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Ask HN: Propaganda for creative salary manipulation?

152 points by dnsworks 17y ago

Every once and a while (at least once a week) I stumble upon some essay heralding the euphoria of working in a good team, or on a good project, or of spending your life solving projects. They all seem to have the same underlying tone, that engineers don't care about money, they care about the work they do. Sometimes I wonder if these articles are some creative, subtle, under-handed manipulation to convince young engineers to feel guilty for demanding to get paid a fair wage for the value of their services. Am I the only engineer out here that wants to scream, "fuck you, pay me" whenever somebody rambels on and on about how wonderful it is to drink the kool-aid at flickr, google, twitter, or zynga? (and for the record, all of my friends at these 4 companies feel very under-paid).

proexploit 17y ago
I think as long as money isn't your #1 priority, it's great to push for a fair wage. For me personally, making more money is better than not making more money, but there's plenty of things that come before that; doing something I love, happiniess, time commitment, morals, etc. You should decide how much you want to make at a minimum before you negotiate salary for any job and stick to your guns. To answer your first questions, I don't think it's propaganda. I think the underlying idea is that money shouldn't be the #1 thing to you. #Sarcasm I haven't had a lot of success whenever I've decided to yell, "fuck you, gimme a raise". Maybe a more creative approach is in order.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  I'm a capitalist. And apparently a bad one, since I choose engineering instead of finance. I'm also an experienced entrepreneur with an understanding of the value of my time and labors. Most startups today are selling advertising. No matter how great their corporate culture is, that means in order to work for them I have to shower twice in the morning, and twice at night to get skim the filth off of me. Therefore, in this startup market, money is my #1 goal, because no amount of happy hippy engineering juju makes up for whoring myself out to the advertising industry. Money helps.. it means I can put more into my daughter's college fund and hope she has the opportunity to do something with her life that's less disgusting than what I'm doing with mine.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - gridspy 17y ago
    That makes me really glad that I am working in cleantech, user-pays and a technology that people are more than happy to pay for.
  - ehsanul 17y ago
    And what exactly is "filthy" about advertising?
    - orborde 17y ago
      I can't speak for the parent, or anyone else for that matter, but it does not appeal to me to burn ingenuity trying solely to figure out how better to get people to buy stuff. It's an arms race, where you expend more effort simply for a better chance at winning a zero-sum game. I'd prefer to work on projects where, rather than fighting to capture scraps of consumer disposable income, I become the spring that sources a mighty river of created value.
      - ntoshev 17y ago
        Is advertisement a zero-sum game? I don't think so, if you figure out how to better match products with customers, you create value for everyone. This is what Google did in a big way.
        cynicalkane 17y ago
        A large amount of advertising is oriented towards getting customers to buy things they don't want and don't need. This is negative sum. I won't even get into the cognitive imbalances created by being constantly assaulted with demanding stimuli in media.
        gaius 17y ago
        That's marketing, not advertising. Google matches ads with audiences, not products with customers.
dzlobin 17y ago
Sorry, your friend at google feels under-paid? No offense to your friend or you, but It's hard for me to really understand that because of several reasons. First of all, he/she likely makes at least what..80k? 90k? I understand it's not a million dollars a year but that's not a bad salary. Second of all, there are people that would accept a lot less than that simply to work at google. I used to cook professionally, and was at one point working for FREE at Corton, in NYC, solely so that I can say I worked and learned there. All the cooks who work in fine dining get paid horribly but work there to learn from the best. This should be the same for hackers. Of course your friends from these great companies wouldn't have a hard time finding a wall street job for a lot more pay, but you'd have to agree that they are learning a LOT more than they would there, and that has to be worth something.
- gaius 17y ago
  $80-90k doesn't go very far in Mountain View or Manhattan.
  - dzlobin 17y ago
    Believe me I know, I'm from NYC. But that's the average STARTING salary for hackers at the big companies, and surely it will be a nice stepping stone to bigger, better places.
    - OmniLarry 17y ago
      I'm curious, when people say salary, do they mean compensation? 80-90k starting in NY is almost month to month, but there's a nice pot of bonus..
    - polynomial 17y ago
      Starting salary for hackers? My ex made starte in that range with just her modest fluency with html. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think that number is really low for NYC, in my personal exp.
      - 17y ago
gaius 17y ago
Absolutely. Remember, someone's getting paid for your work, for the value you create. If not you, then who? What're they creating?
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  Risking capital.
  - david927 17y ago
    That often gets quickly over-valued because it gets the default return.
  - gaius 17y ago
    If they're your manager, and a regular employee like you?
    - aaronblohowiak 17y ago
