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The worst career choice I ever made was walking away from a six figure salary software development job with benefits to focus on the small startup I co-founded just a few years earlier. My wife and I had two small children at the time and my wife was also nearly 8 months pregnant with our third. It resulted in an approximate 70% reduction in income, prematurely cashed out 401k and loss of existing health insurance.
To be fair, it was also simultaneously the best career choice I ever made. Three years later I make more now than I originally walked away from. The raw roads of stress, anger, fear and complete uncertainty have aged both me and my wife at an accelerated rate but we have grown closer to each other than we would otherwise be. We have relied on each other, and she has been unbelievably supportive with all the late nights and required traveling. We discovered what we are capable of. In one day it will be October. In one day it will be the month that we finally pay off our last batch of credit card debt that resulted from that career choice.
I cannot recommend following in our footsteps as from where I’m sitting there are much better, more calculated ways of going about it. Logically, what we did was beyond stupid. Luckily for us, we were still young enough to not grasp the full magnitude of stupidity and we also refused to fail. It’s also crucial to have stellar business partners who are just as crazy and just as determined. We have all labored tremendously and we have each played critical roles in our success. The hard times of fear and uncertainty aren’t over. I don’t think they will ever be, to be honest. But, it sure has been one hell of a ride. I wouldn’t change a thing.17 -
A lot of the people are complaining about working in inhumane conditions. I want to debunk some bullshit that I think is causing this.
Devs are hard to find. That makes you valuable. A good dev that actually works for 30-40 hours per week is extremely hard to find.
The relationship with your employer / client should be simple: you work, they pay. What you do NOT:
1. Do not take responsibility for other people's decisions
2. Do not internalize other people's problems (you've got your own, better stick to them)
3. Do not let ANYONE guilt trip you into anything that you're not indeed guilty of.
4. Do NOT work for an effective rate that's significantly lower than you know you can get elsewhere.
There are indeed some utterly evil assholes out there that will try to manipulate you, into thinking that you're "part of the project", or that "you're all a team". Yeah, you are, but when it comes to making money, you'll only get the salary, regardless of how successful your work will be. THEY have a motivation to stay up late, to work extra hours, etc. You DO NOT. If you do that, and don't get paid extra, you're working for free, which means that you're not a professional.
Are you a professional? Then have respect for yourself, and bill for every fucking second of your time. Don't let the assholes think they own you.
As a professional, you MUST do EXACTLY what you're paid to do. No more, no less. Well, if you're feeling good about it, then you can do slightly more. And anyone that's demanding more, basically has no respect for you, and doesn't consider you a professional. That is the plain truth. See it as it is, and handle those scumbags accordingly.5 -
Me: *Installs travis*
Dev: oh what's travis?
Me: it's a continuous integration tool I wanna setup.
Dev: ... contin.... ?
Me: continuous integration, a tool that performs builds.
Dev: ah!, is it the new version of that deprecated tool we were using "client access"?
Me: ... no ... that's an authentication service that generates and stores oauth tokens. This is the continuous integration tool I told you about yesterday (and last week and the week before).
Dev: ... contin....
Me: ... con ........ continuous integration. It listens to branches on GitHub, downloads, builds, tests and then deploys the code.
Dev: ah ok ok, cool.
I would bet my monthly fucking salary he can not repeat what I said, tell me what oauth is, or explain what he's working on at the minute.
Jesus at this rate I'd bet my salary he can't tell me my name.7 -
First rant, so here goes:
def initialize
@rant = 'when the contractor your boss brought in to help, whose weekly rate exceeds your monthly salary, doesn't know the difference between server side and client side technologies.'
end5 -
Fuck ever working for a company that doesn't know shit about the worth of a developer ever again.
> be me
> just got my first class masters in Soft Eng that I worked hard as fuck to get
> get a job for a pretty well known medical company here
> offered a bit less than what I was expecting but fuck it, it's a job straight out of uni doing what I want to do
> fuckitwhynot.mp4
> stay for a year with no bonus programme, no pay review, no objectives, no perks, literally fuck all
> see literally every other position in the company be promoted and actually supported from IT & the developers
> feelsBoomerMan.jpg
> get the hail mary recruiter "you'd be great for this role" linked in DM
> follow it through and go to the interview
> nailed it
> comes to negotiating a starting salary and they actually laugh at my current rate and immediately raise it by about 30% with bonuses, reviews and all that shit occurring regularly
> later virgins5 -
just got off the phone with a recruiter. he was about to send me some opportunities to approve applying me to, then he asked me my salary and what I was looking for. I told him, and he goes "whoa! you get paid A LOT more than devs with your years of experience..."
