601–610 of 691 posts
Throwaway. 2010-2014 in college. Contract work for a startup, approx 50 dollars per hour. 2015 worked full time for the startup, 100k salary no stock. 2016 moved to SV for FAANG company 1, negotiated well, 220k total comp. 2017 stayed at company 1. Signing bonus was very large, so total comp dropped to 190k depsite raise. 2018 moved to FAANG company 2. Negotiated well, total comp 300k. Roughly 45% increase per year.…
Which language(s)?
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That goes only so far. Macbooks cost the same, and you ain't getting your car cheaper than in the States.
I completely agree with this. Throughout my career people have always spouted the same crap about "cost of living" for an area. Unless you're barely surviving paycheck to paycheck, or your household is poor to lower-middle class (which imo should not be a common case for a professional Software Engineer), the majority of your spending should not location specific. Rent/Mortgage monthly payments are often recommended…
Living in a small Canadian city makes it hard to gauge how much I should be making.. I haven't worked in 2yrs due to mental illnesses (mostly aspergers), I wouldn't know how to explain my situation at interviews either..
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when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US? Why would you speak "in general" about something so specific - this really isn't a goal for everyone. All the best for you making your own decisions of course. In my case I will make considerable tradeoffs to hopefully never live in a 'burb again. It's also worth noting that…
Because the whole point is what the “average” developer is making across the country and not the outliers.
Throwaway. 2010-2014 in college. Contract work for a startup, approx 50 dollars per hour. 2015 worked full time for the startup, 100k salary no stock. 2016 moved to SV for FAANG company 1, negotiated well, 220k total comp. 2017 stayed at company 1. Signing bonus was very large, so total comp dropped to 190k depsite raise. 2018 moved to FAANG company 2. Negotiated well, total comp 300k. Roughly 45% increase per year.…
Any tips on negotiation at FANG corps?
I think most of what people talk about "negotiating skills" or "driving a hard bargain" is pretending to be in this situation despite it not being true. But in my case I genuinely was in this situation, so I did not have to use a lot of skill (besides the mental aspect of being confident in how I felt)
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I got promoted to "senior" developer less than 6 months out of university because my employer wanted to inflate the credibility of his consulting business. Job titles aren't standardised and can be pretty meaningless between organisations.
This isn't unique to tech, either. In a lot of enterprise sales orgs, literally everyone is a "VP".
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Because the whole point is what the “average” developer is making across the country and not the outliers.
What does that have to do with wanting/not wanting to live in the 'burbs ? Lots of "average" developers don't want to live in SV or a 'burb. You present it as some sort of weird dichotomy - reality is much more complex than that.
The point is more that it seems like people in the bubble think that a developer living in a major metro area outside of SV making in the low six figures is somehow living in squalor barely making ins meet when they can live where they want in most cities and save - especially if they are a part of a two income household.
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You should probably quadruple that rate, my friend. Contracting should not be at the same rate as salaried.
Yes, totally agree. You need to smooth your earnings and account for downtime. But in seeing all these $50/60K salaries on here, I guess what I'm wondering is I'd happily pay a fixed retainer of say $25K a year for 10-15 hours of work per week. I don't have enough work to keep a $60K a year developer busy, but I could keep a part of one busy all year and make a commitment to pay at least $X / year.
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Depends of course where you are, but it sounds like you are getting underpaid. In London a senior engineer will get at least £60k (depending on what 'senior' means and how many currently hot languages you list on your CV). I know people in obscure parts of the country, with next to no tech scene, who aren't far off that. The real money in the UK is in contracting though, or go to the dark side and work in finance.
I've seen some sky high contracting rates in London listed on indeed.co.uk (£85-£120 per hour). I was never sure if they were legit. Also, it doesn't really matter to me since I'm a US Citizen with no cheap Visa route.
Burner account. Los Angeles. I've worked in the same large public company since college (about 15 years), but have changed roles a few times. I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from a somewhat prestigious regional school. Numbers are approximate but pretty close. I left out options and RSUs because I can't remember them all, but they were typically around $5k-$10k/year with 4 year vesting. Embedded Firmware…
I might be under a misapprehension, but a 5-6k pay bump for getting to Senior Staff seems low. Isn't it exponentially harder to keep going up levels, but your rate of pay increase went down.
It was actually a 0% raise when I got my promotion. The $5k was from an annual merit increase beforehand. I'm not complaining too much because I like my work, and as far as I can tell my total compensation is on the far upper end for companies within commuting distance.