12 ms·
I am 100% in the same boat. Had a recruiter reach out to me who wanted me to leave my more than comfortable six figure SV job to do cutting edge contract work i
by darth_avocado 6y ago
I am 100% in the same boat. Had a recruiter reach out to me who wanted me to leave my more than comfortable six figure SV job to do cutting edge contract work in machine learning as a lead engineer for about $50/hour. I was so amused I actually spent the time listening to their pitch and eventually told them that anything less than $200/hour wouldn't even cover my current pay + benefits. Let me know if you can do better. They hung up. Lol
- spicybright 6y agoI genuinely feel bad for talented people that get suckered into deals like this. Obviously some do if recruiters try and do this.
- 0xffff2 6y agoSome people don't care so much about the money. I'm barely over the six figure mark in the bay area. I could probably make a lot more money somewhere else, but I wouldn't get to do anything nearly as interesting as my current work.
- _benj 6y agoI don't think is about not caring about the money... it seems to me that the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual, and thus a company that pays 1/3 of the industry average shows very little care for their engineers, at least in my book
- n4r9 6y agoThe salary is the most tangible and measurable manifestation, but it's not necessarily complete. Companies can make efforts in other ways e.g. ensuring good work-life balance (which could entail hiring more people), providing allowances for mental health, parental care etc... . All these things can become relatively very valuable once the salary crosses a minimum threshold.
- Viliam1234 6y ago> the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual My experience confirms this. The least paid jobs I had were also the most stressful.
- flyinglizard 6y agoWhat if I told you that, more often than not, you could do your current work and get much more money? People, especially tech people, are quite awful at extracting their full value.
- wikibob 6y agoFully agree. For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment. This is completely false. You get paid more when the company values you more. The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average. Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions.
- reilly3000 6y agoThanks wikibob, somebody I know really needed to hear that.
- jgwil2 6y ago> For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment. > This is completely false. I wouldn't say it's completely false. For example, I'm guessing many enterprise software developers make more than many CS professors. Said professors are obviously qualified to make CRUD apps but they would rather do research or teach curriculums based on their interests. > The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average. Yes, this is true. But your conclusion does not follow from that: > Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions. There is probably some correlation between interesting work for the engineer on the one hand and profitable work for the employer on the other, but it's not nearly as strong as you make it seem.
- eertami 6y agoBut would you rather work 40 hours per week for €100k or 4 hours a week for €50k?
- 6y ago
- asda_ 6y agoI would say I'm in a somewhat similar boat where I believe the work and problems I get to work on are very unexplored and super interesting but the company and industry doesn't "value" software engineers at the moment. Tbh, in a capitalist society, I cannot accept that and am looking for a change. Give me cash or give me stocks in the company, neither and you just take me for a fool. I am sincerely curious what your thoughts are on this, why would you accept a massive paycut to work on something interesting for a company that makes $$ off your work?
- konjin 6y agoPeople agree, talented people do not.
- b3kart 6y agoUnderpaid people aren’t talented? That’s harsh.
- dialamac 6y agoIt happens temporarily all the time of course such that there are plenty of talented people underpaid at a given time but long term most will not be. I along with friends went through bouts of shitty jobs, but it is rare to stay that way. Hiring from the pool of low rate workers is not a suitable standard practice at a place that isn’t a shithole.. as we see here with Intel.
- cccc4all 6y agoPeople get paid what they ask for. No one is underpaid or overpaid. Simply ask for more in salary and benefits. When they ask why, state all the reasons why the increase is warranted. If they deny the request, look for another job that pays the higher amount.
- lmilcin 6y ago
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agoI think talented people will not take it unless they're between a rock and a hard place. Sadly what this does is it attracts only the most junior or unqualified hires who (are great if you got time/budget but if not) will need to be trained by the few seniors left holding the place together. I'm not surprised Intel does this and the telecommunications side I have seen from them in Europe was rotten to the core. I have several anecdotes here just one: A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job with great pay in a key role a lot of niche knowledge, they had to know how valuable he was, after the first week on the new job with Intel he got told that the department decided to reduce the headcount due to a restructuring and so he was the first to go. If it sounds like "business as usual" let me add nobody else was fired, he had a 3 month long negotiation, 6 months notice period on the old job, 3 kids, and in his late 40ies in a specific market. What he was promised would have justified taking the risk. Later I heard they do this all the time from a guy who recruits for Intel. Also this was not in the enterprise market with lot of talent but telecommunications O&M (operations and maintenance plane). He eventually went to go beg to get his job back. He'll never have the same standing in the company tho.
- rhizome 6y agoIt's not uncommon for those types of problems to be contract law violations. "Reliance" is a thing, random url: https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1778 https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1778
- cutemonster 6y agoI don't understand: > A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job > after the first week on the new job with Intel ... he was the first to go. He got poached from Intel or should it be by Intel? Since his new job apparently was at Intel > Later I heard they do this all the time Why do they do that? Sounds like a waste of time for the recruiters (and him but apparently they don't care about that)
- DyslexicAtheist 6y agothanks yes should be by Intel.
