—u/Goguma12
14. “I do in-home sales for an exterior remodeling contractor. My schedule consists of driving to 1-3 homes a day, figuring out their problem, finding a solution, demoing a product, writing an estimate, and closing the deal on the spot. Signature & check in hand. I have a $47,840 base, then make between 5% and 12% on gross sales. Sliding scale depending on job profitability. I’m in my fourth year now. For the past two years, I have surpassed $2,000,000 and made over $200,000.”
“It’s definitely not an easy job. You see a lot of weird shit and meet a lot of weird people. It can be incredibly rewarding at times, though. My schedule is flexible, I can work from home at times, and I rarely work nights or weekends.”
—u/OJConcentrates
15. “Healthcare IT (systems admin). 100% remote job. Forty hours a week and salaried at 200k. I get about a $20k yearly bonus on top, plus 401 (k) and Roth IRA investments from work (free medical/dental coverage as well). Out of the eight hours per day, I really work for around 4-5 hours…the rest is surfing Reddit/playing games on my gaming laptop in my home office (sometimes day naps in between boring meetings). NEVER leaving this job and gonna retire here…lol.”
—u/Fragster2020
Judgmental Films
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16. “Test engineer in the self-driving car biz. It’s an odd job in the sense that you’re not doing software development the majority of the time, but it’s absolutely required to be good at your job. It might be a lot of manual review/data manipulation/talking to people, and thinking about how to do things. Then, finally, developing the solution and starting the process over. 250k base and +/- 150k stock.”
—u/anonathon420
17. “Anesthesiologist, 550k. If you do generally well on tests, I don’t think there is a better gig out there. You have to do really well on like three tests. I went straight through with relatively little debt. Now loving life at 38.”
—[deleted]
18. “If you want something totally different to consider, my stepfather cleared that as a stone mason. He was just very good, could create unusual things, and stone work is very popular in New England. He worked hard, but boy did he make money.”
—u/danceswithsockson
19. “Airline Pilot. Made the $200k by mid-May.”
—u/swadeyeight
“I’m guessing you’re flying widebody planes?”
—u/Only-Finish-3497
“I did before Covid. Now I fly narrow body, topped out on the pay scale. Hourly rates, but with guarantees, the base salary is at around $400k; but it’s easy to push up from there.”
—u/swadeyeight
Viceland
20. “I’m a radiologist. $550,000 per year. I had to miss out on a lot in college to study, completely fell into a hole in medical school, had to be top of my class, then did five years of radiology residency and internship. I’m really good at my job and probably earn my group 2-3 million for the 550,000 that I get paid.”
—u/BusinessAccount224
21. “CPA. It’s boring, but I guess everyone else finds it more boring.”
—u/TokiWart00th88
“How long did it take you to achieve 200k?”
—u/Politex99
“Maybe like 12 YOE (years of experience), I’m in an MCOL area. There are people in NY, DC, Boston, SF, etc. who are making more, but when I order a cheeseburger, I order deluxe and don’t feel guilty.”
—u/TokiWart00th88
22. “Dentist. I’m 30 years old; I make well over $200k. Yeah, it sounds great (and I know it will be eventually), but $430,000 of debt is a lot when you factor in the fact that student loans are not tax-deductible and also have substantial interest. When it’s all said and done, the amount I’ll actually have to make (pre-tax) to pay that debt approaches seven figures. I was also 27 before I got my first paycheck. My wife and I had to do long-distance throughout my education, which honestly means we may not be ready to have kids before she’s getting a bit too old for it. There’s definitely some sacrifice to the whole thing. I’ll be in my late thirties before I really see the gains.”
—u/I-like-your-teeth
Netflix
23. “I make $335k base and 50% bonus with another 50% kicker that is pretty much unattainable. So, all in total, the actual annual comp is $502,500. I started as a plumber running service calls and worked my way up over the last 10 years. Now I am VP of one of the largest residential home services businesses in the country. Also got my law degree while running service calls. Never practiced law because I prefer the blue-collar trades, but I believe having that degree and passing the bar exam has definitely helped elevate my career.”
