Employers bow to tech workers in hottest job market since the dot-com era • Hacker News Board

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

#491

Post by californical » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:55 AM UTC

ergocoder wrote: post #356

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…

I'm at a FAANG-like company with 1m USD TC because of stock appreciation. Where would I get a job like this? I hate my job a little but the hate is not strong enough for me to leave a 1m TC job for a lower TC. I'm stuck basically. I'll be gone after 4y definitely

At a point, probably really soon, you’ll have enough money that you’ll never need to work again. With that type of salary, I’d be surprised if it was more than 2 years. Don’t stay in a job you hate just to earn money that you don’t really need anymore!

Though I admit, it’s hard to imagine walking away from 1m per year, even if you don’t necessarily need it...

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

#492

Post by bryan_w » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 5:59 AM UTC

kilroy123 wrote: post #12

derwiki wrote: post #2

> But now, these technical interviews are often being waived Huh? First I’ve heard of that

I got a new job about ~5 months ago and this was not my experience at all. It was leetcoding questions for days. If you didn't ace it, you'd get ghosted quickly. One place, I did 3 rounds of interviews, an all day take home assignment. I still got ghosted! So I call BS on this quote as well.

I hate the leetcode stuf, especially for SRE positions. I much rather focus on the systems side of things that I will encounter on a day to day basis

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

#493

Post by jka » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:03 AM UTC

ianai wrote: post #267

jka wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you assume that they didn't, out of interest?

GP: “Honestly I was pretty lazy about it, and didn't write cover letters or anything”

My mistake, sorry. Missed thst last paragraph somehow.

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

#494

Post by secabeen » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:18 AM UTC

mmaunder wrote: post #394

quadrifoliate wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't say too much about pay scales because others have, but 21 days of PTO is not "incredible" by any means, especially if you make people use it for sick time as well. At least if I was looking in a strong market, that would reduce the value of your other numbers downward to me. I recommend explicitly creating separate sick time, or switching to a minimum PTO (making sure employees take that time off).

Amazon, for example, starts at 10 days for FTEs and accrues to a max of 20 days once you've worked for longer than 6 years. We are roughly the same as Facebook and Google who are between 20 to 30 days per year, depending on how long you've worked there.

Interesting. After ten years in higher-ed, I'm have 24 vacation days, 12 sick days, and 14 paid holidays (all annually), for a total of 50 days of leave per year. One of the few benefits that are better than the private sector. (Yes, unlimited vacation is a thing, but then it's all dependent on the specific company culture whether it's normal to take 40+ days off a year.)

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

#495

Post by sativallday » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:25 AM UTC

alecst wrote: post #446

tcbumperino wrote: post #83

Once you’re coasting in the 400-500k FAANG range, what’s the optimal move to get 700-800k+? Seems there are too many graybeards to get a Principal title. Better to switch to manager role? Or VP eng type at some startup and hope your stock hits? Or maybe VP at some non tech company?

I know this is off topic, but what's missing from your life right now that those extra 300k+ will buy you? Just out of curiosity.

Currently making $430K. Upgrading to $720K.

That $300K gives me more flexibility, mobility, and choice in just about anything I want to do.

Totally removes any financial stressors.

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

#496

Post by grp000 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:33 AM UTC

hinoki wrote: post #435

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that FAANG pays very well in India and Japan and Canada. Is this not true?

Salaries in Japan are 65-70% of SF Bay Area (for FAANG, local is much worse) London, U.K. is about the same as Japan. I don’t have experience with India, and my knowledge of Canada is too far out of date to be useful. All those salaries are very good for the local market, but are also much lower than SF.

After travelling in Japan, I was really surprised by how cheap apartments are in Tokyo. For reference, this was 3 years ago near the big main Sumo arena/dojo, at around $800 USD/month, and fast food was around $4 USD/meal.

I don't know anything about the income tax rates, but 65-70% pay seems like you'd take home more than an SFer being paid SF rates.

