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Looking through some CoL stats if you make only 36k in RI that is only about 60k in SF. That is how criminally low you are being paid. Can you imagine being paid only 60k in SF for software development? (Unless you own a large percentage of the startup). If there wasnt such a demand for software development i would say you're harming the rest of us when you take such a low paying job but since it's such a sellers market you're only hurting yourself. If you enjoy the job and they enjoy your work. Imagine how much more enjoyable it will be when you get paid the market rate or better!
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Sep 29, 2012 02:08
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Stoph posted:I'm billing out WordPress coding at $50/hour. Half of it is just building HTML and CSS templates. My best clients are web designers who don't want to write code anymore. However, I recently left a full-time job developing custom WordPress and CodeIgniter applications for $36,000/year in Minneapolis. Why not do it now? Why not $500/hr? You should read patio11's posts about consulting Edit http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/09/21/ramit-sethi-and-patrick-mckenzie-on-why-your-customers-would-be-happier-if-you-charged-more/ Strong Sauce fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Sep 29, 2012 |
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Sep 29, 2012 02:13
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Ithaqua posted:Luckily, you can transition into management, architecture, or non-HR "team lead" roles that will break the ceiling. I honestly don't think I would even want to do that. When 6 o'clock rolls around, I want to be done with my job.
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Sep 29, 2012 02:39
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Sab669 posted:I honestly don't think I would even want to do that. When 6 o'clock rolls around, I want to be done with my job. The hours you work have nothing to do with your compensation. As you advance in your career, you'll probably work slightly longer / odder hours, but (anecdotally) I currently work 35-45 hours per week, but I also answer emails at 11 pm and on weekends, and I work late if it's necessary.
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Sep 29, 2012 04:08
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Sab669 posted:I honestly don't think I would even want to do that. When 5 o'clock rolls around, I want to be done with my job. I fixed that for you.
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Sep 29, 2012 04:27
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Ithaqua posted:You're also criminally underpaid. I started my career in a similar situation, and I don't like seeing it happen to other people. People who start out at a low salary tend to make less throughout their entire careers. I managed to avoid that (my salary is pretty much dead median for my level of experience nowadays), but it was mainly through luck. Never underestimate the power of getting poached. Some recruiter at [FAMOUS COMPUTER COMPANY] sent me a message on linked-in and started the interview process - I went to my boss and said that I was being paid below market value, had started to look around, and [FAMOUS COMPUTER COMPANY] had started interviewing me for a position. They asked for the emails I had with the recruiter. Miraculously, my salary increased by 20k and I got a 10k bonus, cash, on the condition that I have to give the bonus back if I quit, literally overnight.
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Sep 29, 2012 04:52
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hieronymus posted:Miraculously, my salary increased by 20k and I got a 10k bonus, cash, on the condition that I have to give the bonus back if I quit, literally overnight. Does this have a time limit on it or something? If the bonus had to be paid back if you left within a year, I could understand. But to have an indefinite liability binding you to a company sounds extremely stressful (and frankly, illegal). Just curious though, how did Mr. Famous Computer Company know you on LinkedIn? Was it a random thing, or were you acquainted with somebody that worked for them?
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Sep 29, 2012 06:14
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oRenj9 posted:Does this have a time limit on it or something? If the bonus had to be paid back if you left within a year, I could understand. But to have an indefinite liability binding you to a company sounds extremely stressful (and frankly, illegal). I have to stay there for a year and half more if I don't want to give the bonus back. I have no idea why [FAMOUS COMPUTER COMPANY] contacted me but I had a lot of keywords relating to performance in my linked-in so I think I came up in a keyword search - my master's degree in cS was the first thing they asked about so I guess that's definitely a leg-up at that company.
