|
JawnV6 posted:I've never actually paid one back but I assume they'd want the full $10k and not just the $4.6k that ended up in your account after taxes, right?
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 13:59 |
|
|
Loutre posted:I'm in a lovely double-edged sword situation right now with long hours. We're severely understaffed but we got loads of job reqs open a month ago. I'm also final say on the hires as the senior developer. Remote, a sr dev can easily make 120-150. Even 150+ is possible remote.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 17:49
|
|
|
Keetron posted:This is legal? I've had contingencies on tuition payments. Took remote classes while employed, the agreement with the company was that if I left before a year, I'd pay back the tuition they paid out. That was a little different since there were no tax implications either way. But I also waited it out.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:01
|
|
|
Keetron posted:This is legal? Yes, the company paid you $X so you owe that to them. I would assume it is deducted from your income, either directly on your W-2 or as a deduction, so it should be about the same after you pay taxes but I haven't actually had it happen.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 18:08
|
|
|
I had to pay back my full signing bonus. It was a royal nightmare to do taxes that year - the directions for getting what you paid back are nearly impossible to find and I even got rejected twice (still have my state taxes open and in review actually!). You do not and cannot get Medicare or Social Security back, or at least I was not able to. In short: don’t ever leave a job where you have to pay back a signing bonus.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:08
|
|
|
asur posted:Yes, the company paid you $X so you owe that to them. I would assume it is deducted from your income, either directly on your W-2 or as a deduction, so it should be about the same after you pay taxes but I haven't actually had it happen. Signing bonuses sound kinda  when you put ‘em this way.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:31
|
|
|
The more common incentive I've seen is that you get stock that vests gradually over 2 years, but you don't get anything until the end of the first year, at which point half of it vests all at once. A "refundable" signing bonus is basically frontloading that kind of benefit. And I'm not surprised that they have clawback clauses, because otherwise you could sign on, get the signing bonus, then vanish immediately or otherwise not put in a good-faith effort. The "lock-in" is there in either case, but it's a bit nastier with the signing bonus; you can't spend unvested stock so the company has less ability to compel you to stick around. While you absolutely can spend that signing bonus.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:37
|
|
|
... why not both? A signing bonus comes out of a different bucket than your salary. Go hog wild, it's the recruiter's slush fund and not the hiring managers. One-time expense, not recurring. e: assuming you want to stick around, paying it back and the tax analysis sounds sufficiently gnarly
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 22:56
|
|
|
How do you guys prepare for salary negotiations? I'm not a fast talkin' kinda guy, and always fumble with the basic strategy, like naming a number first. I should just write a chatbot to do the negotiation for me.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:34
|
|
|
Is there any advice for someone who spent the last four years unable to work because of family health issues? I understand that I have to do something about the gap, but I don't know what it is. I applied to a master's program to try to bridge it and was rejected for not having recent work experience. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:43
|
|
|
I have a question that I need an honest answer for (like blinkzor’s reply to Pollyanna 40 pages ago). I’m a lawyer in my early 40’s. I want to change careers and be a software engineer. Is this a good idea? In the newbie thread, I got some excellent advice from a former attorney who had successfully made a career switch, and following that, I think I’m ready to do this! Asking because I’m about to start a bootcamp to attempt to get an entry-level job for less money than I’m making now in an industry that appears to be hugely youth-skewed. On the flip side, CS is interesting to me in a way that law isn’t (any more), and every time I say to myself “I should have done this 20 years ago,” I respond to myself: “yes but you are doing it now.” Reading hundreds of quora posts and blogs on this question leave me with this overarching answer: “Hey, go for it! You’re never too old to stop learning and life’s not over until you’re dead. Also, you probably won’t get hired as a developer.” I guess I’m basically asking for anecdotes about how this could play out from the perspective of those who are in a position to be interviewing and hiring.
|
|
#
?
Aug 1, 2018 23:45
|
|
|
Votlook posted:How do you guys prepare for salary negotiations? For me it comes down to recognizing the 'right' answer to the question for me isn't what they want to hear, just shutting the heck up while the amygdala kicks in and the wave of emotions rolls thru, then steeling up and giving the answer that's best for me. Don't talk fast? Don't talk fast. You are the recruiter's #1 priority at that moment, they don't have anything better to do than talk to you, drag it out until you're comfortable. The highest-pressure situation I've been in was a conference room, the HR lackey who'd been talking to me called his boss in a suit in, and they sat across the table good HR/bad HR'ing me for an answer. If, like me, you're a giant goober nerd play it up. "lol what's my salary range? Honestly I thought you two would have a better idea what Senior Systems folks should make!" It's not the strongest position possible but you're not saying a number. Alamoduh posted:On the flip side, CS is interesting to me in a way that law isn’t (any more), and every time I say to myself “I should have done this 20 years ago,” I respond to myself: “yes but you are doing it now.”