      Your manager likely does not retain money saved on your salary for their own pocket. This could lead to a larger discussion about managerial incentives for structuring pay, but that is not salient.
      - gaius 17y ago
        It's not as simple as that. If your manager is playing junior developer salaries from his budget and getting senior developer productivity, then he'll get an awful lot of corporate credit that he'll cash in come bonus time.
  - ytinas 17y ago
    So they have a lot less to risk than you do (for most investors, losing the entire investment wouldn't hurt them bad enough to force them into the work force. If you lose your job however...)
    - 17y ago
sanswork 17y ago
I wouldn't say the only one but there are certainly a lot that aren't like that. I personally given the option between Job A and Job B where Job B pays less but has more interesting problems/more freedoms I will take Job B every time. I can say that with confidence because I've done it twice already and in one case where Job A was paying almost twice as much. Why? Well in any case Job B is going to still be paying me a lot compared to most people so its not as if I will be suffering by working for less. Secondly my time doing something I don't enjoy is a LOT more expensive than my time doing something I enjoy and lastly because at Job B I'll often get to improve myself and try new technologies/products/ideas that will better prepare me for the future that I never get to try at Job A. The cost to do those things in my free time would often add up to quite a bit making the difference in salary smaller with the other difference being made up by the lower end moving up with your new found skills.
staunch 17y ago
No one is choosing between company A offering $60k, B offering $100k, and C offering $350k for the same work, and then choosing A or B. Most people get 1-5 offers all within a relatively small range. The fact that people choose the company with the best environment/project should not be surprising.
- notmerightnow 17y ago
  Not true for everyone. I've gotten offers between $95-220k recently for a software developer position. I didn't choose the top end, though if given the choice again, I don't know. I also have other friends in the same situation. One chose the top end, the other is still thinking, but will probably choose mid-range. Sorry to be vague and anonymous.
  - staunch 17y ago
    Sure, but that's about as big as the range gets, and it's still much smaller than my example. The point is that people are not choosing between offers that are the difference between night and day.
    - thomaspaine 17y ago
      95k - 220k seems like a pretty big difference to me, that's more than double. I too was in a position not too long ago where I had to choose between a small $X salary at a cool company and a salary of 4*X at a less cool company. I was even leaning towards the smaller salary until I had some health problems kick in and decided that I needed health insurance. In hindsight, I'm very happy with my decision and glad I didn't drink the kool-aid.
    - dnsworks 17y ago
      A friend of mine just left Google to work for Goldman Sachs in New York (as an analyst). Google paid her $90k + stock options that brought her salary up to about $160k/year. Goldman Sachs is paying her $390k as an analyst (for her intimate knowledge of Google), with a target bonus of 65% of her salary, and a goal bonus of 120% of her salary. Some people really are making the choices between such wide ranges.
patio11 17y ago
Am I the only engineer out here that wants to scream Perhaps a more constructive approach is to say "I'm glad your corporate culture is wonderful. I'm sure we can do business together if you can offer a salary competitive with my best options."
DenisM 17y ago
You're on the right path. Keep going.
pg 17y ago
The phenomenon isn't limited to engineers. People in all fields are willing to take less money for work they enjoy more. There are some kinds of work people like so much they'll do it for free: e.g. writing open source software.
- nostrademons 17y ago
  Work that people enjoy more probably pays less because people enjoy it more. It's supply and demand: there's a greater supply of labor for jobs that people want to work at. Most people consider having a nice work environment to be worth $X to them, so their indifference curves get shifted over.
  - gaius 17y ago
    Yes, economists these days don't talk about compensation so much but "utility" which is the aggregate of salary, cow-orkers, short commute, nice office, meaningful work, yadda yadda. People will always act to maximize utility.
- timr 17y ago
  There's a huge difference between getting paid for something that you'd do for free anyway, and being sold a bill of goods by a company that is trying to convince you to sell your time for less than it's worth. Maybe it's because I came from academia, where people are always doing truly interesting work (for crap pay), but I'm also routinely disgusted with the glorified advertising companies who try to dress up their web engineer positions with "brilliant people changing the world" rhetoric. No matter how smart my colleagues may be at Blub.com, their work is unlikely to be as interesting as the stuff from which I walked away. Interesting work is important, but ultimately, a salary indicates professional respect.
- pmjordan 17y ago
