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return0 posted:USA tech salaries are just ridiculous. I get paid a decent wage for where I live in the UK (up north far away from London) and converting my salary from GBP to USD shows I earn $65K. Is the US extremely expensive for housing or petrol something? Depends on the area, and yes, in the more high paying areas the housing is QUITE expensive. Petrol though is quite cheap compared to Europe I think. I live in st louis, so while the salaries are lower than nyc/bay area/boston/chicago/etc, gas is under 1.50 and housing is cheap as hell - there are decent two bedroom apartments for 710/mo and decent houses for 225k-ish in our area at least. But yeah I'm making considerably less than the folks in the hotter tech areas (I'm making about 70k with under 2 years experience).
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Feb 24, 2016 00:07
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return0 posted:USA tech salaries are just ridiculous. I get paid a decent wage for where I live in the UK (up north far away from London) and converting my salary from GBP to USD shows I earn $65K. Is the US extremely expensive for housing or petrol something? Overall though dev salaries in the US are just higher in general, thanks to a combination of higher income inequality and a stronger tech industry.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:23
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For what it's worth, you can get at least a reasonable feel for the rental market in most places by taking a peek at the relevant Craigslist site (aka CL), e.g. http://seattle.craigslist.org/search/apa (prices are almost always quoted in USD/month) Feel free to chortle when you look at US gas prices especially in light of the fact that the prices are quoted in USD per US gallon (~4L): http://www.gasbuddy.com/GasPriceMap?z=4 (under 40p/L in most places  )Federal taxes for a 100kish salary will run you about 25% (the final percentage is complex as there's a set of marginal rates, deductions, credits, blah blah blah to be accounted for). WA state has no state income tax, sales tax is ~7% and many states exempt basics like food ingredients (not sure if WA does). Health insurance depends on your employer, what plan you pick, etc. (*). Having visited the UK a few times, I don't think you'd find anything too shocking one way or the other about dining/grocery expenses in the US. Cell phone and internet access of course depends on what options you go for but ballpark probably $100/mo for both. A typical reasonably-sized apartment will probably see $75-150/mo in utilities depending on season and providers (e.g. electricity was stupid expensive in NYC but water was cheap, and the reverse is true here in Texas). Retirement savings depends on your personal preferences and I have no idea what wrinkles might be involved as a UK resident here (**). I guess that's most of the basics. (*) This is an area of almost fractal complexity in its own right. Thinking back over the course of my career, as a single person I guess I averaged about $100-200/mo. for top-grade coverage unless my employer picked up the entire tab, plus whatever annual spend from deductibles/copays/blah blah -- if you are young and healthy the less expensive "HMO" options are probably ok, but if you are older/have chronic health problems you'll probably want the "PPO" options. HMO: "health maintenance organization" less cost but less flexibility in provider choice and sometimes treatment options. PPO: "preferred provider organization" more expensive but more flexible in provider and treatment options. e.g. if you know you will need to see specialists for something, pick the PPO plan most likely as for an HMO you'd have to pick a primary care doc first, use them first for a referral to a specialist, etc. (**) Another area of ridiculous complexity. Very broadly speaking there are two main retirement investment options, 401k and IRA (individual retirement account) with the former being pre-tax contribution and the latter post-tax. But it gets real complex from there so... well, #1 ask a professional instead of goons and #2 BFC might be a better bet than CoC. Lord alone knows what transatlantic tax complexities might be involved with all this.
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Feb 24, 2016 00:58
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MrMoo posted:Change management rules should mean engineers are not allowed in at all, the important servers should be in NJ2 anyways.
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Feb 24, 2016 01:43
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I don't really want to post it here because even with things blocked out, it's pretty easy to tell where I work and I'm paranoid, but could anyone give me a quick resume critique before I start to send it out?
