I’m a senior entry level employee at a small consulting firm where I’ve been for two years now. We recently started offering a specialized service where I’m completing almost 100% of the work. The firm principal on the account is mostly doing “thought partnership and strategic oversight” aka being on calls and reviewing my work (but without the skills to do any of the work themselves). When I saw our pricing for this service, I realized I’m making roughly 10% of what we’re charging the client, but doing almost all the work. We’re remotely based, minimal overhead. Am I being taken advantage of?

This is my first private sector job (7 years as a government employee before this) and I come from a family of blue collar workers, so I have a limited network of people who I can lean on for professional advice. I really have no idea if this kind of profit margin is reasonable or not, and whether or not this is fair to me as an employee. So forgive me if this sounds whiny or “woe is me,” but with the skills I have, I’m having a hard time justifying not just working for myself if this disparity is as gross as it sort of feels 😅