  There's a crucial difference between writing open source software for free and getting a badly paid job, though. With open source software, nobody is making you do it. Okay, you might have users who you feel compelled to please, but let's face it, you don't have any contractual obligations. Contrast this with something like a game tester. These are some of the hardest working people I've ever met, and they often earn so little they have to live with their parents. (with all the unpaid overtime, I'm sure they get less than minimum wage) They don't really get a choice about whether to work the 80 hour week they're asked to: if they choose to work less, they'll probably be passed over for the promotion to lead QA or level designer. (for the latter they have to build their skills in that field in their spare time) My understanding is that it's similar in film, etc. This happens even above the entry level: I once met an animator who accepted a 90% (!) pay cut to give up his job at a Hollywood animation studio and work for Rockstar London, just because Rockstar have this aura of prestige. Initially, this strategy might make sense to get your foot in the door. But I'd be extremely surprised if it was optimal once you'd proven yourself to the company. I'd have been pushing for much higher pay if I was still in a regular job (though maybe the drastic difference in skill between programmers makes this easier than in artsier jobs where productivity is even harder to gauge). Yet the culture bred in the game industry is such that you're supposed to feel privileged to be working there in the first place. As far as I can tell, this is an illusion; it's not actually that hard to get a job, at least not once you have a minimum of experience. (this culture is one of the reasons I left; the fact that they attempted to bribe me to stay reinforces my belief - I've been getting more than what they offered as a contractor)
JoachimSchipper 17y ago
As a data point, I'm currently trying for a PhD instead of a "regular" job. That does involve trading immediate and lifetime earnings for more interesting work. I'm by no means unique.
- Deestan 17y ago
  It's one thing to work for "free" for Science. It's another thing to work for "free" for company owners who already own three yachts and a personal helicopter.
  - JoachimSchipper 17y ago
    Although this may not apply to the institute I'm applying to, the people in charge of the university where I am currently studying certainly do not lack income. I will not speculate on whether or not this is earned, just point out that I've rarely heard anything positive about their policies.
fdenkens 17y ago
Probably Maslow's hierarchy of needs is part of the explanation. Pay comes in pretty low, so when the base-needs are fullfilled, it becomes more personal as to what you consider important next. This might me more money, quality of life, growth within, etc.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  Maslow's hierarchy was discredited a long time ago. It survived only because it seems to make so much sense.
  - ambition 17y ago
    What do you mean by "discredited"? People don't really need food, shelter, and self-fulfillment? What has replaced it?
    - radu_floricica 17y ago
      Well, it does seem to make a lot of sense but I don't think there is much research to actually support it. I don't remember where I read that now it's not considered very useful (I do remember it was in at least a couple of places), but the wikipedia page lists mentions at least one reference against it (Wahba, A; Bridgewell, L (1976). "Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory"), and not so many references in its favor. As for what has replaced it, AFAIK it wasn't one "thing" as simple as the hierarchy was, but simply more research about the issue. There is a lot of literature on the subject, and a lot of it by Maslow himself.
  - rubinelli 17y ago
    It may have been academically discredited, but it is still a very useful approximate model when applied to a reasonably large and heterogeneous group of people. In this case, for example, paying the bills trumps interesting work for most people.
anigbrowl 17y ago
No, you're not - and kudos for articulating that feeling of frustration so exactly. Without criticizing any particular company o industry, this sort of thing is rampant nowadays. It's just as bad, if not worse, in my business (independent film), to the point where I'm now surprised when someone makes me a good offer or accepts my price without significant haggling. As with coding, it's such a cool profession to be in - and intense pressure and challenge can make for such strong team bonds - that it's almost infra dig to say you also need to make a decent living, or that you might want to spend money on something quite unrelated. For a while I'd argue on the basis that being freelance is more expensive, equipment is expensive (substitute training courses or whatever), taxes and cost of living all force me to set a price X...but I realized that this kind of argument was putting me in an inferior position and giving the power to the buyer. So now I just say that I like really, really high quality hookers and blow, and that such luxuries don't come cheap. Although this is a joke, it serves two purposes: first, it reminds the recruiter/ producer/ publisher that you have concerns of their own, about which they know nothing and which they are not competent to evaluate; and second, it's aggressive enough to make the other person uncomfortable, by demonstrating your lack of shame about your own worth, which is a great negotiating tactic. It doesn't have to be hookers and blow of course, that's just a funny cliche in my business. It could be solid-gold golf clubs or putting juice in your Ferrari or whatever. The point is that you're a busy person and you are the sole arbiter of how your time should be valued, and that for some kinds of things, the price is what it is. If you can't pay, then you don't get to play.
- grinich 17y ago
  The point is that you're a busy person and you are the sole arbiter of how your time should be valued, and that for some kinds of things, the price is what it is. If you can't pay, then you don't get to play. I wish somebody had told me this when I started freelancing.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    So do I. For that matter, I might need you to remind me at some point in the future :)