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Feb 24, 2016 04:16
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I don't really want to post it here because even with things blocked out, it's pretty easy to tell where I work and I'm paranoid, but could anyone give me a quick resume critique before I start to send it out? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3553582
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Feb 24, 2016 04:18
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Spazmo posted:That would be illegal. US employers are forbidden from discriminating against employees on the basis of their immigration status. Also, keep in mind that while it costs a fair amount of money in legal fees for a company to get you an H1B (low five figures would be my guess), it's peanuts compared to the value added by a skilled software engineer. It would be deeply stupid for a company to underpay you on the basis of being an immigrant when another employer would happily pay you market rate. I admire your optimism. Companies do stupid poo poo all the time, and transferring between employers on an H1B is difficult. Unless you're a literal rockstar it is entirely possible for companies to abuse H1B workers.
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Feb 24, 2016 12:36
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Big cities make it much easier to change jobs, which drives up salaries. If you work at some corporate campus in the suburbs, getting another job may involve a bad commute, moving, or very limited options.
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Feb 24, 2016 14:13
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Vulture Culture posted:Post it here, link your post from this thread: I shall do this whence I return from a much needed vacation. Also all the negativity towards HFT jobs kinda scares me. I don't really know what direction I want to go from where I'm at and that seemed like a challenging and lucrative area.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:39
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I shall do this whence I return from a much needed vacation. Also all the negativity towards HFT jobs kinda scares me. I don't really know what direction I want to go from where I'm at and that seemed like a challenging and lucrative area.
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Feb 24, 2016 16:52
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Vulture Culture posted:It seems like you understand that "challenging and lucrative" also means "very stressful," so if you're okay with that then just go for it. Someone's obviously doing these jobs. I do. I'm also a single 28 year old with literally no commitments otherwise and would rather be in an environment that keeps me engaged than something boring. But I'm not like, completely tied to the idea of working at a financial company. It just seems like that's one of the more readily available positions for devs on the younger side and it's better than loving front-end/full-stack bullshit (to me). Also tech jobs are great because I've already made and saved a very good amount of money and I can just quit if it's that soul-suckingly bad!
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Feb 24, 2016 17:20
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I do. I'm also a single 28 year old with literally no commitments otherwise and would rather be in an environment that keeps me engaged than something boring. But I'm not like, completely tied to the idea of working at a financial company. It just seems like that's one of the more readily available positions for devs on the younger side and it's better than loving front-end/full-stack bullshit (to me). Then go for it. Maybe it is just like Wolf of Wall Street and you have a cocaine and hooker fueled rollercoaster ride that you enjoy. Please come back to post about your amazing adventures.
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Feb 24, 2016 17:41
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Skandranon posted:Then go for it. Maybe it is just like Wolf of Wall Street and you have a cocaine and hooker fueled rollercoaster ride that you enjoy. Please come back to post about your amazing adventures.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:24
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borkencode posted:Is this true outside of Silicon Valley? I've been writing code in Chicago for 7 years, and make less than that. I make that (base) in Chicago and I've only been doing this for 3 years. No CS degree, no bootcamp, not in finance either. Ask for a raise or find a new job. metztli fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 05:11
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Vulture Culture posted:Cocaine is real '80s. Wall Street is all about popping modafinil now. This sounds like a character in a book I would read, I'm sure I'll fit in great here. In all seriousness, is there a thread about what specifically people are working on at their jobs/what sub-domain of programming they're in? Maybe I missed one? I'm sort of at a crossroads and not sure what to do.
