[l_j_w]

I do, but I worked my way up to it over the past 30 years. I went to University back in 1989 in Munich, but was only there for a year and a half. My father was in the military and was deployed to the Desert Storm war so my mother had me come home. I did some night school classes while working during the day, but never did end up getting a degree. In ‘96 I went to a state sponsored training program started to train people in mainframe programming for the upcoming Y2K work. So I started as an assembler programmer on an IBM OS/360 system and eventually moved to COBOL. I started off at $26K living in Atlanta, GA. Still live here 28 years later, still a developer, current title was Analytics Architect, but company recently did title updates to match the industry, so I am now a senior staff engineer. I make a little over 200k base and get a COL adjustment and 10-15% bonus every year. I’ve been at my current company 20 years, currently enjoying a month long sabbatical to celebrate that. My area of Atlanta isn’t too HCOL, I live in the city of Decatur area. I’ve avoided leaving the perimeter and moving to the suburbs, trying to stay in the more democratic area away from the white flight. Since I‘be been at my job so long my work life balance is great. I do my 40hr weeks, 4 days at home, 1 in the office. I don’t work late or on weekends. I could have probably been making quite a bit more by now if I’d job hopped, but I like my job and my salary is more than enough to support me and my wife.