- phendrenad2 6y agoBeing slightly underpaid is a great lifehack, but only if your bosses know it. Less stress, more work/life balance. Let people work themselves to the bone for 30% more money. That isn't for me.
- photoJ 6y agoThis. Calculate your pay per hour of actual work. Include the hassle and costs require to recharge. Maximize total pay or pay per hour. Rarely are they the same.
- xyzelement 6y agoReally? If nothing else, making 30% more and saving it would allow you to retire 30 percent earlier. Is half assed slacking for 10+ extra years really that good a proposition when instead you can actually crush it now and then be fully free? Also, to be honest I've never seen the "he's underpaid so we expect less" dynamic in management. What I see much more often is "this guy is bad, not quite so bad that we can fire him but almost. We can't justify raising his comp so let's give him shit work that others would rather not do." Maybe your situation is as you say but seems odd.
- hombre_fatal 6y agoYou'd be right if we aged like Benjamin Button. But you're glossing over the downsides of trading your youth away for a hopeful payoff at a later date. Not all of us like that bargain. I make a fraction of what people in this thread are saying they make. But what price do you put on being 30 and single on a beach in Mexico, happy, with a low stress job? You could look at it as if I paid half my salary to buy back my time. We all value things differently, but notice that it's your youngest self that's most eager to bargain your youth away.
- yardie 6y agoMoney in the bank is a great lifehack. Money in the bank is the greatest stress reliever in our society. The ability to say "this ain't for me" and walk away free of consequences. And knowing that no matter what happens next your expenses are still covered is the best hack.
- yc12340 6y agoSome things can not be easily purchased with money. Getting paid twice as much may let me retire faster. But what if I don't want to retire? What about people, who actually love their jobs? Intel engineers design chips, used by billions of people. There is a certain value, placed on such jobs. And it appears, that Intel management is happy to exploit that value.
- taway992 6y agoThen, they will make the case there is a "talent shortage" and attempt to hire overseas workers at salaries that barely pay bay area living costs.
- headmelted 6y agoGood grief do I ever work in the wrong part of the world. I’m well established in my career (and I don’t have SV costs of living to be fair) - but anywhere even in the galaxy of $200 an hour would be life-changing for me.
- NotPavlovsDog 6y agoI remember meeting a taxi cab driver in the US that told me about his experience coming on a tourist visa, getting married to stay and working towards starting to work as an engineer. There are ways to move anywhere you want, and ways to get remote work at us companies, especially now, if you don't want to move. They are not easy, but they exist.
- literallycancer 6y agoYou don't have to move to the US to make 200. That's easily available for remote people. For the big bucks, moving maybe helps but it's unlikely you make it from driving Uber to 1k/hr unless you run your own business.
- kofejnik 6y ago> That's easily available for remote people. Not easily at all, clients usually avoid working with offshore freelancers directly, and established freelance platforms tend to cap the overseas rates (because they want their cut and also clients expect offshore devs to cost much less) Or am I totally wrong here?
- NotPavlovsDog 6y agoMy experience is, as I read the job ads, they want US based remoters for the easy accounting. So at the minimum, one would have to set up a US company. At the "easiest for the employer", one would have to bill/apply and work through a US resident. If someone has other solutions for out-of-the-US, non-US-tax-reporters to applying to US remote jobs that list "US based" as a requirement I would love to hear about it.
- NotPavlovsDog 6y agoIt's one of the (dirty?) pleasures in the work-life, isn't it? I still treasure getting to the stage in my life when I could afford to stop saying what my salary expectation was outside of "fair in relation to the market and my experience". Recruiter H/R: "We need to hear your salary requirements to move forward with this position". me: "I would like to hear your offer". Recruiter / HR: "We won't be able to consider your candidacy without your salary expectations" Me: "Then, despite my interest in this outstanding company, and the high value I believe I can contribute to it, I will be forced to go with the employers that make a salary offer first". Best fuck I ever had.
- lmilcin 6y agoOr, better yet, instead of sinking that negotiation 100% of the time after your last sentence, you could give obviously large sum and tell them you are open to negotiation once you had your chance to present yourself and the company present themselves. Not only this shows a little more negotiation savvy, but once in a blue moon this could give you an offer you have not expected. For example, they could just say "OK".
- NotPavlovsDog 6y agoIf you have the luxury of affording spending time on multiple interviews, very sound point!
- xyzelement 6y agoWho do you think you are screwing by cutting off your opportunities at the root? :) As the other reply pointed out, you are cutting yourself (a) out of the conversation (b) out of finding out what your actual range is. Here's a dirty secret for you - very often the recruiters don't share the range because the range is broad, they may fill the role with a mid-level or a super-senior at 2x the comp. If they tell you the range, it's likely a more cookie cutter mid-level role and you don't even get to learn where you could land (or what your level doesn't hit and maybe you want to work toward)
- 6y ago
- ausjke 6y agoI do not live in CA and have never took any contract jobs from CA, its contract hourly rate is not competitive at all and to make it worse, its state income tax will take another cut(~13%), there is no way CA's contract rate can be competitive, CA is in decline in general as far as I can see.