But I don't interview at companies unless I really need to get in. If it were some lousy startup and I'm interviewing there it's because I am hard up and need the job or it's tactically where I need to be next to get where I am going.
Basically if I am spending the time interviewing I am probably willing to do whatever it takes to get the job.
Counterpoint, I botched a coding session at a FANG interview. They wanted me so they gave me a take home coding problem. I spent 40+ hours over three days banging it out.
Got the job. 57% increase in compensation. 550k/year combined.
Totally worth it.
Only negative is it's months later and my right shoulder still hurts a bit. Getting old sucks.
This is an alt specifically for discussing compensation because I know it elicits that reaction and I don't want that associated with my professional identity.
I think discussing compensation frankly and openly is very important. People have no idea what is possible. Two people on the same team at the same company can have wildly different compensation. My goal with this alt is to get people to take the biggest slice of the pie they can for themselves and avoid wasting their precious time doing lousy work for lousy money.
I have wasted a lot of time and life opportunities working for less then what I am capable of getting. I wish my future self had been around to tell me to push harder and be more mindful and efficient with my time.
I don't think CRUD glue programmers are at the top of the market right now. You could flood the market with them and it might not move compensation for people in my space. Even so, that is just another argument for pushing hard right now. Strike while the iron is hot. No one knows how long this will last.
I am very wary of making this about respect or the individuals in the company who didn't grant you better compensation. It's toxic for yourself and if other people find out you think that way it can spoil relationships. Never underestimate how the people you work with at your old jobs can end up being stepping stones to bigger and better things later on.
I believe no one in my management chain could have done significantly better. They had their budget and even if they had moved things around in my favor it would have just been a different level of inadequate.
Structurally the entire industry is biased towards preventing you from achieving what I call equilibrium. Equilibrium is where you can't leave your current job for a >10% raise.
I believe it's just a cost saving measure (assuming the ability to pay exists which it may not) and the industry has decided that the average wage suppression is more valuable then the cost of the turn over it creates. I'm not going to pass judgement on whether they are right or wrong.
Ability to pay is a big factor. Most of my prior employers could only offer a fraction of what I currently make.
Currently switching jobs for a personal record 57% increase in total compensation.
And I was NOT poorly compensated before. I was already in the 99th percentile for individual income.
The harder I push on comp the more I get each time.
I am not going to lie and say that it didn't take years to build to this point in terms of skill, work record, professional network, and interview ability. It took three FAANG companies bidding against each other.
Meanwhile I get offered nothing in terms of growth from every employer I have ever worked for ever. Literally never happened my entire career. Just this time after I already had an undisclosed offer in hand I got a promotion with no meaningful compensation increase. It was the first promotion of my 15 year career!
Sure they were willing to match, but who wants to try and soak blood from a stone.
And yet every manager I have ever had asks me not to discuss salary with other co-workers to prevent them from getting jealous. Usually in the same discussion where they tell me I am the highest paid one.
This is usually a few weeks before I have an offer for 40% more.
I think they lie because they know they are going to lose me anyways so it's a gambit with a low probability of success, but no additional penalty for failure.
My finding has been the same. I got a match once. I would have been better off leaving to some place more promising. Early on in your career your current employer is almost invariably a dead end.
Advancement happens, but it's the exception not the rule. Strong organizational growth is a driver of the exceptions.
I am not doing this as a generalist. I picked a specialization and within that specialization I picked a specific ecosystem and then ground out some seniority in that ecosystem.
Once I had that I could pick from anyone who is invested in the ecosystem.
I don't believe that has actually heavily impacted what I am paid in the sense of the credentialing being worth more to individual companies it has just made it easier to get through hiring filters and interview loops. That has made it possible to focus on companies that pay well.
At Google the recruiter put me in the SRE/SWE track which I was skeptical of and communicated to them. I also communicated about the compensation issues in advance saying if I got a bad offer it wasn't going to happen. Still wasted my time.
It's high for the industry if you consider the entire US or the world. The solution there is pick the right employer. The right ones are not that much harder to get into than the wrong ones especially if you play the interview game. You also need to not get caught location based comp schemes.
It's not high for a big corporation that is doing well. They just want you to think it's high so they don't have to pay and the small fry want you to think it's high because they can't afford it. These are all just line items in a budget.
This is consistent with my experience. Was making 175k in a lower cost of living area. Google wanted to pay 190k and require relocation to Mountain View. Had an offer in hand from another company for 240k. Google refused to negotiate.
What a waste of my time. Never again.
The two people I know who came to Google as juniors are forever typecast as such and are also not being paid well.
Not Google continued to treat me better after as well. If it's bad going in it's going to stay bad.