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High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

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Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#151

Post by bhousel »

kzhahou wrote: post #145
conanbatt wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to believe the numbers you provide are right, but then I look at https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Facebook-Salaries-E40772.ht... and cant see where to get more reliable sources for thinking facebook or google pay that.

Those salaries on Glassdoor pretty much match what I'm saying, with salaries running up to $165 for senior devs. Add 30% for bonus and $100-150K in stock and you're into the $300K+ range I'm describing. The $600K+ figure is for director level and above. The $2M/year individual contributor was an outlier.

$150k salary + $150k stock does not equal $300k salary. Not even in SV. And that 30% bonus sounds like made up nonsense.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#152

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

kasey_junk wrote: post #38
pc86 wrote: post #23

> After more than 20 years as an electronics engineer, Pete Edwards reached the low six-figure pay level. Where is it that late-career engineers are barely pulling in six figures? Don't get me wrong, it's a lot of money (3x mean personal income in the US, and ~1.75x mean HHI, give or take), but I'd expect most senior folks in any engineering field to be in the mid 100k range if not pushing 185ish. > Time and again, h…

Depending on what "electronics engineer" means it is perfectly viable that he was at a low six figure number. The electrical engineering field generally in the US has been dramatically outsourced to Asia which has caused obvious downward price pressure.

I had to side step into firmware because of this. Amazing that they're starting the beat the drum for even more EEs because of a "shortage" when there are so many now that can't find employment in their field.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#153

Post by dba7dba »

dogma1138 wrote: post #139
matthewcford wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> socially well adjusted Don't underestimate this. Being a better code doesn't make you a better employee.

Nope but they tend to serve other needs like keeping a good social structure within the company and being presentable to investors or doing client facing pre-sale / post-sale work besides coding. There are allot of ways that a company can monetize their employees and allot of factors that end up being calculated to come up with the figure they end up paying for them, being socially well adjusted and attractive can ha…

The thing is none of the coders at old job were needed in customer interaction. Think it was more of eye candy, cool guy to have around, founder had common hobbies like football etc.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#154

Post by kzhahou »

bhousel wrote: post #151
kzhahou wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those salaries on Glassdoor pretty much match what I'm saying, with salaries running up to $165 for senior devs. Add 30% for bonus and $100-150K in stock and you're into the $300K+ range I'm describing. The $600K+ figure is for director level and above. The $2M/year individual contributor was an outlier.

$150k salary + $150k stock does not equal $300k salary. Not even in SV. And that 30% bonus sounds like made up nonsense.

Why the hostility? I'm not making any of this up. That bonus is typical of multiple places I've been, usually comprising 15% individual performance bonus and 15% company performance.

And of course 150 sal != 300 sal. 300+ is total comp, as I already said.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#155

Post by votr »

njharman wrote: post #26

Moving from engineer in financial industry to engineer in "regular" industry (same city) I just accepted and told potential employers I expected a pay cut. Sooo much money in finance, everyone is "over" paid.

I'm in finance and looking to get out. Why did you move?

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#156

Post by ikeboy »

vinceguidry wrote: post #123
pmoriarty wrote: post #20

"Time and again, he says, employers seem to lose interest after he answers a question that they ask early on: 'What was your last salary?'" I never answer that question. Almost always it's been recruiters asking that (and only some recruiters, the less reputable ones). This is a seller's market for IT talent. You don't have to give in to bullying tactics to get a good job. I've had to walk away exactly once when a re…

I would not tell recruiters my current salary, ($75K) but I did tell him my target salary, which was market rate for a mid-level Ruby dev in my city. ($115K) He wanted to go in at $110K. I kept telling him how odd it was to be negotiating salary upfront, and he told me "that's just how recruiting works." I just shrugged and let him do his job. If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruit…

By realizing you have to use the system and studying how to get the system to do your work, you learn how to adapt the system to your desires. Or you can fight it steadily, as a small undeclared war, for the whole of your life.

Many a second-rate fellow gets caught up in some little twitting of the system, and carries it through to warfare. He expends his energy in a foolish project. Now you are going to tell me that somebody has to change the system. I agree; somebody's has to. Which do you want to be? The person who changes the system or the person who does first-class science? Which person is it that you want to be? Be clear, when you fight the system and struggle with it, what you are doing, how far to go out of amusement, and how much to waste your effort fighting the system. My advice is to let somebody else do it and you get on with becoming a first-class scientist. Very few of you have the ability to both reform the system and become a first-class scientist.

From http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

There's a couple more quotes like that. Very similar to your point.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#157

Post by shampine »

jokr004 wrote: post #11
xlm1717 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Click the web link below the title, then click the story in the google results. Pay wall goes down.

The google trick has worked for me in the past, but it doesn't seem to be working now for this article..

I think they are dropping a cookie when you visit and hit the paywall then try to access the article through Google. Incognito works.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#158

Post by pmoriarty »

patmcguire wrote: post #149
vinceguidry wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not tell recruiters my current salary, ($75K) but I did tell him my target salary, which was market rate for a mid-level Ruby dev in my city. ($115K) He wanted to go in at $110K. I kept telling him how odd it was to be negotiating salary upfront, and he told me "that's just how recruiting works." I just shrugged and let him do his job. If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruit…

They have the same incentives as realtors selling homes. If you're commission's 15%, what's the value of 15% of the extra $5k versus time?

A real estate agent is not likely to sell 15 or 20 houses to the same buyer. But a recruiter could well sell 15 or 20 candidates to the same employer. That gives the recruiter a far greater incentive to please the employer than a real estate agent has to please a buyer.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#159

Post by melted »

IMO the whole situation could easily be avoided if employers provided salary ranges up front. I heard that's what they do in Japan, and several recruiter pings I have received from there did contain the ranges. Alas they were too low to justify the aggravation of moving to another country, but from what I can tell, they were very respectable by Tokyo standards.

Re: High Salaries Haunt Some Job Hunters

#160

Post by ElComradio »

eastbayjake wrote: post #147
vinceguidry wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not tell recruiters my current salary, ($75K) but I did tell him my target salary, which was market rate for a mid-level Ruby dev in my city. ($115K) He wanted to go in at $110K. I kept telling him how odd it was to be negotiating salary upfront, and he told me "that's just how recruiting works." I just shrugged and let him do his job. If I'd wanted to negotiate my salary myself, I wouldn't be using a recruit…

> Be a team player. Climb the ladder, pay your dues. It doesn't take as long as you think. This attitude is why engineers get bullied and steamrolled into working for a small fraction of the value they create for their employers, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars on the table over the course of their careers. Being a team player is for after you're on the team -- but before that happens it's not personal, it's…

It doesn't matter how much value you create for your employer; it is how many other people around can create the same value for your employer.
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