—u/Aggravating_Rest_750
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24. “Commercial roofing ops director. I started as a labor guy at 15 and worked my way up. It took 11 years to hit $200k (around 26 years old). I studied psychology in college, hoping for an ‘interesting’ job. The money brought me back to roofing. I didn’t see it as a blessing back then, but it was. There are also guys in my field who make A LOT more than 200, especially if you’re in sales and well-connected.”
—u/Intelligent_You_8
25. “Community college professor with some additional responsibilities, with release time, overloads, and a stipend. I also get retroactive pay every year. The load this semester is 1.666 FTE (full-time equivalent). I’m a union member, and I have tenure. The union makes all the difference.”
—Beneficial_Walrus886
26. “Union Elevator Mechanic/Troubleshooter and Property Manager. I’m a 34-year-old man. I managed property first and fell into it as a 20-year-old. I was given a shot and haven’t stopped since. It was in that job that I found out about the elevator trade. I got into the trade at 24. Been grinding and learning ever since. Between managing property (I work for my housing, contracted at ~$3200/month) and a full-time elevator job + OT, I cleared $200k+ for the first time last year.”
“It was quite a feat for me and something that wasn’t even a thought in my early twenties, just grinding through life. I have no college degree and never attended college. It’s not for everyone, and wasn’t for me. I have had a lot of good people come into my life and taken advantage of every opportunity that has presented itself.
One thing I have learned is that you have to be teachable. Nobody wants to share knowledge with a know-it-all. You have to be open to criticism even if it hurts. Never stop learning, and invest in yourself.”
—u/Niiightmoves
Netflix
27. “Author. Romance and Monsterotica especially make bank — most of my friends are making 300K-600K, and a small handful are topping $1mil+, with 3-5 at $2-3mil. The more backlist you have and the more you push for new readers, the more it grows over time.”
—u/C_Alex_author
28. “Mortgages. I was a blogger for the first half of my life. Mismanaged. Went bankrupt. A friend was making $300K being a broker. Asked me if I wanted to try. Fast forward 8 years, I’m bringing $500k+.”
—u/dp80
29. “Apartment owner. I graduated in 2009 during the recession with an engineering degree and couldn’t find a job, so I started a grass-cutting business, and my clients were banks that foreclosed on homes. Eventually, it became a maintenance company. Once I had enough money, I bought some of the homes I had maintained for the banks. After selling those homes, I bought apartments and just kept getting loans to buy more properties. It’s not fun and very stressful, but I make about $500k, and I am close to retiring (just stepping away from managing the properties) at 35.”
—u/sonicinfinity2
30. “I’m a GM at an RV dealership. Wildly easy work, though I’m debatably underpaid based on the results. The F&I (finance and insurance) manager at my last store cleared 600k this year.”
—u/XRPlease
Jack Smith/Bloomberg via Getty Images
31. “Forensic pathologist, took me 13 years of schooling. Zero regrets and salary goes a long way in an LCOL area.”
“I have the best job in the world. It can be very stressful, but I go to work every day without hating my job. I also only work on average 35 hours a week.”
—u/Myshka4874
32. “I had to work two jobs, a senior analyst for 91k, and an account manager job for 120k at the same time…Until I got caught about seven months in and went down to just the account manager. It was an awesome bankroll for a single person while it lasted.”
—u/MrBofArk
33. “I built a creative company in my twenties and sold that, retaining partial ownership and profit sharing. I make a chunk from that. I own a rental property, so I make a chunk from that. I invest the money I made in my twenties (Wall Street bets is a real thing) and make a chunk from that, and I have a full-time job with the government, making 70k a year, stacking retirement, and working about two hours a week. I do commercial video and photography primarily for tourism.”
“I am currently trying to use my network to do sales for a few of my friends’ startups, and am, by trade, a commercial writer/director/photographer, so I’ll pick up the random $5k for a wedding or $2k per day for a commercial photoshoot, and I just take the day off from my day job because it has fucking three weeks of vacation a year.
