- 22/07/2025
Discover how I built 13 diverse income streams as a full‑time software engineer and part‑time content creator at only 23 years old. Check out the links below for the resources and my exclusive course on landing your first tech job!
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00:00Excuse me sir, what do you do for a living?
00:02So, I'm a full-time software engineer, part-time content creator,
00:06but with everything under the hood, I effectively have 13 income sources.
00:10And so in this video, I'm going to be giving you a complete breakdown,
00:12financial transparency of how I make my money, what I do,
00:16and I hope that there's some value you can derive out of this video
00:18and that you appreciate this level of transparency.
00:21And with that being said, let's get started right away.
00:23In my 9-to-5 software engineering job, I work for a Silicon Valley-based company,
00:26and my compensation is broken up into three major components.
00:30First is salary.
00:31This is what gets deposited to my bank account every two weeks.
00:33The average base-level salary for an entry-level software engineer in the U.S.
00:37is close to $118,000, but depending on the company you work for and location,
00:42it can vary a lot.
00:43Like I said, I work for a Silicon Valley, California-based company,
00:46and so you'll see this number being a little bit higher,
00:49in the range of $120,000 to $170,000.
00:52Plus, I got a little bit of a boost when I started working
00:54because I did complete my master's in computer science,
00:57which on average gives people a 10% to 15% pay bump.
01:01The second component, or income source, is stock compensation.
01:04And this is where things get pretty interesting.
01:07Let's say you're a brand new engineer starting your job at Amazon.
01:10They may say,
01:10we will grant you $100,000 over four years in RSUs or restricted stock units.
01:17So every year, they'll give you $25,000 worth of their company stock up to four years.
01:22And I know that this sounds pretty amazing, but it's more like bittersweet.
01:26On one hand, RSUs are wonderful,
01:27because especially if you work for a company like Amazon and their stock does phenomenal,
01:32that initial $100,000 grant could end up becoming $200,000, $300,000, $400,000.
01:38In fact, 33% of NVIDIA engineers are millionaires today
01:42because their stock has been going up to the moon over the last year.
01:46But on the flip side, RSUs can be seen as being very evil
01:50or a way to handcuff software engineers to their job.
01:53Because it typically requires four years to get your full payout,
01:56you're pretty much stuck working there all four years
01:59because otherwise you sacrifice a lot of compensation.
02:01In fact, with Amazon specifically, they don't pay you 25% every year.
02:05They pay you 5% the first year, 15% second, 40% your third, 40% your fourth.
02:11So you pretty much have to stay till at least your third year
02:14before you get a serious chunk of compensation.
02:16So they can kind of afford to pay you a little less than market rate,
02:19which is by the way, still phenomenal.
02:21But they can do that because they know that you want to stay there
02:23for that fat payout at the very end.
02:25Another part of stock compensation is ESPP or Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
02:30Now, this is when companies allow you to take 10 to 15% of your base salary
02:35and dedicate that towards purchasing the company stock at a 25% discount.
02:39So imagine you make $100,000 every single year
02:42and you allocate 15,000 of those dollars to purchase your company stock.
02:47And if the stock price is at $100, for example,
02:50you'll get it at a discount of $75.
02:52And just like that, you own 200 shares of your company,
02:55which is worth $20,000, but you only spent $15,000.
02:59So it's almost like an instant $5,000 profit.
03:03Now, you can't sell immediately for obvious reasons,
03:06but generally, if the company isn't doing horrendously,
03:09it's pretty much a guaranteed profit.
03:10My third income source or the third category in software engineering compensation
03:14is bonuses.
03:15And there are many, many different types of bonuses.
03:18The common one people know about is the annual bonus.
03:21And how this works is, so you make $100,000
03:23and your target bonus is 10%.
03:26It's called a target because it's not guaranteed 10% bonus.
03:30And you might ask, why is it not guaranteed?
03:31I thought we're supposed to get paid extra.
03:33Well, it's because of a couple of factors.
03:355% of this 10% is dedicated towards company performance.
03:38And the other 5% is individual performance.
03:41So half of your bonus depends on how is the company doing?
03:44Are they turning profits?
03:45Are they acquiring new customers and general financial metrics for the company?
03:49If they're doing well, you'll probably get 5% of your 10% in this whole category.
03:53But the other 5% is, are you a good engineer?
03:55Are you meeting your goals?
03:56Are you exceeding your goals?
03:57Are you ensuring quality product delivery?
04:00In fact, last year, my company was doing so well
04:02and I was ranked within the top 20% of engineers at my company.
04:05So my target 10% bonus actually ended up being closer to 13% or 14%
04:10because both categories exceeded their relative 5%.
04:14Other types of bonuses are things like relocation bonus.