jey 17y ago
Is money the only goal? I'd rather take an enjoyable job with 20% less salary over the higher salary mediocre job in a crappy location. There's a lot more to life satisfaction than money -- as long as you have enough money for your lifestyle and future plans, why compromise on the rest? Anyway, salary negotiations are by definition adversarial, and offers are negotiable. The best negotiating tool is a higher offer from someone else.
ntoshev 17y ago
Propaganda for salary manipulation, really? I'd hate if HN started to upvote conspiracy theories.
alanthonyc 17y ago
The correct response is not to say "fuck you, pay me." It is "wow, that's awesome, pay me." Working at a good company, on a good team, on a cool project - those are true benefits, that's why people talk about them. But in this context, they're just a negotiation tactic. Therefore, don't feel like you have to take a wage below what you feel is justified. Decide what you think you're worth and ask for it. On the other hand, if you don't get what you want, then either you're not very good at negotiating or your market value doesn't match your perception. (On the other other hand, you could just apply to Netflix where they make it a policy[1] to pay you the highest salary in the range for your position. No negotiating needed.) * [1]http://www.netflix.com/Jobs?id=5366#reason4 http://www.netflix.com/Jobs?id=5366#reason4
nostrademons 17y ago
"Am I the only engineer out here that wants to scream, "fuck you, pay me" whenever somebody rambels on and on about how wonderful it is to drink the kool-aid at flickr, google, twitter, or zynga? (and for the record, all of my friends at these 4 companies feel very under-paid)." I'm one of those engineers that drank the kool-aid. Yeah, I could probably make more elsewhere. However, I'm at the stage of my career where I'm optimizing for experience, not for earnings. I'd rather trade salary for skills now, so that those skills can bring more salary later. That's capitalism. Besides, I honestly don't see the point of going from $100K to $200K (made-up numbers, but presumably the ballpark we're talking about). I save half my take-home pay anyway; I can't really think of what else I'd like to buy with it. When I choose to optimize for earnings, I'd rather be in the tens of millions, i.e. found a company and grow it - which also happens to be quite satisfying, although lots of hard work. There's a material difference between "never has to work again" and "still a wage slave". There isn't one (to me) between "can afford a Beemer" and "can afford a Honda Civic."
- olalonde 17y ago
  I totally agree. "How cash in the bank affects your lifestyle: it's not linear." (http://blog.asmartbear.com/rich-vs-king-sold-company.html http://blog.asmartbear.com/rich-vs-king-sold-company.html)
- ytinas 17y ago
  Well, the very obvious difference between the made up $100k and $200k is that you can build a much bigger nest egg. You're saying half your pay now, so lets say this would let you live off your savings for 2 years to try and make a start up. Well, if you keep the same lifestyle than $200k gives you nearly 3 times as long (you're saving half now, so the extra $100k would all be savings, aside from the extra taxes).
- gorbachev 17y ago
  I went from $100K to $200K and to $300K and then to $150K in a relatively short period of time. There's a HUGE difference in lifestyle even with a $100K difference. Obviously it didn't make me independently wealthy, but the difference was still night and day. The $200K+ allowed me to invest in a house in NYC for my family. At $100K I couldn't afford one. Before the house purchase the $200K+ allowed me to vacation abroad 2-3 times a year. The experiences I gained doing that can not be measured in money. But most importantly it allowed me to completely avoid worrying about money. I knew that whatever happened, I wouldn't be in a financial hole. That type of financial freedom is priceless. Obviously if my life situation was different...if I was single or living in less expensive part of the country, I could probably achieve the same financial freedom at $100K.
coffeemug 17y ago
In the case of startups I think that there are two issues to be aware of. The first is that (in my experience) most early stage startups are severely underfunded. After the dot com bust (back then the startups were severely overfunded) the investors swung back to a different extreme. So don't jump to conclusions and blame the founders - I think most founders are trying to do the best they can with the resources at hand. The second issue is how the founder presents the situation to potential employees. I was once offered 10,000 options by what's considered to be a very successful startup. When I politely mentioned that this figure is meaningless and that I need to know the percentage of the company it represents in order to properly evaluate the offer, the founder said that "investors don't like giving away this information - I promise you that it's enough that you'll become a millionaire". If you're in a situation like that where the management has no respect for your time, I'd say run. But if they're honest about why the salary is lower than average, well, it's really up to you. I think in general the economics works out because it's easy for investors (and in turn, founders) to prey on young, gullible people who have a romanticized idea of the startup scene and potential returns. If you look at the statistics, the expected value is just bad, and young inexperienced people generally aren't able to properly evaluate it. So investors put in too little money because enough people are willing to work for pizza and beer, and in turn employees are underpaid because enough people are willing to work for less in exchange for the "startup experience". It's a crappy situation, but like with most things in the world, I'd say don't worry about fighting battles that aren't worth fighting. If you're clever enough to realize this, work for Wall Street or Microsoft - in my experience you'll find much smarter people there than in most startups anyway. Regarding Google underpaying engineers, in my opinion it doesn't jibe with their "don't be evil" mantra. They really should know better.