I’ve always had to hustle and grew up very poor. Even after building a company, I was only able to land my government gig because of my experience; I only have an associate’s degree from a community college, and most of those gigs require a bachelor’s. I’ve been so lucky, but I also see this whole thing as a game.
I got into this by getting a camera when I was 14 and a cracked copy of Photoshop. I just never put any of it down and said yes to everything I could.”
—Fun-Choices
“The government job is two hours a week?”
—biggamehaunter
“I’m exaggerating, but I do less than eight hours of actual work per week.”
—u/Fun-Choices
34. “I was a general surgeon for 33 years, and am now retired. Consider that it took four years and a college degree, where you have to be near the top to get accepted to medical school. Medical school is four years of extreme studying and hard work, followed by five years of general surgery residency, which was a pyramid program (meaning that five residents were accepted for first-year positions, but by the fourth year, they only had two positions, three having been weeded out). For the 33 years of practice, I averaged a 60-70-hour work week, including weekends, holidays, and maybe all hours of the night. I never minded people who envied my income IF they also envied the 13 years of hard work it took me to get there, and the long hours I worked.”
“I was self-employed, therefore I paid ALL expenses (payroll, malpractice, office expenses, utilities, health insurance for myself, my family, and my employees). I had to make $175,000 before I reached the break-even point. My salary was what was left over, which was used to buy a house, pay off extensive college and medical school loans, raise a family (3 children), to put them through college, and to contribute to my retirement plan. I bought a new car every 10-12 years. I grossed a lot, but after expenses, netted far less (which I don’t need to divulge on Reddit) and lived frugally.”
I was in a rural community and one of two general surgeons. That meant I was on call 50% of the time (7×24=168 hours/week), so you can do the math. When on call, you are not in control of your schedule. People don’t schedule appendicitis, auto accidents, gunshots, or any other acute problem to make it convenient for the Surgeon. Would I change anything? Absolutely not! In my town, everyone knew your name, knew where you lived, ran into you at the grocery store, church, or at your kids’ sports activities—that was priceless! You felt appreciated and loved by all!”
—u/Dbsson1
NBC
35. “Pharmacist here. I work for a large healthcare company and went from checking pills in bottles to management to corporate to strategy. I now help prioritize and track technology projects. Been north of $200k for about 10 years since I leveled up from entry-level pharmacist work, and been working from home since COVID. Making big decisions with large investments pays well, and there are moments of high stakes and high stress, but generally, balance and flexibility are great, along with solid income.”
—u/KnowledgeBackground8
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36. “UX designer with design system specialty. I waited tables for years. Taught myself and got small jobs and then a part-time gig that turned to full-time for $40k. In 2013, I joined a big company starting at $65k. Ten years later, I’ll make 266k base and will vest about 80k in RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) this year. No fucking idea how I managed to luck out. I’m just naturally very good at it.”
—u/NudeCeleryMan
37. “Lawyer. And work remotely because I speak three languages. To the point where basically, instead of helping draft documents, I just hop on calls and translate for the partners in the firm. I’m basically a liaison, and I am expected to attend lunches and dinners with clients to translate. It’s wild; I regret spending so much time studying for the bar. I could have been an executive assistant or something.”
—[deleted]
38. “I started out as a first officer at an airline 23 years ago, made captain, and stuck around for 10 years. I was fired by a racist training department at a new airline. I started my own aviation business. Now, I’m an aviation entrepreneur who owns two businesses, netting $2M/year. My wife is a dentist who owns her own practice: $300k.”
—u/mrivc211
The Roku Channel
39. “275k (including 20% bonus). I’m a product designer for a tech company on the West Coast. No RSUs at my current role, but I had a million-dollar year two years ago when I sold a bunch of RSUs from my previous tech role. I have almost 20 years of design experience. I started out making $29k a year right out of college as a graphic designer, and after about 10 years, I got up to 75k before getting into tech. I completely lucked out getting into tech.”