04:17Like when I first started working, I got a $5,000 bonus to relocate from the East Coast
04:21to San Francisco, California.
04:23Other companies help you out in different ways.
04:25For example, one of my friends at Microsoft had a whole team of movers come to his place
04:29to help him move.
04:30One of my other friends at Google got a free real estate agent to help him find a property
04:34where he was moving.
04:36There are also other types of performance bonuses.
04:38Like for example, if a colleague does really good work, you might tell your manager or your
04:42director and they'll be eligible for a potential $1,000, $2,000 bonus as an award for their
04:47contributions.
04:47So overall from my software engineering job, I earned between $250,000 to $300,000 and I
04:53gave a range of this because the income can fluctuate depending on if the bonus is doing
04:58well, the stock's doing well and just general factors.
05:01Now let's get into an interesting discussion.
05:03So as you all know, I'm a content creator.
05:05I have a presence here on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and threads with the combined
05:09presence of about 700,000 followers.
05:12And very gratefully, I do earn some pretty great money from this.
05:15So let's take a look.
05:16My fourth income source, we got YouTube AdSense.
05:19So you know those videos you see during, hi, do you feel stressed?
05:22The only way you can solve your problems is by investing into my $200 whipped cream.
05:27It's good.
05:28Goes well with pancakes.
05:29And I've been on this YouTube platform for about four years now.
05:32And in order to start getting paid for these ads that would be put on my videos, hi, do you
05:36feel stressed, I had to hit 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours, which took me nearly
05:42nine months to hit nine months of consistently posting three long form videos per week.
05:47And once I did my first day, I made a grand total of $1 and 39 cents.
05:51And that whole week I made a few extra dollars.
05:54And that whole month I made $22 and 67 cents.
05:57And I felt like a king, but that was back in 2021 when I just hit 1000 subscribers.
06:02But over time, very gratefully, my platform started to grow and now I have around 40,000
06:06subscribers averaging around 30 to 50,000 views per video.
06:10So I make a decent 700 to $1,000 per month on YouTube.
06:14So thank you for not skipping my ads.
06:15My fifth income source is the TikTok Creator Fund.
06:18And at the time of filming, I have around 165,000 followers on that platform, which probably
06:23won't exist by the time that this video goes live.
06:25But pretty much you need to hit 10,000 followers and have 100,000 views in order to qualify for
06:31this program.
06:31So it's a little easier than the YouTube requirements.
06:33And what's insane is you can go viral so much easier on a platform like TikTok.
06:37And once I got monetized there, I was making $2 per 1,000 views, which is really insane
06:43considering the reach that you can have on TikTok.
06:45In fact, from this one video that I made, spending literally 20 minutes between two work
06:49meetings, I got 3.3 million views on that video and made over $1,000.
06:54And that month on TikTok, I made nearly $6,300.
06:57But I know it low-key sounds too good to be true.
07:00And you're right.
07:01It was too good to be true.
07:03Because as I continued to post on TikTok and my views would go up, my follower count would
07:08go up.
07:08I was reaching a really wide audience.
07:10I was hitting countries outside the United States where they don't have that much purchasing
07:14power.
07:15So my revenue per 1,000 views started to decline.
07:18And like I said, it started off at $2 per 1,000 views.
07:21But once I went more and more viral, it went all the way down to $0.50 per 1,000 views.
07:27And so instead of making thousands of dollars for millions of views, I would only make a
07:31few hundred dollars for millions of views.
07:33Not to say that that's bad.
07:34And I'm very grateful for the situation I'm in.
07:36But as a business owner, and I treat this as a business, relying on that as a source of
07:41revenue from which I pay people to do services like editing videos or purchasing camera equipment,
07:46mic equipment, it's just not a reliable monetization strategy.
07:49So I decided to focus a little more on Instagram.
07:52My sixth source of income is Instagram bonuses.
07:54And this one, I honestly can't really tell you that much because the program's invite only.
07:59I don't know definitively why I got invited and why some people didn't get invited.
08:02I mean, thankfully, I do have over like 440,000 followers on that platform.
08:07And very thankfully, I make between $800 to $1,200 per month.
08:11My seventh income source is sponsorships.
08:13If you're a creator, this is where the real money actually starts.
08:16Depending on how many followers, your reach, your engagement, and your general likability,
08:21of course, I'm good, right?
08:22Brands will offer you a certain amount of money to make videos promoting a product or service.
08:26And I've worked with companies like AWS, ServiceNow, IBM, and I've made just from sponsorships
08:31alone over six figures in revenue in 2024, which is truly mind-boggling since these
08:36sponsored videos are a little like 30-second clips of me just promoting a product.