rms 17y ago
I don't think it is intentionally propaganda, though it may influence opinion because if you're forced to sell yourself into wage slavery it really does help to work on something fun for a company that has free catered meals. If money is so important to you, maybe you should start a startup.
blubb 17y ago
I would guess that a lot of engineers DO care about money. In fact, i would think that MOST do, because most become engineers in order to make a living, and nothing more. The problem is, I think that in engineering and other skilled work, the ones that are interested in their area of work regardless of whether they get paid well or not tend to be more skilled and do a better job. The same can be said for airline pilots (to put it simply, don't become an airline pilot if you want a safe job with a good salary, become an airline pilot if you LOVE flying). So for a company looking to hire people, if a candidate will accept more interesting work for a lower salary, that is a good indicator that they CARE about the work they do. Someone who is only more interested in the salary and less interested in what they do _might_ be the ones that are happy with doing the bare minimums. The other side of the problem is that most people think they are above average intelligent, and therefore most people will feel underpaid if they are not paid above average. If you really love your job and you can do it by running your own business, that's often the best option. As an employee you are only making other people rich in exchange for some economic stability.
ovi256 17y ago
Stockholm syndrome and the entitlement effect also play a role here. The authors (rationally) know they have sacrificed salary, so they try to rationalize by explaining to their readers and to themselves what they have won.
- motters 17y ago
  It really depends upon what your goals are in life - your "top level motivator".
motters 17y ago
As an engineer I'm not particulartly concerned about money, provided that I get paid some "living wage" which allows me to not have to worry about paying bills, rent, etc. I'd rather spend my time working on interesting projects with some modest but liveable wage than do something boring (or of questionable ethical value) on a high wage.
- motters 17y ago
  Or in other words, I'm attempting to maximize my societal impact rather than the amount of money in my bank account.
- ytinas 17y ago
  Is the work you will be doing on these "interesting projects" the thing you would pick if you were a multimillionaire and didn't have to work? If not making as much as you possibly can, with the lowest living standard you can get away with is a better bet imo. I can't imagine any place letting me work on what I want when I want to all the time, and even if there were such a place what happens when I invent something? My name is on a list with a bunch of other mostly unrelated people?
  - motters 17y ago
    If money were no obstacle I'd still be working on similar projects. The "interesting projects" are things which are on the outside of the envelope of what we currently think of as possible. Making progress on interesting projects means expanding the scope of human endeavor.
    - ytinas 17y ago
      Fair enough. In your case it makes sense then.
olalonde 17y ago
Who cares? Start a company and profit. If it doesn't work, try again. I'd rather be poor and get a shot at the big bucks than have a nice & stable salary.
- olalonde 17y ago
  -1 ? You don't have to share my opinion but I'm not sure it deserves a down vote.
gyardley 17y ago
In my personal hiring experience, developers - especially junior developers - rarely negotiate salary. This is too bad, because the people doing the hiring expect you to negotiate, and therefore intentionally offer you something lower than the actual amount they're willing to pay. When you buy the spiel and accept the first offer, so much the better for the company. If later you feel compelled to write a blog post that justifies your decision to yourself, so much the better for the company. Every person out there should read 'Secrets of Power Negotiating' and 'Secrets of Power Salary Negotiating' by Roger Dawson. Yes, both the titles of the books and the contents inside absolutely scream 'sales toolbox', but I'd ask you to ignore this and power through it - the lessons you'll learn are indispensable.
dabent 17y ago
I guess I always imagined there was some sort of equity stake at the kind of companies offering lower salaries. If there isn't, I'm certainly not one to be sold on the propaganda. There are plenty of places that have great teams and better salaries out there. In fact, I don't believe the two are mutually exclusive. A place with a high salary could be a lot of fun to work at and a low salary gig could be at a total sweatshop.
j_baker 17y ago
I know I'm going to get downvoted for this, but I agree with Joel on this one: "They don’t care about money, actually, unless you’re screwing up on the other things. If you start to hear complaints about salaries where you never heard them before, that’s usually a sign that people aren’t really loving their job. ... That doesn’t mean you can underpay people, because they do care about justice, and they will get infuriated if they find out that different people are getting different salaries for the same work, or that everyone in your shop is making 20% less than an otherwise identical shop down the road, and suddenly money will be a big issue." An employer could really take advantage of me monetarily if they provided a work environment that was that cool. Aside from that, as long as I make enough to make a decent living, I don't care. When I'm considering working for a new company, money really is a secondary issue.
