The 2011 IT Salary Guide • Hacker News Board

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#51

Post by eru » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 8:27 PM UTC

mcknz wrote: post #12

sethg wrote: post #5

When comparing offers or negotiating a raise, how do people translate between a salary and a salary-plus-bonus? When my company got acquired, my base salary didn’t go up, but now I get a performance-based bonus; both my individual performance and the company’s overall hitting-its-numbers are used to compute the bonus figure. If my “normal” bonus (i.e., when everyone hits but does not exceed performance targets) is 10…

Probably somewhere between the lottery tickets and 5%. Both the individual performance and "hitting the numbers" scenarios are extremely subjective, and allow the company to justify cuts pretty much whenever they want. Bonuses make the offer sound better, and it's much easier for the company to say they are "cutting bonuses" rather than "cutting pay," which really amounts to the same thing. I would try to get as much…

That makes sense, if you plan to stick around. If you are job-hopping anyway, as some people are, you can just add the bonus to the salary.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#52

Post by WildUtah » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 8:49 PM UTC

joshwa wrote: post #17

What the hell is the difference between: Developer/Programmer Analyst Software Engineer (Lead) Applications Developer (Senior) Web Developer

The difference:

1 -completely arbitrary 2 -randomly assigned 3 -words to fill space on expense reports and business cards 4 -another made-up title

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#53

Post by chrisa » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 9:11 PM UTC

alexgartrell wrote: post #41

This is tangentially related, but what should a new college grad expect to make his first year out?

Many schools publish public salary statistics for the graduates of last year. Some reports are better than others, but I’ve generally found good information that way. Just google "[school] salary statistics". For example, here's a pdf for Carnegie Mellon School of Computer science, which says last year there was a mean salary of $75k (which happens to be high compared to other universities I've seen): http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/students_alumni/pos...

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#54

Post by mcknz » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 9:23 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #51

mcknz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably somewhere between the lottery tickets and 5%. Both the individual performance and "hitting the numbers" scenarios are extremely subjective, and allow the company to justify cuts pretty much whenever they want. Bonuses make the offer sound better, and it's much easier for the company to say they are "cutting bonuses" rather than "cutting pay," which really amounts to the same thing. I would try to get as much…

That makes sense, if you plan to stick around. If you are job-hopping anyway, as some people are, you can just add the bonus to the salary.

Unless, on the day you start, the company announces that all bonuses will be reduced 75% until the company "makes its numbers." You don't have to be at a place long term to get screwed.

A fair question to ask when negotiating would be what % of the bonuses are currently paid, and when was the last bonus cut. Might give some indication of the reliability.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#55

Post by thwarted » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 10:21 PM UTC

joshwa wrote: post #24

The actual source for this article is a document by Robert Half Technology (a staffing firm): http://www.roberthalftechnology.com/FreeResources?rfmCandida... Registration required. Would post to scribd, but the PDF is password protected. Reg-free download here: http://drop.io/2011salaryguide/asset/rht-sg-2011-pdf

I wonder if Robert Half finally removed me from their list of people who live in Chicago and are looking for a job in Chicago. I had to email them like 30 times telling them that I live in SF now and if they would like to find me a job in SF, that would be great, but I have no interest in a Chicago position.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#56

Post by Omnipresent » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 11:01 PM UTC

it's surprising that java is mentioned to be "in demand", however, no Java certifications seem to be in demand. Being a enterprise j2ee developer for about 5 years now, I was thinking about finally getting my certification....but now..maybe not.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#57

Post by rdtsc » Wed, Oct 27, 2010, 11:13 PM UTC

joshwa wrote: post #17

What the hell is the difference between: Developer/Programmer Analyst Software Engineer (Lead) Applications Developer (Senior) Web Developer

Fancy mumbo jumbo words to differentiate somebody from somebody else.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#58

Post by f1gm3nt » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 1:19 AM UTC

f1gm3nt wrote: post #15

This just reminds me of how underpaid I am and that the closest city pays an average of 10% higher the average. I'm thinking it's time to move ;p

City I live in pays an average of 34 to 40K as a programmer. I'm sure that moving 2 hours away and getting paid market average plus 10% is worth it.

It would be nice to see the outliers. What cities have the highest pay and cities with lowest pay. I'm positive that the city I'm in would be an outlier for lowest paid.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#59

Post by metageek » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 1:25 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #49

hugh3 wrote: post #32

As a postdoc, I'm not going to look at this. It would only depress me.

I was a postdoc during the NYC transit strike, I read how much various unskilled MTA job categories (e.g., garbage collector, token booth cashier [1]) made and how much of a pay increase they hoped for. That was depressing. [1] For those outside NYC, we have a human in many subway stations selling metrocards. Often the human refuses to sell metrocards and just points people to the vending machine.

Put them on commission.

Re: The 2011 IT Salary Guide

#60

Post by metageek » Thu, Oct 28, 2010, 1:37 AM UTC

generalk wrote: post #10

sethg wrote: post #5

When comparing offers or negotiating a raise, how do people translate between a salary and a salary-plus-bonus? When my company got acquired, my base salary didn’t go up, but now I get a performance-based bonus; both my individual performance and the company’s overall hitting-its-numbers are used to compute the bonus figure. If my “normal” bonus (i.e., when everyone hits but does not exceed performance targets) is 10…

Personally I don't count bonuses as compensation. They're nice pot-sweeteners but salary is constant whereas bonuses can fluctuate.

And they may not be treated the same, legally. In Massachusetts, salary is sacrosanct; it is illegal to have an employee working for you if you don't currently have enough money to pay them. But bonuses () are wide open. You can decide not to pay somebody their bonus for any reason, even if the appropriate manager has already said, yes, you've earned it this year. (Yes, this happened to me.)

() Discretionary bonuses, that is, where a human decides what you get, rather than a fixed rule.