5 ms·

Taking advice from the article to share about salary: I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a re

by spraak 9y ago

Taking advice from the article to share about salary: I have 2.5 years of software development experience but no formal education. I am paid 65k/yr but as a remote contractor, so I pay my own taxes and healthcare, which effectively makes my salary about 57k/yr. I'm considering looking for a new position. What is a reasonable salary to ask for? Edit: I live in California and prefer to continue working remotely

batman_symbol 9y ago
I have the same experience. How do u swing a job like that/market yourself?
- spraak 9y ago
  Well, there are a lot of remote job resources to find a company open to that. Specifically I found the position from the Hacker News Who's Hiring. I guess I did well enough with my intro letter and coding challenge to them for them to schedule an interview.
  - starbuxman 9y ago
    SkipTheDrive.com is a good resource for remote jobs.
eljimmy 9y ago
Impossible to answer without context. Location? Specialization?
- spraak 9y ago
  Thanks for asking. I live in southern California and do backend development, usually with Node and Go.
aerovistae 9y ago
Out of school, my salary history went $67k for 6 months -> $82k for 7 month -> $90k for 18 months -> $110k (present). East coast of US. I took more than 6 months off between each job, so I've had a cumulative two years' vacation since graduation. Recommended. And if someone doesn't offer you the salary you want, say thank you but no thank you. As for convincing people, just be sure to have side projects and be sure you're able to talk in detail about anything you've worked on.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- spraak 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing!
curun1r 9y ago
This may be unconventional advice, but with your level of experience, I say don't try to maximize compensation right now. Instead, look to find the best experience possible so you can have the best narrative possible when you've got 5-7 years experience. At your level, my guess is you'd top out at around $90k/yr if you bargained hard. Senior and Staff engineers can easily make twice that, especially when you find a situation with decent equity. So figure out the shortest path to get to those senior levels so you can start interviewing for those jobs as soon as possible. As a hiring manager, I've interviewed people who have 5 great years of experience who I'm very comfortable hiring into those senior roles. And I've also interviewed people who have 15 years on paper but when you dig into it, it's the same one year of experience 15 times over. They're an easy pass from a hiring standpoint. Not everyone looks at candidates the way that I do, but it's still extremely common for some people to move up much faster than others. Anything you can do to be one of the group that moves up quickly will make you more money in the long run. Things you can be looking for right now instead of money: - Try to find a team where you're the weakest member. It may be scary, but you learn from working with talented engineers and if you're the strongest member of the team, you'll stagnate. - If you've got more than 18 months in a position and you feel you're not learning something important, jump to a new position. Diversity of experience is usually better than a single, longer experience even if it's good experience. - As much as it gets trashed around here, chase the latest buzzword technologies. The more technologies you can prove you know, the more you can prove your ability to learn and the more money you're likely to get offered. - A chance to take on responsibility beyond your years. If someone is willing to offer you a senior title with senior responsibilities but only pay you a junior salary, that's worth something. The next time you jump, you'll be able to jump into a senior-paid role. The advice changes once you get through your rapid advancement years, but for someone just starting out, I think the above is pretty solid. Focus on growing yourself...the money will follow.
- komali2 9y ago
  Curious why you think a 2 year software developer would top out at 90 in California. That's the lowest I've seen a bootcamp grad (no university computer science) get as their first engineering job.
Bahamut 9y ago
I think it really depends on what is the quality of your experience (work and out of work), and where are you located. To give some comparison, I started at $51k in DC. Stayed at that job for 10 months before I got poached by a startup that offered me $75k. Stayed at that job for 9 months before I got poached by a startup in the Bay Area & relocated to the Valley. I worked at that job for $110k for 3 months before switching to another startup for $140k after stuff soured at the prior company. After 9 months there & getting laid off, I landed a job at another startup for $160k. I stayed there almost 2 years and then got laid off, and now I am at Apple making a little over $200k total (effectively even more now since the stock has been doing pretty well, which bolsters my RSUs & stocks from the employee stock purchasing plan). Those numbers are over a career of 4.5 years. I am very good at what I do, although still learning new things all the time, so it may be an unrealistic match, but I have heard of other developers doing even better than me $-wise (one former coworker on track to make over $300k this year with under 2 years of experience - he's shooting for $400k-$450k for the year I think, making more than almost all of the best developers I have ever worked with, but he is working lots of contract gigs simultaneously and outsourcing when necessary).
- subrat_rout 9y ago
  Looking at your comments I believe you have a great front-end experience. As a self taught programmer I am curious to know what are the materials/courses that helped you to get off the ground or any other resources that helped you bossting your career. Thank you in advance.

