Building wealth is often seen as something that comes with a high-paying job from the very beginning. But many professionals spend years climbing the ladder gradually, with savings and investments taking shape much later in their careers. A Bengaluru-based software professional has revealed how he went from earning just Rs 5,000 a month in his first job to building a financial corpus of nearly Rs 70 lakh over 12 years. While he says he is satisfied with his current earnings, he also admits to carrying some regrets about the opportunities he may have missed along the way.In a post on Reddit, the employee detailed his career progression over the last 12 years. According to him, he completed Class 12 in commerce and later earned a three-year diploma in computer science in 2013. Based in Bengaluru, he started his career towards the end of that year as a junior web developer with a salary of Rs 5,000 per month, which worked out to roughly Rs 60,000 annually.Two years later, in 2015, he moved into a full-stack developer role with a monthly pay of Rs 15,000. His salary eventually rose to Rs 35,000 in that job before he switched again in 2017 and became a senior developer with a package of Rs 6 lakh a year.His next move came in 2018 when he joined as a Senior Software Engineer with a package of Rs 7.9 lakh annually. Over time, increments pushed his pay to around Rs 11 lakh.The biggest jump in his career came in 2021. He joined a new company as a technical lead, although he continued to work as an individual contributor. He was hired with a package of Rs 28 lakh a year, which later increased to Rs 32 lakh.Layoff in 2025 and a new beginningIn April 2025, the software professional was laid off. However, he received a full and final settlement of around Rs 11 lakh, which included three months' notice pay and leave encashment before tax.Since he had already accumulated enough savings, he decided to take a break from work. Later that year, in November, he joined another company as a Senior Technical Lead and currently earns a package of Rs 45 lakh per annum, with a monthly salary of around Rs 2.7 lakh.Despite his progress, the Bengaluru employee admitted that he sometimes feels he could have reached higher-paying jobs sooner."I'm currently content with my salary but I feel like I should have worked hard and got into good salary jobs earlier in my career rather than sticking to small-scale web dev companies with small salary, but back then it was huge for me too. What was holding me back was a lack of a Bachelor's Degree, I thought I could only get so much with a Diploma," he wrote.He also revealed that he had almost no savings until 2020-21 because most of his income was spent on travel and other expenses.Mutual funds and PF helped him build wealthThe Reddit user said he became serious about investing in 2021. According to him, learning about mutual funds and stocks changed his financial habits."Until 2020 - 21, I had no savings, all my salary used to be spent in various things including travel. In 2021, I started learning about mutual funds and stocks and have been investing aggressively on MF. On my Job 5, my PF was huge, about 24k per month contribution from both sides. This helped me accumulate some savings/wealth," he wrote.Today, his net worth stands at around Rs 70 lakh, spread across mutual funds, provident fund and fixed deposits.Enrolled in IGNOU for a bachelor's degreeThe professional said he still regrets not pursuing a graduation degree earlier. He shared that he enrolled in IGNOU's Bachelor of Computer Applications programme earlier this year."I still feel regret of not taking a Bachelor's degree and only in this Jan I enrolled in IGNOU BCA just for the sake of having a Bachelor's Degree," he said.Looking back on his journey, he added, "Looking back, I feel proud of myself for getting to where I am but also feel like there are people doing better than me and getting paid way higher than me for the same experience (It's a human think ig, constant comparison)."