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 00:06
|
|
|
Alamoduh posted:I have a question that I need an honest answer for (like blinkzor’s reply to Pollyanna 40 pages ago). One of my buddies in my cohort at App Academy was in his early 40’s and he excelled. He worked his rear end off (way harder than a lot of the younger classmates) and got a great job almost right off the bat. He’s been at the same place now for almost two years and doing great. You definitely might face a little age discrimination but it can be overcome with perseverance. Good luck!
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 00:32
|
|
|
Age discrimination is a huge problem in Silicon Valley, but other places can be quite a bit saner. If you can find something where your legal work is relevant, that can help a lot.Keetron posted:This is legal? In America? Absolutely. Not only can they require you to pay back the sign-on bonus if you leave, but they can add the same penalty to getting fired.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 00:34
|
|
|
ultrafilter posted:Age discrimination is a huge problem in Silicon Valley, but other places can be quite a bit saner. If you can find something where your legal work is relevant, that can help a lot. Yeah, came here to say this. There are a lot of programming-adjacent jobs that can aim you in the right direction. I can't imagine someone with a legal background wouldn't be a huge "get" for a startup with any kind of regulatory requirement. If it were also one of those small "wear many hats" teams, you could also work as a junior developer. This also could be hell, idk, but I was a career-switcher in my 30s (graphic design => coding). I still do graphic design for my team and am seen as extra valuable because I can do it without them having to hire out. It works because we don't need a full time graphic designer. I would say my split is about 70:30 coding:design.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 01:24
|
|
|
Alamoduh posted:I have a question that I need an honest answer for (like blinkzor’s reply to Pollyanna 40 pages ago). It can be, certainly. There's enormous demand for software engineers, and it wouldn't surprise me if the skills that make you good at law transfer at least to some extent to making you a good software engineer. Also importantly, there's a lot of demand for people that have cross-discipline skills, like, they can program and also know about [medicine/physics/government/how to construct buildings/etc.]. I would be gobsmacked if there isn't a critical need for people who are familiar with (whatever branch of the law you specialize in) and also good at coding. So unless you're utterly sick of anything to do with law, I'd wager you can leverage your background to greatly improve your prospects.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 01:26
|
|
|
Votlook posted:How do you guys prepare for salary negotiations? I would recommend dry running and having a cheat sheet, but if you still feel like you'll fold you can just say you want to do it over email. It's not ideal to start a negotiation off like that, but it's way better than giving up your salary.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 02:38
|
|
|
Alamoduh posted:I have a question that I need an honest answer for (like blinkzor’s reply to Pollyanna 40 pages ago). I talked to a guy at one of the FANG companies recently. He's around 40, five years ago he was stocking shelves at Fred Meyers and today he's a senior dev pulling in a quarter of a million dollars annually. The industry is youth skewed but that's more because of who's going in to it rather than what the companies will hire.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 03:37
|
|
|
My experience is that the levels of talent are just about the same, 90s to today. Some good, some not so good. Keep working at it until you 'get it' and then stay on your game. There's nothing special about younger talent other than the fact that they can stay awake longer ha ha.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 03:55
|
|
|
They work for cheaper and they're less likely to have heard that one before.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 04:20
|
|
|
Alamoduh posted:I have a question that I need an honest answer for (like blinkzor’s reply to Pollyanna 40 pages ago). Career changes aren't things in and of themselves that merit a brutally honest response. If you're realistic about what you want, what you can do, and who you can do it for, you'll be successful. Just don't do a 3 month coding academy and assume you should be hired at a FANG for all the money.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 12:29
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:Just don't do a 3 month coding academy and assume you should be hired at a FANG for all the money. Facebook, Amazon, Nicrosoft, Google?