by spraak 9y ago

batman_symbol 9y ago

I have the same experience. How do u swing a job like that/market yourself?

spraak 9y ago
Well, there are a lot of remote job resources to find a company open to that. Specifically I found the position from the Hacker News Who's Hiring. I guess I did well enough with my intro letter and coding challenge to them for them to schedule an interview.
- starbuxman 9y ago
  SkipTheDrive.com is a good resource for remote jobs.

eljimmy 9y ago

Impossible to answer without context. Location? Specialization?

spraak 9y ago
Thanks for asking. I live in southern California and do backend development, usually with Node and Go.

aerovistae 9y ago

Out of school, my salary history went $67k for 6 months -> $82k for 7 month -> $90k for 18 months -> $110k (present). East coast of US. I took more than 6 months off between each job, so I've had a cumulative two years' vacation since graduation. Recommended. And if someone doesn't offer you the salary you want, say thank you but no thank you. As for convincing people, just be sure to have side projects and be sure you're able to talk in detail about anything you've worked on.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
spraak 9y ago
Thanks for sharing!

curun1r 9y ago

This may be unconventional advice, but with your level of experience, I say don't try to maximize compensation right now. Instead, look to find the best experience possible so you can have the best narrative possible when you've got 5-7 years experience. At your level, my guess is you'd top out at around $90k/yr if you bargained hard. Senior and Staff engineers can easily make twice that, especially when you find a situation with decent equity. So figure out the shortest path to get to those senior levels so you can start interviewing for those jobs as soon as possible. As a hiring manager, I've interviewed people who have 5 great years of experience who I'm very comfortable hiring into those senior roles. And I've also interviewed people who have 15 years on paper but when you dig into it, it's the same one year of experience 15 times over. They're an easy pass from a hiring standpoint. Not everyone looks at candidates the way that I do, but it's still extremely common for some people to move up much faster than others. Anything you can do to be one of the group that moves up quickly will make you more money in the long run. Things you can be looking for right now instead of money: - Try to find a team where you're the weakest member. It may be scary, but you learn from working with talented engineers and if you're the strongest member of the team, you'll stagnate. - If you've got more than 18 months in a position and you feel you're not learning something important, jump to a new position. Diversity of experience is usually better than a single, longer experience even if it's good experience. - As much as it gets trashed around here, chase the latest buzzword technologies. The more technologies you can prove you know, the more you can prove your ability to learn and the more money you're likely to get offered. - A chance to take on responsibility beyond your years. If someone is willing to offer you a senior title with senior responsibilities but only pay you a junior salary, that's worth something. The next time you jump, you'll be able to jump into a senior-paid role. The advice changes once you get through your rapid advancement years, but for someone just starting out, I think the above is pretty solid. Focus on growing yourself...the money will follow.

komali2 9y ago
Curious why you think a 2 year software developer would top out at 90 in California. That's the lowest I've seen a bootcamp grad (no university computer science) get as their first engineering job.

Bahamut 9y ago

I think it really depends on what is the quality of your experience (work and out of work), and where are you located. To give some comparison, I started at $51k in DC. Stayed at that job for 10 months before I got poached by a startup that offered me $75k. Stayed at that job for 9 months before I got poached by a startup in the Bay Area & relocated to the Valley. I worked at that job for $110k for 3 months before switching to another startup for $140k after stuff soured at the prior company. After 9 months there & getting laid off, I landed a job at another startup for $160k. I stayed there almost 2 years and then got laid off, and now I am at Apple making a little over $200k total (effectively even more now since the stock has been doing pretty well, which bolsters my RSUs & stocks from the employee stock purchasing plan). Those numbers are over a career of 4.5 years. I am very good at what I do, although still learning new things all the time, so it may be an unrealistic match, but I have heard of other developers doing even better than me $-wise (one former coworker on track to make over $300k this year with under 2 years of experience - he's shooting for $400k-$450k for the year I think, making more than almost all of the best developers I have ever worked with, but he is working lots of contract gigs simultaneously and outsourcing when necessary).

subrat_rout 9y ago
Looking at your comments I believe you have a great front-end experience. As a self taught programmer I am curious to know what are the materials/courses that helped you to get off the ground or any other resources that helped you bossting your career. Thank you in advance.