5 ms·

I genuinely don't get the point of 2 remote jobs. The tech wage scaling is absolutely bonkers right now and the value proposition of this system is not clear to

by screye 5y ago

I genuinely don't get the point of 2 remote jobs. The tech wage scaling is absolutely bonkers right now and the value proposition of this system is not clear to me. Assuming you only work 20 of your 40 hrs/week in each job, you are still working a fulltime job with 2x your salary. If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. Now work a couple of years in this job, and soon you'll be able to complete its responsibilities in 20ish hrs/week. Every job gets easier overtime in that sense.

Roritharr 5y ago
I don't know what world you live in, but I have yet to see a company which let's anyone reach 2x of their starting salary in less than a decade. Might be because I'm european, but the idea sounds crazy to me.
- tibbetts 5y ago
  Depends when in your career, and what the company is doing. I went from my first starting salary of $72k at age 23 (in 2003) as engineer #2 to $150k as chief architect about 5 years later. After another 5 years we sold the company, and I was making better than $300k salary plus bonus in 2013. So that’s two doublings in 10 years. But it’s also probably the exception that proves the rule.
- bspammer 5y ago
  I'm sure it's harder to get when you're more senior, but I started working as a graduate in London for £30k 3 years ago and am now on £60k. I think this is pretty typical in London.
  - Roritharr 5y ago
    Okay if you start THAT low I can see it, but most start at 40-60 here, getting up to 80-120 is used to be at least a decade away.
- who_me_qmark 5y ago
  I’ve more than doubled my salary every 4 years in Silicon Valley. I’m 11 years in and 16x my starting salary my first year out of college. Yes this includes equity comp, but this is not dominated by appreciation. My current employer stock performance hasn’t been great or even mediocre. But my career growth has ensured that doesn’t matter.
  - Roritharr 5y ago
    Silicon Valley is insane, but that's nothing new, when I look at the money offered elsewhere, I really regret not trying harder to move there in my 20s.
  - mrtnmcc 5y ago
    2^(11/4) = 6.7x you might want to check the math there :) I guess you could have meant by "more than doubled" as 2.75x, that would work out. Pretty impressive.
  - girvo 5y ago
    Within a single company? If so, thats pretty neat.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    At the same company though?
- el_dudowitch 5y ago
  Fellow European here. Indeed possible but unlikely. Started working for 43k (Euro) directly out of university. Joined SV startup 2y later with 50% higher salary (60k). Now four four years and one promotion in, almost doubled my salary at 110k. This is also before considering equity.
- iwork3jobs 5y ago
  Every salary increase I had so far has been 2x. Once I hit a ceiling, I got 2 gigs in paralel, so I 2xed again, I guess. Even so, I did not reach SV income level. I cash in about 100k a year. I am comfortable though.
- throwaway_goog 5y ago
  I've doubled my compensation every time I switched jobs, plus doubled once through internal promotions, and another 50% increase through stock appreciation since most recent rehire. It's been about 5 doublings over a 20-year career. Most recent employer is in my username, and income history is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10760918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10760918 (Plus $630K in 2020 and about $900K in 2021.)
  - joebiden2024 5y ago
    God I wish I could make anywhere close to that. I'm 3 years in and my highest TC offer was about $300k at Square. I ended up taking slightly less for a more interesting startup but even that's still just $275k. Life at the bottom rung is not pretty in the slightest!
    - chillacy 5y ago
      I don’t know if this is satirical or not but 275k for 3yoe is near the top of that band (assuming the startup equity is liquid). I think the parent has very generous stock appreciation going on, as $GOOG roughly tripled in the past 3 years
      - joebiden2024 5y ago
        It's not liquid, and probably won't be. I used to be at Amazon and my TC was only $200k.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    I believe you. But, the point isn't "is there someone out there who can do it?" The point is "is this typical, and can I do it." And, the answer to the latter is clearly "no."
endisneigh 5y ago
I know for a fact that at Meta (Facebook), even if you literally are a genius and were promoted twice in 2 years you wouldn't be doubling your total comp.
- who_me_qmark 5y ago
  I’ve seen people promoted once in FANG including Meta more than double their salary.
  - endisneigh 5y ago
    When was this? It also isn't the norm. I've also heard of people double their TC during COVID, but it was mainly due to the stock increase. It's not sustainable, nor is it the norm.
    - who_me_qmark 5y ago
      Within the last 4 years for sure, and before that as well. Not the norm, but for high performing engineers it’s definitely possibly without equity appreciation. But I do think it speaks to the parents comment — if you put in the extra work the payoffs at the right company definitely have higher ROI than two jobs where you’re lying / hiding / stressing about being mediocre. Just my two cents. Note, it’s not just the initial promotion. It’s the wider compensation band it opens up.
      - endisneigh 5y ago
        which company? I've had friends get promoted at then Facebook and Amazon and not receive a 50% increase with EE/S let alone double. I doubt it happens very often even for top people unless they were underpaid.
        who_me_qmark 5y ago
        I edited my comment but will reply here to for clarity. It’s not the initial promo that necessarily gives you doubling. It’s the wider compensation bands the promotion opens up. Sustained performance can have high upside in a 2-4 year time horizon for high performers.
khazhoux 5y ago
> they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job [Citation Needed]
rokob 5y ago
You don’t get 2x your salary quickly via promotion for doing the same job unless you are starting at the very bottom.
- who_me_qmark 5y ago
  In Silicon Valley this is simply not true.
  - actually_a_dog 5y ago
    It simply is until you cite statistics. Sorry for the apparent snark, but, I'm saying I don't believe you, and "nuh uh," "ya huh" isn't where I'd like to go with this.
nicolashahn 5y ago
> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job Haha, at what company? I've met few people who've been able to work at a company long enough (and for the company to be successful enough) to double their salary. Apparently, it's much faster to just get two lower paying, easy jobs.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
raincom 5y ago
"If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job." Between the two extremes (mediocre and rockstar/10x), there are many 'competent' people who can't get promoted to their 2x salary jobs. And these people are competent in a particular niche, not like those who aced programming olympiads, compiler gurus, kernel hackers, etc.
dqpb 5y ago
> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. Nope
fffobar 5y ago
> they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary That's only the case if they were underpaid to begin with. It will plateau very quickly.
MattGaiser 5y ago
Where are these mythical promos with 2x salary? I have never met someone who got one. Heck, where are the companies that even keep up with market rate for devs? Every company has short tenures now.
occamsrazorwit 5y ago
> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. One of the benefits of this is that you don't have to be competent enough to sustain two jobs. There are people who do this and just swap their jobs every year or less. Another side benefit of that is that people have lower expectations for the new hire, and if you're perpetually a new hire...
jxcole 5y ago
> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. I've found the opposite is true. If you are extremely competent at your job your manager is motivated to keep you in place because that's what you're good at. It's easier to promote lower-accomplishing people-pleasers because it won't affect _their_ software throughput as much (higher level engineers write less code).
lmarcos 5y ago
> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. I don't know the numbers but in my limited experience, in western Europe, this is just not possible (or very very rare among C level people if any, not mere engineers). A good senior salary (gross) is like 80K Euro/year. As a senior engineer working in Europe, you cannot expect reach 100K Euro easily. Now, thinking that you can go from 80K to 160K just by being an engineer that is "competent enough" is just plain naive. Not even the CTOs are making that around here.

