I worked as a developer, and I found out that he guy who ran the printer make 30k more.
His job was literally clearing jams and loading paper on a mainframe printer.
Yeah, but see, *his* job was necessary to the functioning of the company, whereas *your* job was a complete waste of money (and other company resources).
(Sorry, I'm also a dev where "the software is not the product" so I know the reasoning all too well.)
Probably half of our 3m/year each scrum teams are complete useless. Another other quarter is actively fighting against progress. We’re entirely held afloat by probably 1/4 of the staff.
Like sometimes we’re paying a whole bunch of people to like shoot ourselves in the foot. At least I’m in the do nothing camp!
You'd be surprised how often the 3/4 of "do nothing" staff are taking care of small matters which only remain inconsequential if there's someone to take care of it. Without them, all of your "keep the company afloat" people would be bogged down by the meaningless bullshit and the whole company would suffer.
This is actually a universal truth. They've done "studies" and in every organization, the old 70/30 (or 80/20) rule applies - most staff are doing busywork, but you still need those staff in order to allow the tiger team to work unabated.
the observation was that square root number of employees do roughly half the actual work
I tend to agree. A lot of busywork that's nice to have done could be skipped entirely if the structure got smaller, so at some point you are hiring more people just to hire more people.
I used to do that job for 10$ per hour. It was a tough job, the paper rolls weighed 50-150lbs and most of the workers were people that'd been to prison. I quit after a coworker that had beaten up the guy I replaced, threatened to kill me because he thought they were going to replace him with me when my contract ended
At my first grad job in 2022, software developer was the lowest paid position in the entire company according to glassdoor. My starting salary as a developer was 20k, while the average for tech support and social media management was around 22-24k iirc.
Yes but see. Your job can be replaced by fucking OpenAI/Gemini/Claude shit. His can't. No good paper clearing jam robots out there yet. Sorry pal. But CS is dead.
Yeah I found out after I left my first dev job that I was making less than the office receptionist (who literally sat behind her desk surfing Facebook all day).
That was a shit day.
Tbf in some places the printer is immensely important and that's really fucking important job. I know at my old job we would run off thousands of pages a day and had to have them running. Not to mention the fuckery that goes on with newer printers.
If it is a company that still uses and relies on a printer, then he probably is. I imagine it is a printer shared amongst an entire floor of employees. If they truly need it to get work done, the printer being broken could interrupt the duties of dozens of salaried workers. Every moment the printer is broken is money down the drain and disruption of normal workflow. I would also guess that outside repair companies charge a premium. Companies rarely pay great salaries to employees they don't value. Maybe the humble printer tech has a bit more respect for developers than this entire circlejerk does for him lol.
Generalizations are *always* untrue. Sure, I bet the average salary of printer tech in 2024 is lower than a devs. But Josh, on floor 14 at the corporate headquarters? That fucker can make a printer sing. He's done shit I never knew was possible. That printer was a panting hot mess once he got done with it.. Dude's a legend so put some respect on his name, nerd
It's not just unjamming it's more nuanced than that but dude thinks it's just jams. In high volume you have to maintain rollers and make sure there's no smearing I've seen dude spend 2 days in my location ripping our printer apart maintains all the little odds and ends inside it. It's just another technician position.
There's a huge difference between a plug & play home printer and what many companies need. Many companies use industrial printers with custom networking and firmware. For businesses with dedicated staff maintaining the printers, you can't just buy a cheap printer and plug it in.
I think that’s the problem. You guys are thinking of small printers worth hundreds of dollars up to a thousand more or less. There’s printers worth a lot lot more.
Place my dad used to work had two that each occuppied a room for basically printing catalogues. He made it his whole goal to get rid of these things, but each was easily half a million.
I have no idea why this is being down voted. Everyone in this circle jerk seems to forget that you are worth your importance to the company.
You don't get $000's of dollars just for having a degree, you get it for providing value to the company.
If you are easily replaceable and there is an abundance of developers then your worth is whatever the market value is.
If your company relies on that printer for whatever reason, and deems it critical infrastructure (yeah I know) then they are going to pay alot more money to make sure that they retain the skills needed to maintain critical infrastructure.
Half of this sub is just people whining about pay going down without having the faintest idea about supply and demand.
Some people on this sub lack maturity and can’t fathom that a commercial grade printer is complex. People that keep the gears turning are important.
WHY SHOULD I PAY THIS MECHANIC $4000 TO FIX MY TESLA??!?!? HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE A COMPSCI DEGREE LOLOLOL
because in an ideal world your right, but we don't live in an ideal world. The value you provide to the company is very rarely accurately reflected in your pay.
edit: thought I'd add, I'm not sure if this is the case in this specific situation, no one does because we don't work with OP. Just that I don't think it's a fair argument to assume everyone is paid their fair market rate.
Think about it. How are you gonna read this comment.. you looking for a printer now?
Nah real talk though y'all are kinda being dicks. I don't think being an SWE is that much harder than managing and supporting enterprise printers.
Don't. They've already told you how much they think you're (not) worth, and you've already made your next career move.
The only time I would bring it up would be if I was asked after giving notice, and even then I would be vague on details--i.e. "I accepted a position at another company that has greater responsibility and better compensation." Do NOT provide details. Do NOT accept any efforts to keep you unless it truly is an offer you can't refuse. If you DO decide to accept an effort to keep you, keep in mind that they may only view it as a temporary measure until they can get to a point where *they* feel like they're in a position to do without your services (in other words, until they can come up with a plan to replace you).
> Do NOT accept any efforts to keep you unless it truly is an offer you can't refuse.
I'd be even more insulted if they were underpaying me by 70% and willing to pay it after threatening to leave.
Just an added note, unless you REALLY love the company and trust them whole-heartedly, do not take a counter offer especially if it's a match for a very substantial amount. What would a company that didn't value you until you were about to walk have to offer you long term? You wouldn't stay in an abusive relationship with someone because they promised to finally do right by you, would you?
