3 ms·

I'd expect that (similar to public sector jobs) Costco pays well at the low end, but salary for more skilled jobs isn't competitive. Their web site is atrociou

I'd expect that (similar to public sector jobs) Costco pays well at the low end, but salary for more skilled jobs isn't competitive. Their web site is atrocious though.

jfim 7y ago
It also crashed during the last black Friday[0], so perhaps investing more in their IT would pay off. [0] https://www.thestreet.com/technology/costco-thanksgiving-day-website-crash-cost-it-nearly-11million-15185344 https://www.thestreet.com/technology/costco-thanksgiving-day...
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  I signed up for a Costco membership through Groupon (hey it came with a bunch of coupons). I bailed in large part because the in-store part of the sign up process included a bunch of upselling (upgrade to our more expensive membership please!). Apparently Groupon signed me up for a bunch of Costco email spam (as I didn't give the store my email address). By the time I got home after that trip I'd gotten a ton of spam from Costco. Trying to opt out was futile. Each message had an unsubscribe link. The landing page worked, but whatever was supposed to handle the form time out or 500'd each time. Hold time at the Costco call center was 10+ minutes... to unsubscribe from opt-out garbage. Unsubscribing from the membership itself was a bit of a comedy routine where the manager kept suggesting I keep the membership and patronize their warehouse (instead of the one I signed up at). It's fair to say I agree that Costco would reap benefits by investing in their IT infrastructure.
redis_mlc 7y ago
> but salary for more skilled jobs isn't competitive That's an old myth. Because of COLA (and on top of that, pensions), the public sector in California pays more than private jobs now, aside from FANG. I once asked my dental billing technician (yeah that's really a thing in the USA), "Who got the best benefits?" Answer: "Oh, public employees are royalty."
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Because of COLA (and on top of that, pensions), the public sector in California pays more than private jobs now, aside from FANG. As an example here's a senior (1043) network engineer position with the SF Dept of Technology: https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=1043&R3=098017 https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=... Salary is listed as: $59.49 - $74.83/hour; $10,311.00 - $12,970.00/month; $123,734.00 - $155,636.00/year I can tell you that a few years ago at megacorp (not FANG) my base pay for principal ops monkey was more than the top end of the 1043 and 1044 scales. We were not known for above average compensation. In general while we hired into the principal role I think the city tends to aim more for senior (1043) than principal (1044). Here's the SF pay scale database: Principal programmers (1064) top out at $149k. Infosys managers (1071) top out at just under $200k. That's not particularly competitive. Megacorp also provided me with the best 401k I've seen (Vanguard with access to institutional shares), 401k match, stock options, and decent insurance. I once asked my dental billing technician (yeah that's really a thing in the USA), "Who got the best benefits?" Answer: "Oh, public employees are royalty." This still matters so much more for unskilled labor. Working in tech you're already going to have access to heavily subsidized health insurance. 401k vs pension is a matter of debate. I'd prefer a defined benefit situation like a pension, but a 401k with a decent match (we got up to $7k or so) isn't really a deal breaker The city (due to some combination of local, state, and federal laws) will dock 2% for retiree health care, and 7.5% for your pension.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    Well I forgot the link to the pay scale DB: https://sfdhr.org/classification-compensation-database https://sfdhr.org/classification-compensation-database
    - mlrtime 7y ago
      Police positions are much higher compensated than engineering. http://citidex.sfgov.org/cgi-bin/dhr/findClass.cgi?class=&title=&salaryRange=3847,100000&exempt=&fifthStepEntry=&unionOnly= http://citidex.sfgov.org/cgi-bin/dhr/findClass.cgi?class=&ti...

I'd expect that (similar to public sector jobs) Costco pays well at the low end, but salary for more skilled jobs isn't competitive. Their web site is atrocious though.

jfim 7y ago

It also crashed during the last black Friday[0], so perhaps investing more in their IT would pay off. [0] https://www.thestreet.com/technology/costco-thanksgiving-day-website-crash-cost-it-nearly-11million-15185344 https://www.thestreet.com/technology/costco-thanksgiving-day...

inferiorhuman 7y ago
I signed up for a Costco membership through Groupon (hey it came with a bunch of coupons). I bailed in large part because the in-store part of the sign up process included a bunch of upselling (upgrade to our more expensive membership please!). Apparently Groupon signed me up for a bunch of Costco email spam (as I didn't give the store my email address). By the time I got home after that trip I'd gotten a ton of spam from Costco. Trying to opt out was futile. Each message had an unsubscribe link. The landing page worked, but whatever was supposed to handle the form time out or 500'd each time. Hold time at the Costco call center was 10+ minutes... to unsubscribe from opt-out garbage. Unsubscribing from the membership itself was a bit of a comedy routine where the manager kept suggesting I keep the membership and patronize their warehouse (instead of the one I signed up at). It's fair to say I agree that Costco would reap benefits by investing in their IT infrastructure.

redis_mlc 7y ago

> but salary for more skilled jobs isn't competitive That's an old myth. Because of COLA (and on top of that, pensions), the public sector in California pays more than private jobs now, aside from FANG. I once asked my dental billing technician (yeah that's really a thing in the USA), "Who got the best benefits?" Answer: "Oh, public employees are royalty."

inferiorhuman 7y ago
Because of COLA (and on top of that, pensions), the public sector in California pays more than private jobs now, aside from FANG. As an example here's a senior (1043) network engineer position with the SF Dept of Technology: https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=1043&R3=098017 https://www.jobapscloud.com/SF/sup/bulpreview.asp?R1=PEX&R2=... Salary is listed as: $59.49 - $74.83/hour; $10,311.00 - $12,970.00/month; $123,734.00 - $155,636.00/year I can tell you that a few years ago at megacorp (not FANG) my base pay for principal ops monkey was more than the top end of the 1043 and 1044 scales. We were not known for above average compensation. In general while we hired into the principal role I think the city tends to aim more for senior (1043) than principal (1044). Here's the SF pay scale database: Principal programmers (1064) top out at $149k. Infosys managers (1071) top out at just under $200k. That's not particularly competitive. Megacorp also provided me with the best 401k I've seen (Vanguard with access to institutional shares), 401k match, stock options, and decent insurance. I once asked my dental billing technician (yeah that's really a thing in the USA), "Who got the best benefits?" Answer: "Oh, public employees are royalty." This still matters so much more for unskilled labor. Working in tech you're already going to have access to heavily subsidized health insurance. 401k vs pension is a matter of debate. I'd prefer a defined benefit situation like a pension, but a 401k with a decent match (we got up to $7k or so) isn't really a deal breaker The city (due to some combination of local, state, and federal laws) will dock 2% for retiree health care, and 7.5% for your pension.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  Well I forgot the link to the pay scale DB: https://sfdhr.org/classification-compensation-database https://sfdhr.org/classification-compensation-database
  - mlrtime 7y ago
    Police positions are much higher compensated than engineering. http://citidex.sfgov.org/cgi-bin/dhr/findClass.cgi?class=&title=&salaryRange=3847,100000&exempt=&fifthStepEntry=&unionOnly= http://citidex.sfgov.org/cgi-bin/dhr/findClass.cgi?class=&ti...