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Sep 29, 2012 08:25
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Ithaqua posted:The hours you work have nothing to do with your compensation. As you advance in your career, you'll probably work slightly longer / odder hours, but (anecdotally) I currently work 35-45 hours per week, but I also answer emails at 11 pm and on weekends, and I work late if it's necessary. I mean, I don't mind working somewhat after hours, but I don't want to have that role where when poo poo goes wrong it's my head on the chopping block at any hour of the day  shrughes posted:I fixed that for you. Meh, I work 9-6 where I am currently. I'd like to get out earlier, but whatever.
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Sep 30, 2012 05:50
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dingy dimples posted:So, Google hasn't gotten back to me, which is kind of a bummer. It'll be three weeks on Thursday. I waited weeks for Google to get back to me after I interviewed. Finally a recruiter got back to me and set up a time to call me to discuss the next steps and then never did. I emailed him and we set up another time and again he failed to call me. I emailed him after that and said forget it, I'm not interested. My interview there was a joke anyway, I don't understand how they hire anyone.
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Sep 30, 2012 11:19
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Ninja Rope posted:I waited weeks for Google to get back to me after I interviewed. Finally a recruiter got back to me and set up a time to call me to discuss the next steps and then never did. I emailed him and we set up another time and again he failed to call me. I emailed him after that and said forget it, I'm not interested. Jeez. I'm surprised they put such a dysfunctional foot forward. I'm still very much interested in working there. Despite my earlier (stupid) jokes, I'm not interested in perks for their own sake. Perks are just a good sign that the company is implementing Spolsky's development abstraction layer. But like I said, I guess a lot of top talent wants very badly to work at Google, meaning it's a buyer's market on Google's end.
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Sep 30, 2012 16:19
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Zamujasa posted:Haha. As a "Lead Developer" doing PHP, I wonder what you'd say if you found out I was making about $30k/year ($14/hour). My first job as a "Senior Developer" doing PHP I was payed $37/hr. If you are not a literal incompetent then you can find better work elsewhere.
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Sep 30, 2012 19:37
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(I was hired on making a mind-boggling $11/hour.) I need to brush up on my MVC skillset, but at least I can understand and learn quickly, I guess.
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dingy dimples posted:Jeez. I'm surprised they put such a dysfunctional foot forward. I've worked in the valley for a while and talent does want to work at Google, but there's still a strong "startup" pull towards places like twitter, square, dropbox, etc. Maybe Google is passing over the curve of cool places to work, and now that the Facebook IPO has gone off I don't really see people jumping ship to work there either. Or maybe people just want to live and work in SF and are tired of Sunnyvale/Mt View. Anyway, if you give up on Goog and want to look elsewhere shoot me a PM. I don't know what you do but I've got friends at various companies and I can ask who has openings. Ninja Rope fucked around with this message at 20:16 on Sep 30, 2012 |
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Sep 30, 2012 20:14
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Can someone tell me what exactly happens at an "interview prep session?" Is this going to be a quiz or something?
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Sep 30, 2012 20:50
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KNITS MY FEEDS posted:Can someone tell me what exactly happens at an "interview prep session?" Is this going to be a quiz or something? In what context? My guess would be that it's an interview with a recruiter where they go over general company/position/organization stuff and tell you what to expect from the technical interviews. Remember that recruiters get input into whether or not you get hired, so it's not just the technical interviews that count.
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Sep 30, 2012 22:03
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tk posted:In what context? My guess would be that it's an interview with a recruiter where they go over general company/position/organization stuff and tell you what to expect from the technical interviews. Ah, okay. Well, I got an e-mail from the company saying that there was going to be an interview prep session for those invited to interview. They gave us an overview of what the three positions they were hiring for during an info session but they didn't give any specifics on what group/product these positions were for. The release form didn't mention anything about what our interests are/what product we want to work on either, can I assume that this is how they'll be sorting us? e: Is this normally how things go?
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Sep 30, 2012 23:31
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So any tips on how to really look for a job, other than scour multiple job search websites with a "Software Engineer" criteria? If I try to limit a search by a language, or skill level (jr, junior, entry) they all seem to return very few results.
