Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#11

Post by the__alchemist » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #9

Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. Point being, recruiters suck. I have no idea how much Intel pays, but I'd wager it is much more than 65, especially if they are asking for deep…

How does the recruiter charge more? Do they act as a subcontractor intercepting the employee's paycheck? What stops someone from going around them?

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#12

Post by UncleOxidant » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:35 PM UTC

akudha wrote: post #9

Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. Point being, recruiters suck. I have no idea how much Intel pays, but I'd wager it is much more than 65, especially if they are asking for deep…

> If you can avoid recruiters, avoid them. Some of us can't, and that sucks.

Intel won't let you contract directly, you have to go through a 3rd party. I can't seem to find how to search for these contracting gigs on Intel's job site - the job ids are unrecognized.

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#13

Post by UncleOxidant » Wed, Oct 06, 2021, 9:36 PM UTC

the__alchemist wrote: post #11

akudha wrote: post #9

Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. Point being, recruiters suck. I have no idea how much Intel pays, but I'd wager it is much more than 65, especially if they are asking for deep…

How does the recruiter charge more? Do they act as a subcontractor intercepting the employee's paycheck? What stops someone from going around them?

Companies like Intel won't deal directly with you. They require you to go through a 3rd party company. As far as I can tell you can't even search for these contract gigs on their site.

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#14

Post by phibz » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 6:14 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #8

phibz wrote: post #6

I'm not in the hardware engineering space but in advertising and finance common languages seem to pay more: java, python, ruby javascript. In my 20 some years working I've never worked a project where my ability to code in C was a plus. Rust? They couldn't care less. I think there's just way less demand for those lower level languages. Combine that with they might have trouble filling the position, so they out source…

C++ is a pretty good paying skill. I've had contract gigs at other places doing similar things to what I listed above (compiler, LLVM, C++) making $100/hr (that was 6 years ago now) so it's not like the skills aren't in demand - if anything it's going to be a lot harder to find someone with C++ and a good understanding of LLVM and compiler development than it will be to find folks with Java or Python skills. What I'v…

I'd argue $100/hr isn't enough for that work, but sounds about right from what I've seen.

Whereas I've done a java, scala, kafka, spark, postgres job and easily gotten $150/hr, and that work isn't anywhere as technically challenging.

I think my point is business doesn't understand how to value technology experience and they skew towards business value vs difficulty and skill.

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#15

Post by killtimeatwork » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

kypro wrote: post #10

akudha wrote: post #9

Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. Point being, recruiters suck. I have no idea how much Intel pays, but I'd wager it is much more than 65, especially if they are asking for deep…

> Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. I'm from the UK so perhaps I'm missing something here, but how would the recruiter benefit from putting you forward at a lower rate? Do they…

> I'm from the UK so perhaps I'm missing something here, but how would the recruiter benefit from putting you forward at a lower rate? Do they not take commission as a percentage of your rate?

Usually, no. Some claim to be commission-based, but most just sell you for X to the customer comany, while paying you Y (Y < X). The customer company usually doesn't even know what the Y is, while you don't know what the X is. In extreme cases, the recruiter's profit margin can be over 50% (i.e. they make more money on your work than you do).

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#16

Post by killtimeatwork » Thu, Oct 07, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

phibz wrote: post #14

UncleOxidant wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ is a pretty good paying skill. I've had contract gigs at other places doing similar things to what I listed above (compiler, LLVM, C++) making $100/hr (that was 6 years ago now) so it's not like the skills aren't in demand - if anything it's going to be a lot harder to find someone with C++ and a good understanding of LLVM and compiler development than it will be to find folks with Java or Python skills. What I'v…

I'd argue $100/hr isn't enough for that work, but sounds about right from what I've seen. Whereas I've done a java, scala, kafka, spark, postgres job and easily gotten $150/hr, and that work isn't anywhere as technically challenging. I think my point is business doesn't understand how to value technology experience and they skew towards business value vs difficulty and skill.

If they're still getting qualified applicants at $100/hr, then it's all good from this point of view.

In general, if jobs paid proportionally to technical difficulty, then theoretical astrophysicists would be making millions a year - while in reality they make much less than someone fresh out of a Javascript bootcamp.

Re: Why do Intel contracts pay so poorly?

#17

Post by llampx » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 10:12 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #12

akudha wrote: post #9

Last week, some recruiter told me the max he can pay is 75 per hour. Just for fun, I said the min I would consider is 90 (my rate is not that much). He immediately said yes. Then I found out that this was for a FAANG company, I am pretty sure he is charging much more than 90. Point being, recruiters suck. I have no idea how much Intel pays, but I'd wager it is much more than 65, especially if they are asking for deep…

> If you can avoid recruiters, avoid them. Some of us can't, and that sucks. Intel won't let you contract directly, you have to go through a 3rd party. I can't seem to find how to search for these contracting gigs on Intel's job site - the job ids are unrecognized.

I've always wondered why this is the case. TEKSystems for example is a well-known middleman. Do the big corporates just enjoy wasting money on middlemen?