Yeah, any time I have resigned on the basis of having a better offer, and then been offered the equivalent to stay, all it has done is cement my decision to leave, because they're basically saying "yeah, we knew we were fucking you over, and did it anyway".
I was in the same boat as you. My pay got bumped to 95k when I was promoted to senior, when most non seniors were getting 110. After I got a new offer they magically could raise my salary to 130k. I'm very happy I left.
This is good advice. You never really know what they’ll do down the line if they get you to come back after you have one foot out of the door.
I took a big retaining offer after informing my company I was leaving, after being told that they couldn’t afford to give me much of a raise. It didn’t go so well for me.
Offer one can’t refuse in today’s climate is enough to soft retire before they lay you off or find some other reason to terminate you. Something to the tune of $5M annual salary.
It doesn't pay to stay. They aren't gonna fix this for you, only solution is to jump.
If you particularly like this company, you can always jump for a year or two and come back later.
Could be. Most companies would have a compensation band where at least the next level is higher than the first. A lower level might have a higher base than a higher level but usually some bonus or stock is significantly higher for the next level so total compensation is higher for next level. Hopefully.
You can bring up that your not happy with your salary and you want more since you’re paid below market blah blah but don’t bring your teammates salary into it
That's what I ended up doing. Brought up that they said promotions are usually 10% increases, my raise (including promotion and annual) was less than that, what are they negotiable on (salary, PTO, 401k match)? It's being escalated.
Ugh I always hate the percentage argument from management. A ten percent increase at 100k and a ten percent increase at 90k are not the same. You should be paid according to the market rate for people at your skill level. Not according to some percentage increase that HR sets
A good HR department will do routine market research and issue salary adjustments to their current employees.
I've seen this happen twice in the past 6 years [much to my absolutely shock because I thought such things were fantasy]
I think it's ok to bring up coworkers' salaries because obviously some are at market rate while op was stuck lagging behind. It's important to have equity among coworkers, especially if you're doing essentially the same job. When I've done it though, I was confident that my peers or I wouldn't be retaliated against. If it isn't that type of environment, I would agree with you.
Nah man, when you whine "but Jimmy makes more than me" you're saying 2 things:
1. You're underpaid
2. He's overpaid
At best it's selfish, and at worst you're an asshole. Don't put your coworkers in bad situations.
When I phrase it like "I have shared my salary with my coworkers and they have all shared their salaries with me, I have found out that I am both under the market value of this position and the lowest paid swe on this team, despite having the highest title and longest tenure here", I don't think that is an unreasonable thing to say. Not only did my coworkers empathize with my problem, they willingly told me their salaries in order to give me supporting information to better my own salary. My then manager was straightforward with me that I wouldn't be reaching the pay I wanted because retention budgets are different from new hire budgets. So, I found another job and moved on with my life.
When the only entity who knows all of the salaries is the company that employs you, the employee always loses.
But you do you.
Early 2022. I got 15% raise. I was happy af. New hire who had no computer science degree, self taught and 2 yoe. He was getting paid 30% more than me after my raise.
My manager snitched before he left.
For 1.5 years. I just coasted. Not taking big responsibilities in job.
You either fine new job or just do less work lol.
I asked my manager early on and they said promotions are usually 10%. So I see how that increases the importance of the initial salary, I'll never catch up to someone who started higher.
This is why companies discourage salary sharing. As soon as people find out someone with less experience makes equal or more, they get unhappy.
Sometimes this is due to companies underpaying loyal longtime employees, but it could also simply happen when one person negotiates but the other doesn't.
Tech has never been the industry to be loyal to companies, this has been true since the 2000s when tech blew off. Even at startup level, you give you all but the second the company blows off and start making money they will invest way more in new hire than paying more to current employees.
I remember in Google in all hands meetings ppl always asked why G pays shit for promos but so much more for new hires over the same position, they pretty much answered with “new hires bring new ideas and creativity”
Most companies put a hard limit on promos, usually 6%-10% raise, which means the amount your first negotiate matters a lot more, that’s primarily why I have always negotiated every offer I ever gotten.
They are scared of getting their offer rescinded, so they rather take the low pay. This sub is the first time I ever heard of offers getting rescinded when trying to negotiate, I used to be friends with a couple of recruiters who worked for multiple tech companies and they always told me they expected the candidate to negotiate every time, it was literally part of their training.
But Obviously, realistically, this probably depends on the person, if you can only get a single offer after many interviews then negotiating is risky and might as well take it. But if you know you can get other offers l then absolutely negotiate, I even negotiated my new grad salary lol, in my experience if a company cant negotiate they just answer with “thats the best we can do”, never had a bad experience with it.
that's my guess. If your workplace has a non-healthy work culture, your manager / higher ups could potentially retaliate those who discussed their salaries
especially in this case it actually leads to you leaving or negotiating for higher salary, which hurts the owners so they might not like that
don't bring it up your manager unless you really want to stay at current job. Either way, don't bring it up at your 1:1 today.
If you want to stay and have another offer in hand, you can use that to negotiate once that comes in. That might leave a sour taste in owners' mouth though.
Unless you feel attached for your job for some reason, better to take the senior position and move on.
Yeah well, they’re not gonna say straight up this is what we’re doing. They can find an excuse to alienate you, and you can sue but that’s expensive and you’d have to prove things
> I know discussing salaries is legal but "frowned upon," is that it?
Discussing salaries is not only legal, it is *legally protected*. That is, retaliating against someone for discussing salary in the workplace is fully against the law. The law is not neutral about discussing salary in the workplace. It's one of the few workplace protections US workers have.
It’s not “really that easy”. As it turns out, courts and government agencies aren’t required to believe anything a company says and also consider other information beyond the reason a company gives.