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Oct 1, 2012 15:32
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company recruiter posted:Please make sure you have sent a cover letter, resume, unofficial copy of your transcript and a completed application to hr@company.biz before your interview. A copy of the application form can be found on our web site, https://www.company.biz Also, please provide your ACT/SAT total score and your math sub score as well. No documentation is necessary. My first reaction was "Get the gently caress out of here". My university provides career services where you can put your resume online and approved companies can check them out and view them. This guy contacted me and said, "hey you should totally apply for an interview!" I got an interview and now I get this email. Does this seem a little excessive to anyone else? Or am I being unreasonable? Seriously ACT scores? I'm at a loving university, getting a degree, you know.
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Oct 1, 2012 16:06
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Sab669 posted:So any tips on how to really look for a job, other than scour multiple job search websites with a "Software Engineer" criteria? If I try to limit a search by a language, or skill level (jr, junior, entry) they all seem to return very few results. Titles are bullshit, you can get a "Senior" position straight out of college. Even if they ask for a few years of experience they're probably not getting a ton of good bites, there are more jobs than experienced devs that don't have work. Find things that look interesting and even if they ask for 2-3 years of experience put in an application.
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Oct 1, 2012 16:06
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NovemberMike posted:Titles are bullshit, you can get a "Senior" position straight out of college. At startups you can probably even get a "director" level title!
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Oct 1, 2012 16:49
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Tres Burritos posted:Seriously ACT scores? I'm at a loving university, getting a degree, you know. That seems pretty ridiculous to me but I am not an expert.
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Oct 1, 2012 16:58
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Tres Burritos posted:Seriously ACT scores? I'm at a loving university, getting a degree, you know. That sounds like crap. Unless you're a first semester freshmen applying for an internship or something.
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Oct 1, 2012 17:03
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NovemberMike posted:Titles are bullshit, you can get a "Senior" position straight out of college. Even if they ask for a few years of experience they're probably not getting a ton of good bites, there are more jobs than experienced devs that don't have work. Find things that look interesting and even if they ask for 2-3 years of experience put in an application. Oh I do, I'd consider anything saying 2-3 (or less) as entry-level work... But it seems like a larger (significantly) portion of job postings are looking for 5+ years. Just annoying clicking through so many links only to immediately click the back button.
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Oct 1, 2012 17:04
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hobbesmaster posted:At startups you can probably even get a "director" level title! "Director of Interactive Media" checking in. Good experience but it's time for a raise. I might stick around to make it a full year but I'd rather take the weird looks and a bigger paycheck.
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Oct 1, 2012 17:07
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Sab669 posted:Oh I do, I'd consider anything saying 2-3 (or less) as entry-level work... But it seems like a larger (significantly) portion of job postings are looking for 5+ years. Just annoying clicking through so many links only to immediately click the back button. I'd still apply. The fact is that a lot of these companies are going to be getting a bunch of incompetents and if you're competent then they'll be willing to overlook inexperience. Not every company is going to be interested but at least some of them are, and you only need one good job.
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Oct 1, 2012 17:13
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^^^ yeah My current job was searching for Ruby developers. I applied with zero Ruby experience. They didn't care because I was a capable Python developer and they could finally fill a position that was open for over nine months. Open positions can cost companies serious money. At the end of the day it was way more cost effective for them to hire me to learn Ruby than it was to keep searching for the perfect Ruby developer to come along. Seriously companies are dying to hire developers. The only time you are going to really run into problems with requirements is the top tier companies where everyone wants to work. So just apply for the job. The position might have gone unfilled for months, or they might not really need that much experience. And even if they do, maybe they have an unlisted position or two that you could fill. Apply apply apply. What's the downside? They don't hire you? hobbesmaster posted:At startups you can probably even get a "director" level title! I was a CTO for a while
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Oct 1, 2012 17:36
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Johnny Cache Hit posted:I was a CTO for a while I was interim CTO for a few months at the age of 28. I didn't care for it, not because I couldn't do the job, but because the owners of the company were total lunatics, which is why the CTO left in the first place, and why I left.
