> Writing software for Internet routers sounds like pretty specialist stuff. 
> (It's basically writing security-critical software for an embedded 
> platform.) I'd be surprised if somebody with no qualifications other than 
> a degree could actually get a job like that.

They were only taking graduates, so obviously they were going to give 
training, they weren't expecting you to walk in on Monday and start 
programming routers.  The same way as my employer wasn't expecting me to 
walk in on my first day and design an LCD.  Hint, if it has "graduate" in 
the job title it probably means they aren't assuming anything more than a 
typical university course.

>> How come? Even if you started on 20K, a 50% pay increase over 7 years is 
>> not surprising.
>
> Er... OK, I may have got my maths wrong here, but if we assume that you 
> get pay increases as large as 0.5% every single year,

I assumed you'd get about about a 4% raise per year and maybe a single 
10-20% raise for a promotion during those 7 years.

If you're only getting 0.5% per year (last year or two can be excepted for 
obvious reasons) then that is really bad, inflation is usually 2-3% so 
you're actually getting a pay *cut* each year.  Never heard of that unless 
your company is in big trouble or doesn't want you any more.

> She's younger. She hasn't been in accounting for 7 years, and doesn't have 
> her qualification *yet*. (She gets her final exam results this month 
> IIRC.)

By the time she's passed her qualifications and got 7 years experience I 
would expect her to be over 30K.  Then you'll know someone :-)

> I guess as you say, the problem is that I only know people with quite low 
> incomes. It seems incongruous to me that somebody without a PhD in 
> astrophysics [or simply an enterprising genius] could actually earn decent 
> money.

I don't think you need to have a PhD in anything to earn decent money, or be 
amazingly clever.

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