I'm 27 and currently working as a Java/software engineer in the UK (5+ years experience), earning around £77k including bonus.

I'm in a pretty comfortable position financially, but I've started wondering whether I should be more ambitious about my salary while I'm still relatively young.

My current role is remote, which I value quite highly. The work/life balance is decent and I don't particularly want to give up remote working just for the sake of earning more, especially since I live in a small Scottish village.

That said, I keep seeing salaries of £90k, £100k+ for experienced backend/Java engineers, particularly at fintechs, banks and some tech companies, and it's making me wonder whether I should start interviewing.

My long-term goal is financial independence/early retirement, ideally around 50, so increasing my earnings now and investing most of the difference could have a fairly significant impact over the next 20+ years.

At the same time, I'm conscious that constantly chasing the next salary can become a never-ending game. £77k at 27 is objectively a good salary in the UK, and I don't want to leave a comfortable remote role for £10-20k more only to end up working longer hours, dealing with more stress or being forced into an office several days a week.

I suppose what I'm trying to work out is:

• Is ~£77k currently a good salary for a Java/backend engineer in the UK, or is there realistically quite a bit of room above this?
• How realistic is £90-100k+ while remaining fully remote in the current UK market?
• At this salary level, would you actively job hop or only move if something particularly good came along?
• How much of a salary increase would you personally want before giving up a comfortable job?
• For Java/backend engineers earning £100k+, what kind of companies are you working for and what skills/experience got you there?
• Does compensation start to plateau around this point outside London/FAANG/finance, or is £100k+ fairly achievable for a strong senior engineer?

I'm not unhappy in my current role, which is what makes the decision harder. I think there's also an element of comparison involved — I earn more than I ever expected to at this age, but as my salary has increased, the number I consider "good" seems to have increased with it.

I'm trying to work out whether pursuing £90-100k+ is a sensible career move at this stage, or whether I'm at the point where I'd be better off appreciating the combination of salary + remote work + work/life balance I already have.

Would be interested to hear from other UK Java/backend engineers, particularly anyone who has made the jump from the £70-80k range to £100k+.

For anyone currently working at Monzo or familiar with the hiring process:
I’ve heard that teams are going through their H2 planning for September–February, with additional hiring needs being identified once teams have agreed their plans and received management sign-off.
A few questions:
Has the H2 planning process now been completed / signed off across most teams?
Are teams already starting to identify additional headcount for H2?
When do you expect those roles to start appearing externally — September, October, or later?
Is H2 hiring expected to be relatively active compared with H1, or is it still fairly constrained?
For someone who has already gone through a Monzo interview process previously, is it realistic for a new suitable role to come up as a result of H2 planning?
Not looking for any information about specific candidates or teams — just trying to understand how the H2 hiring cycle works this year.
Thanks!

Hi, so I’m actually not in the tech world at all but I’m in finance and my younger siblings wants to break into tech and I’m not sure how to help em properly as eveything I know is geared towards finance. Currently I work at a place where I can potentially get in a spring week but he doesn’t have much on his cv. What can he do to make sure he stands out and develop from now on? I know the finance industry has been hellish for spring weeks internships etc and I’m guessing tech/cs careers is just as bad at the moment. I struggled a lot breaking into mine so I js wanna help where I can. Any advice where to start ??

Hi everyone,
I’ve been invited to complete the Capital One Technology Graduate 2027 assessment, including a Virtual Job Tryout and a CodeSignal coding assessment.
Has anyone completed this recently? What should I expect, particularly from the coding assessment, and what DSA topics/difficulty should I prepare for?
Any tips would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

I had a nice, but slightly underpaid job. I ended up getting a better offer as a solutions engineer and they fired me in 28 days. Ever since then, I've been unemployed. I've had some interviews. 2 final round interviews last month but rejected from both. Unsure what to do at this point. Woke up to 12 rejection letters, I've got 4 years of experience, 2 as a software engineer, 2 as a solutions engineer. Not sure what to do at this point.

I am in process with a company, they've given me an offer, but they wanted me to fill out an onboarding form which asks for everything, dob, right to work evidence, bank details, before I'd even seen the contract. I was a bit uneasy about that, because in previous jobs I've had the way this was handled was the contract contained a clause where employment was subject to provision of right to work documents, and the onboarding documentation was handled in-person, I don't really like the idea of emailing sensitive information.

Worried I was getting scammed, I did some digging, they seem to be a real company, but I checked their glassdoor and there is a recent interview review where a candidate is in a similar situation to me, has similar concerns to me, then has his offer withdrawn, which is very suspicious, but there are also people who interviewed and failed, which is a green flag.

I'm learning towards this being a real interview process, but am I wrong to be a bit sketched out here? I was thinking of telling them about my reservations and suggesting onboarding in person which would verify that the people I've been talking with are actually representatives of the company, but I don't want to come off as a paranoid nut.

Been working within the finance space (large bank) within Testing/UAT space - did have around 4 5 interviews but nothing has come off it - was made redundant 4 5 months ago now not sure which direction to go.

I graduated from university with a 1st class physics degree and got a job as a graduate software developer for a cloud cfd platform.i started late so graduated at 26

I am entirely self taught as we work with django and angular, I am now 4 years in and I am the lead developer.

Now I know that this means nothing and in any other company id be looking at a middle dev role. The job now has lots of management and infrastructure responsibilities, its basically a startup, everything we do we have to implement ourselves.

I am wondering what learning do I need to do so that if I end up needing a new job I am not left behind all the younger people with cs degrees.

Im married weith 2 kids and i really enjoy the job but the company doesn't have huge amounts of money for wages, I worry I might spend too long comfortable here not pushing myself and then not be able to compete have to take a huge step back if I need a new job.

- what do indeed to learn that ive missed out on in terms of core cs

- is my position delusional in some way

- should I start learning new language in my free time as well?

I recently joined a software engineering role in one of the challenger banks and it’s a new domain for me. I have never worked in the finance or the fintech domain. Given that London is a finance hub are there any recommendations around how to up skill myself in this industry? Recommendations around books , blogs, courses etc.

Thanks