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Oct 1, 2012 18:55
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Johnny Cache Hit posted:^^^ yeah Hiring a X developer to do development in Y isn't that uncommon. But if the company legitimately needs a senior programmer they're not going to hire anyone that is inexperienced in what they need. Although to be fair a lot of companies look for "senior" programmers in positions where someone with 1-2 years of experience will suffice. So yeah I would say apply, but if I'm going to be honest about this: if the position is a legitimate senior level position, and they hire someone with little to no experience, that is probably a bad sign.
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Oct 1, 2012 19:06
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Strong Sauce posted:So yeah I would say apply, but if I'm going to be honest about this: if the position is a legitimate senior level position, and they hire someone with little to no experience, that is probably a bad sign. I don't necessarily disagree. I have, however, noticed quite a bit of variability in what companies call "senior" developers. Some use it as a way of saying "we'll pay you more because you are experienced." Some use it to mean "you'll be a technical lead/project manager". And I worked at a few companies that used it to mean "you've been here for a while, so..." All I'm saying is that if your experience is reasonably close to a listed position, you should send in a resume & try to interview, because the opportunity cost in not trying can be very high. (In my case I'd never interview for a senior Ruby position with 0 experience, so don't think I'm advocating that. it was probably bad of me to mention that anecdote in a discussion of senior level positions  )
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Oct 1, 2012 21:01
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Eh, you can get an idea of whether it's a real Senior position or not by reading the requirements (and looking for management or design stuff) but I've seen a lot of places that just call development positions Senior Software Engineer or something similar because Marketing Bullshit (TM).
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Oct 1, 2012 21:41
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Johnny Cache Hit posted:I don't necessarily disagree. I have, however, noticed quite a bit of variability in what companies call "senior" developers. Some use it as a way of saying "we'll pay you more because you are experienced." Some use it to mean "you'll be a technical lead/project manager". And I worked at a few companies that used it to mean "you've been here for a while, so..." NovemberMike posted:Eh, you can get an idea of whether it's a real Senior position or not by reading the requirements (and looking for management or design stuff) but I've seen a lot of places that just call development positions Senior Software Engineer or something similar because Marketing Bullshit (TM). Yeap definitely agree with all these points, if you feel you're pretty close to the job description you should just apply.
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Oct 1, 2012 22:15
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Yea, I suppose there's definitely no harm in it. Sent off my resume to a place I interned at previously (staffing agency, ick) and another awesome company I interviewed with and then suddenly the job was no longer available. Need to wade through Dice some more when I get off work in 40 minutes, tonight.
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Oct 1, 2012 22:17
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Strong Sauce posted:Why not do it now? Why not $500/hr? You should read patio11's posts about consulting I saw this post on Hacker News when it first came out. It's definitely helped shift my views in a good way. This article is a must-read for all of us underpaid software engineers.
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Oct 2, 2012 00:18
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Stoph posted:I saw this post on Hacker News when it first came out. It's definitely helped shift my views in a good way. This article is a must-read for all of us underpaid software engineers. I'm a web developer, product uploader, website manager, consultant, and software programmer for a small company; I get paid $12.50 an hour and can't work more than 20 hours a week. Unfortunately my boss literally can't afford to pay me more. I consider it building my resume, and I get to work remotely most days though. However that leads me to my next point... If I were to make a resume for my skills based on what I've got going here: http://www.pluswebhost.com/portfolio/ What do you Goons think I could be making (average or range)? If I optimized the sample code to reflect my current knowledge? I plan on staying with my current company for at least 6 more months, but I like to have a backup plan in case something goes wrong. E: no degree, not enough college to mention Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Oct 2, 2012 |
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Oct 2, 2012 03:14
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Knyteguy posted:I'm a web developer, product uploader, website manager, consultant, and software programmer for a small company; I get paid $12.50 an hour and can't work more than 20 hours a week. Unfortunately my boss literally can't afford to pay me more. I consider it building my resume, and I get to work remotely most days though. However that leads me to my next point... Your "portfolio" page means nothing. It's screenshots. If an employer cares about a portfolio at all, they want to see code. Put some stuff on github or codeplex. The snippets of code you have a) aren't very good (at least the C# stuff), and B) are hard to read.
