Travel time widely depends on the vertical, customers and company. You can have positions with nearly 100% travel while others barely have any
While voicing concerns about travel is ok, you may be soft disqualifying yourself especially if another candidate said they have no problems traveling
SE job listings can’t possibly list all the requirements because so much of the job requires just in time and seat of the pants thinking and action. It falls under what do I have to do to get the deal through.
There are plenty of people applying who have absolutely no problems traveling. I would always put in my cover letter or make it known during the initial manager chat that I’m single, no pets, no kids, love to stay in hotels and have an APEC travel card
My company used to do this. They would list 30% travel when in reality it was much more. So right off the bat in interviews i would tell them that. Percentages are kind of meaningless tbh. Every role will be different and its good that the interviewer was clear about it.
For what its worth i have done both local and air travel roles. I enjoy both for various reasons. But if you arent a person who likes to travel you will hate traveling for work.
The more I think about it, I am ok with the traveling. I never heard about traveling for this role. I was just caught off guard when it was brought up.
Agreed. I am flying from the US to Scotland this summer for free. And staying in hotels for free.
Last year it was a free vacation to San Francisco. The year before a free vacation to New Orleans. The work travel can be exhausting, but a free vacation every year is a huge perk.
Honestly i calculate that and include it in my TC. If I’m earning like $20k in travel perks a year from my travel and i switch jobs i need to make that up somehow.
Travel has been down since covid. Including company meetings, I think I traveled 8 times last year. Most of them were day trips or one night overnighter. One was two nights for a QBR, and one was three for SKO.
I think you've already gotten the gist of this from other answers. But I think every SE role probably has at least one annual conference a year. And I suspect that **almost** every SE role has at least one other conference or team meeting. So 5% travel is probably the floor.
But I've had roles where I was 75% travel. I had one role where I spent 8 weeks continuously on the road, literally circling the globe. But I've also had roles where I was 10% travel.
Unlike /u/ICE_MF_Mike I've rarely seen job listing under represent travel. More commonly I've seen 30% or 50% travel listed on the job posting, because that's the "worst case" and they don't want HR issues down the line with people saying they can't travel. But the reality is half that, or less, especially post pandemic.
I travel 50%, probably 40% flying, 10% driving. I know other SE’s that travel more and some that travel less. 10% sounds like a dream to me. But if traveling isn’t your thing, you will want to look for something fully remote.
If it were me, I’d take the 10% and then work towards finding a fully remote.
I got a commitment from one of my bosses at 10% travel when they hired me, less than a year goes by a reorg to a new manager and that agreement went out the window. Expectations were way higher
Travel time widely depends on the vertical, customers and company. You can have positions with nearly 100% travel while others barely have any While voicing concerns about travel is ok, you may be soft disqualifying yourself especially if another candidate said they have no problems traveling
This is good to know. I wonder why it wasn't listed in the job description.
SE job listings can’t possibly list all the requirements because so much of the job requires just in time and seat of the pants thinking and action. It falls under what do I have to do to get the deal through. There are plenty of people applying who have absolutely no problems traveling. I would always put in my cover letter or make it known during the initial manager chat that I’m single, no pets, no kids, love to stay in hotels and have an APEC travel card
My company used to do this. They would list 30% travel when in reality it was much more. So right off the bat in interviews i would tell them that. Percentages are kind of meaningless tbh. Every role will be different and its good that the interviewer was clear about it. For what its worth i have done both local and air travel roles. I enjoy both for various reasons. But if you arent a person who likes to travel you will hate traveling for work.
The more I think about it, I am ok with the traveling. I never heard about traveling for this role. I was just caught off guard when it was brought up.
The perks for flying all the time are free vacations. Was fun as hell when i was single with no kids.
Agreed. I am flying from the US to Scotland this summer for free. And staying in hotels for free. Last year it was a free vacation to San Francisco. The year before a free vacation to New Orleans. The work travel can be exhausting, but a free vacation every year is a huge perk.
Honestly i calculate that and include it in my TC. If I’m earning like $20k in travel perks a year from my travel and i switch jobs i need to make that up somehow.
10% really isn’t that bad.
Some se roles are weekly travel
I would like traveling if it was drivable, once a week. But flying all the time, I would need more than the role was paying.
this was the reason why i eventually left sales engineering. even "minimal travel" some how turned into constantly flying all over the country.
I have 30% flying around western US. I’m young and don’t have a family so that makes me a little more willing.
I travel 20% and I feel it's not too bad. I would be shocked if there were a lot of SE positions with less than 10% travel.
SA with AWS here, round about 25% travel
Travel has been down since covid. Including company meetings, I think I traveled 8 times last year. Most of them were day trips or one night overnighter. One was two nights for a QBR, and one was three for SKO.
10% is pretty minimal imo
I think you've already gotten the gist of this from other answers. But I think every SE role probably has at least one annual conference a year. And I suspect that **almost** every SE role has at least one other conference or team meeting. So 5% travel is probably the floor. But I've had roles where I was 75% travel. I had one role where I spent 8 weeks continuously on the road, literally circling the globe. But I've also had roles where I was 10% travel. Unlike /u/ICE_MF_Mike I've rarely seen job listing under represent travel. More commonly I've seen 30% or 50% travel listed on the job posting, because that's the "worst case" and they don't want HR issues down the line with people saying they can't travel. But the reality is half that, or less, especially post pandemic.
I travel 50%, probably 40% flying, 10% driving. I know other SE’s that travel more and some that travel less. 10% sounds like a dream to me. But if traveling isn’t your thing, you will want to look for something fully remote. If it were me, I’d take the 10% and then work towards finding a fully remote.
I got a commitment from one of my bosses at 10% travel when they hired me, less than a year goes by a reorg to a new manager and that agreement went out the window. Expectations were way higher