You don't mention: where you are located; what current job you have; what's DS; what kind of dev work have you done.
Also, any github / stack overflow link, so that we can get a better sense of your skills?
I know some rather mediocre developers on £550 day rates.
For perm positions, such roles aren't too uncommon for senior/lead level devs in finance, tech consultancy (doing SAP/Salesforce work at some place like Accenture, etc) or the top tech firms - though you'll want to avoid the underpaying Shoreditch start-ups.
Does mean living in London though, where a £100k salary still barely gets you a mortgage for a 3 bed semi. Plus, £100k will soon be worth about €27 but right now it's about 1:1.
So, it kind of depends on what you're willing to do for money. I'm personally not quite enthusiastic at the idea of working for either.
Alternatively try to land a remote job for some Valley-based or other VC backed company, but beware of the tax and legal implications of doing so.
I wouldn't do contracting again without serious money (aka F-U-Money levels, or a full year worth of expenses) in the bank.
In many companies, low-level managers don't earn that much (especially green ones, which it sounds like you would be during the time frame you specified). Companies wouldn't want to distract all their employees by offering a huge pay bump just to switch fields.
When you ask for money you should first talk about what you can contribute. Which is?
I suspect it's data-scientist, which is a pretty hot field/buzzword these days.
Options are :
- CTO but not early stage
- freelancing : 7 years of experience could be more than 500€ per day. And if you are in a niche, could be much more
- Remote for an american company
- I know some startups in Paris which hire at more than 100k euro but you need to be outstanding.
One piece of advice though: Don't do it for the money (or the money alone, at least). If you want to run a sustainable consulting practice you have to be passionate about what you're doing and constantly deliver high-quality work.
Confidently marketing your services is essential. If you're good at solving important problems for your customers that should be reflected in your rates. Speaking of which, if possible adopt value-based pricing instead of time-based, i.e. daily or hourly, rates.
Do you want to be a manager? If not, you will be trading a life of misery for a modest pay raise.
Looks like you hit a nerve (perhaps a somewhat guilty one) with some users.
But I was wondering similar - why does the OP feel the need to earn this much money? I suspect psychological rather than financial insecurity, given that they're already likely to be a relatively high earner.