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Oct 2, 2012 03:25
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Ithaqua posted:Your "portfolio" page means nothing. It's screenshots. If an employer cares about a portfolio at all, they want to see code. Put some stuff on github or codeplex. The snippets of code you have a) aren't very good (at least the C# stuff), and B) are hard to read. Also the initial landing page doesn't add anything and you seem to have some stray "Testing" text on the page. If you click the "About Me" link, nothing happens (at least in Chrome), so no one is going to contact you that way. I would also recommend cutting down on the exclamation points.
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Oct 2, 2012 03:56
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Ithaqua posted:Your "portfolio" page means nothing. It's screenshots. If an employer cares about a portfolio at all, they want to see code. Put some stuff on github or codeplex. The snippets of code you have a) aren't very good (at least the C# stuff), and B) are hard to read. C# I'm still pretty new at (roughly 10 months experience), so being a C# programmer may be the least likely position for me to land. Agreed about B though. I'm thinking of just adding a little link with a popup window. As far as GitHub, one project is proprietary so I may not be able to post that up there. Would projects I post on there need to be perfect? I don't want employers to think I'm better/more knowledgeable than I really am and set expectations too high by re-writing every single line. This is pretty much how my work looks on a deadline at the moment. I'm working on getting better by asking you guys for help in the .Net thread, but after all the input in there I don't know if I'm ready for a truly professional environment as a C# guy yet. Down the line however this is my goal. I'm currently working on putting in a FAFSA application so I can get some formal comp sci stuff to make me a better programmer, but a decent paying job until I get a degree would be great. greatZebu posted:Also the initial landing page doesn't add anything and you seem to have some stray "Testing" text on the page. If you click the "About Me" link, nothing happens (at least in Chrome), so no one is going to contact you that way. I would also recommend cutting down on the exclamation points. This is now fixed (I was literally writing this part up as I posted this). The portfolio site is still a work in progress, I'm mostly trying to see if it's worth it to try and find a new job in this field if my employer goes under, or if I should just find some crap job, program on the side and work towards my degree. The former would absolutely be the best option though, because I really like doing it. E: thanks about the exclamations, I cut down on em. Knyteguy fucked around with this message at 04:11 on Oct 2, 2012 |
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Oct 2, 2012 04:08
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Trip report from the Amazon group coding assessment interview that I posted about a few days ago: I can't say much due to NDA, but I was really happy with how it was organized and what we were doing. Apparently Amazon has been doing this for some of their candidate groups for about a year now, and they're still very much in the process of refining it. Overall I think it was a good way of assessing us candidates' abilities as software engineers, and it was fun. Also they're reimbursing me for expensive food so I'm not complaining. Now I have interviews with Google and Palantir this week. This is in addition to a bunch of other work, but I guess that's a good problem to have
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Oct 2, 2012 04:17
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Knyteguy posted:I'm mostly trying to see if it's worth it to try and find a new job in this field if my employer goes under, or if I should just find some crap job, program on the side and work towards my degree. It's definitely worth it, depending on what your goals are. There are plenty of jobs out there that will pay you significantly more than you're making now and will help you develop your skills more.
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Oct 2, 2012 05:52
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tk posted:Never count on any money that you don't already have. Bonuses and raises have a habit of not materializing for one reason or another. This was a page back, but just gonna throw in my two cents: at my last job I was hired at $30k/yr (I only took such a low pay because I was unemployed and had rent to pay; I was desperate) and was promised a performance-based raise after a year. One year later I was fired for "not being a right fit for the company". So I'm unemployed again, but not in a position that has me desperate, so I can spend time finding a job without an insultingly low salary. 
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