After a decade in Big Tech, Seattle-based Google principal analytics lead Sundas Khalid says she has increased her income by nearly 700%, earning $292,000 from her full-time job last year and another $302,000 from her content-creation side hustle.
Growing up, Khalid didn’t have much money and wasn’t financially literate. “I was always into saving, but investing was like a foreign world to me,” she told Business Insider. She broke into tech with an Amazon internship in 2013, which led to a full-time data engineering role paying $77,000 in her first year. In 2019, she joined Google as a principal analytics lead.
When it comes to salary negotiations, Khalid says giving the first number is a mistake. “If I wasn’t earning my market value, a company could offer me a lower salary based on the number I shared,” she said. Now, she avoids giving a figure or first asks recruiters about the salary range. She uses tools like levels.fyi to benchmark compensation and prefers negotiating over email.
“I’m good at written communication,” she noted. If negotiations happen over the phone, she rehearses beforehand: “I’ll often do a dry run with a mentor,” she said, adding that having a script helps calm nerves.
Khalid also says that it is extremely important to learn how to invest your money. Early in her career, she kept all her savings in a bank account and didn’t contribute to her 401(k). That changed after reading “The Simple Path to Wealth” by JL Collins and “I Will Teach You to Be Rich” by Ramit Sethi. “Spending $20 on a good book can be the best investment in your financial future,” she said. She now automatically invests $2,500 a month into a Vanguard stock portfolio, keeps six months of living expenses in savings, and puts extra money into index funds. To avoid unnecessary spending, she keeps her lifestyle modest: “I avoid buying designer clothes to live frugally.”
Her side hustle has become a major financial cushion. What began as simple career tips on Instagram in 2016 has grown into a thriving content business across YouTube and other platforms, bringing in $302,000 last year through brand partnerships. “Having multiple income streams is now essential,” she said, especially after the wave of tech layoffs in 2023. “If I were to lose my job, I have a plan to fall back on, which gives me a lot of mental peace.” She believes sustainable side hustles must be enjoyable: “If you’re not excited about it, you’ll likely give up after a month or two.”
Khalid also encourages more openness around money. At Amazon, she never discussed compensation with coworkers, but that changed as she grew more financially confident. “The more I learned about investing and money, the more comfortable I became talking about it,” she said. These conversations also helped her price her work better as a creator. “The creators in my network are very transparent with each other.”
For anyone feeling behind on investing or financial literacy, Khalid offers reassurance: “You can catch up, just like I did.”