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

#497

Post by anano12233 » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:34 AM UTC

Anyone managed to find a job paying over £300k based in the UK (you, not necessarily the job)? My pay has stagnated and I never see those SV rates advertised here. All contracts seem to top out around £750-800 p/d.

Looking for full remote, normal hours etc.

Golang, python, K8s, AWS devop. 8 years

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

#498

Post by chillacy » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:40 AM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #214

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I told myself I'd be fine at 300k. Now I'm there, and I've picked up more hobbies. Doesn't stop me from looking for new gigs, from time to time. Going super deep into optimizing for one thing might be a good short-term, but bad long-term proposition. A lot of getting to 700k, I imagine, is luck. So long as you're competent, it's right place, right time. You can't force that situation to happen, so it's wasted energy…

You would abandon your company and current position for a slight pay increase? Do you not actually care about the company you work for and you're just there for the pay? You make so much money already -- what is the thought process here Man imagine trying to hire people and knowing they would all leave in a heartbeat for a slight pay increase. What ever happened to working somewhere because you believe in what you're…

> What ever happened to working somewhere because you believe in what you're building and the people you're around bring you joy?

Sounds like capitalist propaganda, unless you work at some sort of co-op which is employee owned or something, ordinary rank-and-file employees are compensated with absolute pennies in terms of equity.

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

#499

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:40 AM UTC

catillac wrote: post #120

autotune wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve literally never had to write a cover letter in my 6+ year career in tech outside of FAANGM. Complete waste of time imho.

I hire and pay top of market and I definitely look at cover letters, at least scan them (some are huge tells that they don’t even know what we do, so it weeds out the candidate), and often they’re the thing that differentiates the various candidates who have similar backgrounds. I’ve also hired lots of people without cover letters. I don’t think spending a few minutes writing a paragraph like another poster stated ab…

How are you sure you're paying top of market?

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

#500

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Aug 02, 2021, 6:54 AM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #277

MathYouF wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many companies are building something worth believing in? The ones who are (few) defintiely don't worry about this problem as much. If a company is having problems with it it's probably that their estimation of their own moral self worth is what's incorrect, not the attitude of their employees.

So, so many. The world is full of them. I work at my current job because I used their OSS tool at a past position and felt like I had my life changed. Then wanted to share it with every other developer. So I got in contact with them and told them how I felt, and now that's what I do. If I ever feel like the tool doesn't represent the same quality as when I started or the company values have changed, welp, then it's q…

> Here's some examples of things I think are genuinely valuable and jobs I would do: - Software for addiction treatment centers and rehabilitation

Where's the money in that? San Francisco can't even scrounge enough funding and will to effectively treat its own addiction-afflicted citizens and homeless population, the local VCs are likely even less interested in that line of work.

> - Bioinformatics and genomics for disease, especially making information accessible to regular people. Genomics for fitness/sports performance.

23AndMe, Verily, etc. are in this big industry. Of course, a considerable of this is going to lead to people's medical data being resold to Big Pharma, which is where the big monetization in.

> - Software reform in partnership with state/governmental agencies for criminal justice

They do exist, but again where is that funding coming from?

> - Anything to do with LLVM. LLVM is fucking cool.

Apple has that locked down, sure.

> - GraalVM is fucking cool.

That'd be Oracle's baby.

> - Music software -- production (DAW's), plugins, education software to make music theory accessible

That does exist, sure.

> - Software to make learning programming accessible. Stuff like repl.it, Codesandbox, Scrimba

Plenty of projects like that exist, sure.

> That's really pessimistic and defeatist.

Any industry with the amount of dumb money and hype as tech is going to lead to these emotional consequences. Ask yourself how much world-changing prosocial visions are on Wall Street, how many sunny optimistic dreams left unscathed by Hollywood. Silicon Valley is just another face of the bleeding edge of capital generation.