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I'm a pretty senior engineer. I've never been promoted at a company. I've never even received a substantial raise. It's also not like I wasn't doing the things

by kodah 4y ago

I'm a pretty senior engineer. I've never been promoted at a company. I've never even received a substantial raise. It's also not like I wasn't doing the things they wanted. If you're pretty senior, try moving every 3-5 years. If you're less than that try to stick out a year. There's exceptions, but honestly just be able to talk about why you did it. For instance, when I got out of the military I was chronically underpaid in tech during a time when it was okay for companies to ask my previous salary while also being from the South where techies make substantially less than average. I left companies once a year for nearly four years. They knew what the deal was, they were getting a deal on my talents but knew I wasn't passionate about their stuff.

heywire 4y ago
Counterpoint, I am also a senior engineer. I was hired as an L1 support specialist talking with end users almost 20 years ago. I was promoted through the ranks of support followed by software development. Over that time, my salary has increased more than 4x. My current salary is comparable to what I could get elsewhere in my area. Could I have done better had I jumped ship every couple of years, maybe. But I love my job and the people I work with. I’ve been working with some of the same people this whole time.
- wikibob 4y ago
  A data point you may find useful: If your salary has only increased 4x over what you made doing tier 1 support it is likely you are leaving a massive amount of money on the table. Check https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi Now you might not be willing to do the work to pass interviews at higher paying companies. That’s fine too, but I wanted to make sure you know what the actual numbers are.
  - heywire 4y ago
    I’ve interviewed over the years and kept touch with colleagues who went elsewhere. There are certainly tracks I could have taken to raise my salary more aggressively, but at my current salary, I wouldn’t call it a massive amount of money. I’m currently between the 75th and 90th percentile for my area according to the site you provided (closer 90th than the 75th). I have a low stress 8-5 job that allows me to spend time with my family while working on exciting projects with experts in our field who have become like family to me. I’m not earning Silicon Valley money, but I’m also not paying Silicon Valley prices here in Ohio either :).
    - kodah 4y ago
      > I’m not earning Silicon Valley money, but I’m also not paying Silicon Valley prices here in Ohio either :). Folks in Texas used to say this. Unfortunately when average state incomes start to have large departures from each other it creates a chasm of cascading failures. What it really harms is your ability to retire. If your salary is only designed to compete locally then when you have to retire you'll have to select lower than locally. The lower you are on that chain the fewer places there are. Personally, I'd like to see geographic pay incentives die. People in Silicon Valley don't deserve to freely shovel money into their home equity more than anyone else does, so why subsidize it, much less call it equal?
time_to_smile 4y ago
Similar camp here, long career and many different roles. Stuck at some places longer than others but surprisingly found little correlation between tenure at a place and promotion. At one early job I was promoted into a much bigger role after six months, and at a few places I stuck around 3ish years with nothing to show for it (despite otherwise being productive and well liked). One more thing I would add: promotion at a company is very random but hugely impactful across a career. My current company is filled with relatively young engineers, but many of them got promoted during the time when the company was small and now manage massive teams at a publicly traded company while still relatively inexperienced. Early in my career I got quickly promoted to a reasonably high level role... but the company went under. Had that company been as successful as my current one who knows what type of role I might be in today. I have another friend that joined a massive company hoping to just blend in and have time for other project: 2 years later they've had multiple promotions and are now very well compensated and a much higher level. This same person struggled to get any promotion in a much smaller company they worked harder for and had a much higher impact on. Some people join an early stage startup and end up a C-level at a well known company, and a very similar person can join and early stage startup that disappears and they end up taking a senior software engineer role for their next gig. All of this to say, long-term commitment can have wildly divergent rewards that all boils down to being in the right place at the right time.

by kodah 4y ago

heywire 4y ago

Counterpoint, I am also a senior engineer. I was hired as an L1 support specialist talking with end users almost 20 years ago. I was promoted through the ranks of support followed by software development. Over that time, my salary has increased more than 4x. My current salary is comparable to what I could get elsewhere in my area. Could I have done better had I jumped ship every couple of years, maybe. But I love my job and the people I work with. I’ve been working with some of the same people this whole time.

wikibob 4y ago
A data point you may find useful: If your salary has only increased 4x over what you made doing tier 1 support it is likely you are leaving a massive amount of money on the table. Check https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi Now you might not be willing to do the work to pass interviews at higher paying companies. That’s fine too, but I wanted to make sure you know what the actual numbers are.
- heywire 4y ago
  I’ve interviewed over the years and kept touch with colleagues who went elsewhere. There are certainly tracks I could have taken to raise my salary more aggressively, but at my current salary, I wouldn’t call it a massive amount of money. I’m currently between the 75th and 90th percentile for my area according to the site you provided (closer 90th than the 75th). I have a low stress 8-5 job that allows me to spend time with my family while working on exciting projects with experts in our field who have become like family to me. I’m not earning Silicon Valley money, but I’m also not paying Silicon Valley prices here in Ohio either :).
  - kodah 4y ago
    > I’m not earning Silicon Valley money, but I’m also not paying Silicon Valley prices here in Ohio either :). Folks in Texas used to say this. Unfortunately when average state incomes start to have large departures from each other it creates a chasm of cascading failures. What it really harms is your ability to retire. If your salary is only designed to compete locally then when you have to retire you'll have to select lower than locally. The lower you are on that chain the fewer places there are. Personally, I'd like to see geographic pay incentives die. People in Silicon Valley don't deserve to freely shovel money into their home equity more than anyone else does, so why subsidize it, much less call it equal?

time_to_smile 4y ago

Similar camp here, long career and many different roles. Stuck at some places longer than others but surprisingly found little correlation between tenure at a place and promotion. At one early job I was promoted into a much bigger role after six months, and at a few places I stuck around 3ish years with nothing to show for it (despite otherwise being productive and well liked). One more thing I would add: promotion at a company is very random but hugely impactful across a career. My current company is filled with relatively young engineers, but many of them got promoted during the time when the company was small and now manage massive teams at a publicly traded company while still relatively inexperienced. Early in my career I got quickly promoted to a reasonably high level role... but the company went under. Had that company been as successful as my current one who knows what type of role I might be in today. I have another friend that joined a massive company hoping to just blend in and have time for other project: 2 years later they've had multiple promotions and are now very well compensated and a much higher level. This same person struggled to get any promotion in a much smaller company they worked harder for and had a much higher impact on. Some people join an early stage startup and end up a C-level at a well known company, and a very similar person can join and early stage startup that disappears and they end up taking a senior software engineer role for their next gig. All of this to say, long-term commitment can have wildly divergent rewards that all boils down to being in the right place at the right time.