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Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

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Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#131

Post by hollerith »

alkonaut wrote: post #65
untog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that the US is severely out of whack in terms of work/life balance. It's one of the things I find most difficult about living here - when I first arrived I had 10 days vacation a year. I currently only have 15. And don't forget to factor in healthcare costs and the like. Money certainly isn't everything.

Yeah, that IS crazy. How come companies don't offer holdays as comp? Here (Sweden) having an extra week holiday (6 rather than 5 weeks) is a common comp. Why aren't companies competing with that in the US? If I was offered $150k with 10-15 days holiday and 50hr work weeks (expected), I'd immediately start bargaining for 25-30 paid days off, and make sure I wouldn't be expected to work more than 40h/w. Is that uncommo…

In the past in the pages more than a couple of US developers have described a pattern in which they work for a year or 2, then quit and take 6 months off (living off of savings).

I would suppose that they were single with no dependents.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#132

Post by refurb »

jazzyk wrote: post #114
refurb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little to no safety net? What are we spending 50% of the federal budget on then?

1. Social Security 24% 2. Military spending 19%: over 900 bases in 130 countries

Medicare? Medicaid? Welfare spending? It just starts at 24%.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#133

Post by refurb »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #101
refurb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little to no safety net? What are we spending 50% of the federal budget on then?

Mainly corrupt, well-connected private businesses who take a generous cut of the benefits the government contracts them to distribute, one way or another.

Uhhh no. The government distributes welfare payments. The gov't runs Medicaid (a few exceptions). The gov't run Medicare (a few exceptions).

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#134

Post by refurb »

com2kid wrote: post #123
refurb wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little to no safety net? What are we spending 50% of the federal budget on then?

Poorly designed programs that cause people to further descend into poverty thus further raising costs for everyone.

You'll get no argument from me that they are poorly run.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#135

Post by thejdude »

nerfhammer wrote: post #121
alkonaut wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in this culture, is it common to do a few years of high-income work with 12hr days and high compensation, and then you get a "quieter" job somewhere else when you need a job that allows you to pick the kids up at 4.30pm? Or how does it work? Obviously children aren't unheard of in Silicon Valley, and as far as I understand it's a pretty progressive part of the US, so I assume that families have two careers to worr…

> is it common to do a few years of high-income work with 12hr days and high compensation People working the longest hours aren't necessarily making more money because of it. There's no overtime. People don't want to make less as they go on in their careers, and don't want to look like they don't want to work a lot, so if they take less time they try not to do so overtly. > then you get a "quieter" job somewhere else…

To me that seems insane. With the work I do, at 50 hours, I would be seriously burnt out (I used to be at a previous job). NOT good for the company.

By working ~40h I maintain my strength and keep delivering really good results. But when I sometimes do 1-2h overtime I notice that others (who come to work at 9:30-10) also leave at 5:50-6, so generally in Germany I'd say regular work hours are a given thing and most people don't do that much overtime, at least in IT. I've heard bad things about creative industries like ad agencies, or IT companies with lots of young engineers w/o kids.

I mean why would I work more - for more money, sure, but not for free. My employer doesn't pay me "overmoney" for the same amount of work, does he? I at least get an overtime account and this year I managed to reduce it by ~10 hours. With different overtime policies I definitely would NOT have taken the job - NOT good for the company ;-)

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#136

Post by thejdude »

hollerith wrote: post #113
thejdude wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany, all those jobs you mention will also make more/much more than a developer. I think the tech sector in the US is very strong and competes for devs.

I think I understand this. In both the US and in Germany, a lot of developers -- kids right out of college -- will work for a lot less than the value they add. Too young to know better; nerdy and bad at negotiation. OK, the difference between Germany and the US is that job creation is easier in the US -- less regulations on employers. One piece of evidence that this is so is the high youth unemployment in Europe comp…

In general, I agree with our assessment, but let me add that I constantly got great evaluations by my superiors, but when I asked for a 10% raise they laughed in my face. I don't work there anymore, but other companies also didn't pay much more when I went looking (without acute need).

Maybe it's the business (consulting) where they only care about the hourly margin, not about your performance (although I did an internal fixed-price project back then; probably saved the company's ass on that botched POS they had built). Generally, my impression is that salaries in Germany are very homogenous, and affected largely by age/experience and rank. You'd have to be a well-marketed freelancer to achieve high hourly rates (only a few people - relatively speaking - can do that).

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#137

Post by thejdude »

bowlofpetunias wrote: post #96
thejdude wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's low to you? Wow. Just wow. Over here in Europe (or at least Germany) salaries are incredibly uniform (doesn't really matter if you suck or get as much done in a day as others in 1-2 weeks; if your bugs get constantly reopened or your code is rock-solid), and most people seem to get maybe 35-50k€ after graduation (diploma/master's degree).

35-50k€ is low, even for Western European standards. You cannot compare it to US salaries given the enormous differences in social structure when it comes to healthcare etcetera. But still: tech salaries in Europe are low, and are being systematically depressed. The influx of relatively cheap engineers from Eastern EU countries is one influence, but not even such a big one, since most of them pretty quickly catch up…

Plus, most software engineers I work with every day are hardly nerds. Maybe 1/3 of them are, the rest are just wearing suits without ties but are very professional at their job and attitude.

The "nerd" idea is a myth, a prejudice I myself had back in college. But it's not the reality. Most engineers are very very boring family men, not the enthusiastic hipster type in funky colored pants.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#138

Post by hollerith »

thejdude wrote: post #136
hollerith wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I understand this. In both the US and in Germany, a lot of developers -- kids right out of college -- will work for a lot less than the value they add. Too young to know better; nerdy and bad at negotiation. OK, the difference between Germany and the US is that job creation is easier in the US -- less regulations on employers. One piece of evidence that this is so is the high youth unemployment in Europe comp…

In general, I agree with our assessment, but let me add that I constantly got great evaluations by my superiors, but when I asked for a 10% raise they laughed in my face. I don't work there anymore, but other companies also didn't pay much more when I went looking (without acute need). Maybe it's the business (consulting) where they only care about the hourly margin, not about your performance (although I did an inte…

Thank you.

When you write, "rank", what exactly do you mean?

Here in California, I think we do not use that word.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#139

Post by alkonaut »

nerfhammer wrote: post #129
alkonaut wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the insights. Perhaps it is time for companies to compete for talent on these parameters instead? I think I've seen some companies trying to attract talent like that now that I think about it (was it stack exchange perhaps?). I might underestimate the power of the almighty buck here, but I'd take the employer that says "we value work/life balance, when we say 40h/week we mean it literally, we allow remote…

> I might underestimate the power of the almighty buck here, but I'd take the employer that says "we value work/life balance, when we say 40h/week we mean it literally, we allow remote work, and we have 5 paid weeks off". Almost universally what you see in job ads and recruiter spam is "we offer exciting challenges " and that they've created the most fun place to work ever and if they mention compensation at all they…

Thanks. Remember to go work in Stockholm when you have kids ;)

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#140

Post by thejdude »

hollerith wrote: post #138
thejdude wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, I agree with our assessment, but let me add that I constantly got great evaluations by my superiors, but when I asked for a 10% raise they laughed in my face. I don't work there anymore, but other companies also didn't pay much more when I went looking (without acute need). Maybe it's the business (consulting) where they only care about the hourly margin, not about your performance (although I did an inte…

Thank you. When you write, "rank", what exactly do you mean? Here in California, I think we do not use that word.

By rank I mean title/position, something like that.
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