Honest question has anyone else seen salary decreases. I peaked at ~190k w2 contractor so no benefits. But after death march after death march and canceled projects. I got down to ~105. One of my biggest stress right now is due to money. Contributed to by a foreclosure that has a monthly payment. I've been east and west coast and tried FAANG, but unless I waited the vesting it was a drastic pay cut, and the midst of the foreclosure I needed hard cash. I keep on looking at my career and wondering what I did wrong.
My Salary Progression in Tech
141–150 of 631 posts
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#142I have an associates degree in an unrelated field. For work, I implemented and maintain part of the CI/CD pipeline (AWS Code Pipeline configuration, pretty simple), spin up and maintain AWS infrastructure, hack on the cloud formation templates and our internal build scripts, and do a portion of the helpdesk admin work for some of our large clients. Troubleshoot individual nodes. I work remotely in a small town in the…
keep your resume up-to-date every month (seriously, was great advice I got early on, even though I sometimes lapse myself).
and I know most people advising on salary negotiations say never give your number first... but if you are happy where you are, then it's going to take 30-50% over what you're making to make you move. So give that number. It weeds most recruiters out.
The ones that bite, you know they're serious. Then it's up to the role, company, commute, etc, the things that make a difference for you.
Golden handcuffs are a good problem to have. Wherever you go, just make sure you can make a difference and have some autonomy to make the work interesting.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#143This is such an odd survey, especially when framed as "White people especially need to talk about their salaries because marginalized folks in the same fields often have no idea they're being swindled by employers."
How knowledge of me making $X helps anyone? If you think that you're underpaid, the only thing that will make difference is a competing offer. Reducing experience, amount of work, kind of work and value to the organization, to just 2 variables - race and number - won't make any difference.
Instead:
1. Know your local job market. 2. Make sure you're working on right things. 3. Be a team player. 4. Make your bosses happy (usually that goes hand-in-hand with working on right things and being a team player).
I made good last year, but it's because I happened to be at the right time in the right place, and put a lot of hours of work. Would putting a number and my race on that give you any insight into that?
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#144Honest question has anyone else seen salary decreases. I peaked at ~190k w2 contractor so no benefits. But after death march after death march and canceled projects. I got down to ~105. One of my biggest stress right now is due to money. Contributed to by a foreclosure that has a monthly payment. I've been east and west coast and tried FAANG, but unless I waited the vesting it was a drastic pay cut, and the midst of…
Most FAANGs pay well even without vested stock, Amazon in particular relies heavily on stock for compensation but provides bonuses the first couple of years to compensate.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only a sacrifice if you'd actually want to do things that would raise concern. On the other hand, it is a huge benefit if you'd rather not be surrounded by people with those kinds of concerns. It's nice to know that none of your coworkers are likely to steal your stuff, commit acts of violence upon you, spill fentanyl on your desk, embezzle the company's assets, offer you food items with unmentioned unconvention…
Those are pretty extreme. For me and probably 90% of other devs who don't want to get a security clearance, it's because of prior drug use. I don't even do anything like that other than smoke weed these days (which I would easily quit if I needed to for a job, though I still think that's very outdated BS) but the government seems really scared about people who've even previously used drugs. No, I'm not going to spill…
it's not the drug use that is the problem. a lot of the time it is about honesty. If you try to hide anything on clearance paperwork, and they find it (they always find stuff), that's immediate disqualification.
there are people with all kinds of backgrounds, and some with drug use in their background, with active clearances. it's not automatic any more. just be 100% honest.
the adjudicator needs to make a determination of whether they think you could be compromised in some way. just because someone smoked weed in college or got a DUI once doesn't mean they can be compromised.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#1462016 - Graduated college with CS degree, startup job @ 75k, 1%
2017 - startup shit out, went to 1 company, 85k a year, left that company (really bad situation), second company 100k a year
2018, 115k (same company promoted me)
2019, 150k switched to a FAANG
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#147I see a lot of these crazy high salaries (there's nothing much higher than $150 for a sr dev around here on the east) are in SF area.
Are these the exception FAANG salaries or are most companies paying such high salaries out there? It just blows my mind I can't imagine making such money as a dev and I've been doing this for a lot of years.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#148This is such an odd survey, especially when framed as "White people especially need to talk about their salaries because marginalized folks in the same fields often have no idea they're being swindled by employers." How knowledge of me making $X helps anyone? If you think that you're underpaid, the only thing that will make difference is a competing offer. Reducing experience, amount of work, kind of work and value t…
> Would putting a number and my race on that give you any insight into that?
I believe your analysis is unfairly reductionist and doesn't really capture the spirit of the tweet. If I was asking you for advice about salary, I'd definitely be interested in everything you mentioned, what your skills are, how you got to your current position etc. The issue is that marginalized groups often find it hard to advocate for themselves because of issues of perception and also they lack the knowledge required to properly negotiate. It's hard to know what numbers to throw out when you don't even have a range or you don't know what the social protocols / customs are regarding negotiation.
The point of sharing isn't to trivialize your hard work but it's to help people who are just as qualified and talented as you not fall through the cracks.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#149Some random points of advice after 30 years in tech... First, decide whether you are more interested in pushing forward on technology or on earning more. Yes, you probably want both, but you should decide which matters more. Also, note that the answer will likely change if your personal situation changes, in particular, if you start a family. These points are primarily for those who put earning more above pushing tec…
I've found that when a (good) boss realises that you're solving organisational (boss-relevant) problems and getting things done, they start pushing harder problems your way.
When done in a supportive way, this helps propel you up a level of competency; then the raise/promotion is effortless and obvious to everyone involved.
Conversely, in my experience I've never been giving the money / title before I had performed the role.
Re: My Salary Progression in Tech
#150To the author: were any of these cleared positions? Typically those command a premium and require some sacrifice as it applies to personal lifestyle choices. CACI often requires clearances for government clients, for example which is why you might see a drop when moving to Motley Fool (a commercial customer)
It's only a sacrifice if you'd actually want to do things that would raise concern. On the other hand, it is a huge benefit if you'd rather not be surrounded by people with those kinds of concerns. It's nice to know that none of your coworkers are likely to steal your stuff, commit acts of violence upon you, spill fentanyl on your desk, embezzle the company's assets, offer you food items with unmentioned unconvention…
Maybe I'm just not level-headed enough to have noticed, and/or unusually lucky, but I have to say that none of this resembles any of my experiences of ordinary employment.