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Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

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Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#211

Post by eldavido »

evtothedev wrote: post #17

Does anyone know why engineering salaries are so low in Chicago? Especially with regards to city size / cost of living / amount of tech? It baffled me when I lived there, and it still baffles me when I don't.

Social status. Developers don't have high social status in Chicago, whereas in the Bay Area, they do.

I don't care what people say, pay is all just social status. Even relatively objective measures like, "I made the company XX" are only possible in the scope of narrow consulting engagements, and such estimates are hazy.

Trying to quantify the long-term economic value of an employee is even worse.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#213

Post by what_ever »

voiceclonr wrote: post #59

What does Annual Stock Value/Bonus mean ?

Most of the stock grants (given when you start working/with annual bonus) are over 4 years. You tend to have multiple of these after you have worked at a company for multiple years. It's much easier to just compare if you just tell the total amount of stocks you are going to get in a year in USD.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#214

Post by jotux »

danielrm26 wrote: post #154
jotux wrote: post #104

It's strange to me that these salary discussions are so narrowly focused on just pay/bonus and don't seem to care about benefits and work/life balance. Here's stuff I track in my own career spreadsheet and compare new jobs against these metrics when considering a new one: * Vacation, sick, and holiday time off * Distance to work and traffic considerations * Relative cost of living * Health insurance cost and coverage…

Maybe because it's called a simple spreadsheet of salaries. Including that other stuff would make it not just about salaries, and not simple. So other than that, spot on.

The title of this post is a question: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

My comment is addressing this question, and more generally, this recent interest in posting your salary.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#215

Post by antjanus »

jotux wrote: post #104

It's strange to me that these salary discussions are so narrowly focused on just pay/bonus and don't seem to care about benefits and work/life balance. Here's stuff I track in my own career spreadsheet and compare new jobs against these metrics when considering a new one: * Vacation, sick, and holiday time off * Distance to work and traffic considerations * Relative cost of living * Health insurance cost and coverage…

That's a very good point. I once applied for a job that had an interesting pay: a little over 100K. But that doesn't tell you anything, right? It's the benefits:

1. 8 days PTO - yeah...seriously, so basically no time off

2. distance to work was about 20-30 minutes -- not bad

3. LOW relative cost of living -- that 100K STRETCHES FAR, unlike in the bay area

4. no health insurance, no coverage

5. no retirement benefits

6. 70-80ish hours (basically late nights + weekends) weeks prior to investor meetings, 60-70ish hours normally

Take it as you may but taking out just one of those points above changes your whole perspective on the job.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#216

Post by pnathan »

drostie wrote: post #168
antonioneffy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just wondering why a lot of these people with tons of experience are settling for sub-$70k jobs. Is there a reason for this?

I was hired for $65k or so after a 6-month job search left me financially drained. There was the promise that typical raises could go into the 10% or more per year region, with a possible promotion to a Senior Software Engineer position, but after a sister company had a poor year of growth and a lawsuit hit my company this past year, I'm at-or-under $70k. It's awful, especially when given that I work 44-48 hours per…

May I suggest sending out your resume to companies that would pay better? You're going to be taken advantage of as long as you let them.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#218

Post by plaguuuuuu »

aerovistae wrote: post #201
mfoy_ wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, for what it's worth they say quality of life barely changes once you're past a threshold.[1] So I wouldn't worry about it too much. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/money-improves-qual...

I just have a hard time believing that. It's a funny contradiction because I know perfectly well I'm not really much happier now at $95k than I was at $60k, or working in a park for minimum wage a decade ago, but at the same time there's so much I'd like to do that I don't because I'm trying to save money, and at $323k it would be pretty effortless to save massively and do whatever I wanted.

The things you want to do start to expand when you have more money, plus in the first place your budget for mundane shit blows out due to lifestyle inflation. If you socialise with other people in the same income bracket, it's going to happen.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#219

Post by jrockway »

nemo44x wrote: post #130
evtothedev wrote: post #17

Does anyone know why engineering salaries are so low in Chicago? Especially with regards to city size / cost of living / amount of tech? It baffled me when I lived there, and it still baffles me when I don't.

Chicago is so incredibly cheap compared to NYC or SF. You can actually afford to own something in the most desirable parts of Chicago and can still have the benefit of not having to own a car in many cases. I thought about relocating to Chicago (it's a great, underrated city) and was shocked how cheap the rent was in places like Lincoln Park. I could just buy a place. I can't say that about NYC or SF where rents are…

Have to agree. I grew up in Chicago and moved to New York about 4 years ago. My W2 income in NYC is about 3x higher than it was in Chicago, though I am better at my job now than I was then so it's not all a cost-of-living adjustment.

Anyway, I've begun the house search in New York City. I'm looking for a 1 bedroom apartment, in some place like Brooklyn Heights, Carrol Gardens, Gowanus, etc. Not Midtown Manhattan or Tribeca. Setting the budget to $700,000, literally everything available is a tiny shithole. I did find a small 1 bedroom apartment in Brooklyn Heights that's nice. 3 million dollars.

I did the same search in Chicago. For half the money, you can get 1500 square feet, with nice modern finishings, 13 foot ceilings, etc. right downtown. If I were buying in Chicago, my conundrum would be "this is really too much space, my house is going to feel _empty_".

The NYC and SF housing situation is really quite insane. The best career move I can imagine making is keeping my current salary and literally moving anywhere else in the world, except maybe London. The rest of the world is dirt cheap compared to NYC and the bay area. It's so crazy.

Re: Why not just a simple spreadsheet of salaries?

#220

Post by ksenzee »

run4yourlives2 wrote: post #149

Just to let you know, most HR circles usually completely disregard self reported salary info because it has a tendency, (even when anonymously reported) to inflate the actual amounts.

I wonder how reliable that is. It would be in HR's interest to have everyone believe that self-reported salary information is untrue and can't be counted on.
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