191–200 of 717 posts
Seattle Googler here (throwaway account). Position: Senior Software Engineer (level 5) Tenure: 4 years, no prior experience Comp: $300K (160 salary, 40 bonus, 100 stock) Male, native English speaker P.S. We're hiring.
You're not getting "ripped off" by having a base salary of 125K USD (with benefits and equity) fresh out of college. Tell you what, with a Bachelor's in Chemistry (in my year 176 people started, only 42 finished the degree so it's not a free lunch) I can expect to make between 40K and 60K CAD out of college and pay higher taxes than in the US. With a master's that I'm working towards, I'd be on the upper end of that…
A chemical engineer with a BS in Alberta can make $120k CAD base-pay, easily.
>and pay higher taxes than in the US.
A San Franciscan making $120k USD pays $46,176 USD in taxes (state+fed)
An Albertan making $120k CAD pays just $32,974 CAD in taxes (prov+fed)
When software engineers want $120k, they move to SF/Seattle and work for . If you want $120k, move to Alberta and work for a gas company.
The vast majority of software engineers (let-alone 'entry level' SEs) in the US aren't making six figures. The ones who move to tech-topia and work for tech-giant and end up getting paid 20% less than their peers who did the same ARE getting ripped off.
IMHO you're being underpaid quite a bit with that base salary in the Seattle area. Time to start interviewing at Microsoft, Google, etc. Those companies usually start fresh out of college developers with a base pay a bit over $100k, then bonuses, stock awards, etc. on top.
In the real world (outside FaceGoogAmaWallstreet), the story for developers is quite different.
Check out the recently launched site Comparably https://comparably.com/ It is so much better than Glassdoor at dissecting salary data.
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I'm interested in what your negotiation principles are. I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their initial offer. However, I've repeatedly used all of the "business-professional" and "HR approved" sorts of conversational techniques to enact this advice, and the only result that has ever occurred is either (…
One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on. Another principle is that you should always counter. So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to…
Example: today I was talking with a recruiter about an iOS developer position. The salary question came up (in the form of: how much do you make right now?), and I gave the standard deflection about wanting to make sure the position was a right fit, etc... When pressed, I said that based on my research, the base for this position is $75k - $95k, and that a number in that range would be acceptable as a starting point for negotiation, but contingent on the details of the position.
This kind of response seems to give you some wiggle room without giving up all your leverage, while giving everyone a general idea if you're in the ballpark. I only use this as a last resort if I'm getting the feeling that there is little chance I'll be able to proceed with the opportunity if I don't answer. True, by not establishing salary up front you may be wasting each others' time due to different expectations, but that is a very small risk to take compared with the potential upside of a big raise.
Staying anonymous is probably best but fwiw, policies which prohibit sharing one's own compensation violate federal law. http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies...
Also FWIW most states are at-will employment, and can fire you for no reason
Now, your relationship with your manager might be strained, but hey, that's life.
This is for a new grad in 2014. * Area: Seattle, WA * Position: SDE * Base Pay: $90k * Signing Bonus: $20k immediately, then $17k paid in 12 monthly installments after you reach 1yr in employment. * Stock Units: $53k (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on) Note: this vesting schedule is AWFUL. Needless to say, I rejected this offer and did not work for them. Best decision I ever made.
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I don't think employees in (most?) at-will states can be terminated for violating pay secrecy rules. (I think the only state with a meaningful divergence from at-will is Montana).
A company does not have to give reason to fire in an at-will state. If they don't say 'we fired you because you were discussing pay', then there is no means to prove that was the case.
It's called court. No provided reason does not imply a lack of reason, and (say) discussing pay on a public forum would certainly be relevant evidence, if highly circumstantial.
The most important thing you can do for your career is: * Accept a job somewhere * Get promoted (doesn't matter how) * let yourself get hired away from your current company Getting hired away from your current company is the only way to get a fair raise based on increased experience. Companies never give substantial raises to current employees.
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A company does not have to give reason to fire in an at-will state. If they don't say 'we fired you because you were discussing pay', then there is no means to prove that was the case.
No. It's nowhere nearly that simple; you can say exactly the same thing about firing someone because they're black, or because they complained about sexual harassment. From experience (as a bystander), what really happens in a case like this is: * Employee is terminated * Employee believes they were terminated for a reason forbidden by state or federal law * Employee retains an employment lawyer, who drafts a letter…