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Feb 25, 2016 05:15
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metztli posted:I make that (base) in Chicago and I've only been doing this for 3 years. No CS degree, no bootcamp, not in finance either. Ask for a raise or find a new job. Some companies have lower pay but tangible (or intangible) benefits. Like, I have a friend who makes less money than average, but the company has a 35 hour work week so he's in the office 8-4 and is home before rush hour, and thus can spend more time with his kid.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:03
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Is contract to hire a common thing? I'm used to direct hire, but have my resume out for a 6 month contract to hire dealio. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but it seems risky to leave a salaried job for the "potential" to become salaried somewhere else, and not a 1:1 transfer directly.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:09
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Ithaqua posted:Some companies have lower pay but tangible (or intangible) benefits. Like, I have a friend who makes less money than average, but the company has a 35 hour work week so he's in the office 8-4 and is home before rush hour, and thus can spend more time with his kid. How is an 8-4 workday 35 hours? The classic 40-hour work week is 9-5.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:09
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:How is an 8-4 workday 35 hours? The classic 40-hour work week is 9-5. Every place I've ever worked has been 8 hours plus a one hour lunch. 8-5 or 9-6.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:13
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Ithaqua posted:Some companies have lower pay but tangible (or intangible) benefits. Like, I have a friend who makes less money than average, but the company has a 35 hour work week so he's in the office 8-4 and is home before rush hour, and thus can spend more time with his kid. Fair point, though the benefits I've had (both tangible and intangible) have been pretty crazily great from both my previous job and my soon-to-be job. I would have to think with 7 years they could get something with decent bennies, sane work/life balance AND cash. Maybe because I had some (still mostly unrelated) professional work experience before I got into development I can get more? I dunno. Re: 8-5/9-6 - seriously? In both my dev jobs lunch is taken out of the 8 hour day, not added to, and ditto for my pre-software-dev jobs. Is it because you're a consultant/do a lot of billable stuff, I wonder? I honestly have no idea how that works.
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Feb 25, 2016 06:36
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metztli posted:Re: 8-5/9-6 - seriously? In both my dev jobs lunch is taken out of the 8 hour day, not added to, and ditto for my pre-software-dev jobs. Is it because you're a consultant/do a lot of billable stuff, I wonder? I honestly have no idea how that works.
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Feb 25, 2016 08:23
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Most of the places I've worked (SF and NYC) are very liberal with how much time you spend in the office and have very kind work from home policies. Smart managers know that if employees are engaged and aren't stressing out about picking kids up from daycare, making sure the plumber arrives before 9 or after 5, dealing with a 90 minute commute or whatever, then they'll be more productive during the time they are supposed to be working, and will often end up doing random things like answering emails or questions on Slack outside of normal work hours just because -- even if it is not expected.
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Feb 25, 2016 08:28
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return0 posted:USA tech salaries are just ridiculous. I get paid a decent wage for where I live in the UK (up north far away from London) and converting my salary from GBP to USD shows I earn $65K. Is the US extremely expensive for housing or petrol something? gently caress me, that's how much I make doing embedded software right now in Southern California (not smack dab inside a big city, but the rent is comparable). We have a guy who comes in at 3:00 A.M. and leaves after lunch Stinky_Pete fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 00:58
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Ithaqua posted:Some companies have lower pay but tangible (or intangible) benefits. Like, I have a friend who makes less money than average, but the company has a 35 hour work week so he's in the office 8-4 and is home before rush hour, and thus can spend more time with his kid. This is a problem when people start throwing raw $$ figures around. I mean Google may pay at the top end, but there's a reason why they have breakfast/lunch/dinner and barbers/dry cleaning in-house. Though I've never worked there, I doubt coming in at 9 and powering down at 4:55 would lead to a long and fruitful career there.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:09
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B-Nasty posted:This is a problem when people start throwing raw $$ figures around. I mean Google may pay at the top end, but there's a reason why they have breakfast/lunch/dinner and barbers/dry cleaning in-house. Though I've never worked there, I doubt coming in at 9 and powering down at 4:55 would lead to a long and fruitful career there. Lots of people at Google have families, work reasonable hours and have good careers.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:16
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B-Nasty posted:This is a problem when people start throwing raw $$ figures around. I mean Google may pay at the top end, but there's a reason why they have breakfast/lunch/dinner and barbers/dry cleaning in-house. Though I've never worked there, I doubt coming in at 9 and powering down at 4:55 would lead to a long and fruitful career there.
