Accepting a low salary to start your career

cintec

FYI 20k is lower than almost everyone in my Year got paid for internships and I would expect graduate positions to be higher.
A lot of companies are still hiring grads right now and from the small sample of my closest class mates the lowest salary was 32k and highest was 50k+ for an associate software engineer.

I think for your first job you shouldn't focus as much on salary but on what you will learn just don't plan on staying long term at your current position as you are under paid.

Twenty Grand

14ned wrote: »

A typical fresh graduate is close to worthless. Any value they generate is lost by loss of value in those having to manage and check their work. You pay more than zero for them initially because three months in they may be adding more value than they detract, and if they are not by six months in then you get rid of them. But even still, it's a risk, a substantial number of fresh graduates don't have the chops to make it, for whatever reason, and for them you'll lose money. So starting pay correspondingly drops for everybody, to cover those they lose money on.

I appreciate that these sentiments are not popular to hear in this specific forum. But ask any small business owner, they'll have done the cost benefit, they'll be of a similar opinion to me on this. Multinationals are a different kettle of fish, for them junior salaries are rounding errors, they can afford a scattergun approach of hiring lots of juniors and firing those who don't make it. Small business owners don't have that spare cash flow. Each hire is a risk, so you risk adjust the salary offered.

And ultimately, OP has only received one job offer. So in my opinion, the decision is moot in any case.

Niall

That's all true, but from an employees perspective, why should you care?

My company pays it's co-op students 21k a year. Not bad for someone working for the summer while in college, but atrocious for someone with a decent degree who starting out as a professional.

daheff

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Working in a shop won't give them any experience that would help get a dev job though. I'd definitely take a dev job over working in a shop for the same money. At least you can use the experience you're getting to get a better paying job or get a pay increase not too long after starting.

I may not have made my point well. My point is that the company is paying a salary level akin to an unskilled worker in retail.

I think the employer is taking advantage because of that -appreciating that the OP does not have experience, but at least has a relevant qualification, so should be paid more.

14ned

mloc123 wrote: »

All this talk of gaining experience and contacts while working for minimum wage sounds a lot like the stories of unpaid internships in design and journalism which pay in "exposure"

€400/week is hardly unpaid. It's good money. Lots of people would be very glad for that sort of income, including lots of graduates.

I would strongly agree that nobody with a STEM qualification should do unpaid intern type work. That sort of thing is what most Arts graduates must do because their qualifications aren't worth much to industry (basically they signal the graduate probably can read and write somewhat, and has sufficient self discipline to complete a degree. Which is a valuable discriminant over those without degrees, hence all professional jobs requiring a degree). STEM qualified graduates are potentially worth a lot more, and so no graduate - or even STEM undergraduate - should work for free.

But people here have totally unrealistic opinions on pay. It's very common in our industry, incidentally, until you get crotchety enough to realise that there is far more wealth in life than money. One of the best things about getting really senior in your field is choice: you can choose less pay for better work. Like for example, yesterday a recruiter from CPL approached me wanting me to break my contract for a much better paid one here in Dublin. My immediate response: I want remote. Give me remote, I'm interested. No remote, I'm not. I, as one of the top four C++ guys in Ireland [1], get to make that requirement and have a reasonable chance of it happening.

Now, we'll find out next year if 2019 will be another 2017 for me, where insisting on remote wasn't doable, so I ended up being forced to work here in Dublin for a year. But I'm considerably more senior in my field now than I was then. So here's hoping.

Niall

[1]: I used to be one of two in Ireland. But two WG21 members just recently moved from very well paid positions in Silicon Valley and Silicon Fen to Ireland, taking a massive hit in pay, but because they wanted space, forty hour weeks, and green fields. I see this as a very encouraging sign, and I'm hoping many more will follow. Ireland needs lots more of this kind of flight of talent inwards from tech clusters where the cost of living no longer makes sense.

.......a contractor, considerably more senior in his field than he was a year ago. I've rarely heard such horsesh1t.

Crunchymomma

Calculon1982 wrote: »

Is 20k not a really good starting salary?

I'm 36 with 2 degrees working in the civil service on 31k a year. Took me 8 years to work up to that level.

Surely 1k a year increase over your career is fairly standard no?

Would you not go for promotion and jump up a grade or two? I'm presuming you are currently at Co level, even going in at EO would improve your max scale but with two degrees I'd definitely go for HEO when it opens again and that starts on €48k I believe

DevLit

I appreciate every response here, and I'm blown away by this thread receiving 96 replies, development looked like a quiet forum, but this response has been overwhelming.