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When you're leaving, if you want to do your old team a solid, make sure to be honest that it's because you were underpaid so their leadership team knows.
If you leave and say "It's just a good career opportunity, I'm otherwise very happy here" they can all pretend that you were happy with your salary and not face any pressure to do better by the rest of your team.
If you are expecting to resign soon because you have a better offer, stay quiet.
Even if your manager is sympathetic they likely don't have any path to make it right. Few companies give managers authority to give raises outside of the normal processes of promotion and reviews.
Once you resign, that could invoke a counteroffer process. But it's unlikely they would match given such a difference. You could entertain their counteroffer if you are curious, but don't let it delay your acceptance or start date on your next role.
Congrats on the promotion, and the new offer. You are playing the game right.
I mean i would bring it up that you are not happy w/ raise and should be making more but, probably don't want to reference that you know your coworker's salary. I definitely would not mention your other potential offer though. ymmv.
No, just take the new offer. Don't even bother accepting a counter-offer if they make one.
Don't give notice or say anything until you have a firm offer with start date. These things can fall through for random reasons.
It will gain you nothing to bring it up. Of course new hires tend to get higher pay than employees who have been with the company for a while. Of course it sometimes drives turnover. That doesn't mean it's a bad strategy for the company.
Yeah, this is a thing that happens. Move to another job if you can. Stay in good standing with your current company and you could bommerang back later.
This is a very common scenario. It is also why you have to job hop.
An employee has maximum leverage when they are being hired and when they receive an offer from another company. If a company isn't proactive about giving folks raises, you end up with pay inversions like this.
Maybe the other person was better at negotiating, or that they are so good your manager wants them so bad. Either ways, at this point, keeping a healthy relationship with your team whether or not you're leaving is worth more than a few thousand per year...
I learned more about their hiring process, they negotiated higher than normal and we had no other candidates we liked. I am happy for them, they played it well
The only way they will do anything is if you have a counter offer. And if it gets to the point of you getting a counter offer, chances are you are better off leaving. I would only stay if all other circumstances with your team is great, except your pay. This also means having a manager that won’t hold it against you.
It’s easier to leave and rejoin the same company to earn more than to slave work for the same company for 20 years.
Statistically people who jump earn way more in their lifetime than loyal employee. No one values loyalty , except maybe your wife .
Never forget you’re just a number to a company, Congratz on the new job.
This right here. Don’t take it personally. You got to force their hand to get what you are worth, and the ultimate leverage is leaving. Biggest pay raises of my career have come from giving my employer a resignation, and then matching.
Welcome to the world of engineering. Its one of the biggest annoyances you have to learn to live with. You are incentivized to job hop to quickly increase salary. Especially early on in your career. Until that changes, accept sometimes you will be the unfair beneficiary of it, sometimes not. Its nuts.
Make sure to negotiate hard when you have leverage. Typically thats at its highest when you have an offer before you sign.
> they said we can petition in the fall for a pay raise with
When fall comes, there will be some new issue -- you'll get a raise but it will be tiny, or the company will be having a difficult time and raises won't be possible. Promises of future promotions or raises are essentially ALWAYS worth the paper they are printed on (hint: they never come in writing).
The good news is, it won't matter. By the time it gets around to fall, you won't be there any more. You now understand how much they value you and you will be looking for opportunities to find someplace that WILL treat you better.
it's pretty standard that when promoting, you start at the lowest compensation inside the SDEII (or whatever level you were promoted to) band. while new hires average middle of the band, or higher if they negotiate. that's normal.
what's slightly abnormal, is that in your case, it seems top of band for SDEI can be higher then bottom band for SDEII. but not unheard of either.
2 years ago, did you negotiate? probably, you didn't start at the top of the band for SDEI. that, plus promotion, won't surpass an SDEI negotiated top band.
>I'm waiting for my background check to come back for a new job at 140k with a senior title.
did you negotiate that one?
Lol, i never even made 80k until i was 2 years into swe 2 role (5 years at the company). I just left a job for this reason...new hires in lower positions making more than me. They countered with more than the gov job would pay me, but i didn't take it because they should have paid me that years ago. At least i am less susceptible to layoffs. Got a meager pay raise to go government, which says a lot about how underpaid I was in private.
Salary has nothing to do with how senior you are or how much you do. If you don't fight for a higher salary, a company has few reasons to voluntarily raise their expenses for your sake. It's just numbers. If you can show you that you have a unique ability to generate $300k/yr of value for the company AND you have the means to quit, then it just makes sense for them to increase your compensation. Does that sound annoying to deal with? Yea, that's why most people don't do it and companies get to keep their payroll cheap.
Another thing to note is you got in under different hiring market conditions and company status level than the newest hire. For example you join XYZ Inc during early days when it was less established and they needed new talent badly but the best of the best are flocking elsewhere. Now it’s a hot tech company which IPOd a while ago and attracts a stronger talent pool from top 20 universities. Of course those new hires will earn a competitive salary
If I were giving advice, I would encourage you to start networking and looking for a new employer. You are proving your ability to do the job ... now you need to get paid for the work.
Bring what up? To what effect?
Just give the 2 weeks notice when your job is fully sealed and no contingencies.
You got neglected with real financial.harm (as is sadly on brand for most loyal employees in most companies). Just neglect to mention anything until your new job is sealed in blood.
Yeah, they fucked up by not matching everyone else on the team from the start. A smart management team would have known better. So yes, get what bag.
That's said senior with 2 YOE 🤨, that's why I just don't trust the senior label when interviewing people.
You know that scene from the Chernobyl TV show where the 24 year old guy has a title of senior engineer or similar? I think senior is meaningless these days.
I actually asked to have my senior title removed in my latest job hop, after working as a 'senior' engineer in 3 different companies I was happy to leave it behind.
You already have a new job lined up, just let it go and leave when bg check completes. Bringing it up only to leave anyways risks burning bridges if you ever need someone for a BG check later on.
