Reminds me my first year as a webdev. I was extremely lucky to ride the apex web 2.0 hype/insanity wave. Now I can't believe myself that I, as a 21 years old and just 3 years of for-profit programming experience, got CAD 85k on first real job Canada for just jquery animations.

Later down the career path in Canada, I was frequently asked "you worked for guy A and B, than must've been hell of a job?" or "how I got there to begin with?" All of them dismiss my explanation that "I just used to be on line 1 of google for thing A"

The back side of the coin? The moment web 2.0 became a more of an "in-house" production with mid-to-big sized companies that no longer needed a "hired gun" outsider, and hype wave moved to other things I really hit a wall. Actually, on my next 2 jobs I took salary in $70ks and was contemplating selling major life assets after my last employer in Canada was unable to extend my work permit.

Things went much better after I scaled down my appetites and stopped looking for employment with companies obsessed with "rockstar hiring"