6 ms·

So if Google and Facebook are the sexy places to work, and can offer programmers less because programmers would rather work with cool people on cool project tha

So if Google and Facebook are the sexy places to work, and can offer programmers less because programmers would rather work with cool people on cool project than on something boring, what are the unsexy companies that pay more? Oracle? Something else?

rdouble 16y ago
Large scale ecommerce is pretty boring and usually pays a lot. Try Amazon. Likewise, any sort of big ERP package consulting pays a lot and is boring. The other direction is a combination of hard and unsexy. VMWare had the highest base pay in the Bay Area when I left. I'm in Australia now and it seems like the highest pay for a software developer is to work with a mining company. Of course, if you are in NYC, there's always some financial thing. Then again, I'm on the market and have been poking around and thought the proposed compensation at places like Apple and Google was pretty good. If your career goal is a stable job that pays $250K a year, software isn't the right field.
plinkplonk 16y ago
Intuit. (If you are a good engineer) You'll be bored out of your skull and you'll drown in middle manager games and meaningless meetings. But they pay very well.
strlen 16y ago
> So if Google and Facebook are the sexy places to work, and can offer programmers less They can, but they do not. The average salary may be lower as they hire more engineers out of college, but if you're an experienced engineer and have other offers, you'll get a good deal. There is, however, another other angle: they want 99 percentile talent, but are in the 75th percentile compensation wise. So a $130,000 ($100k + 30% bonus) at Google could easily be $150,000 elsewhere. However, this market value may not be realized until the said person has been at a 'brand name' company i.e., some will leave because having been at Google has made them much more valuable in the eyes of employers. > Oracle? Something else? Oracle pays worse, actually. Unlike Google and other companies, they also have strict rules about salaries for people with X years of experience: many excellent engineers left Oracle (and yes, Oracle can attract excellent engineers -- mostly to their database and middleware divisions) because they were told by their managers they wouldn't be able to receive any recognition for their work until they have spent N years at the company.
nostrademons 16y ago
Finance.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
cgopalan 16y ago
I once visited a colleague at ebay when we was working late and nobody was around. I thought his work would be interesting to encourage him to go and work even late hours but one glance at his workstation and he was grappling with a monstrous xml file. I asked him what he thought of ebay and he said they have great facilities like a gym, a nice campus etc but didnt say a word about "interesting work". Red flags.

rdouble 16y ago

Large scale ecommerce is pretty boring and usually pays a lot. Try Amazon. Likewise, any sort of big ERP package consulting pays a lot and is boring. The other direction is a combination of hard and unsexy. VMWare had the highest base pay in the Bay Area when I left. I'm in Australia now and it seems like the highest pay for a software developer is to work with a mining company. Of course, if you are in NYC, there's always some financial thing. Then again, I'm on the market and have been poking around and thought the proposed compensation at places like Apple and Google was pretty good. If your career goal is a stable job that pays $250K a year, software isn't the right field.

plinkplonk 16y ago

Intuit. (If you are a good engineer) You'll be bored out of your skull and you'll drown in middle manager games and meaningless meetings. But they pay very well.

strlen 16y ago

> So if Google and Facebook are the sexy places to work, and can offer programmers less They can, but they do not. The average salary may be lower as they hire more engineers out of college, but if you're an experienced engineer and have other offers, you'll get a good deal. There is, however, another other angle: they want 99 percentile talent, but are in the 75th percentile compensation wise. So a $130,000 ($100k + 30% bonus) at Google could easily be $150,000 elsewhere. However, this market value may not be realized until the said person has been at a 'brand name' company i.e., some will leave because having been at Google has made them much more valuable in the eyes of employers. > Oracle? Something else? Oracle pays worse, actually. Unlike Google and other companies, they also have strict rules about salaries for people with X years of experience: many excellent engineers left Oracle (and yes, Oracle can attract excellent engineers -- mostly to their database and middleware divisions) because they were told by their managers they wouldn't be able to receive any recognition for their work until they have spent N years at the company.

nostrademons 16y ago

Finance.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

cgopalan 16y ago

I once visited a colleague at ebay when we was working late and nobody was around. I thought his work would be interesting to encourage him to go and work even late hours but one glance at his workstation and he was grappling with a monstrous xml file. I asked him what he thought of ebay and he said they have great facilities like a gym, a nice campus etc but didnt say a word about "interesting work". Red flags.