The pay isn't great. I know that. I'm using this as an opportunity to gain income and leverage my experience gained to jump ship when needed. I got an email from a recruiter on LinkedIn today. It must be something to do with having a job. So it'd a positive sign.

Ill keep everyone updated on what happens down the line. I'm not leaving immediately though.

Tar.Aldarion

Don't feel like you have to stay too long if you get an offer with better money somewhere else but yes having your job looks great for you.

purpleisafruit

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Don't feel like you have to stay too long if you get an offer with better money somewhere else but yes having your job looks great for you.

This! Also next job, don't take such a low offer! Don't low ball yourself

draiochtanois

This post has been deleted.

Tar.Aldarion

But you can't be a top guy if you're not on a standards committee :pac:

dazberry

DevLit wrote: »

The pay isn't great. I know that. I'm using this as an opportunity to gain income and leverage my experience gained to jump ship when needed.

I think you have a good attitude - fair play.

My first job in the 90s paid less than my previous intership and was a fair way off what the other grads were getting - but it had the potential to be a better career job (it wasn't but that's another story) and tbh I didn't have many choices and I needed the money badly. I remember being really unhappy about the salary at the time.

A year in I got offered a couple of other jobs at better salaries and it was at that point suddenly my employer was able to pay me a lot more to stay which I mistakenly did. Never take a counter offer. In the end I left 6 months later anyway.

But the thing that got me those other job offers was "knowing my sh1t". The work in the first job was really technical but very niche, and things looked a bit ropey to be honest, I thought I'd be stuck there forever. But what got me the offers was my hoppyist coding - years before github and all that sort of stuff became expected.

So defo, don't focus on it as being ripped off - focus on it as an opportunity.

FYI: The last job I was in had dev grads in on 21k. The problem was the place was crap and the grads really weren't getting the experience they needed. As a senior dev I was able to move on pretty quick, but was glad to hear they all managed to get out of there into better jobs.

14ned

Augeo wrote: »

.......a contractor, considerably more senior in his field than he was a year ago. I've rarely heard such horsesh1t.

Heh.

So, to explain, in C++ there are a few widely recognised marks of seniority within the field:

1. Fix something which causes many C++ users some daily pain. In my case, that was contributing -fvisibility support to GCC in 2005, this lets you annotate C++ classes with their visibility outside shared library boundaries. A widely used feature.
2. Serve on the governing board of a major piece of C++ infrastructure. In my case, I served on Boost 2013-2017.
3. Get a library past expert peer review and into the Boost C++ Libraries. This can take a few years, and many attempts. In my case, I only achieved it earlier this year after six years of effort.
4. Give talks on expert topics on the global C++ conference circuit. I was doing two conferences a year until this year, but I'll be dropping to one a year from now on.
5. Be interviewed on C++ in the various podcasts and other topical shows.
6. Get language and library changes past the C++ standardisation committee.
7. Get a full Technical Specification past the C++ standardisation committee. This usually takes seven to ten years. I'm leading out the P1031 Low level file i/o TS.
8. Chair a C++ standardisation committee study group. I'm working on that one right now, it's a proposed Memory and Data Storage study group.

Some of those I didn't have in 2017, and now I do have, and I will have some more by 2019. That's what I meant by being considerably more senior than I was. It helps considerably in increasing the varieties of role you can obtain.

There is a big difference between your day job and your seniority in a field. Day job is what pays the bills. Day job is usually doing bread and butter programming. Very few day jobs permit working on the bleeding edge, so you do all the field advancement stuff outside of work in your free time e.g. during your commute, after the kids and wife are in bed, and so on.

Bringing this somewhat back to the OP's original question, is maximising income the sole most important thing before the tech bubble bursts again? I can see that as the most rational choice if you're young or single. However we learned after the 2001 crash that those who retained their jobs had by far the best lifetime earnings outcome. So, if you want to stay in tech for the long term, that's my advice: invest in yourself for the long term. Consider taking jobs which pay poorly, but give you plenty of free time, or markedly expand your skillset or opportunities, and so on.

Niall

14ned

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

But you can't be a top guy if you're not on a standards committee :pac:

I hear that a lot from people who have never been to standards meetings.

I always suggest attending one, and if you still have that opinion afterwards, fair enough.