- wheaties 17y ago
  Joel is awesome, althought I don't agree with him on everything. He's got it nailed. When you're working a dead-end job, being paid less than everyone at other companies, in an environment where even your chair is falling apart, doing the same thing you did last year and the year before, money becomes a very big issue. It's why they pay people big bucks at banks to do COM/ATL programming. No one wants to do it and everyone recognizes it. I wish companies would take a deeper look at themselves and say "Am I really making a difference to my employess?"
Sukotto 17y ago
Don't confuse the dollar amount of your salary with your total compensation. Salary is only one term in the overall equation. Consider, for example, a company that buys you lunch. Here in NY, lunch costs about $10 if you buy it yourself. If you're in the 25% tax bracket, that's worth $3,300+ in salary. Do they provide daycare? Transportation costs? Paying for conferences? 401k matching? Your friends that feel underpaid did a poor job of negotiating their total compensation. Next time they should sit down and do something along the following lines: - list out every possible benefit a company might offer - group the ones they personally care about (don't have kids? Then the daycare benefit is worthless) - for the ones they care about, think about how much each one is worth in $ to them. - think about what the minimum they would accept for that benefit, how much would make them happy, and how much would make the ecstatic. - for the ones they don't care about, thik about how much it costs the company to pay for each When it comes time to negotiate your compensation, always think in sets. Always word things in terms of how moving any one piece requires movement on a different piece. Give up the things in the "don't care" set for the equivalent value of something in the "want" set. If they want to give you less money, you say you could agree to that, if they give you X number of vacation days. Or if they say they have free daycare, you say that you appreciate that, but since you don't have kids you would rather have "work at home Fridays" and a slightly larger 401k match. Consider the total You are much more likely to get a larger total if you don't focus only on the money. [edit: bad math] (salary equivalent) = (daily cost * 5 days/wk * 50 wks/yr) ------------------------------------ ( 1 - tax rate ) 25% tax bracket $ 5 lunch = (5 * 5 * 50)/(75%) = $1,667 salary $10 lunch = $3,333 So if the company gives you lunch each day, it's worth $333 in salary for every dollar you would have to spend to buy the same lunch. That ignores the fact that your income tax rate changes depending on your salary.
- olegk 17y ago
  How the hell a $10 lunch is worth $10,000? Even if you work every single week (no vacation), 5 days a week, 52 * 5 * $10 = $2600. Plus, you don't have to spend $10 for lunch. There's a bunch of places in NYC where you can eat a decent lunch for $5-8.
  - 17y ago
c00p3r 17y ago
There is always (emerging) market(s) with lots of smart people who want to work for much less salary because they enjoying of what they are doing. =)
Maven911 17y ago
Am I the only one suprised to hear about 150k-200k salaries as software developer ? Most people I know are in the 50-100k range These only seem to be possible in Silicon Valley or NYC-Manhattan
ible 17y ago
I find the type of salaries discussed here downright surreal. I live in Vancouver, BC which has some of the best 'quality of life' according to various random surveys. This translates into an median annual FAMILY income of ~$60k CAD and a median house price approaching 1 million CAD. My wife and I both work in tech, and both make more individually than the average family income, but not a whole lot more. The salary range in Vancouver seems to top out around $150k, and that is uncommon. New grads can expect something between $50k and $80k. The intangibles definitely make a difference to expectations. I sacrifice both salary, and to some degree interesting work (at least at my day job) to live here.
- mattm 17y ago
  I'm from Victoria and these six figures salaries being thrown around as "not that much" seem crazy to me too. Victoria is a smaller version of Vancouver but take off about $50k for the highest salary range and about $20k from your range for a new grad. The quality of life is great though. It takes me 10 minutes to bike to work and I'm home by 5. I've come to realization lately that if I want to earn a lot as a software developer, I will need to move to a large US city.
- jlees 17y ago
  when i graduated from university, in England, with a BA in computer science I was offered a starting salary of sub $35k, par for the course in the uk. I'd earned the equivalent of $50k pa as an intern in the US and bay area companies pay twice that. something's not right here.
wlievens 17y ago
I was like this four years ago (the first few months after graduating). My idea, and my plan, was basically "lock me in a box and make me write cool code, and I'll be happy". It's not true. I've discovered that I need my input and my work to be economically validated. Someone (preferrably myself; but someone else is better than nobody) needs to make money off my work. I don't think that's a bad evolution :-)
- gridspy 17y ago
  I like to talk directly to the client and see the finished product being used. It's great to see a delighted client and know that "I made that!"

