Yes - there are people who win the lottery too. My point is that there isn’t enough for this to really be a thing we should put up as anything but fantasy. If you think you’re gonna get a recruiter who lands this in your inbox - buy lottery tickets instead.

I see and agree.

But it does help to inform people the right way to proceed if 800k in 20hrs a week is their goal :)

As long as you do it whilst handing them a salt shaker.

I've encountered shops billing $300+ per hour for fairly routine types of software work. And yeah, that's still pretty far away from the $800/hr or so that would be 800k for 20hr weeks, but we're not talking super specialists there. And you're not gonna take home all of that if you're just an employee at that shop, but if you go independent or start your own shop... you suddenly have a higher ceiling for basically just "doing the same thing you were already."

It does take a very specific additional skill set to build up a network of clients and have the patience for that to turn into something where you're regularly booked, but if money is the number one thing you want to optimize for, it's something you should investigate.

Bill out rate and pay the employee rate are entirely different things

If you own the shop, what you can pay yourself may be closer to the bill-out rate, at least I think that's the idea.

Senior....

* Accountants doing company liquidations

* Trial lawyers

* Performance artists

Others I cannot think of. Pay rates over $1,000/hr are surprisingly common. Many of the recipients work fewer hours as a result