How A 40-Year-Old Went From Earning $5.15 Per Hour To More Than $1 Million Per Year: 'I Always Kept My Eyes Open For New Opportunities'

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Marc Guberti

Sat, Apr 5, 2025, 11:00 AM 4 min read

It's mean for radical to summation their income arsenic they get much enactment acquisition and make caller skills. However, a caller "CNBC Make It" video tells the communicative of a 40-year-old who went from earning $5.15 per hr to netting much than $1 cardinal per year. He is 1 of the outliers that tin animate others to prosecute bigger goals.

Jamal Robinson started successful the accelerated nutrient manufacture and yet became a tech worker. Along with the vocation jumps came a ample portfolio, and helium managed to accumulate a $3.5 cardinal nett worthy earlier turning 40.

Robinson shares his travel and immoderate of the strategies helium utilized to accelerate his earnings.

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The wage for his archetypal occupation aft assemblage wasn't substantial. He told CNBC that helium was lone acceptable to gain astir $32,000 per year, but the discourse surrounding this occupation acceptable him up for seven-figure years.

It turns retired that $32,000 per twelvemonth was a monolithic underpay, and helium did immoderate speedy probe to observe that the mean technologist was making $54,000 per twelvemonth astatine the time. Robinson called HR astir this discrepancy, and the institution instantly offered him an further $10,000 per year.

While $42,000 per twelvemonth was inactive little than average, Robinson saw the benefits of negotiating a higher salary. A azygous email accrued his net by much than 30%.

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The acquisition changed him, causing him to ever enactment connected apical of mean salaries. Robinson said that helium asks his peers however overmuch they marque to gauge if helium is getting a just salary.

Robinson didn't enactment astatine that archetypal occupation for long. He worked successful startups and moved from 1 occupation to the next, raising his wage on the way.

"I ever kept my eyes unfastened for caller opportunities," helium told CNBC.

He didn't conscionable instrumentality caller jobs. He besides made a conscious effort to physique connections with his peers. Those connections helped him onshore jobs astatine IBM, Amazon, Intel, Microsoft, and different tech giants. Working for those companies and occupation hopping helped him accelerate his earnings. It didn't instrumentality agelong for him to spell from hardly making 6-figures to being heavy successful the 6-figure range. Then, his yearly net exceeded $1 million.

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