Earning $250K A Year As A Pakistani AI Researcher in USA

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I Save Half Of My $250K A Year Salary As An AI Scientist | Millennial Money​

Like many U.S. immigrant stories, Hassam Sheikh’s starts with a journey westward with a relatively small sum — $2,000 — in his pocket. When he arrived in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, his landlord wanted three installments of his $600 monthly rent upfront.

That didn’t leave Sheikh much financial wiggle room, especially since, once he started working, he earned just $1,400 a month as a teaching assistant at the University of Central Florida.

That’s perhaps where his story starts differing from the norm: Sheikh came to the U.S. to pursue his doctorate in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

It was a move that Sheikh, now age 33, suspected would be a lucrative one, even if it meant roughing it for a few years. “My financial life as a Ph.D. student was a mess,” he tells CNBC Make It.

From the monthly stipend he earned nine months a year, Sheikh allotted $600 for rent and another $400 for food, putting as much of the remainder as he could into savings.

“I was literally living under the poverty line for like four years, but it was a good experience,” he says. “If I have to choose to do a Ph.D. again — to be at this point in life that I am right now, I would definitely choose it again.”

Sheikh’s relationship with money hasn’t always been quite so breezy. Growing up in a middle-class family in Lahore, Pakistan, finances were a topic of constant discussion, he says.

Questions about having enough money and how to make more were, “not actually a hot topic. It was the most discussed topic at home all the time,” Sheikh says.

For much of his life, the name of the game for Sheikh was working toward jobs with higher salaries and discipline when it came to how he spent money.

“I’ve never been on a vacation in my life — even as a kid. I don’t know what a vacation is,” he says. “We basically focused on needs all the time. I felt like I was programmed in a way to always look for needs.”

For Sheikh, that meant feeding, sheltering and clothing himself while he pursued an education. He completed his bachelor’s in computer engineering at the University of Lahore in 2012 and went straight on to his master’s in advanced computer science and artificial intelligence at the University of Manchester. After a short stint back in Pakistan, off to the U.S. he went to pursue his doctorate.

“I pretty much spent all of my youth, my 20s, in education,” he says. And because he was so focused on living frugally and never letting debt accumulate, “I pretty much never actually enjoyed it.”

These days, he’s finding things more enjoyable.

On his full-time salary at Intel, it took Sheikh only six months to save $60,000 — enough for a down payment on a 6-bedroom house in Orlando, which he bought in 2021. He shares his home with his two cats — Deborah Donatella and Diana Wintour — and occasionally rents out rooms to UCF grad students to help defray the $2,300 monthly mortgage payment.

His car — the third he’s owned since 2021 after two trade-ins — is paid off in full. Each time he buys, he negotiates for a high interest rate on his car loan in return for the dealer lowering the sale price. Once he signs the deal, he pays the balance of the loan off in full in a few months.

Sheikh manages his spending across six credit cards, hoping to maximize his rewards.

Observers could be excused for thinking that Sheikh treats managing money like a game these days. He thinks of things a little more scientifically: “For me, I’d say it’s more of an optimization problem.”

33-year-old earns $250,000 a year as an AI research scientist—and saves 64% of his income

Hassam Sheikh never took a vacation while studying for years toward a PhD in computer science. Now he hopes to retire early and go on a years-long road trip.

www.cnbc.com

 

[nahtanbob]

I Save Half Of My $250K A Year Salary As An AI Scientist | Millennial Money​

Like many U.S. immigrant stories, Hassam Sheikh’s starts with a journey westward with a relatively small sum — $2,000 — in his pocket. When he arrived in Orlando, Florida, in 2016, his landlord wanted three installments of his $600 monthly rent upfront.

That didn’t leave Sheikh much financial wiggle room, especially since, once he started working, he earned just $1,400 a month as a teaching assistant at the University of Central Florida.

That’s perhaps where his story starts differing from the norm: Sheikh came to the U.S. to pursue his doctorate in computer science with a focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning.

It was a move that Sheikh, now age 33, suspected would be a lucrative one, even if it meant roughing it for a few years. “My financial life as a Ph.D. student was a mess,” he tells CNBC Make It.

From the monthly stipend he earned nine months a year, Sheikh allotted $600 for rent and another $400 for food, putting as much of the remainder as he could into savings.

“I was literally living under the poverty line for like four years, but it was a good experience,” he says. “If I have to choose to do a Ph.D. again — to be at this point in life that I am right now, I would definitely choose it again.”

Sheikh’s relationship with money hasn’t always been quite so breezy. Growing up in a middle-class family in Lahore, Pakistan, finances were a topic of constant discussion, he says.

Questions about having enough money and how to make more were, “not actually a hot topic. It was the most discussed topic at home all the time,” Sheikh says.

For much of his life, the name of the game for Sheikh was working toward jobs with higher salaries and discipline when it came to how he spent money.

“I’ve never been on a vacation in my life — even as a kid. I don’t know what a vacation is,” he says. “We basically focused on needs all the time. I felt like I was programmed in a way to always look for needs.”

For Sheikh, that meant feeding, sheltering and clothing himself while he pursued an education. He completed his bachelor’s in computer engineering at the University of Lahore in 2012 and went straight on to his master’s in advanced computer science and artificial intelligence at the University of Manchester. After a short stint back in Pakistan, off to the U.S. he went to pursue his doctorate.

“I pretty much spent all of my youth, my 20s, in education,” he says. And because he was so focused on living frugally and never letting debt accumulate, “I pretty much never actually enjoyed it.”

These days, he’s finding things more enjoyable.

On his full-time salary at Intel, it took Sheikh only six months to save $60,000 — enough for a down payment on a 6-bedroom house in Orlando, which he bought in 2021. He shares his home with his two cats — Deborah Donatella and Diana Wintour — and occasionally rents out rooms to UCF grad students to help defray the $2,300 monthly mortgage payment.

His car — the third he’s owned since 2021 after two trade-ins — is paid off in full. Each time he buys, he negotiates for a high interest rate on his car loan in return for the dealer lowering the sale price. Once he signs the deal, he pays the balance of the loan off in full in a few months.

Sheikh manages his spending across six credit cards, hoping to maximize his rewards.

Observers could be excused for thinking that Sheikh treats managing money like a game these days. He thinks of things a little more scientifically: “For me, I’d say it’s more of an optimization problem.”

33-year-old earns $250,000 a year as an AI research scientist—and saves 64% of his income

Hassam Sheikh never took a vacation while studying for years toward a PhD in computer science. Now he hopes to retire early and go on a years-long road trip.

www.cnbc.com

nice job