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What SWE job hunting is like right now

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Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#111

Post by lolinder »

lokar wrote: post #93
lolinder wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole thread serves as evidence that the upper modality wasn't sustainable at the levels it was operating at, while the lower modality is still going relatively strong. That strongly suggests that one is more sustainable than the other. FAANG employees like to tell themselves that their salaries are/were well deserved and not merely the result of a bubble, but a lot of them are finding out the hard way that that…

There were a lot of these jobs even pre covid. Google had like 40k engineers.

I never said anything about COVID—the software bubble I'm talking about started in the early 2010s.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#112

Post by kcplate »

scarface_74 wrote: post #100
kcplate wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What you're willing to pay and what value we add seem to be vastly different Wow…I think you have that mixed up. You have a very inflated view of the value you add at only 4 years of experience. I am nearing 4 decades in tech and I can count on one hand the number of devs (out of hundreds) have met in my career that when they were at 4 years of experience brought enough value to justify a $140k salary in 2023 dolla…

It doesn’t take much. Since software has close to 0 marginal cost. You could easily develop a feature that by itself bring in more than that over the lifetime of the feature if your company is large enough.

That’s “lottery ticket = possible jackpot” mentality and doesn’t scale. The flip side and obvious counter argument is that a relatively inexperienced SWE is more likely to be responsible for a bug that could cost a company a lot of money—frankly it’s more likely than the jackpot.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#114

Post by scarface_74 »

kcplate wrote: post #112
scarface_74 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t take much. Since software has close to 0 marginal cost. You could easily develop a feature that by itself bring in more than that over the lifetime of the feature if your company is large enough.

That’s “lottery ticket = possible jackpot” mentality and doesn’t scale. The flip side and obvious counter argument is that a relatively inexperienced SWE is more likely to be responsible for a bug that could cost a company a lot of money—frankly it’s more likely than the jackpot.

My contention is that any show stopping bug makes it to production, it was a problem with the system and process not one individual.

And it’s not a lottery ticket. Have you seen the stats of developer/revenue for Google, Microsoft and Facebook?

It’s a lot lower for Amazon because of the warehouse workers, drivers etc and Apple because of Apple retail

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#115

Post by seanmcdirmid »

scarface_74 wrote: post #99
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation alone in the last few years has made $100k achievable by janitors. $175k today is just $48,800 in 1980 dollars. It doesn’t seem like a lot of money anymore, an experienced SWE could do better changing fields if that is a top end salary.

No janitors are not routinely making $100K. Again, look at the facts. Go to either salary.com or levels.fyi and look at salaries for software developers in most major cities. Look at salaries for well known non tech companies like Delta, Coke, Home Depot, or UPS. I know those off the top of my head because they have a heavy presence in my former hometown (Atlanta). Also look at insurance companies. Please tell me all…

I’m not sure where you live, but it’s a standard easy to archive salary here in Seattle. It also isn’t very much money, even in the rest of the country.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#116

Post by kcplate »

scarface_74 wrote: post #114
kcplate wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s “lottery ticket = possible jackpot” mentality and doesn’t scale. The flip side and obvious counter argument is that a relatively inexperienced SWE is more likely to be responsible for a bug that could cost a company a lot of money—frankly it’s more likely than the jackpot.

My contention is that any show stopping bug makes it to production, it was a problem with the system and process not one individual. And it’s not a lottery ticket. Have you seen the stats of developer/revenue for Google, Microsoft and Facebook? It’s a lot lower for Amazon because of the warehouse workers, drivers etc and Apple because of Apple retail

So the “system or process” that spreads the blame of a bug, can also allow a junior dev full autonomy to release a feature of their invention solely and on their own and deserving of all the credit?

Those are incompatible in my experience.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#117

Post by eglove »

aldarisbm wrote: post #113

Bayer has a lot of modern stacks, literally cutting edge, on some of their departments. Depends on the department and what you're doing.

"modern stacks" yeah... they use GraphQL sometimes. I'm sure they'll say Node is cutting edge too. That was exactly my point about tech stack. Dangling shiny keys in front of me in the form of technologies doesn't really cut it. I'm sure it helps for the recent grads though.

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#118

Post by tusharmath »

eglove wrote: post #117
aldarisbm wrote: post #113

Bayer has a lot of modern stacks, literally cutting edge, on some of their departments. Depends on the department and what you're doing.

"modern stacks" yeah... they use GraphQL sometimes. I'm sure they'll say Node is cutting edge too. That was exactly my point about tech stack. Dangling shiny keys in front of me in the form of technologies doesn't really cut it. I'm sure it helps for the recent grads though.

What's wrong with GraphQL? "CAN-OPEN-WORMS-EVERYWHERE"

Re: What SWE job hunting is like right now

#119

Post by scarface_74 »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #115
scarface_74 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No janitors are not routinely making $100K. Again, look at the facts. Go to either salary.com or levels.fyi and look at salaries for software developers in most major cities. Look at salaries for well known non tech companies like Delta, Coke, Home Depot, or UPS. I know those off the top of my head because they have a heavy presence in my former hometown (Atlanta). Also look at insurance companies. Please tell me all…

I’m not sure where you live, but it’s a standard easy to archive salary here in Seattle. It also isn’t very much money, even in the rest of the country.

Wow, so your entire worldview is based on Seattle?

Let me put it this way. I had a friend who worked in Finance at Amazon and his $1.2 million dollar 2400 square foot home that was 20 years old was relatively shitty compared to the $350K home I had built in the burbs of Atlanta in 2016 that was 1000 square feet larger than his.

Yes I know about Seattle salaries - I turned down a chance to interview for a role at Amazon Retail as an SDE because there was no way in hell I was going to relocate to Seattle and deal with the high prices and shitty weather.

However, I did get a remote role working (full time) at AWS ProServe.

BTW, I had my 3200 square foot house built in the “good school system” in 2016 making $135K.

People making $150K (which puts you in the top 20% of earners) are not going around homeless

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