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Idk what engineer gets paid 300k outside of giant tech companies and overvalued startups. I’m sure that level of pay doesn’t have many coasters. At $150k, I w

by dartos 2y ago

Idk what engineer gets paid 300k outside of giant tech companies and overvalued startups. I’m sure that level of pay doesn’t have many coasters. At $150k, I was coasting at a large company for a few years, but it wasn’t like I did _nothing_. I did my sprint work as assigned within the sprint.

matthewbauer 2y ago
In my experience, higher level of pay doesn't mean there's less coasters. Like, the $150k job could just as well have a lot more expectations than the $300k. Size of company seems like a much bigger factor: you can't hide your low productivity when there's only a few other engineers. And ironically, bigger companies can pay a lot more & get a lot less from their engineers for it.
AlotOfReading 2y ago
"Large tech companies and overvalued startups" describes the employers for hundreds of thousands of people. There certainly are coasters in that group, even though I don't think it's a useful point of discussion. Tech jobs on the whole are broadly easier than other industries like medical or legal. Even accounting for familiarity bias, I'm confident that my job is significantly easier than my doctor's or my vet's despite us being in similar income brackets. That doesn't make it easy, just closer to a sane workload.
- dartos 2y ago
  The ease of the job is relative. If you work at ticket clinic, your job as a lawyer is probably pretty easy. If you work in algorithmic trading at Jane street, your job is probably pretty challenging.
tivert 2y ago
> At $150k, I was coasting at a large company for a few years, but it wasn’t like I did _nothing_. I did my sprint work as assigned within the sprint. It's weird to count literally doing your job as requested as "coasting."
- dartos 2y ago
  Welcome to big corpos. If you’re not pushing the envelope to be noticed more and build your promotion packet, you’re coasting.
  - tivert 2y ago
    > If you’re not pushing the envelope to be noticed more and build your promotion packet, you’re coasting. No, I'd say that's just not being ambitious, which is different from coasting.
    - dartos 2y ago
      Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. My managers and principal engineers on my team made it clear that NOT actively working to build promotion packet materials and engaging in self-marketing within the company placed me at a lower rank over time. It was explicitly not good enough to do my job as described. They used a system called stack ranking and (unofficially) they would put people lower on the ranks on PIPs and prepare to let them go even if they were fulfilling their responsibilities to the letter (but not above) Maybe this wasn’t the case for staff level engineers, but it was for mid levels (which I was at the time)

by dartos 2y ago

matthewbauer 2y ago

In my experience, higher level of pay doesn't mean there's less coasters. Like, the $150k job could just as well have a lot more expectations than the $300k. Size of company seems like a much bigger factor: you can't hide your low productivity when there's only a few other engineers. And ironically, bigger companies can pay a lot more & get a lot less from their engineers for it.

AlotOfReading 2y ago

"Large tech companies and overvalued startups" describes the employers for hundreds of thousands of people. There certainly are coasters in that group, even though I don't think it's a useful point of discussion. Tech jobs on the whole are broadly easier than other industries like medical or legal. Even accounting for familiarity bias, I'm confident that my job is significantly easier than my doctor's or my vet's despite us being in similar income brackets. That doesn't make it easy, just closer to a sane workload.

dartos 2y ago
The ease of the job is relative. If you work at ticket clinic, your job as a lawyer is probably pretty easy. If you work in algorithmic trading at Jane street, your job is probably pretty challenging.

tivert 2y ago

> At $150k, I was coasting at a large company for a few years, but it wasn’t like I did _nothing_. I did my sprint work as assigned within the sprint. It's weird to count literally doing your job as requested as "coasting."

dartos 2y ago
Welcome to big corpos. If you’re not pushing the envelope to be noticed more and build your promotion packet, you’re coasting.
- tivert 2y ago
  > If you’re not pushing the envelope to be noticed more and build your promotion packet, you’re coasting. No, I'd say that's just not being ambitious, which is different from coasting.
  - dartos 2y ago
    Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. My managers and principal engineers on my team made it clear that NOT actively working to build promotion packet materials and engaging in self-marketing within the company placed me at a lower rank over time. It was explicitly not good enough to do my job as described. They used a system called stack ranking and (unofficially) they would put people lower on the ranks on PIPs and prepare to let them go even if they were fulfilling their responsibilities to the letter (but not above) Maybe this wasn’t the case for staff level engineers, but it was for mid levels (which I was at the time)