How a 27-year-old increased his salary from $50,000 to $432,000 in 5 years

This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Millennial Money series, which examines how people earn, spend and save money.

Nabeel Khan knew from early in life that he wanted to be an entrepreneur.

In high school, Khan hired “12 of the smartest kids I could find,” he says, and co-founded an AP tutoring company. They charge between $20 and $50 an hour and made “about $5,000” within the first month, he says. He says he loved the customer service job and the challenge of balancing costs and profits.

Now 27, he studied materials science and engineering at the University of Michigan, thinking he might jump into the world of sporting goods after college. But over time, he says he realized he could make a bigger impact as an entrepreneur in the technology world.

When he graduated in 2020, Khan accepted an offer as an operations manager for an Amazon warehouse, which was his gateway into technology.

His initial offer as operations manager was $50,000 a year, but within five years, Khan was working as a senior AI product manager at the company, earning $432,000 a year, including base salary and company stock.

Khan left Amazon in July 2025 to pursue entrepreneurship and co-founded SkillAxis, which trains AI product managers for non-tech companies. He says he was able to leave thanks to his rapid rise through the ranks at Amazon and the savings he had accumulated.

Here, we take a look at how he built his career at a tech giant, transitioned into entrepreneurship, and his life in Brooklyn, New York, where he currently lives with his girlfriend.

At Amazon, Khan immediately began thinking about how he could grow within the company, especially a role that would contribute to his dream of becoming an entrepreneur.

He discovered the roles of project manager and product manager. Both were promotions and taught me skills like managing people and designing products.

To learn more about how to get hired for these roles, Khan sought out mentors both inside and outside of Amazon who could fill those roles. He said each mentor gave him advice on the skills he needed to get hired, as well as specific project ideas on how to prove he had what it took to move forward.

Khan says she has created an educational roadmap for herself, spending nights and weekends learning new skills that she hopes will help her get promoted. For example, he says he took a six-month software bootcamp class at Georgia Tech to learn how to code and earned his Amazon Web Services certification.

He was also looking for opportunities to practice and learn new skills while working his current job. For example, in his role as an operations manager, he helped update a warehouse’s safety systems, which helped build his portfolio to become a project manager.

“I was always looking for ways to be creative with the role I was in and going above and beyond to find ways to apply it to my next role,” Khan says.

By mid-2021, Khan was promoted to project manager and earned an annual salary of $66,000. By mid-2023, he moved into a product manager role, earning $146,000, and by 2025, he became a senior product manager, earning $432,000.

While at Amazon, Khan said he saved more than 80% of his income, amassing about $666,000 between moving between various savings, investment and retirement accounts. That, he says, was also the reason he felt comfortable leaving. He knew that if something went wrong, he had a financial cushion to fall back on.

During that time, he worked mostly in remote locations or in positions that required a lot of travel, which allowed him to save on housing costs. Instead of having a home base that he paid rent on, he shuttled between his parents’ house in Georgia and his girlfriend’s house in New York in between business trips.

When Khan finally took the leap into entrepreneurship, he initially lived off his own savings.

From July to November 2025, SkillAxis generated approximately $51,000 in sales. He currently pays himself about $5,000 a month from his company to cover living expenses.

In addition to building a financial cushion, Khan said it was an opportunity to make a major career change and plan for the future when he left Amazon in July.

Khan lives with his girlfriend in a one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn. Here’s how he spent his money in October.

Rent: $2,125 Food: $1,238 for groceries and eating out Transportation: $899 for subway and rideshare Health insurance: $289 Business expenses: $198 for Filmic Pro subscription and travel Subscriptions: $143 for two gym memberships, Wall Street Journal subscription, Spotify, iCloud, and Google Drive Optional: $93 for laundry and entertainment

Khan and his girlfriend split the rent 50-50, and his girlfriend has a scholarship from law school that covers Wi-Fi and various utilities. Khan is still on her family’s phone plan, which covers her phone bill. He has already paid off his student loans (worth about $50,000) and currently has no credit card debt.

Although Mr. Khan has been saving money, he is not currently contributing to his savings to build his business. He says he plans to resume saving in the future once the company grows. As of early November 2025, his net worth is approximately $703,000, which includes checking accounts, savings, investments, retirement accounts, virtual currency, and several watches worth approximately $6,000 each.

Khan said that when he was a child, he remembers his father watching commercials for Omega watches and commenting how great it would be to own one. Once Khan made enough on Amazon, “I ended up buying one for him,” he says.

His future goal is to have a net worth of $1 million by age 30, Khan says.

He wants to enter his 30s with more financial stability. To get there, he says he will focus his efforts on ensuring the company’s success by identifying gaps in software tools and guiding customers to market to build the solutions they need.

For those looking to emulate his career growth, he says, “Think creatively about what you can do in your current environment.” If you find ways to go above and beyond your job description, “no matter where you are, you’ll end up benefiting yourself and your reputation.”

Khan currently spends about 80 hours a week at work, with the rest of his time spent working out and seeing the people he cares about most. “For me, a successful life is one that balances work with time with family and friends,” he says.

But overall, he’s happy with the balance he’s found in life. Between building his company and spending time with family and friends, “I think I’m living the dream life right now,” he says.

What is the breakdown of the budget? Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in a future article.

Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? Sign up for CNBC’s new online course, “How to Raise Financially Smart Kids.” Learn how to build healthy financial habits now to set your child up for greater success in the future.