dnsworks 17y ago

It's all relative. There is no money for the workers in the service industry because the competition for most roles is unlimited. The supply of technologists is far smaller, however. Every once and a while Google calls me up asking to interview, I politely tell them no. When they ask why I wouldn't want to work there, my response is "You will pay me $100k-$120k. I can make $140k-$160k elsewhere". They start going into this schpeel about their 20% "free time", their stock grants, their free shuttle (Living in SF and would have to commute 2 hours a day to get there). Their culture. They're working really hard to sell me on why I should make $20-$40k less working for them, then to take some other crappy job at a mature startup within 4-6 blocks of my apartment.

dzlobin 17y ago
You have a good point, I wasn't making the connection to say that cooks should be paid more (which they should because a 100 hour work week is average at that level) but rather to emphasize the sacrifice they make to learn and work for the best chefs
dzlobin 17y ago
Out of personal curiosity, if you don't mind telling me, what's your age/education/job? I'm curious as to who Google actively recruits. BTW: feel free to email me if you don't want to post that
- angelbob 17y ago
  Google constantly emails me asking if I want to apply, though I'm not sure they'd hire me if I had the patience to go through their interview process properly. I'm 34, have a bachelor's in math and one in comp sci from Carnegie Mellon, and I have about 11 years of full-time software engineering experience on my resume, primarily in C and C++.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  30/high school drop-out/systems administrator (with 18 years experience)
  - danudey 17y ago
    You've been a systems administrator since you were 12? That's hardcore.
    - steveklabnik 17y ago
      Me and a friend have a running joke/friendly rivalry about how I started coding when I was 7, and he started when he was 6... but he's a year younger than me, so we have the same number of years of experience.
    - dnsworks 17y ago
      I used to think that .. Until I turned '30 and realized I'd given more than 1/2 of my life to a career that I now find rather unfulfilling financially, intellectually, and personally.
natch 17y ago
What's wrong with stock grants? That's much better than stock options. If you get 40,000 shares vesting after, say four years, why would you complain? Sure, there's no guarantee the stock won't collapse, but on the off chance the price holds or goes up, isn't two million after four years not too shabby? Not sure I understand why Google would be lumped together with companies that offer only options, or grants of dog stocks.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  What's wrong with Stock Grants? Why not just go to Vegas then, the odds might be better. Stock options or grants are just another form of gambling. Stock options at a startup are a joke, and for the most part have been a worthless tool that induces slavery for the past 10 years. As for grants, no corporation with stock of any value is giving significant grants. Google gives employees grants of 200 shares nowadays.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  What's wrong with Stock Grants? Why not just go to Vegas then, the odds might be better. Stock options or grants are just another form of gambling. Stock options at a startup are a joke, and for the most part have been a worthless tool that induces slavery for the past 10 years. As for grants, no corporation with stock of any value is giving significant grants. Google gives employees grants of 200 shares nowadays.

nickmolnar2 17y ago

There is also the benefit of down-the-line wages you can earn from having great experience on your resume. Maybe by turning down a 200K job for an 80K one, it makes the candidate eligible for a 350K job two years later. Saying you worked for Google, or Corton, or any other top-of-their-field employer is something that has long-lasting benefits. The payment is just deferred and spread over 30+ years.

