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Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

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Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#411

Post by crooked-v »

skeeter2020 wrote: post #192
dbish wrote: post #4

Even if you think you’re well paid, now is the time to look around. I’ve had a lot of friends, mentees, and coworkers get huge bumps on total compensation even as relatively senior engineers and managers. Pay is jumping and companies aren’t doing a great job keeping that up for their people who have been around for a few years. As an employer, that should be the top worry, keep comp up, don’t lose your people because…

We just gave our devs relatively modest increases, and only one raised any objections and ended up with a more than a 15% increase. I worry about all those devs who won't say anything (why should they have to?) and will just go somewhere else for a 20% bump.

> why should they have to?

This has been one of the driving motivations behind literally every job change I've gone through since I started working in the software field.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#412

Post by mooreds »

giantg2 wrote: post #370
mooreds wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The issue is that companies want to be cheap by letting other companies do the training and then taking them. It's not cheap if they are willing to pay for it. That's why senior salaries keep going up. It's a tradeoff--they are willing to pay more for the privilege of not losing the time.

I don't really see it that way. Training people is more expensive than hiring a senior dev for the simple fact that you have to use a senior dev's time to train the new person anyways.

> Training people is more expensive than hiring a senior dev for the simple fact that you have to use a senior dev's time to train the new person anyways.

For the first N months, sure, but then, you have a senior and a trained junior, who is hopefully on their way to being a mid. So it's less of an expense and more of an investment in my eyes.

But like any upfront investment, there is a time when the costs outweigh the benefits, especially in the early days.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#413

Post by golergka »

throwanem wrote: post #22

> He likened it to what’s happening in the real estate market. In other words, make your moves now, and with an eye toward the crash that's coming.

I've been reading comments on HN about the coming crash for 10 years now. I have even believed them at first.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#414

Post by swinnipeg »

aleksiy wrote: post #397
ramraj07 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give rough range of these offers? Would be interested in understanding absolute numbers

My lowest offers where 120k CAD Base, 100k USD in options. My best two offers: 200k CAD Base, 390k USD RSU /4 years, 20k CAD Sign on 200k CAD Base, 330k USD in Options / 4 years, 20k CAD Sign on I'm also still waiting on some numbers from Google Canada but I doubt they will match.

These offers show signs of life for Canadian salaries. I am presuming you are in Toronto, and these were IC roles.

What types of companies were the 2 best offers?

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#415

Post by starky »

giantg2 wrote: post #381
mooreds wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also means that if you can afford to hire junior folks, you can get some real go-getters for a great (read, favorable to the company) salary. But even junior salaries are going up, I've noticed.

I think junior average salary at my company is around $75k now. Seniors are around $115k. A $40k gap is pretty big. I don't know. I feel like most dev compensation is kind of random. Like does that senior really produce $40k more in value per year?

It should be easy for a senior to provide $40k more value than a junior employee, especially considering that a lot of the value a junior employee creates can be due to mentorship and working with senior employees.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#417

Post by wyclif »

crooked-v wrote: post #411
skeeter2020 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We just gave our devs relatively modest increases, and only one raised any objections and ended up with a more than a 15% increase. I worry about all those devs who won't say anything (why should they have to?) and will just go somewhere else for a 20% bump.

> why should they have to? This has been one of the driving motivations behind literally every job change I've gone through since I started working in the software field.

It's because experienced SWE's know that the easiest, most frictionless way to get a significant increase is to change jobs.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#418

Post by mark-r »

This situation isn't completely universal.

I've spent the last 20+ years developing C++ applications for Windows. Now I know how the Cobol developers felt 25 years ago - nobody's looking for the kind of skills I can demonstrate.

If I could show that I'd been doing full stack development at my last job, I'd have my pick of offers. But I never had the training to do server deployments or the opportunity to do client work, so I find myself completely unqualified for the jobs on offer. I'm certainly capable of picking up those things and have pursued things like Coursera certificates to prove it, but that's not enough - the companies doing the hiring want to see that you've done it previously on the job.

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#419

Post by plow-tycoon »

Hey, if any of you apparent employers out there are bowing to tech workers, hit me up :)

I'm a good generalist and like doing different things, but note that I don't call myself a "React Developer" and so if that's what you want, please don't contact me. Also don't contact me if your first step is passing a hackerrank test. Other than that, I like contracts of short or mid length, but am open to different arrangements.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gogv-06KONN3-WNURSEtwZDubLv...

Re: Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era

#420

Post by schreiaj »

barrkel wrote: post #270
the_only_law wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What sort of software do you have to be writing besides magic money printing machines for it to be worth that amount of money? My understanding is that you have to get into FAANG or be in certain roles at certain HFT firms. I’m also pretty sure these are TC numbers are large chunks of those numbers are stock options.

RSUs - way more liquid than options, they're practically cash in the bank when they vest, but watch out for cliffs (i.e. vesting schedule). Amazon is particularly bad (tail weighted), Google is particularly generous (every month).

No cliff, but the vesting schedule is based on amount granted. For _most_ engineers it's likely monthly.
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