Niall

Raging_Ninja

DevLit wrote: »

I appreciate every response here, and I'm blown away by this thread receiving 96 replies, development looked like a quiet forum, but this response has been overwhelming.

The pay isn't great. I know that. I'm using this as an opportunity to gain income and leverage my experience gained to jump ship when needed. I got an email from a recruiter on LinkedIn today. It must be something to do with having a job. So it'd a positive sign.

Ill keep everyone updated on what happens down the line. I'm not leaving immediately though.

I think this forum has a lot of viewership, but because some topics can be tech stack specific, only a few willl get involved and make a post. But threads which apply to everyone, salary advice, workplace environments etc, will get decent responses.

Royale with Cheese

14ned wrote: »

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Jesus Christ. A graduate comes on here asking if €20k is an acceptable starting salary and you manage to turn the discussion into rural Irish tech salaries, how much you were making in the 90s and how you're one of the top 4 C++ guys in the country.

14ned

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Jesus Christ. A graduate comes on here asking if €20k is an acceptable starting salary and you manage to turn the discussion into rural Irish tech salaries, how much you were making in the 90s and how you're one of the top 4 C++ guys in the country.

OP was being given bad, unrealistic, unproductive advice in my opinion. I gave him an alternative, less blinkered, viewpoint. He seems to have found the discussion useful to him in choosing his career strategy, which is all that matters.

Niall

VeryRapidSkoda

how would a graduate who has never worked in the industry benchmark themselves? Can anyone give a rough idea of what would be the expected knowledge and ability at certain salaries?

e.g.
20K - html css
30K - html css javascript
40K - html css javascript sql ....and so on

Imposter syndrome could kick in and one may feel as though they may not be good enough to negotiate higher. How would you know that you deserve 20K,30k or even 60K etc. ?

I know you can fake it 'til you make it but surely you would be found out and gotten rid of quickly enough if you spoofed your way on to the higher end salaries?

cintec

A lot of companies have set salaries now so no negotiating for positions at least from what I have seen for grad positions especially with multinationals.
I haven't started yet but I can tell you I went from worrying about my exams to worrying about starting my new position.

awec

14ned wrote: »

OP was being given bad, unrealistic, unproductive advice in my opinion. I gave him an alternative, less blinkered, viewpoint. He seems to have found the discussion useful to him in choosing his career strategy, which is all that matters.

Niall

Unrealistic?

Literally every post in the thread bar yours suggests there's only one person out of touch with reality here.

matrim

Ned's basic point about cultivating contacts is good advice but when you've an offer that is the basic minimum that you can be paid it is only really worth it if you are working for a company doing something special. E.g. A really good technology that nobody else uses.

Lets be honest, if you're that underpaid then the other guys in the company would probably be the same and it's very unlikely that you'll be looked down upon for leaving after the bare minimum amount of time when underpaid at the start of your career. A lot of people change jobs every 2 odd years at the start of their careers because it's sometimes the only way to get a good bump in salary.

If you've had a complete lack of other interviews then take the job, spend 6 months working and learning and then start to look for a new job (aiming to leave after about 9 - 12 months). If you are getting other interviews then you'll may be fine waiting and picking up a better job.

Bonavox

I would absolutely consider 20k to be a very low salary. It's definitely a con to this specific job. But as a graduate, there's a lot more to consider. I graduated last year and am with my current company since I finished college. The experience I'm getting is excellent and I'm always learning. On the other hand, some friends from college are on more money but from talking to them about their job, they're not learning as much or getting much value from non-monetary elements of their jobs.

They may earn more but I would switch with them at all. It's about more than money.

mloc123

awec wrote: »

Unrealistic?

Literally every post in the thread bar yours suggests there's only one person out of touch with reality here.

Indeed. He thinks that a graduate with a degree in a currently very in demand sector should be happy to work for the same pay as somebody that left school after junior cert to packe shelves in a shop.

14ned

mloc123 wrote: »

Indeed. He thinks that a graduate with a degree in a currently very in demand sector should be happy to work for the same pay as somebody that left school after junior cert to packe shelves in a shop.

I think gaining any employment at all in the field you got your degree in is rare. Countless compsci graduates ended up going into support roles, rather than development, precisely because development roles are hard to find. Roles where you actually learn something and starting building out a network of relationships are even rarer. I certainly started work earning far less than 20k, even adjusted for inflation, and I definitely made the right call. My first job opened the door to my next five years of work and paying off all my debts. All networking and contacts.