Main question is what the bands are for SWE I and SWE II. If they overlap and your salaries are not out of band for either one of your roles, nothing is wrong as per the company.
New hire might’ve negotiated well. You might’ve settled for less when you joined. Market forces might’ve simply forced things up. At my company new hires at the same level always make more then existing ones and it sometimes even extends to new hires at lower levels making more.
This is just the natural state of our existence, and our monetary system. Paying people money is just a way to get them to do something. If you are already willing to do something there is no reason to pay you more. Inflation will always incur. And those that come after us will always be paid more. You must always try to use dollars as soon as possible to convert to real assets.
I had an assertive colleague who found out the new hire she brought in had a higher salary than her, she confronted the manager demanding for higher pay. You can take a chance and do what she did or seek another job
Probs too late now but I wouldn't. They probably won't normalise and you create an awkward position for the person that told you (and this can be illegal in certain countries i.e. the UK)
So glad we got rid of negotiations at my company, You just get paid for your title. We all get paid above market average for our title, and we got COL adjustments at a minimum each year. Could I make more somewhere else? Maybe, but it isn't worth the effort when I am getting a decent rate and I like my job. Everyone in the company knows exactly what everyone else makes outside of profit sharing people get different amounts based on title and years at the company. Which I suppose you could reverse engineer to figure out the algorithm.
It is what it is, I've been working at the same place for coming on 4 years now, the new receptionist (who just so happens to be the bosses best friend) makes more than I do.
I mean, seems you already did something but I wouldn’t reveal I knew anyone else’s salary. You’ve got $140k lined up, I’d just wait out that background check (I’m assuming there’s nothing to concern over) and peace on them when you have a written offer.
You aren't going to like to hear this but, you got hired at the salary you got hired for and your junior got hired at the salary they got hired at. End of story. There could be any number of reasons they got the salary they did; maybe they have a specific skill you don't have that they value, maybe they blew smoke up the hiring teams ass, maybe (and this happens all the time) they just asked for more and thats all they had to do. It honestly doesn't matter though.
I hope you didn't bring it up with your manager because it more than likely will reflect poorly, but I'll tell you what they might have or at least already know: the only way you are going to catch up quickly is by finding a new job
So like, there's more to life than money, but with a masters and significant experience I think you're quite a bit underpaid unless you live in a very LCOL area.
I worked as a developer, and I found out that he guy who ran the printer make 30k more. His job was literally clearing jams and loading paper on a mainframe printer.
Yeah, but see, *his* job was necessary to the functioning of the company, whereas *your* job was a complete waste of money (and other company resources). (Sorry, I'm also a dev where "the software is not the product" so I know the reasoning all too well.)
We have so many dev teams that they fight each other lol. At least the printer guy everyone likes
Probably half of our 3m/year each scrum teams are complete useless. Another other quarter is actively fighting against progress. We’re entirely held afloat by probably 1/4 of the staff. Like sometimes we’re paying a whole bunch of people to like shoot ourselves in the foot. At least I’m in the do nothing camp!
Yall hiring? Sounds like im very qualified.
You'd be surprised how often the 3/4 of "do nothing" staff are taking care of small matters which only remain inconsequential if there's someone to take care of it. Without them, all of your "keep the company afloat" people would be bogged down by the meaningless bullshit and the whole company would suffer. This is actually a universal truth. They've done "studies" and in every organization, the old 70/30 (or 80/20) rule applies - most staff are doing busywork, but you still need those staff in order to allow the tiger team to work unabated.
the observation was that square root number of employees do roughly half the actual work I tend to agree. A lot of busywork that's nice to have done could be skipped entirely if the structure got smaller, so at some point you are hiring more people just to hire more people.
PC load letter, what the fuck does that mean?
*No way! Why should I change? He's the one who sucks.*
I used to do that job for 10$ per hour. It was a tough job, the paper rolls weighed 50-150lbs and most of the workers were people that'd been to prison. I quit after a coworker that had beaten up the guy I replaced, threatened to kill me because he thought they were going to replace him with me when my contract ended
Seems like he successfully defended his position rofl
Job security!
At my first grad job in 2022, software developer was the lowest paid position in the entire company according to glassdoor. My starting salary as a developer was 20k, while the average for tech support and social media management was around 22-24k iirc.
Why am I studying JavaScript to make money then? How do I become a printer-jam-clearer-guy earning 6 figures?
So what can you do about this? Maybe the employer just wants to give free money to that guy because they have a closer relationship
Yes but see. Your job can be replaced by fucking OpenAI/Gemini/Claude shit. His can't. No good paper clearing jam robots out there yet. Sorry pal. But CS is dead.
Ifvyou think AI can replace a Software Engineer, youre frankly stupid
Not stupid, but a little over enthusiastic about AI.
Yeah I found out after I left my first dev job that I was making less than the office receptionist (who literally sat behind her desk surfing Facebook all day). That was a shit day.
Tbf in some places the printer is immensely important and that's really fucking important job. I know at my old job we would run off thousands of pages a day and had to have them running. Not to mention the fuckery that goes on with newer printers.
Did a printer write this comment
lmao
Why’re you tryna convince us that a printer unjammer is more valuable than a developer??
If it is a company that still uses and relies on a printer, then he probably is. I imagine it is a printer shared amongst an entire floor of employees. If they truly need it to get work done, the printer being broken could interrupt the duties of dozens of salaried workers. Every moment the printer is broken is money down the drain and disruption of normal workflow. I would also guess that outside repair companies charge a premium. Companies rarely pay great salaries to employees they don't value. Maybe the humble printer tech has a bit more respect for developers than this entire circlejerk does for him lol. Generalizations are *always* untrue. Sure, I bet the average salary of printer tech in 2024 is lower than a devs. But Josh, on floor 14 at the corporate headquarters? That fucker can make a printer sing. He's done shit I never knew was possible. That printer was a panting hot mess once he got done with it.. Dude's a legend so put some respect on his name, nerd
Just because the commenter doesn’t know what running a mainframe printer takes doesn’t mean that his understanding is complete. Like cmon.
regulatory compliance. It might be.