—u/badmamerjammer
40. “$645k base + $312k bonus, CFO (Chief Financial Officer). My wife works harder than I do (part-time nurse and full-time mom).”
“I keep a good balance and probably work 35-45 hours a week, depending on what’s going on. Family time is sacred, and I get tons of time with the kids and as a whole family. I am a very active, very engaged father. I recognize my experience is probably not typical, but I am very blessed to have a high-profile, highly fulfilling, and high-earning job. That’s combined with a great family life and (knock on wood) health. Life’s good.”
—u/scottinadventureland
“What was your track to becoming a CFO?”
—u/Suitable_Ad_2852
“Public accounting (audit) until manager, then controllership roles at a few places: Accounting manager => technical accounting director => assistant controller => controller => CFO. Sounds like a lot, but each role post-audit was two years or less, and I made CFO by 40 (I’m 44 now). Lots of luck along the way.”
—u/scottinadventureland
41. “I build cloud architecture. It took me 16 years to get here. I started doing IT Support basically for $20 an hour, and then got into Cloud Support after about eight years of getting paid no more than $40k a year. Once in Cloud Support, I learned a lot on and off the job, built up my vendor certification portfolio to 9 certs, and hopped around companies until I reached a total compensation of over $200k, going from Cloud Engineer to Senior Engineer to Cloud Architect. I wouldn’t interview for jobs that wouldn’t pay at least $20k more than my last position held.”
—u/Big-Razzmatazz-2899
42. “Sales Director, consumer packaged goods. I sell groceries to national chains. In sales in this industry, bonuses can vary quite a bit, but they’re typically in the 20-40% range of base when you’re at middle to upper management of sales. There’s a low barrier to entry; just about any bachelor’s degree will do the trick. Learn the MS Suite, especially Excel and PowerPoint. A lot of ‘soft skills’ are required to balance internal and external customers, and the forever +3-5% quotas can be a grind, but I feel fortunate to do what I do. Still a lot of WFH (work-from-home) opportunities. I’ve been in this industry for about 15 years; I graduated undergrad in ’08.”
“I did campus recruiting at my prior employer, and it was extremely difficult to get interested students to our booth. The CPG (consumer packaged goods) world can be lucrative, but not a lot of people seem to know about it. Definitely not a sexy industry, but it pays the bills. The average age is easily upper fifties, and we’re starting to see tons of retirements. There will be a lot of openings in the next five years.”
—u/Bearcats1984
Bravo
43. “Software Developer, although I got there in a rather roundabout way. I got a degree in Philosophy, lived a bit of a vagabond life for a few years, then that got old, so I spent a few months self-teaching skills directly related to getting hired while also doing side projects for fun. Timing was lucky; I was looking and got hired during the post-COVID hiring rush. Same company still; two promotions and with a ~$25k bonus. My compensation comes to just over 200k with 4.5 YOE.”
—u/kohara2794
44. “Reinsurance Underwriter. Twelve years of experience. I got into it pretty randomly. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life after college, but my father had a close friend who was high up at an insurance company, and he was able to get me an internship. I went to a small college where one of the board members was the CEO of an insurance company. He saw that I had prior experience from my internship and that I went to his Alma mater, so he hired me. Once I was in the door, I was able to work my way up and bounce around between competitors to get my pay up.”
“NYC. $200k base $50k bonus.”
—u/Hlaw93
45. “Market Risk Manager at a large bank; my base is $230K. Bonus brings it to about $285K. My wife is a partner at a corporate law firm; she makes $630K. I’ve been working for 17 years. College => Investment Banking => Market Risk. She has been working in her current role for nine years. College => Unrelated Jobs => Law School => Law.”
—u/SecureContact82
46. And finally, we’ll end on a funny one: “I say ‘nothing on my end’ in Zoom meetings about four times a day.”
—u/battle_pug89
If you make $200k+ a year — or know someone who does — what do you do? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form.
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