This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Mitchie Nguyen, a former product marketing manager at Google and Meta. Insider has verified her income with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I've spent about six years working in the tech industry at companies such as LinkedIn, Meta, and Google.

In college, I studied sociology and media studies. I had no prior exposure to the tech industry or even the corporate world, and I didn't know what I wanted to do after college.

I found it really hard to convince companies to take a chance on me with my sociology degree, especially for roles that I was looking for within tech. They typically look for students majoring in business or computer science.

Finally, I decided to start a club in college called Diversatech, a tech-consulting club that would bring students of all majors to gain experience with companies like Google, LinkedIn, and Figma.

In the club, the side project I worked on helped me stand out. It showed that I could build something from zero to one, and it ultimately helped me land a role at LinkedIn after college.

LinkedIn wasn't the highest-paying new college-graduate offer I received. I took the pay cut with the hope that having LinkedIn on my résumé would open more doors further down the line. I think the bet paid off because it was much easier to get past résumé screens and interview rounds. It likely played a role for me in securing an offer from Google within a year.

LinkedIn: Business-leadership program, sales associate$50,981 base salary + $17K annual target bonus

After I graduated in 2017, I joined LinkedIn's business-leadership program, which is a rotational program. First, you worked in customer operations and then spent a couple of months in recruiting. This person will ultimately become a sales development representative.

I was super passionate about the company and its mission, but I wasn't passionate about sales — I wanted to try something more strategic like product marketing. So I started looking elsewhere.

Google: Associate product-marketing manager$91,000 base salary + 15% annual bonus target + $64K stock package vested over four years

I joined the associate product-marketing program at Google, where I fell in love with product marketing. When I was there, it was a 2 ½-year program — the first rotation was 18 months, and the second rotation was 12 months.

My first rotation was in global programs and events for Google Cloud. I got to travel to 10 countries a year, including Japan, Austria, Australia, Italy, and Spain. It gave me a lot of exposure to running a business within each geographic area and taking into account cultures and norms.

During the second rotation, I joined the privacy team as an associate product-marketing manager — I love this role because I got to tap into my background in sociology and media studies to understand how we could build more responsible technology products that respected people's privacy, which was becoming increasingly important at the time.

Meta: Product-marketing manager$150,000 base salary + $15K target bonus + $80K over 4 years stock package + $20K sign-on bonus

In 2020, Meta contacted me about joining their privacy product-marketing team for their new augmented-reality and virtual-reality products. I applied and successfully got the role, which provided me with exposure to early product development. I aggressively negotiated the salary and also secured a promotion.

Shortly after joining Meta, I was surprised to receive another promotion.

I took on various roles during my time there, starting with building the privacy product-marketing team for augmented-reality and virtual-reality products. That was an exciting time as VR was gaining popularity because of the pandemic and people staying home.

I had the opportunity to be at the forefront of emerging technology and work on some really cool early product development.

Then, I decided to follow a respected manager and underwent an internal transfer to a new team. This role became my personal "mini MBA" as I gained extensive knowledge in aspects of the business, including long-term product roadmap, sales, and category management.

I joined Facebook with a $150,000 base salary in November 2020. By the time I left in June 2023, my base salary was $196,000.

Many people talk about salary bumps as a benefit of job-hopping. However, the No. 1 reason and motivation has always been to gain a breadth of experience.

When you're starting out in your career, it's important to explore roles and build a network in new companies. Through all these jobs, I gained confidence and skills from sales to product marketing. That's why I quit my job at Meta to start my own startup in the creator economy.

Some may think leaving during an economic downturn is crazy, but I wanted to use my knowledge to try something on my own.

I can always return to the tech industry if my startup doesn't work. Through job-hopping, investing, side hustles, and a little luck — I'm in no rush to return to a corporate job, so I have no hard timeline just yet.

Worse comes to worst, I'll eventually find another job at another tech company, but if the stars align, this won't happen soon.

You don't need to get it right on the first try. Job-hopping helped me realize what I did and didn't like, and I made career moves accordingly.

I realized my 20s was my time to explore roles and industries. Our careers span upwards of 40 years, so I wanted to take full advantage of exploring — I feel the later you get in your career, the harder it is to drop off and do something else.

When you become more senior, the company values more depth and progression. They want to see that you can stay long-term.

If I were to sum up the biggest learning out of my short, six-year career, it's to not be afraid of change and take a chance on yourself — trust that everything will work out.

If you work in tech, finance, sales, or marketing and want to share your salary journey, email Aria Yang at ayang.com.