241–250 of 280 posts
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Without wanting to sound stupid, when you talk about salaries do you always mention the amount before or after tax? Here in Europe it's almost always after tax.
in austria it is always before. heck, i know a lot of people who don't even know how much they make after taxes
This is completely believable, if you take into account the bonus and the RSUS. Suppose the actual salary is $130k and 30% (at least that's what I heard bonus): that already brings his salary up to $169k. Now add RSUs: over the last five years, the average price had been ~$500/share. He will only need an RSU grant of ~650 RSUs (which sounds reasonable, especially if it was granted in 2008/2009 when the stock price wa…
This is completely believable, if you take into account the bonus and the RSUS. Suppose the actual salary is $130k and 30% (at least that's what I heard bonus): that already brings his salary up to $169k. Now add RSUs: over the last five years, the average price had been ~$500/share. He will only need an RSU grant of ~650 RSUs (which sounds reasonable, especially if it was granted in 2008/2009 when the stock price wa…
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in austria it is always before. heck, i know a lot of people who don't even know how much they make after taxes
Why does that happen? If you check your balance you can clearly see your net wage, right?
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in austria it is always before. heck, i know a lot of people who don't even know how much they make after taxes
Why does that happen? If you check your balance you can clearly see your net wage, right?
what makes it a bit more complicated too (not complete, i am sure there are other reasons as well): we get paid at least 14 times a year, where the non-monthly payouts have a completely different taxing. my father working for a bank gets paid 16 times a year plus a bonus once or twice a year.
also, once you have paid a certain amount for your social security, you don't pay it at all anymore, skewing your net wage.
it might be that the employer miscalculated your net wage and you might have to pay the IRS at the end of the year (or if you are lucky, you get money back)
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> I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: Your previous comment was only four sentences, one of which was an exhortation to read the previous sentence twice! I'm sure your implication wasn't intentional, but I find the suggestion that you aren't speaking simply enough for me to understand your reasoning offensive. It's not that your explanation was too complex. I just don't agree…
No, it's not rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. Negotiations are two-sided. If, for your $5,000 pay bump†, the company decides they'd like you to be closing 35% more bugs than every other employer in your pay band, they can demand that in the negotiation. You can then make a decision about whether or not the bump is worth the concession. If it isn't, you can decline the job, or you can negotiate t…
I really can't speak for engineers, since my experience as an employer wasn't at a tech company. I've been an owner of a painting business and a school. In my experience, I the correlation with the aggressive negotiating and job dedication skewed the other way from yours. In a pinch, particularly at the school, a forceful negotiator could extract higher pay (aka a raise) from me, but afterwards I had very little compunctions with pushing right back or firing if necessary. Less you think I was a terrible employer, I did pay employees between 30% and 80% over the market norms. It's just that employee loyalty is particularly important in that market (children's education), and creating an environment in which negotiation is the norm would have been creating a drain on both time and morale.
Now that I'm entering the tech industry, I suppose it could be an entirely different world. There is a limit to what I'll put up with, but for now my focus is on creating value, not extracting it. That said, I'll definitely keep your comments in the back of my mind next time I have a good opportunity to discuss pay.
As a point of data, I work at Google and am at a similar point in my career. My base salary a year ago was $136k, but there was a companywide 10% raise last winter, and now my base is $150k. You get a cash bonus each year that's around 15% of your base, but if you're a superstar it can be double that, or if you're a total disappointment, it can be nothing. But if I perform as expected, that's another $22k. Finally, I…
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Spot on. (d) in particular is worth stressing. There is no difficulty in attracting and retaining talent. There is simply an unwillingness to pay them what they're worth and give them an environment in which they'd want to work. Supply and demand. It's pretty simple. Yet so many (typically business types) want to treat engineers as an interchangeable cost center. "5 years ago an engineer cost $100k so I refuse to pay…
Hi! This is the Market Economics Fairy! I help supply and demand equilibrate everywhere! If nobody can find good programmers to hire, it means that programmer salaries are too low! Raise programmer salaries until... ...erm, actually, students are remarkably goddamn insensitive to their future salaries when it comes to picking a major. And the other way S&D could equilibrate here is by fewer companies even trying to h…
I helped them as much as I could but none of them are now programmers because it's just too much work for no return to learn this stuff. You have to be interested in it, and supply and demand doesn't make more people actually interested in it...
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The problem seems to stem from the fact that most people are presented with paltry-sounding offers from places like google. As is mentioned in many of the response here, it seems that the guy probably quoted total compensation. However, prima facie the only number people see is the salary number from their offer. The offer doesn't tell you how good the bonus will be, nor can you immediately appreciate stuff like 401K…
This is highly relevant. I had an offer from Google with a base salary lower than a competing offer from a startup...but when I factoried in benefits, stock, etc. on both sides Google's offer was about 50% larger. Of course, you're eating the same food as you get promoted, so some benefits/perks become a smaller fraction of your comp as your total comp goes up, but they're still significant around 250k.
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Why does that happen? If you check your balance you can clearly see your net wage, right?
yes and no. Some just don't check their balance as they don't care about 100 or 150 euros a month. what makes it a bit more complicated too (not complete, i am sure there are other reasons as well): we get paid at least 14 times a year, where the non-monthly payouts have a completely different taxing. my father working for a bank gets paid 16 times a year plus a bonus once or twice a year. also, once you have paid a…