Hacker

The Hacker Career Track comes with The Sims: Livin' Large. It is notable for having one of the most severely bent (not steepest) pay curves of any career in the whole game or any of its expansion packs. At rank 1, only 8 career tracks pay more than Hacker, 8 pay less, and 3 pay the same. By rank 4, however, Hacker has fallen behind ALL of the career tracks from the base game and most from the expansions, with only Slacker, Culinary, Education, and Circus paying less. The pay then sharply accelerates, and it spends its final five ranks as the highest-paying career track in the whole game or any of its expansions. It also has the highest combined pay over all ten ranks (§6470). Requiring only 8 friends to reach rank 10, it is the second-easiest career track to climb (behind Fashion and in a four-way tie with Military, Animal Care, and Circus), and also enjoys the best ratio of pay to friends required (§1550/8 friends = §193.75/friend), with only Fashion coming close. In short, it is undoubtedly either the best or second-best career track in the game. However, even its rank 10 job, Information Overlord, only pays §172 per hour, whereas crafting lawn gnomes on a workbench pays §200 per hour at maximum Mechanical skill.

The Information Overlord will eventually change careers and become a Newspaper Reporter in the Journalism career track.