I had "trouble" finding work over the summer. But the actual details are that I was asking for $275k and $300k at two companies. Both gave me a verbal offers, but hiring froze. The third company, gasp, wanted me to come into their office (20 minutes down the street).
I also lived through 2001 and 2008. I think the last 12 years of perpetual growth have created some amazing expectations from people. I can only hope that, once I get laid off, I'll have to "settle" for some $175k job in an office after my 3 months of severance runs dry.
I have some health issues that started in the 2008 recession. So every time they flare up I think about that trauma.
I kept my job through that but it was a very head-down situation. Just put up with this shit until the market recovers. Then the company had a good year and so a bunch of us stayed to get the bonus. So February 2010 saw nine of us who had quit in 8 weeks, sitting in a bar celebrating our exodus. I asked if it was worth it (staying for the bonus).
One person said yes. Another said maybe. Seven people regretted staying. The bonus amounted to less than 20% of salary and we were under market at the time.
We used to have coffee and discuss how much we hated our boss Mike (not a pseudonym. Fuck you Mike, you brown nosing ladder climber). My peer called our favorite table the Conspiracy Table.
Listen, Software Developers should not give up whatever we got so far. If we pushed for these salaries and quality of life, hold on to it. Don’t sit here and tell the tribe “some of you want too much”.
Few professions earned this quality of life, doctors and lawyers, and I can promise they aren’t sitting around going “maybe we’re spoiled, maybe we oughtta curtail our expectations”.
No, take the life you have and don’t go backward. Most people working aren’t given an ounce from their industries, many of them still fight for basic stuff to this day.
Tech should not be okay with these levels of lay offs and still revere these companies. This is the stuff the car industry did when they just offshored jobs, and collapsed entire cities (Detroit). Why should we be okay with the same playbook?
Absolutely! I declined multiple offers this summer because they would have been pay cuts. We agree.
> Few professions earned this quality of life
Well that is a can of worms. I'm going to guess Doctors deserve much better. I think the unfortunate reality is that, maybe, tech workers haven't earned this quality of life. Instead, we are the lucky recipients of decades of growth. This is something that isn't even shared in Canada or Europe, much less Asia, in terms of salary.
> This is the stuff the car industry did when they just offshored jobs,
Agree, this is going to be bad. Now that we have shown productivity with work from home, how tied are companies to these high USA salaries?
I'm not ok with it. But I also remember that when I'm running around looking for a job, the people with that job are making the demands. This is something that tech workers haven't actually experienced for a decade, but every other industry has.
> okay with these levels of lay offs and still revere these companies
Revere these companies? Founders are taking risks to make a LOT of money. They aren't here to make employees money. I don't revere these companies, and I don't put any stock in their Family Friendly or work life balance encouraged, marketing nonsense.
> Absolutely! I declined multiple offers this summer because they would have been pay cuts. We agree.
This is financially nonsensical. Every month you delay working you have to make more to get the same amount over the course of the year.
Just to make up a number, if your target was $120K and they offered you $110K and it took you a month longer to get $120K, you would need to make over $130K just to reach $120K.
I would take close to what I wanted and then change jobs if something better came along.
I also lived through 2001 and 2008. I think the last 12 years of perpetual growth have created some amazing expectations from people. I can only hope that, once I get laid off, I'll have to "settle" for some $175k job in an office after my 3 months of severance runs dry.