.... yeah, and I also just told you that I'm proficient in at least a dozen of the technologies you just asked me about, and that I have successfully lead a team of other devs for the last year. at any rate, how is this supposed to convince me that you would represent me well to potential employers?3 -
Photoshop in my country with a low dollar exchange rate, literally required 1/10th of my monthly salary when I was a beginner.
Literally go fuck yourself Adobe.4 -
I got call from a recruiter today for a job I applied for on ziprecruiter. The job is listed as remote. He says no, it's Denver, I said ok, well the listing says remote, he says, ok, remote is fine. He then argued with me about salary after I said it depends on the company on where I'm happy to negotiate to, and I'd want to know about benefits etc.. here is what I currently make, etc etc. He kept on trying to make me pick an hourly number.. I said I don't know the company, so he told me the company name.. them started in again about hourly rate (no idea who the company was). Finally he moved on and said he'd email details.
5 mins later, email comes through, please give hourly salary. Then another saying he'd pass my details on and I can just ask for about remote during the interview. And then another email 2 mins later asking for education etc, all of which is in my resume. I looked the company he was recruiting for up to find that it's an IT recruitment firm, looking to fill a clients position. So a recruiter recruiting for a recruiter :|
I'll be so happy when I find a new job and don't have to deal with these idiots again.3 -
How do you deal with massively poorly-performing and unknowledgeable teams?
For background, I've been in my current position for ~7 months now.
A new manager joined recently and he's just floored at the reality of the team.
I mean, a large portion of my interview (and his) was the existing manager explicitly warning about how much of a dumpster fire everything is.
But still, nothing prepares you for it.
We're talking things like:
- Sequential integer user ids that are passable as query string args to anonymous endpoints, thus enabling you to view the data read by that view *for any* user.
- God-like lookup tables that all manner of pieces of data are shoved into as a catch-all
- A continued focus on unnecessary stored procedures despite us being a Linq shop
- Complete lack of awareness of SOLID principles
- Actual FUD around the simplest of things like interfaces, inversion of control, dependency injection (and the list goes on).
I've been elevated into this sort of quasi-senior position (in all but title - and salary), and I find myself having to navigate a daily struggle of trying to not have an absolute shit fit every time I have to dive into the depths of some of the code.
Compounded onto that is the knowledge that most of the team are on comparable salaries (within a couple thousand) of mine, purely owing to length of service.
We're talking salaries for mid-senior level devs, for people that at market rates would command no more (if even close) than a junior rate.
The problem is that I'm aware of how bad things are, but then somehow I'm constantly surprised and confronted with ever more insane levels of shitfuckery, and... I'm getting tired.
It's been 7 months, I love the job, I'm working in the charity sector and I love the fact that the things I'm working on are directly improving people's lives, rather than lining some fintech fatcat's pockets.
I guess this was more a rant than a question, and also long time no see...
So my question is this:
- How do you deal with this?
- How do you go on without just dying inside every single day?8 -
Because of high gas price, the government decided to lower our tax.
For me it translates to additional EUR 11/month ☹.
This is after deductions of thousands of euros each months (tax and social contribution) from my hard-earned salary. How come nobody is complaining about this?
During my yearly review, I told my manager that I expect to see significant salary increase next year (the inflation is 9% duh!).
She told me that I can expect to get 20% increase after 3-4 years. ☹
Now I know why a lot of people are leaving. How can you expect your employer to stay put if you're constantly paying them under market rate?! I have to keep switching jobs every 4-5 years to get a decent pay, right? Yet society expect me to settle down and have a stable job.
And then, how come a PM earn significantly more than a regular dev? Even the job interview is much easier. But I like the technical part too much to switch to people management.
By no means, I am starving right now working as a dev. I am happy that I even have a job, but somehow I felt like what I do is pointless just being a wage slave, and felt demotivated in a lot of ways.
P.S.: I am writing this now in front of my work computer. I have to catch up some work to do otherwise I won't have time to do it during the weekdays 😔
Pray for me guys I can get better job within next year.8 -
Ugly(beautiful for me) fact of remote working: I asked for a highly deserved raise. Manager said I should be concerned for my job safety rather than raise. I couldn't get the raise but I increased my hourly rate in another way.
My salary didn't get a raise but my mood had.6 -
Annual inflation rate = 9.2%.
My annual salary increase = 5.5% (from my meager salary as junior)
Thanks management 🤡👍6 -
I saw a recruiter rant on linked in where they can't figure out why candidates won't give out current salary or they won't represent. If you have been working in and learning hot technologies in your current job but you know you can earn more why would you want to be represented at the lowest possible rate? I say give them an acceptable salary range not current rate. I am seeing why devs are moving toward meet ups and networking to get decent work.1
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Are you willing to share details of your salary, or for contractors your daily/hourly rate? If you're not, that's interesting to know too.