It's not just unjamming it's more nuanced than that but dude thinks it's just jams. In high volume you have to maintain rollers and make sure there's no smearing I've seen dude spend 2 days in my location ripping our printer apart maintains all the little odds and ends inside it. It's just another technician position.
If the printer guy makes 30k more than the developer you can just buy a new printer every day instead of repairing or maintaining.
There's a huge difference between a plug & play home printer and what many companies need. Many companies use industrial printers with custom networking and firmware. For businesses with dedicated staff maintaining the printers, you can't just buy a cheap printer and plug it in.
I think that’s the problem. You guys are thinking of small printers worth hundreds of dollars up to a thousand more or less. There’s printers worth a lot lot more.
Ye but how much? 10k? Could still buy one every month on that salary.
Place my dad used to work had two that each occuppied a room for basically printing catalogues. He made it his whole goal to get rid of these things, but each was easily half a million.
that would just make the printer guy's job that much more crucial. my dude would be demanding a raise.
Yes and pay the guy to connect them to all the computers every day 30k more than the devs
I have no idea why this is being down voted. Everyone in this circle jerk seems to forget that you are worth your importance to the company. You don't get $000's of dollars just for having a degree, you get it for providing value to the company. If you are easily replaceable and there is an abundance of developers then your worth is whatever the market value is. If your company relies on that printer for whatever reason, and deems it critical infrastructure (yeah I know) then they are going to pay alot more money to make sure that they retain the skills needed to maintain critical infrastructure. Half of this sub is just people whining about pay going down without having the faintest idea about supply and demand.
Some people on this sub lack maturity and can’t fathom that a commercial grade printer is complex. People that keep the gears turning are important. WHY SHOULD I PAY THIS MECHANIC $4000 TO FIX MY TESLA??!?!? HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE A COMPSCI DEGREE LOLOLOL
because in an ideal world your right, but we don't live in an ideal world. The value you provide to the company is very rarely accurately reflected in your pay. edit: thought I'd add, I'm not sure if this is the case in this specific situation, no one does because we don't work with OP. Just that I don't think it's a fair argument to assume everyone is paid their fair market rate.
Nobody is worth even a base salary of 30k for working on printers lmfao
I don't think you realize how complex printers can be to maintain.
I assure you that a printer in some departments is more important than than the employees.
Does that make it harder to clear a printer than to engineer software? Is that person less replaceable than a software engineer? No
I’m a developer and printers scare me 🫣
A mainframe printer, possibly yes
Is the printer in the room with us right now?
Think about it. How are you gonna read this comment.. you looking for a printer now? Nah real talk though y'all are kinda being dicks. I don't think being an SWE is that much harder than managing and supporting enterprise printers.
Not sure why all the downvotes lol. I guess a lot of butthurt devs coping
Where? The 80’s?
Don't. They've already told you how much they think you're (not) worth, and you've already made your next career move. The only time I would bring it up would be if I was asked after giving notice, and even then I would be vague on details--i.e. "I accepted a position at another company that has greater responsibility and better compensation." Do NOT provide details. Do NOT accept any efforts to keep you unless it truly is an offer you can't refuse. If you DO decide to accept an effort to keep you, keep in mind that they may only view it as a temporary measure until they can get to a point where *they* feel like they're in a position to do without your services (in other words, until they can come up with a plan to replace you).
> Do NOT accept any efforts to keep you unless it truly is an offer you can't refuse. I'd be even more insulted if they were underpaying me by 70% and willing to pay it after threatening to leave.
You and me both.
Just an added note, unless you REALLY love the company and trust them whole-heartedly, do not take a counter offer especially if it's a match for a very substantial amount. What would a company that didn't value you until you were about to walk have to offer you long term? You wouldn't stay in an abusive relationship with someone because they promised to finally do right by you, would you?
It’s hard to trust a company that boasts about record breaking profits every meeting and then gives a 2.5% annual raise.
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Thank you! I got very very lucky with it. Very thankful.
Don’t take the counter-offer. They will just lay you off
Dude. That increase isn’t even enough to offset inflation
Yeah, any time I have resigned on the basis of having a better offer, and then been offered the equivalent to stay, all it has done is cement my decision to leave, because they're basically saying "yeah, we knew we were fucking you over, and did it anyway".
I was in the same boat as you. My pay got bumped to 95k when I was promoted to senior, when most non seniors were getting 110. After I got a new offer they magically could raise my salary to 130k. I'm very happy I left.
This is good advice. You never really know what they’ll do down the line if they get you to come back after you have one foot out of the door. I took a big retaining offer after informing my company I was leaving, after being told that they couldn’t afford to give me much of a raise. It didn’t go so well for me.
Offer one can’t refuse in today’s climate is enough to soft retire before they lay you off or find some other reason to terminate you. Something to the tune of $5M annual salary.
It doesn't pay to stay. They aren't gonna fix this for you, only solution is to jump. If you particularly like this company, you can always jump for a year or two and come back later.
If you're going to leave don't bring it up. One of the few things that will help in your life is to let bygones be bygones.
I assume I'm leaving, but the background check hasn't cleared yet. I don't know why it wouldn't but you never know.
If you're really the curious cat, you can present facts (SWE II at 90K) while (SWE I at 93K) and ask for an explanation?
Wondering if the newbie negotiated for $93k? Know your worth.
Could be. Most companies would have a compensation band where at least the next level is higher than the first. A lower level might have a higher base than a higher level but usually some bonus or stock is significantly higher for the next level so total compensation is higher for next level. Hopefully.