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Feb 26, 2016 05:45
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People cynically assume these perks are designed to keep you on campus as much as possible so that, like a good worker bee, you can quickly grab a meal or run an errand and get back to work as quickly as possible. Maybe that's true for a certain subset of employees, the obsessive kind who completely define themselves through their work. Companies like Google sort of turn their heads and exploit these workers the same way that casinos shut out natural light so gambling addicts lose track of time. But yeah, I'm not aware of many companies that deliberately try to burn out their workers and churn through them as fast as possible. That's usually not a good business strategy. I can tell you that when I interviewed at Jane Street, they made it very clear during the interview that IT leaving for lunch was frowned upon because none of the traders left their desks for lunch.
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Feb 26, 2016 06:03
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one of the things that doesnt correlate with poo poo hours is money. see: every vc-backed startup ever
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Feb 26, 2016 06:04
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FamDav posted:one of the things that doesnt correlate with poo poo hours is money.
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Feb 26, 2016 06:08
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Good Will Hrunting posted:I shall do this whence I return from a much needed vacation. Also all the negativity towards HFT jobs kinda scares me. I don't really know what direction I want to go from where I'm at and that seemed like a challenging and lucrative area. Don't believe the hype - there are bad places just like any industry, but the good places are competing for the best & brightest just like all the other top tech firms so they offer the same benefits, or better.
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Feb 26, 2016 08:58
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B-Nasty posted:This is a problem when people start throwing raw $$ figures around. I mean Google may pay at the top end, but there's a reason why they have breakfast/lunch/dinner and barbers/dry cleaning in-house. Though I've never worked there, I doubt coming in at 9 and powering down at 4:55 would lead to a long and fruitful career there. Or they pay well to keep people from defecting/making it possible to continue to recruit despite not being as cool as they once were, is my guess. They're in a hugely competitive staffing market. They probably (hopefully) are monitoring more useful indicators of employee success than when they come in/go. Also, other factors absolutely dwarf # of hours worked as a useful metric for judging performance, to the point where the only time it would even be an issue is if someone were maybe just showing up for 6 hours a day, or missing meetings, or forcing people to reschedule around their lack of attendance. As long as people get their work done well, meet any deadlines, and are available during reasonable times, who cares? (Answer: bad managers who don't know wtf they are doing)
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Feb 26, 2016 12:46
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I need some goon advice. I have an offer for a 6-9mo contract at $hilarious/hr rates for a fairly decently sized online services company. It's remote, but it's poorly defined - they want to hire me for PowerShell knowledge but it's more networking automation with VMWare + building CRUD apps in mongodb/angularjs from what I can tell, none of which I've really done before. They're also pushing really hard to get me to accept the offer too. I've got the offer on hold until after I interview with the other company but it won't keep forever of course. I have an onsite interview with A Large Software Company based in Redmond WA (no points for guessing this one) scheduled. I doubt it pays as well, and it's not for a terribly prestigious team, but it's an actual Software Engineer job doing C# for online services management tools (I should note I've never actually held the title Software Engineer/Developer/whatever, I come from an Ops background so getting that on my resume would be a fairly big thing for me in terms of future jobs). It's full-time, and the commute isn't very bad from my apartment. I doubt it pays as well as the other one but they won't give me a salary number because "we do the levelling after the interview."  I also don't have an offer yet since I haven't been interviewed yet.I'm not in dire need of money, and consequently I'm not in dire need of a particularly stable job, nor do I have a ton of ~career aspirations~, but I'm also trying to figure out which one I won't be hating in a month and how to not shoot myself in the foot re: offers. Remote sounds kind of cool, but the poor definition of the actual job makes me really nervous especially since the company in question just acquired another company and the contract is because they didn't acquire half the people so they need help fast. I also don't want to drop a concrete offer just to get an interview for a more stable job with no guarantees. I already emailed the recruiter for the Large Software Company letting them know that I have another offer but I'm still interested, so hurry up please, but no response yet because it's the weekend. Any thoughts on how not to gently caress myself over? I'm mostly aiming for job satisfaction right now, since I've been off for a few months after burning out at a startup.