by screye 5y ago

Roritharr 5y ago

I don't know what world you live in, but I have yet to see a company which let's anyone reach 2x of their starting salary in less than a decade. Might be because I'm european, but the idea sounds crazy to me.

tibbetts 5y ago
Depends when in your career, and what the company is doing. I went from my first starting salary of $72k at age 23 (in 2003) as engineer #2 to $150k as chief architect about 5 years later. After another 5 years we sold the company, and I was making better than $300k salary plus bonus in 2013. So that’s two doublings in 10 years. But it’s also probably the exception that proves the rule.
bspammer 5y ago
I'm sure it's harder to get when you're more senior, but I started working as a graduate in London for £30k 3 years ago and am now on £60k. I think this is pretty typical in London.
- Roritharr 5y ago
  Okay if you start THAT low I can see it, but most start at 40-60 here, getting up to 80-120 is used to be at least a decade away.
who_me_qmark 5y ago
I’ve more than doubled my salary every 4 years in Silicon Valley. I’m 11 years in and 16x my starting salary my first year out of college. Yes this includes equity comp, but this is not dominated by appreciation. My current employer stock performance hasn’t been great or even mediocre. But my career growth has ensured that doesn’t matter.
- Roritharr 5y ago
  Silicon Valley is insane, but that's nothing new, when I look at the money offered elsewhere, I really regret not trying harder to move there in my 20s.
- mrtnmcc 5y ago
  2^(11/4) = 6.7x you might want to check the math there :) I guess you could have meant by "more than doubled" as 2.75x, that would work out. Pretty impressive.
- girvo 5y ago
  Within a single company? If so, thats pretty neat.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  At the same company though?
el_dudowitch 5y ago
Fellow European here. Indeed possible but unlikely. Started working for 43k (Euro) directly out of university. Joined SV startup 2y later with 50% higher salary (60k). Now four four years and one promotion in, almost doubled my salary at 110k. This is also before considering equity.
iwork3jobs 5y ago
Every salary increase I had so far has been 2x. Once I hit a ceiling, I got 2 gigs in paralel, so I 2xed again, I guess. Even so, I did not reach SV income level. I cash in about 100k a year. I am comfortable though.
throwaway_goog 5y ago
I've doubled my compensation every time I switched jobs, plus doubled once through internal promotions, and another 50% increase through stock appreciation since most recent rehire. It's been about 5 doublings over a 20-year career. Most recent employer is in my username, and income history is here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10760918 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10760918 (Plus $630K in 2020 and about $900K in 2021.)
- joebiden2024 5y ago
  God I wish I could make anywhere close to that. I'm 3 years in and my highest TC offer was about $300k at Square. I ended up taking slightly less for a more interesting startup but even that's still just $275k. Life at the bottom rung is not pretty in the slightest!
  - chillacy 5y ago
    I don’t know if this is satirical or not but 275k for 3yoe is near the top of that band (assuming the startup equity is liquid). I think the parent has very generous stock appreciation going on, as $GOOG roughly tripled in the past 3 years
    - joebiden2024 5y ago
      It's not liquid, and probably won't be. I used to be at Amazon and my TC was only $200k.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  I believe you. But, the point isn't "is there someone out there who can do it?" The point is "is this typical, and can I do it." And, the answer to the latter is clearly "no."

