140K, SF Bay Area, Analytics/BI/Data Science
5 year timeline:
Dropped out of PhD Program (STEM program- not CS)...
year 1) Terrible economy, took non-paying internship, did sporadic contract work. At one point took home a job application to work as a barista.
year 2) 40k a year. Full time job at crappy company doing random, interesting work- mostly non-technical.
year 3) started working with "big data", really developed my technical skills. 80k
year 4) Continued big data work, with more experience, started making a real impact on product 90-105k base
year 5) Moved companies, now at 140k base