How I increased my Data Analytics salary by 110% in 11 months 💰
$73K to $153K -- every move I made and HOW! 👀
Got BDE?⚡️
Hi BDEs! ⚡️
Today we’re gonna be talking all about the juicy stuff… 💰💴🤑
Ya’ll know I love transparency, so here’s allllll the tea of my past salaries 🫖
⚡️If you’re new here:
💁🏽♀️ Who Am I?
I’m Jess Ramos, the founder of Big Data Energy, and I help people like you:
get their first job in data analytics (even from non-related fields)
grow in their data careers by upskilling, negotiating salaries, & navigating politics
I’m also the creator of the BEST SQL course and community: Big SQL Energy⚡️.
Check me out on socials: 🔗LinkedIn, 🔗Instagram, 🔗YouTube, and 🔗TikTok.
⚡️ Social Highlights:
I over-doubled my salary in an 11-month period.
I increased my salary by 110% in only 11 months!!! 🥵
How’d I do it?
Salary transparency matters, so I’ll share all of my past roles and my biggest negotiation tips.
KEY:
🪩 means that I negotiated my salary
🚀 means that I moved companies
(of course I gave y’all a key… I mean I’m a data expert😉)
Here are all of my past roles:
Server: $5/hour
Graduate Assistant: $17/hour + tuition waved
Data Analyst Intern: $17/hour 🚀
Data Analyst: $71,500 + $19K bonuses
Senior Data Analyst: $73K
Data Analytics Manager: $95K 🪩
Senior Risk Analyst: $130 + $9K bonus 🪩🚀
Senior Data Analyst: $153K 🪩🚀
Job Hopping and Cashing in 🤑
For my first Data Analytics role, I didn’t negotiate my salary much because I didn’t think I was worth it. (don’t follow in my footsteps here, PLEASE negotiate even if it’s your first role! Companies expect you to, and if you don’t you’re leaving money on the table!!)
Then I was later promoted in title a year later but I didn’t receive a salary increase. I tried and they said no. They didn’t have a lot of budget, and I didn’t come as prepared as I should’ve been… UNTIL…
When I was promoted again to Data Analytics Manager, I advocated for a salary adjustment (+29%) since I was managing people, planning projects, and growing in leadership and responsibility within the company. I truly deserved it. I wrote a 1-pager with all of my accomplishments over the past year, the additional duties I was performing, and the average market salary from multiple sources. I provided all the evidence and data to support a salary increase. I made it easy to say yes.
Then, I moved to a different company as a Senior Risk Analyst because I knew it’s what I had to do to continue to grow my skills. I had several competing offers for higher salaries which showed me my true worth and allowed me to negotiate a higher salary at my chosen company (+37%). I let the market decide my salary through multiple offers instead of guessing random numbers in interviews. I used my other offers as leverage to get more money!
In my most recent job switch 2.5+ years ago, I was seeking a new growth opportunity and increased my salary by 18%. I attribute my success in this switch to working really hard on my interviewing and communication skills. I focused on how to communicate my value through the STAR method, live coding, and statistics.
This puts me at a ~110% increase from $73K to $153K in only 11 months… I got an internal raise by self-advocating for myself with a 1-pager and then job hopped twice. I had a busy year, OK 😅 It’s not ideal to job hop twice in 1 year, but my senior risk analyst job ended up being not what I wanted and a terrible fit, so I left in 4 months. But hey, I did get another salary increase!!
Here are my biggest salary takeaways:
ALWAYS negotiate your salary (Notice how my salary grew when I started negotiating!)
Be on top of the market value— know your worth and talk to others in your field.
Don’t lowball yourself— let the market decide your value.
Practice interviewing— show your value through communication and tech interviews.
Be transparent with others— you never know who you might help!
This was inspired by a few conversations I've had recently with entry-level analysts who were bummed to get offers lower than expected. I shared my salary trajectory with them and reassured them that they could increase their salary quickly after getting some valuable experience. It really helped motivate them to see the upward potential in this field, and I think they felt better knowing that a 6 figure Data Analytics salary isn’t realistic for your first role.
Being transparent can only help others.
What's your salary? 👀
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