08:40But not just that, as a result of this, I've been flown out to tech conferences and campuses
08:44and had opportunities to interview C-level executives, global AI leads, and data scientists.
08:50And I'm honestly just so excited to keep growing this and for opportunities in 2025.
08:54My eighth income source is affiliate marketing.
08:57Now, this one is kind of like a sponsorship, but not exactly.
09:01So I work with this platform called Cody Tech, in which they teach people how to code
09:05from a very basic bite-sized level.
09:07And I honestly think their platform is amazing and they have helped many, many people, which
09:12is why I love working with them.
09:13Their product, by the way, is free.
09:15But if you do happen to want to use their premium features, like their unlimited AI assistant
09:20for queries, my code SAG20 can help you get a 20% discount.
09:25Plus, you're supporting me and helping me run my business so I can continue providing you
09:29free value.
09:30So it's like a win-win-win.
09:32My ninth source of income is one singular product, Land Your First Tech Job.
09:37I launched this course last year in which I offer free resume reviews, advice, technical
09:41and behavioral interview prep, and pretty much everything you need to land your first
09:44software engineering internship or entry-level position.
09:47Very interestingly, I have not once, even once, advertised this because I didn't want
09:52to appear as a sellout.
09:53But I did put it in my YouTube video descriptions and very surprisingly, people have purchased
09:58it.
09:59But not only that, but like some people have actually come up to me in person and told
10:03me how useful it was for them, which honestly didn't make my day.
10:05So if you are interested in landing your first software engineering internship or full-time
10:08job, link will be in the description below and you can check it out.
10:11By the way, on the side, if I made a course in which I taught you guys how to code like
10:15in Python or Java, first of all, what language would you be interested in and what like topics
10:20would you want to know?
10:21Let me know in the comments below.
10:22My tenth source of income is what I call miscellaneous services.
10:25And this is actually why a lot of content creators actually get into the content space
10:29because they typically have a business at the back end and then they create content in
10:34which they get a lot of eyeballs on them so they can like funnel people in.
10:37For me, I don't really have a full-fledged business, but just out of sheer demand of resume
10:43reviews and consultations, I have started doing those and earning money.
10:46My eleventh source of income is speaking engagements.
10:49And very, very gratefully, I have spoken at many places over this last year, including
10:53Stanford, UC Berkeley, Georgia Tech, and in many different cities, including Dallas, Chicago,
10:58Boston, New York, Toronto, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
11:01And as my platforms continue to increase in size, the goal is to continue to grow this
11:05and hopefully earn some money in the process.
11:07And if you're interested in having me speak at a local conference or university, feel free
11:11to reach out.
11:11I'll put a Google form down below.
11:13The next overall section in my income, and this is something that I think everyone should
11:17be doing, and that is investing.
11:20So my twelfth source of income is index fund investing.
11:23And I'm no savvy investor, so I don't like to track individual stocks.
11:27So I systematically invest a portion of my paycheck every week into index funds, which
11:32pretty much gives me a small portion of top performing company stocks.
11:36So a little bit of Apple, a little bit of Amazon, a little bit of Google.
11:40And some of the traditional index funds you probably know of are the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones.
11:44Now, I actually don't invest in those.
11:46In fact, I'm not even allowed to.
11:48Because I'm a Muslim, there are certain financial principles and rules that I need
11:52to follow, meaning certain companies that deal with alcohol or just general prohibited
11:56things in the religion, I'm not allowed to invest in.
11:58So I invest in HLAL and SPUS, which are two index funds that track the S&P 500 and the
12:05Dow respectively, but contain only the Muslim friendly stocks.
12:08And thankfully, this has given me a pretty sizable return over the last couple of years.
12:12My 13th income source, and this is something I recently got into, is angel investing.
12:17Angel investing is pretty much a way an average Joe like myself can invest $1,000 to $5,000
12:22into early stage startups in the hope of them going big so you get a fat payout.
12:28I recently joined Hustle Fund's Angel Squad investing group, and they have a group of VCs,
12:33venture capitalists at the top of the company who receive many proposals from startups looking
12:37to do investment.
12:38Then they do their due diligence, listen to the pitches, and once they decide that they
12:42actually want to invest, they'll inform people in the group of the opportunity.
12:46It's super nice for me because I get to see what new innovative things people are working
12:49on, invest my money, plus I get to expand my network overall, which is something I really
12:54need to do since I'm only 23 years old.
12:56And by the way, if you're interested in angel investing, there'll be a link down below in
13:00the description for you to join.
13:01Well, that's about all I have in this video.
13:02I really hope that you guys enjoyed it, and I hope that you got some value out of this video.
13:06Now, if you want to land your first software engineering internship or job for the summer
13:10of 2025, you might be interested in this video right here.
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