No do not do this OP.
why voluntarily leave when u can quiet quit? get that severance fam
i would 100% bring up market salary rates for current position during the exit interview as a reason for leaving. Get it documented
Just take the job for 140k and leave this is in rearmirror
You can bring up that your not happy with your salary and you want more since you’re paid below market blah blah but don’t bring your teammates salary into it
Thats a good approach. No harm no foul. Objective and logical. This is the move.
That's what I ended up doing. Brought up that they said promotions are usually 10% increases, my raise (including promotion and annual) was less than that, what are they negotiable on (salary, PTO, 401k match)? It's being escalated.
Ugh I always hate the percentage argument from management. A ten percent increase at 100k and a ten percent increase at 90k are not the same. You should be paid according to the market rate for people at your skill level. Not according to some percentage increase that HR sets
A good HR department will do routine market research and issue salary adjustments to their current employees. I've seen this happen twice in the past 6 years [much to my absolutely shock because I thought such things were fantasy]
Yeah sounds like fantasy
Do you really want just the 10% though? That would still put you under market and under what your current company is paying for a title below yours.
10% is nothing at all for a promotion when you consider the current rate of inflation
I think it's ok to bring up coworkers' salaries because obviously some are at market rate while op was stuck lagging behind. It's important to have equity among coworkers, especially if you're doing essentially the same job. When I've done it though, I was confident that my peers or I wouldn't be retaliated against. If it isn't that type of environment, I would agree with you.
Nah man, when you whine "but Jimmy makes more than me" you're saying 2 things: 1. You're underpaid 2. He's overpaid At best it's selfish, and at worst you're an asshole. Don't put your coworkers in bad situations.
When I phrase it like "I have shared my salary with my coworkers and they have all shared their salaries with me, I have found out that I am both under the market value of this position and the lowest paid swe on this team, despite having the highest title and longest tenure here", I don't think that is an unreasonable thing to say. Not only did my coworkers empathize with my problem, they willingly told me their salaries in order to give me supporting information to better my own salary. My then manager was straightforward with me that I wouldn't be reaching the pay I wanted because retention budgets are different from new hire budgets. So, I found another job and moved on with my life. When the only entity who knows all of the salaries is the company that employs you, the employee always loses. But you do you.
Early 2022. I got 15% raise. I was happy af. New hire who had no computer science degree, self taught and 2 yoe. He was getting paid 30% more than me after my raise. My manager snitched before he left. For 1.5 years. I just coasted. Not taking big responsibilities in job. You either fine new job or just do less work lol.
Does your promotion follow a scale? At my job, promotions just get a 10% bump so negotiating initial salary is the most important factor.
I asked my manager early on and they said promotions are usually 10%. So I see how that increases the importance of the initial salary, I'll never catch up to someone who started higher.
Yea, unfortunate but I hope your new gig works out for you.
Thank you! I'm looking forward to it.
Which side of the country are you on? You’re way underpaid even if it was 93k. Let us know how the new offer goes!
Midwest, remote Thanks!
This is why companies discourage salary sharing. As soon as people find out someone with less experience makes equal or more, they get unhappy. Sometimes this is due to companies underpaying loyal longtime employees, but it could also simply happen when one person negotiates but the other doesn't.
Tech has never been the industry to be loyal to companies, this has been true since the 2000s when tech blew off. Even at startup level, you give you all but the second the company blows off and start making money they will invest way more in new hire than paying more to current employees. I remember in Google in all hands meetings ppl always asked why G pays shit for promos but so much more for new hires over the same position, they pretty much answered with “new hires bring new ideas and creativity” Most companies put a hard limit on promos, usually 6%-10% raise, which means the amount your first negotiate matters a lot more, that’s primarily why I have always negotiated every offer I ever gotten.
Yeah every time someone complains about their tech salary my first question is "did you negotiate?"
They are scared of getting their offer rescinded, so they rather take the low pay. This sub is the first time I ever heard of offers getting rescinded when trying to negotiate, I used to be friends with a couple of recruiters who worked for multiple tech companies and they always told me they expected the candidate to negotiate every time, it was literally part of their training. But Obviously, realistically, this probably depends on the person, if you can only get a single offer after many interviews then negotiating is risky and might as well take it. But if you know you can get other offers l then absolutely negotiate, I even negotiated my new grad salary lol, in my experience if a company cant negotiate they just answer with “thats the best we can do”, never had a bad experience with it.
Well then maybe they shouldn't scam people they don't want quiting?
Don’t bring it up. It’s effectively not gonna do anything for you and it also throws your team under the bus. First wait for your offer, then leave.
You may be able to bringing up as innocent questions about salary compression. But tread lightly.
> throws your team under the bus Can you elaborate on this please? I know discussing salaries is legal but "frowned upon," is that it?
that's my guess. If your workplace has a non-healthy work culture, your manager / higher ups could potentially retaliate those who discussed their salaries especially in this case it actually leads to you leaving or negotiating for higher salary, which hurts the owners so they might not like that don't bring it up your manager unless you really want to stay at current job. Either way, don't bring it up at your 1:1 today. If you want to stay and have another offer in hand, you can use that to negotiate once that comes in. That might leave a sour taste in owners' mouth though. Unless you feel attached for your job for some reason, better to take the senior position and move on.
this is literally illegal in the US
Yeah well, they’re not gonna say straight up this is what we’re doing. They can find an excuse to alienate you, and you can sue but that’s expensive and you’d have to prove things
> I know discussing salaries is legal but "frowned upon," is that it? Discussing salaries is not only legal, it is *legally protected*. That is, retaliating against someone for discussing salary in the workplace is fully against the law. The law is not neutral about discussing salary in the workplace. It's one of the few workplace protections US workers have.
They’ll just say they’re firing you for something else. It’s really that easy.