endisneigh 5y ago

I know for a fact that at Meta (Facebook), even if you literally are a genius and were promoted twice in 2 years you wouldn't be doubling your total comp.

who_me_qmark 5y ago
I’ve seen people promoted once in FANG including Meta more than double their salary.
- endisneigh 5y ago
  When was this? It also isn't the norm. I've also heard of people double their TC during COVID, but it was mainly due to the stock increase. It's not sustainable, nor is it the norm.
  - who_me_qmark 5y ago
    Within the last 4 years for sure, and before that as well. Not the norm, but for high performing engineers it’s definitely possibly without equity appreciation. But I do think it speaks to the parents comment — if you put in the extra work the payoffs at the right company definitely have higher ROI than two jobs where you’re lying / hiding / stressing about being mediocre. Just my two cents. Note, it’s not just the initial promotion. It’s the wider compensation band it opens up.
    - endisneigh 5y ago
      which company? I've had friends get promoted at then Facebook and Amazon and not receive a 50% increase with EE/S let alone double. I doubt it happens very often even for top people unless they were underpaid.
      - who_me_qmark 5y ago
        I edited my comment but will reply here to for clarity. It’s not the initial promo that necessarily gives you doubling. It’s the wider compensation bands the promotion opens up. Sustained performance can have high upside in a 2-4 year time horizon for high performers.

khazhoux 5y ago

> they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job [Citation Needed]

rokob 5y ago

You don’t get 2x your salary quickly via promotion for doing the same job unless you are starting at the very bottom.

who_me_qmark 5y ago
In Silicon Valley this is simply not true.
- actually_a_dog 5y ago
  It simply is until you cite statistics. Sorry for the apparent snark, but, I'm saying I don't believe you, and "nuh uh," "ya huh" isn't where I'd like to go with this.

nicolashahn 5y ago

> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job Haha, at what company? I've met few people who've been able to work at a company long enough (and for the company to be successful enough) to double their salary. Apparently, it's much faster to just get two lower paying, easy jobs.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

raincom 5y ago

"If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job." Between the two extremes (mediocre and rockstar/10x), there are many 'competent' people who can't get promoted to their 2x salary jobs. And these people are competent in a particular niche, not like those who aced programming olympiads, compiler gurus, kernel hackers, etc.

dqpb 5y ago

> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. Nope

fffobar 5y ago

> they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary That's only the case if they were underpaid to begin with. It will plateau very quickly.

MattGaiser 5y ago

Where are these mythical promos with 2x salary? I have never met someone who got one. Heck, where are the companies that even keep up with market rate for devs? Every company has short tenures now.

occamsrazorwit 5y ago

> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. One of the benefits of this is that you don't have to be competent enough to sustain two jobs. There are people who do this and just swap their jobs every year or less. Another side benefit of that is that people have lower expectations for the new hire, and if you're perpetually a new hire...

jxcole 5y ago

> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. I've found the opposite is true. If you are extremely competent at your job your manager is motivated to keep you in place because that's what you're good at. It's easier to promote lower-accomplishing people-pleasers because it won't affect _their_ software throughput as much (higher level engineers write less code).

lmarcos 5y ago

> If someone is competent enough to sustain 2 jobs, they will also get quickly promoted to 2x their salary if they are working one job. I don't know the numbers but in my limited experience, in western Europe, this is just not possible (or very very rare among C level people if any, not mere engineers). A good senior salary (gross) is like 80K Euro/year. As a senior engineer working in Europe, you cannot expect reach 100K Euro easily. Now, thinking that you can go from 80K to 160K just by being an engineer that is "competent enough" is just plain naive. Not even the CTOs are making that around here.