So I’m a systems engineer in the real world for an (almost) unicorn (current valuation might even have tossed us over that magic number). My salary is on the lower end of the spectrum but I’m happy with it because normally the work life balances is dandy. My total comp is well into 6 figures USD. Oh and I’m fully remote.

Now, this is not something you can get out of highschool. I’ve been working with Linux for 10+ years, built (and maintained) entire AD forests, have a fairly deep understanding of networking and containerization, etc.

Again. You don’t start like me. You start getting a gig in front line help desk and answer questions. In your free time at work you learn (that’s never going to stop). Eventually your outgrow help desk and move into some other role (and keep learning). The people who are successful in this field A) can always be learning, B) have a means to destress/avoid burnout and C) have customer service skills.

There is an author - Tad Williams, who wrote the “Otherland” series. One of the chapters has the some of the main ensemble going to “treehouse” - aka what happened in this universe when the nerds, geeks and techno wizards took their ball and went home. The series as a whole is interesting if you like sci-fi. That chapter however seems more and more on the nose the older I get.

Even if you don’t have a Tesla there are a handful of apps out there that will help.

Now if we could get everyone on the same stupid plug - but thats a different conversation.

Your brain sees the reward (karma) and gets a hit of dopamine. In theory this creates a spiral of encouraging you to post more contet for more dopamine hits. More content pulls in more users…