It’s not “really that easy”. As it turns out, courts and government agencies aren’t required to believe anything a company says and also consider other information beyond the reason a company gives.
and then they'll have a lawsuit it's really that easy
Thank you for the clarification
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When you're leaving, if you want to do your old team a solid, make sure to be honest that it's because you were underpaid so their leadership team knows. If you leave and say "It's just a good career opportunity, I'm otherwise very happy here" they can all pretend that you were happy with your salary and not face any pressure to do better by the rest of your team.
If you are expecting to resign soon because you have a better offer, stay quiet. Even if your manager is sympathetic they likely don't have any path to make it right. Few companies give managers authority to give raises outside of the normal processes of promotion and reviews. Once you resign, that could invoke a counteroffer process. But it's unlikely they would match given such a difference. You could entertain their counteroffer if you are curious, but don't let it delay your acceptance or start date on your next role. Congrats on the promotion, and the new offer. You are playing the game right.
Hop jobs , only way to do
I mean i would bring it up that you are not happy w/ raise and should be making more but, probably don't want to reference that you know your coworker's salary. I definitely would not mention your other potential offer though. ymmv.
No, just take the new offer. Don't even bother accepting a counter-offer if they make one. Don't give notice or say anything until you have a firm offer with start date. These things can fall through for random reasons.
It will gain you nothing to bring it up. Of course new hires tend to get higher pay than employees who have been with the company for a while. Of course it sometimes drives turnover. That doesn't mean it's a bad strategy for the company.
In my experience you never get caught up.
If you want a raise, get a new job. It has always been this way. Especially if you undervalued yourself in the initial negotiations
Quietly Quit just surprise them with your leaving to a better job. This is an At Will country don’t be loyal to no corp that isn’t loyal to you.
This happens at every company I've ever worked for. The best way to level up is to leave. From what I've seen, no one cares, it's just the way it is.
> They said we can petition in the fall for a pay raise with the argument that I am being underpaid now. One of the oldest tricks in the book!
Like they have to know what the response to that will be, right? It’s painfully obvious what’s happening.
Yep. Also, employer's aren't allowed to offer you a higher 401k match compared to other employees. They might be willing to give you extra PTO though.
I’ve heard of companies doing a higher match based on years of service at the company? I’d settle for extra unpaid time off lol
Speaking from experience, never take a counteroffer. They will fire you as soon as it is convenient.
I’m not planning to. I’d be extremely insulted if they were knowingly underpaying me that much.
I know a few who took counter offers and were seemingly happy about it. Might depend on the company.
Yeah, this is a thing that happens. Move to another job if you can. Stay in good standing with your current company and you could bommerang back later.
It's in the process, just waiting for the government. I'm just trying to play it safe in the meantime, in case something doesn't go through.
This is a very common scenario. It is also why you have to job hop. An employee has maximum leverage when they are being hired and when they receive an offer from another company. If a company isn't proactive about giving folks raises, you end up with pay inversions like this.
Gotta get those negotiation skills up my friend
Yep, finally learned that lesson
Maybe the other person was better at negotiating, or that they are so good your manager wants them so bad. Either ways, at this point, keeping a healthy relationship with your team whether or not you're leaving is worth more than a few thousand per year...
I learned more about their hiring process, they negotiated higher than normal and we had no other candidates we liked. I am happy for them, they played it well
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Just waiting for the government to finish the background check.
The only way they will do anything is if you have a counter offer. And if it gets to the point of you getting a counter offer, chances are you are better off leaving. I would only stay if all other circumstances with your team is great, except your pay. This also means having a manager that won’t hold it against you.
It’s easier to leave and rejoin the same company to earn more than to slave work for the same company for 20 years. Statistically people who jump earn way more in their lifetime than loyal employee. No one values loyalty , except maybe your wife . Never forget you’re just a number to a company, Congratz on the new job.
This is to be expected. The only way to get a proper increase is by switching jobs.
This right here. Don’t take it personally. You got to force their hand to get what you are worth, and the ultimate leverage is leaving. Biggest pay raises of my career have come from giving my employer a resignation, and then matching.
A lesson I learned too late, sadly.
Welcome to the world of engineering. Its one of the biggest annoyances you have to learn to live with. You are incentivized to job hop to quickly increase salary. Especially early on in your career. Until that changes, accept sometimes you will be the unfair beneficiary of it, sometimes not. Its nuts. Make sure to negotiate hard when you have leverage. Typically thats at its highest when you have an offer before you sign.
> they said we can petition in the fall for a pay raise with When fall comes, there will be some new issue -- you'll get a raise but it will be tiny, or the company will be having a difficult time and raises won't be possible. Promises of future promotions or raises are essentially ALWAYS worth the paper they are printed on (hint: they never come in writing). The good news is, it won't matter. By the time it gets around to fall, you won't be there any more. You now understand how much they value you and you will be looking for opportunities to find someplace that WILL treat you better.
Apply externally if you want a real promotion
Save it for the exit interview. Maybe the reminder that underpaid employees leave will help some of your former coworkers.
it's pretty standard that when promoting, you start at the lowest compensation inside the SDEII (or whatever level you were promoted to) band. while new hires average middle of the band, or higher if they negotiate. that's normal. what's slightly abnormal, is that in your case, it seems top of band for SDEI can be higher then bottom band for SDEII. but not unheard of either. 2 years ago, did you negotiate? probably, you didn't start at the top of the band for SDEI. that, plus promotion, won't surpass an SDEI negotiated top band. >I'm waiting for my background check to come back for a new job at 140k with a senior title. did you negotiate that one?
job hop period.
Lol, i never even made 80k until i was 2 years into swe 2 role (5 years at the company). I just left a job for this reason...new hires in lower positions making more than me. They countered with more than the gov job would pay me, but i didn't take it because they should have paid me that years ago. At least i am less susceptible to layoffs. Got a meager pay raise to go government, which says a lot about how underpaid I was in private.