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Feb 27, 2016 23:35
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Urit posted:I need some goon advice. Things to keep in mind: - Large company = stability - Contractor = lack of stability - Contractor = no health insurance, that poo poo is expensive out of pocket - Working remote = awesome
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Feb 27, 2016 23:46
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Ithaqua posted:Things to keep in mind: That is why it is a hard decision. Remote is awesome but is the rest worth it? That is my dilemma. Oh well, the recruiter replied and said they could make a fast decision after my interview so I should be able to try for both.
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Feb 27, 2016 23:56
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Urit posted:I have an onsite interview with A Large Software Company based in Redmond WA (no points for guessing this one) scheduled. I doubt it pays as well, and it's not for a terribly prestigious team, but it's an actual Software Engineer job doing C# for online services management tools (I should note I've never actually held the title Software Engineer/Developer/whatever, I come from an Ops background so getting that on my resume would be a fairly big thing for me in terms of future jobs). It's full-time, and the commute isn't very bad from my apartment. I doubt it pays as well as the other one but they won't give me a salary number because "we do the levelling after the interview." I've never worked for Microsoft, but why would you expect their salaried offer to not be competitive with the remote position? I'm surprised they won't give you bands for different levels, but most large companies define levels (Microsoft has the distinction of levels within levels) that determine your pay band. They likely have some idea given your resume what your level is but won't know for sure until after the interview.
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Feb 28, 2016 00:16
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I have to disagree that large company implies stability - two of the places that I've had the most budget and retention issues were with Fortune 100s. One of the worst things to hear is "start-up in a large company" - this has invariably meant "all the cons of a start-up, all the cons of a large company." Don't try to play hero and think you can really make a difference at a large company unless you are under a celebrity-status executive more or less.
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Feb 28, 2016 00:19
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FamDav posted:I've never worked for Microsoft, but why would you expect their salaried offer to not be competitive with the remote position? I'm familiar with the pay band concept (I think this was just the recruiter loving with me), but it's mostly because the contract is $70/hr. I'm expecting $100k-120k from MS because historically they pay slightly low compared to most of the other companies in the Seattle area. Maybe not anymore, though? I've been out of the MS bubble for about 3 years now. necrobobsledder posted:I have to disagree that large company implies stability - two of the places that I've had the most budget and retention issues were with Fortune 100s. One of the worst things to hear is "start-up in a large company" - this has invariably meant "all the cons of a start-up, all the cons of a large company." Don't try to play hero and think you can really make a difference at a large company unless you are under a celebrity-status executive more or less. God yes, I quit a company after 3 months after being suckered into one of those. The 26-year career admins had absolutely NO desire to have their environments touched even by the Hot Young Startup-Like Department if it means they have to do less (it was doing Chef stuff). No, this is just management tooling/deployment automation for one of the many SaaSy MS teams.
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Feb 28, 2016 00:35
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If you want to break into SW development and you are inclined to do it in the Microsoft stack, it's an easy choice. If you got 2+ years of FT experience working in C#, at MS, that should set you up for any future .NET dev jobs. Even if working there sucks, that's a nice resume pad for the future. I think my biggest point is that if you're moving to dev work, you want to consider what stack you want your career trajectory to follow.
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Feb 28, 2016 01:01
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B-Nasty posted:If you want to break into SW development and you are inclined to do it in the Microsoft stack, it's an easy choice. If you got 2+ years of FT experience working in C#, at MS, that should set you up for any future .NET dev jobs. Even if working there sucks, that's a nice resume pad for the future. That is an interesting point and I already sort of have that problem - I keep getting hired for Windows admin jobs because I don't have the same quality of Linux skills. I suppose it would be fairly difficult to find jobs on another stack given enough time doing C#. I don't mind C# particularly, but I would like to pry myself out of the MS stack eventually. Go just doesn't have the same market penetration though. I think I've gotten a pretty good handle on the goonsensus in that it's more worth it to stop worrying about the ~imminent offer~ and think about career aspirations. Thanks!
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Feb 28, 2016 01:11
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$70/hr isn't going to be more than 100k-120k from MS because MS will give you bonuses on top of that salary and because you won't have to pay payroll taxes on your W-2.
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Feb 28, 2016 01:24
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