4 ms·

Sounds like the missing piece is the interviewing and negotiation skills. The money is there, you just have to convince them that it is in their best interests

by daenz 4y ago

Sounds like the missing piece is the interviewing and negotiation skills. The money is there, you just have to convince them that it is in their best interests to give it to you.

junon 4y ago
That was certainly not the problem.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  If that wasn't the problem, sounds like you didn't have the right skills.
  - junon 4y ago
    Ah yes, the lady at Uber who was being paid 250k who used Edit>Copy/Paste to paste lines of Python from Notepad into a REPL and got confused with extraneous whitespace errors in order to prove to me that some python doesn't work (even though it did) with a position of "Staff Engineer 1" certainly deserved it more than almost literally everyone else I've worked with. Skillset has nothing to do with this problem.
    - daenz 4y ago
      I think I know what the problem is now.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Please take a look at levels.fyi if you don't believe there are $200K offers available (caveat: I can only speak for US+Canada). I'm an above-average-skill but ADHD / below-average-work-ethic software dev in Canada who just finished interviews and my highest offer was $150K USD. I only prepped algorithms for 1-2 months but have a feeling if I spent 4 months prepping, I'd be able to break into the mid to high 200K USD range. And this is well below what a lot of people are making in the U.S. according to levels.fyi and teamblind.com I don't say this to make you feel bad, and I even agree that the average is of course lower (glassdoor says the U.S. average for software engineers is ~$108K USD though I suspect older data-points bring it down from the real figure). But I think >70% of U.S.-based software engineers with >5 years of experience are capable of breaking into 200K USD if they spent 3-6 months preparing (depending on their degree of natural talent and abilities to learn, problem-solve, and retain information). Of course, chasing TC is also not a fun treadmill to be on, so if you're comfortable, you should do what makes you happy :) The point of this is to say that these numbers are very, very real, and even attainable for the majority of devs who set their sights on them, and it's kind of silly to scoff at them as you put it. The only important skills required are ambition, dedication, perseverance, and good research skills (which are among the most critical skills for software engineers anyway) to be able to navigate negotiations and the market.

by daenz 4y ago

Sounds like the missing piece is the interviewing and negotiation skills. The money is there, you just have to convince them that it is in their best interests to give it to you.

junon 4y ago

That was certainly not the problem.

motoxpro 4y ago
If that wasn't the problem, sounds like you didn't have the right skills.
- junon 4y ago
  Ah yes, the lady at Uber who was being paid 250k who used Edit>Copy/Paste to paste lines of Python from Notepad into a REPL and got confused with extraneous whitespace errors in order to prove to me that some python doesn't work (even though it did) with a position of "Staff Engineer 1" certainly deserved it more than almost literally everyone else I've worked with. Skillset has nothing to do with this problem.
  - daenz 4y ago
    I think I know what the problem is now.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
pcthrowaway 4y ago
Please take a look at levels.fyi if you don't believe there are $200K offers available (caveat: I can only speak for US+Canada). I'm an above-average-skill but ADHD / below-average-work-ethic software dev in Canada who just finished interviews and my highest offer was $150K USD. I only prepped algorithms for 1-2 months but have a feeling if I spent 4 months prepping, I'd be able to break into the mid to high 200K USD range. And this is well below what a lot of people are making in the U.S. according to levels.fyi and teamblind.com I don't say this to make you feel bad, and I even agree that the average is of course lower (glassdoor says the U.S. average for software engineers is ~$108K USD though I suspect older data-points bring it down from the real figure). But I think >70% of U.S.-based software engineers with >5 years of experience are capable of breaking into 200K USD if they spent 3-6 months preparing (depending on their degree of natural talent and abilities to learn, problem-solve, and retain information). Of course, chasing TC is also not a fun treadmill to be on, so if you're comfortable, you should do what makes you happy :) The point of this is to say that these numbers are very, very real, and even attainable for the majority of devs who set their sights on them, and it's kind of silly to scoff at them as you put it. The only important skills required are ambition, dedication, perseverance, and good research skills (which are among the most critical skills for software engineers anyway) to be able to navigate negotiations and the market.