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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

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Spain I’ve seen people with +20y of experience contracting for Salaries for senior devs range from 30k to 50k, with very little exceptions.

Yikes. How much does a beachside bartender make? And why would anyone so much as look at a C++ compiler error message even once for those wages?

Minimum wage is ~12k€/y, so bartenders get basically that. In Spain for people >25yo unemployment is around 40%, which obviously means you get a lot of competition for stable jobs.

Spain in general is very anti-business, especially small/middle business. I had not started freelancing until late in my career because having a paying side job costs you ~$300/month in taxes, regardless of your income this month.

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

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They pay top-end for the local market. However, if a competitor comes in paying Bay Area salaries for remote work, that can be a lot higher than local wages.

After extensive research, I've found that almost no companies are paying Bay Area salaries for remote work outside the US.

> After extensive research, I've found that almost no companies are paying Bay Area salaries for remote work outside the US.

That doesn't seem surprising -- why would they?

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

#503
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol not at all. It was regular run of the mill startups and small companies. TC like ~$150k-180.

It's interesting to me. When the carrot is TC of $350K+++, sure, anyone is willing to jump through that grinder. But for ordinary run-of-the-mill companies, there are so many that _don't_ have a hazing-like hiring process, I don't know how the ones that do make it.

> When the carrot is TC of $350K+++, sure, anyone is willing to jump through that grinder

Maybe the first time, but I'm well above that mark now and I'd sooner retire early or switch industries over studying leetcode again.

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

#504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That means doing getting multiple offers within the same time period before you accept one. I need help on getting to the salary negotiation part with multiple companies at the same time though. This is the instruction booklet for landing a lunar lander on the Moon. I need the one for the Saturn V.

Accept offer A. Receive offer B. If offer B > offer A, let company A know something has come up and you cannot continue employment. Accept offer B. Lather, rinse, repeat for each offer. The better offer may be salary, perks, or just better work conditions. I once left a company after working there for 9 days because I got an offer working with my friend. I didn't even get a better salary and my friend ended up leavin…

I think that's a recipe for becoming unemployable.

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

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in FAANG I have a hard time understanding how any developer is worth that amount of money though. I know a solid number of FAANG and ex-FAANG devs -- the stuff they work on (from what I've heard) isn't much different from the sorts of software I assume most people in SaaS startups work on. Outside of scale (which is significant). A lot of it is internal tooling though, which never hits absurd amounts of scale. I…

You don't make doctors go through 8 years of med school and residency because you want to make them great at treating colds and sewing up stitches, you do it so when the edge case appears they don't accidentally kill someone. In the same way, even 364 days a year the dev is doing completely boring work that someone making 80k could do, the one day they have the potential to do work that takes down the site for even m…

This doesn’t ring true to me. Everybody makes mistakes and it seems to me that popular big engineering companies are more likely to try to understand root (technical) causes of outages and mitigate them rather than blaming people for being around when a fragile system fails (which is what it sounds like you are suggesting with the emphasis on not making errors.)

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

#506

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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

Jesus, how much did the stock rise? What was your TC before appreciation?

4-5x. The initial offer was around 490k a year. ~50% is stock.

The stock can 3x more.. so I'm holding and hopeful.

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

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

It is a gold rush era. I recognize that this is a rare opportunity.

1m for a senior (not staff) engineer is very hard to come by.

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

#508
post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is this at a FAANG company?

Could you advise how you reached that level of compensation? Is grinding hundreds of Leetcode problems necessary?

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

#509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Yeah, for 1M/yr I would put up with a fair amount of bullshit.

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

#510
post #435

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.

In India, at a FAANG, it’s usually 40-50% of Bay Area salaries.
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