Interesting to know;
- Currency (hopefully obviously)
- Location of work (or if remote, primary location of employer?)
- Contract type (FT/PT employee, contractor/freelancer)
- Job title (or general activity for contractors)
- Number of years in role/contracting
- Whether or not you would or have shared your salary with a co-worker (perhaps you're willing to share here but not with a co-worker)
- Gender
The 'Why is it soooo taboo to ask co-workers salary?' question made me think about this (https://devrant.com/rants/1557306/...)8 -
I found a budget salary for dev with 4-5 YOE in 2011 in my company, digging through internal old docs.
Assuming 2% increase per year, the 2023 budget salary is now EUR 15k more than what average dev get in my company.
I remember that someone mentioned similar thing in other socmed where he found through internal docs, salary for his position 10 years ago and now are the same, totally neglecting inflation.
On the other hand house/property values has doubled within 10 years.
How can we pressure companies to give us appropriate salary?
When I ask for increase, they will just say no because it's the market rate, but the market rate sucks.5 -
Overall not much, but I think I would have moved on faster and harder. Definitely spent a bit too much time on a salary that was well below market rate just because I was overly-cautious about moving.
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Hey guys,
I need your advice about deciding wether to work as a freelancer for a startup or no.
So this French startup is couple years old and they decided to build a team in my country. I went to the interview few weeks ago and we discussed the projects, details, potential salary and everything seemed great.
Couple days ago I received a service contract from them and now I need to decide to work for them or no.
Plan is for them to come to my country, rent an office and I should go there and work for them.
The salary that they offered is medium level and they will not have any legal entity in my country. However it’s not a problem for me since I have my own LTD company so I would pay salary on my own.
However there are some cons:
My team members are being hired as freelancers, however salary is defined with a daily rate instead of hourly and we are allowed to work maximum 20 days a month. It is not clear how many hours a week/month they will expect us to work and at this point I’m afraid to rock the boat with my questions. I understand that I shouldn’t receive any health insurance, sick leave pays, vacation days, home office, pension contributions and so on. But it’s so weird that they pay per day instead of per hour. It screams with unpaid overtime.
Payment time is 30 days after invoice has been sent. So If I started working from September 01, I will send them invoice at September 30, then I will work all October and will receive my money only around end of October. Working 60 days to receive my first salary doesn’t seem nice.
Notice period is 30 days. Which is fine on my end since I can be completely free after initial notice. But in their case if they want to fire me I guess they will simply not give me any work to do and since I’m charged per day I won’t be able to send them any invoice. No employment safety, which means if after 2-3 months they don’t have anything to do I can get royally screwed. But it’s startup nature I guess?
They don’t provide a laptop to work with. I’m lucky since I have a laptop for developing mobile apps, and they said they will at least provide office to work in and a monitor.
All this situation is sending vibes of "we want to save money so we came to your country for cheap labour and now we gonna exploit you"
What complicates matters is that my sister will be working with me and It’s her first job. They agreed to pay her a decent salary and even be flexible with her studies. However this deal for me does not seem too great as I will be receiving mid level salary with no benefits that I would otherwise get.
On the other hand maybe I'm just overthinking this I can just try it out for few months and see where it goes.
Any thoughts?6 -
What would you say to an employer offering a job at a starting point of only a percentage of the top salary you'll earn once the project is finished? Let's say they offered to pay you $40k to work full time building a highly complex website with multiple API integrations and sophisticated estimate calculation workflows, plus you'd be doing marketing and copywriting, with a goal of achieving 300 signups a day. In the middle of the project they boost the pay to, say, $60k salary rate. At the 12 month mark, which is the final "launch" date anticipated (and onward), you get $100k/year and you're the only person paid to do All The Things.
Oh, and also, the previous person they hired to do it failed to deliver and was let go.
Would you turn that down because to earn so little at first on the speculation that the venture will be a success and that you'll eventually get to the $100k level, plus their failure with the previous person, is too much of a gamble? Asking for a friend. ;)5 -
How much salary should I ask for in Germany?
Specifically near Frankfurt, in aerospace sector. I have seen 58k gross yearly but seems to be a bit low to my liking. I am expecting 40/45% tax rate but not sure about that too.11 -
The cost of energy in the EU combined with 10% inflation (but not salary increase) has become crushing to the point offices and households shut off heating and use battery lamps and candles for light. Avg. Year total for energy is over 9000€ in Belgium! At this rate we will burn through our savings for basic utilities18
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