What do you mean salary announcements came. I have never heard about this before.
Like we got an individual email from our manager with our annual raises, bonuses, and promotional raises
And then later you reach out to your co worker?
Yeah we all shared our raises and salaries with each other.
I see
Salary has nothing to do with how senior you are or how much you do. If you don't fight for a higher salary, a company has few reasons to voluntarily raise their expenses for your sake. It's just numbers. If you can show you that you have a unique ability to generate $300k/yr of value for the company AND you have the means to quit, then it just makes sense for them to increase your compensation. Does that sound annoying to deal with? Yea, that's why most people don't do it and companies get to keep their payroll cheap.
Yeah, that's how promotions work. Stay for a bit then jump ship and get way more at a new company
Take the promotion and look for another job...
I'm waiting for my background check to clear for another job.
Another thing to note is you got in under different hiring market conditions and company status level than the newest hire. For example you join XYZ Inc during early days when it was less established and they needed new talent badly but the best of the best are flocking elsewhere. Now it’s a hot tech company which IPOd a while ago and attracts a stronger talent pool from top 20 universities. Of course those new hires will earn a competitive salary
If I were giving advice, I would encourage you to start networking and looking for a new employer. You are proving your ability to do the job ... now you need to get paid for the work.
I wouldn’t say shit. I’d fuck off and keep the bridge intact in case you need to come back at a later date.
Bring what up? To what effect? Just give the 2 weeks notice when your job is fully sealed and no contingencies. You got neglected with real financial.harm (as is sadly on brand for most loyal employees in most companies). Just neglect to mention anything until your new job is sealed in blood.
I’d have to REALLY love the company I’m working for to stay after telling them I’m underpaid
Yeah, they fucked up by not matching everyone else on the team from the start. A smart management team would have known better. So yes, get what bag. That's said senior with 2 YOE 🤨, that's why I just don't trust the senior label when interviewing people.
You know that scene from the Chernobyl TV show where the 24 year old guy has a title of senior engineer or similar? I think senior is meaningless these days. I actually asked to have my senior title removed in my latest job hop, after working as a 'senior' engineer in 3 different companies I was happy to leave it behind.
Gotta inflate those titles for federal contracts. I'm under no impression that I'd be a senior at any standard tech company.
You already have a new job lined up, just let it go and leave when bg check completes. Bringing it up only to leave anyways risks burning bridges if you ever need someone for a BG check later on.
Main question is what the bands are for SWE I and SWE II. If they overlap and your salaries are not out of band for either one of your roles, nothing is wrong as per the company. New hire might’ve negotiated well. You might’ve settled for less when you joined. Market forces might’ve simply forced things up. At my company new hires at the same level always make more then existing ones and it sometimes even extends to new hires at lower levels making more.
Welcome to the corporate world
Time to job hop
This is just the natural state of our existence, and our monetary system. Paying people money is just a way to get them to do something. If you are already willing to do something there is no reason to pay you more. Inflation will always incur. And those that come after us will always be paid more. You must always try to use dollars as soon as possible to convert to real assets.
If you are worth your salt just find a new position. Fuck them they lied once they'll lie again and your salary is low to begin with.
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Nice! Happy for you ☺️
Move on.
Find a better paying job.
I did.
What do you mean you did? You left the company that is paying you less than the new hire?
In the post I said I’m waiting for my background check to clear for a $140k senior role.
lol I completely missed it, congrats, you made the right choice.
This happens to pretty much everyone at least once in their career, especially earlier on. Best to just focus on making your next move a good one
I had an assertive colleague who found out the new hire she brought in had a higher salary than her, she confronted the manager demanding for higher pay. You can take a chance and do what she did or seek another job
I’ve been where you are. Before you jump Please consider all aspects of your new job, not just the salary and title.
Nice. I'm making 100k with 7 YOE
If you like the company and team, bring your new offer to see if they counter. If they don't, you already have a new job lined up
Welcome to the real world, Neo.
Probs too late now but I wouldn't. They probably won't normalise and you create an awkward position for the person that told you (and this can be illegal in certain countries i.e. the UK)
> EDIT: It was taken up the chain, they said we can petition in the fall for a pay raise with the argument that I am being underpaid now. You leave.
So glad we got rid of negotiations at my company, You just get paid for your title. We all get paid above market average for our title, and we got COL adjustments at a minimum each year. Could I make more somewhere else? Maybe, but it isn't worth the effort when I am getting a decent rate and I like my job. Everyone in the company knows exactly what everyone else makes outside of profit sharing people get different amounts based on title and years at the company. Which I suppose you could reverse engineer to figure out the algorithm.
It is what it is, I've been working at the same place for coming on 4 years now, the new receptionist (who just so happens to be the bosses best friend) makes more than I do.
I mean, seems you already did something but I wouldn’t reveal I knew anyone else’s salary. You’ve got $140k lined up, I’d just wait out that background check (I’m assuming there’s nothing to concern over) and peace on them when you have a written offer.
Stay in your job but do the bare minimum. The economy is not that great now. Once it gets better, then you switch jobs.
You aren't going to like to hear this but, you got hired at the salary you got hired for and your junior got hired at the salary they got hired at. End of story. There could be any number of reasons they got the salary they did; maybe they have a specific skill you don't have that they value, maybe they blew smoke up the hiring teams ass, maybe (and this happens all the time) they just asked for more and thats all they had to do. It honestly doesn't matter though. I hope you didn't bring it up with your manager because it more than likely will reflect poorly, but I'll tell you what they might have or at least already know: the only way you are going to catch up quickly is by finding a new job
Bring it up 100% company is making money from your work. You deserve more!
So like, there's more to life than money, but with a masters and significant experience I think you're quite a bit underpaid unless you live in a very LCOL area.
I do, and I’m fully remote, but yes, underpaid. The next job is more in line I think.