ytinas 17y ago
Has this actually been verified? I haven't happened on any stories yet about someone "doing their time" at google to go pick a job making way above their normal range.
- sokoloff 17y ago
  At this point Google is probably too large for there to be a sense of exclusivity about it. I'm sure that being one of the first 50 at Google or Amazon would be a particularly effective resume builder (though given where those companies went, perhaps a financially unnecessary one). I've been recruited to positions specifically because of D. E. Shaw on my resume/LinkedIn profile. Whether that got me way above range or not is impossible to say, of course, but I've never been one to complain about salary in my life either. At my current company, I took a significant pay cut to come here in 2003, N years pre-IPO. N turned out to be 2.5.
- jlees 17y ago
  there's a mention higher up this exact comment thread of people doing exactly that. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098358 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1098358
  - ytinas 17y ago
    It was posted 6 hours after my post. :)
ulrich 17y ago
It is the other way round, at least in Germany. During your interview you will always be asked how much you got at your last job. Then there is a magical cap at say 20% above the last salary (depends on how much they want you of course). So it is very important to have a good salary at the beginning, because it will always be a reference point.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Germany just seems bizarre. I've heard stories of forced union membership for high-level positions like engineers, low-level employees having voting rights on executives, exorbitantly lengthy vacations (with increased salary to make it easier to vacate), etc.
- dnsworks 17y ago
  Germany just seems bizarre. I've heard stories of forced union membership for high-level positions like engineers, low-level employees having voting rights on executives, exorbitantly lengthy vacations (with increased salary to make it easier to vacate), etc.

thibaut_barrere 17y ago

"However, I'm at the stage of my career where I'm optimizing for experience, not for earnings." In my experience, "optimizing experience" is not a stage with our kind of job, it's the whole career. As such, I've always cared to optimize earnings at the same time. Not ask huge amounts of money, but remain careful about that.

nostrademons 17y ago
Well, the way it plays out in practice is that I have a certain finite number of job offers to choose between. Each of them will teach me something. Each of them will give me a chance to accomplish something. Each of them may be more or less enjoyable. And each of them will pay me something. And I'm saying that since I'm relatively early in my career, it makes sense to optimize for the ones that teach me a lot and let me accomplish a lot, even if they don't pay as much. That doesn't mean ignore money. If I have an offer that will teach me more, pay me more, and let me accomplish more, it's a no-brainer to take it. But if I have one that'll teach me more and have me working on highly-visible projects, vs. another that pays more but has me writing CRUDscreens that nobody but a few Intranet departments will use, I'd rather take the one that teaches me more.
- thibaut_barrere 17y ago
  I understand our point - it's really a trade-off between things; and as well the situation is definitely more or less tough, depending on your area. I totally agree with searching for jobs that actually teach you things does bring money on the long run. Sidenote: I put an emphasis on 'actually' because it seems to me that it's difficult to know which job will teach you the most beforehands... It could be the CRUD one, if I use your example :) For instance, in 2006, I had already been moving heavily from .Net to Ruby. Yet someone called me back with a .Net project in mind. I went there just by principle - and ended up doing data aggregation, continuous integration at a scale I had never done before! This has heavily influenced what I do today. As well I was working as a consultant for a large bank, promoting application infrastructure (services, ioc etc), continuous integration, testing practices. Before that, I could possibly have told that bank was boring and I wouldn't learn anything - it was the other way round in the end.

dnsworks 17y ago

You also need to understand what these so-called "benefits" cost you. Sure to work at Google means I can take one of their shuttles, but it also means I would have to live a lifestyle I dread: being someone who lives in a great city and commutes to a soulless suburb. My favorite was always the companies who try to convince you to work later by offering you some half-assed dinner. I worked at a "Netscape startup" (because in the valley we like to brag what failed company our founders come from), and every night for 6 months they ordered some awful thai food for dinner, in order to try and convince everybody to put in an extra 2 hours. And then you need to ask existing employees if the benefits are real. I had lunch with three of my friends in Google's SRE when GOOG was trying to convince me to work with them. Their response on the benefits: - Daycare: bullshit, 1-2 year waiting list - Shuttle: Only if you don't mind working a crazy schedule and being at the whim of the shuttle schedule - 20% time: too over-worked to take advantage of it - Google tech talks: So what, they're free on Google Video Valuating an offer is a complicated process. That's where "Show me the money" or "fuck you, pay me" is an effective mentality when a future employer is trying to con you into taking less than market rate. It's a sale, you convince them why you're worth the number you write on the piece of paper, or they convince you why you're not. Do you want to work for an employee who thinks your work is worth less than you believe it's value to be?

Sukotto 17y ago
By the time you get to this part of the hiring, you should have already decided if you want to work for the company. What you're doing here is working out what it's going to cost them to have you. Good point about "real" benefits. You should certainly do some research to learn how good they really are. The company "workout room" might be a well appointed sports club, or it might be a basement closet with only a worn out old treadmill.