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 12:39
|
|
|
Netflix e: the point is don't put in a superficial amount of work and expect the industry to reward you with a bajillion dollars.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 12:43
|
|
|
Blinkz0rz posted:Netflix I get the point (and agree with it) I've just been seeing FANG pop up lately and I don't get the term. Why these 4? Is their dev pay significantly outsized compared to stalwarts like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, IBM or places like Twitter, Salesforce, SAP, Square, etc, I get that at Alphabet you're probably going to make more than at Atlassian or Redbubble or where ever I'm just curious as to where this FANG thing came from. Is it because tech is a snake and these are the teeth? idgi
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 12:52
|
|
|
Cirofren posted:I get the point (and agree with it) I've just been seeing FANG pop up lately and I don't get the term. FANG is more a stock market commentary thing, because everyone had huge long positions in them for a long time. As for "big tech" I tend to use the term "The Five Families": Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook. Netflix seems to be doing fine as a business but I don't think their head count is anywhere close to the big five afaik.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 12:57
|
|
|
Spending time at a FANG company or one of their peers makes a huge difference in how hiring managers at other companies evaluate you as a candidate. That's the real distinction between them and more typical employers. As for why FANG, well, it's a nice acronym. Sometimes that's all you need.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 15:09
|
|
|
mrmcd posted:Netflix seems to be doing fine as a business but I don't think their head count is anywhere close to the big five afaik.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 15:48
|
|
|
Hey, what do people do for technical reading/resources today? We're contemplating starting a technical-book Library, but it's 2018 and there's gotta be alternatives out there. We've used Safarionline in the past but found their collection to be somewhat wanting (although we could try it again). Does anyone else have any recommendations? I want folks to be able to have a digital version, on top of a physical one, should they want it.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 16:16
|
|
|
JawnV6 posted:20 years ago was poo poo. The tools and other ecosystem components are light years better now. It's like saying you don't want a keyboard and prefer punch-cards. This is what I wanted to say as well. When I was 26, I started out as a tester (manual, functional) and then followed a path into middle and project management. At 38 I realised I hated my life and career and turned techy. In my early 20s I did a lot of attempts at programming but it never really took off, tooling being one of the reasons. Now with the internet having so many more resources, especially in open source things that actually work and supporting tooling being either free or really REALLY worth the pittance you pay for it. Now only 2 years since I lied my way into my first coding role, as a software engineer in test doing test automation no less, I work as a backend developer making the US$ equivalent of 200K as a contractor. There are a few things really hard in software development: - Bend your thinking around objects - How to deal with things you do not know or know nothing about - How to deal with error messages and stacktraces - How to use google so that it shows you the stackoverflow question that describes your problem - How to deal with an existing project that has a variety of implementations for the same thing - Estimated time of completion for any feature (and what is complete here?) But the worst: land that first developer job
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 16:27
|
|
|
Keetron posted:But the worst: land that first developer job This right here. Landing the first job is really hard, and you have to be prepared to hustle the hell out of that job search. Network, practice, be good at selling yourself
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 16:35
|
|
|
Not that anyone cares, but furthering my ongoing periodic "my job is awesome" posts: I got my profit sharing bonus today. 8% of my salary. Not too shabby.
|
|
#
?
Aug 2, 2018 18:25
|
|
|
Shirec posted:This right here. Landing the first job is really hard, and you have to be prepared to hustle the hell out of that job search. Network, practice, be good at selling yourself And just, be persistent. No matter how "good" you are at it it's still effectively a crapshoot, and you may have to just roll the dice a lot of times. It can be incredibly demoralizing but the only solution is to keep plugging away.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 12:44
|
|
|
raminasi posted:And just, be persistent. No matter how "good" you are at it it's still effectively a crapshoot, and you may have to just roll the dice a lot of times. It can be incredibly demoralizing but the only solution is to keep plugging away. And sometimes the hiring manager says yes, you accept an informal offer, and then get blocked by the VP. Or you get feedback that everyone thought you were good, but the position was filled by an internal transfer after your interview. There’s enough jobs in this industry to find a decent one despite all the garbage around hiring. Just don’t settle for a bad one (unless you need the money, then keep looking [always be looking]). 
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 13:53
|
|
|
Or you get good feedback from everything and everyone. Then nothing. Just silence.
|
|
#
?
Aug 3, 2018 14:27
|
|
|
Horse Clocks posted:Or you get good feedback from everything and everyone. That doesn't even end once you get a job. 2 weeks ago I got let go from my job of ~1 year, with zero notice, due to "performance," despite my getting a glowing annual review and nothing but super positive feedback during every 1v1 with my boss and other members of the C-suite during my tenure there. I brought that up and they said that in retrospect it wasn't a fit, and gave me a bit more severance (and asked me to waive the right to sue under ADA/EEOC/EOE/other three letter employment related acronyms). Whatever,  and living in a state that doesn't require cause for termination.Plus side I got a couple of great offers inside of a week so it really just ended up being a paid vacation (yay, severance) and gently caress 'em.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 19:10
|
|
|
Mahatma Goonsay posted:Can I get an invite to this? They're still letting me give out invite codes for some reason so https://discord.gg/A3tgu7 Sorry it took me so long, BTW. Spent a week in Seattle and didn't check the Work Subforum. No, I wasn't interviewing in the off chance anyone cares, but every time I go out there I sure end up wanting to.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 20:31
|
|
|
Munkeymon posted:They're still letting me give out invite codes for some reason so https://discord.gg/A3tgu7 Thanks!
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 21:05
|
|
|
Same, I made it in.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 22:10
|
|
|
It works!
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 22:26
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 13:59 |
|
|
leper khan posted:And sometimes the hiring manager says yes, you accept an informal offer, and then get blocked by the VP.  but for me it wasn't a VP, it was some people I'd never met in a different state on a completely different team who didn't think the tone of the interview process recap I posted on their internal forums (mandatory step, it's a weird process) was a "communication style fit" for the company.Job searches blow.
|
|
#
?
Aug 7, 2018 23:23
|
|