Niall

awec

14ned wrote: »

I think gaining any employment at all in the field you got your degree in is rare. Countless compsci graduates ended up going into support roles, rather than development, precisely because development roles are hard to find. Roles where you actually learn something and starting building out a network of relationships are even rarer. I certainly started work earning far less than 20k, even adjusted for inflation, and I definitely made the right call. My first job opened the door to my next five years of work and paying off all my debts. All networking and contacts.

Niall

This is just not true. It's probably never been better for graduates looking for developer roles.

Your first job in the 90s (or whenever it was) is of no relevance at all really. I'm not being dismissive, but Ireland is a very different place since then and the tech job market is chalk and cheese.

awec

Bonavox wrote: »

I would absolutely consider 20k to be a very low salary. It's definitely a con to this specific job. But as a graduate, there's a lot more to consider. I graduated last year and am with my current company since I finished college. The experience I'm getting is excellent and I'm always learning. On the other hand, some friends from college are on more money but from talking to them about their job, they're not learning as much or getting much value from non-monetary elements of their jobs.

They may earn more but I would switch with them at all. It's about more than money.

It is not entirely about money, but there is absolutely no reason whatsoever that you cannot find a good job that pays well and gives you great experience. It is not a choice between the two.

If your being paid poorly at the moment you are screwing yourself. You might try and justify it by saying you're making some new friends or learning some cool stuff, but reality is you're just doing yourself out of money.

Anyway, 20k a year is a terrible salary. Doesn't even fall into the realms of "at least I'm getting experience". They couldn't pay any less if they tried. Chances are that any dev shop that's looking to hire devs for minimum wage is probably a massive waste of your time and effort anyway, cause there's not going to be anyone half-decent working there.

mloc123

14ned wrote: »

I think gaining any employment at all in the field you got your degree in is rare. Countless compsci graduates ended up going into support roles, rather than development, precisely because development roles are hard to find. Roles where you actually learn something and starting building out a network of relationships are even rarer. I certainly started work earning far less than 20k, even adjusted for inflation, and I definitely made the right call. My first job opened the door to my next five years of work and paying off all my debts. All networking and contacts.

Niall

What year are you living in? We (company I work for, and I am sure it is not unique) are importing developers from all over Europe and Asia to fill positions because we cannot get developers in Dublin.

beauf

I think people on these forum are looking from the POV with a lot of experience, but thats not true for everyone.

From what I read, I think most places are talking on experienced developers. People out of college or switching to IT, struggle to get Development roles. As most places aren't willing to train or mentor people. If the experience developer can be got cheaper for outside of Ireland all the better.

If you consider when there is a shortage of people in building, the cost of tradesmen goes through the roof. If you look at the salary surveys developer salaries are not doing this.

In general when people say they struggle to get developers I wonder what salaries they are offering. In the media the companies complaining about this are often not offering high salaries. Also what perks and life/work balance.

beauf

14ned speaks from a very specialised area. I always find his info very interesting, and an insight into other areas of development. But perhaps not an exact match for my own level/area. Developers in general tend to very focused on their own area.

14ned

beauf wrote: »

14ned speaks form a very specialised area. I always find his info very interesting, and an insight into other areas of development. But perhaps not an exact match for my own level/area. Developers in general tend to very focused on their own area.

You make a good point there.

I'm speaking from watching what happens to all the students who come out of the Google Summer of Code every year, which I used to manage for Boost up until last year.

Now those students are top 0.1% of graduates. Some of them are hands down better programmers than I am, you spend your time checking their work learning from them and realising how old you've become. And they're distributed all over the planet, so they're not in Dublin.

And at least up until last year, even they found it not easy to get a graduate job. This is despite very ample evidence of ability, amazing portfolios of work on github, proof of substantial contribution to a major open source project, and letters of recommendation from us. Invariably they had to relocate far away to some major tech hub, and work roles far beneath their capability for crap money. Some stayed unemployed for many months even when willing to relocate anywhere on the planet for any money into any role.

Now, you might say that's just a C++-local thing. But most of these students were polyglot, and fresh graduates haven't specialised yet, and they were applying for any development role in any technology they could find.

So that's where I'm speaking from. There is a gap in perception between how those on the inside think the fresh graduate market is like, and what it is actually like for fresh graduates. I, until last year, knew in detail what it is actually like, caveated with my knowledge being non-local to Ireland, though that said, I haven't seen much difference for fresh graduates in California against those in Mumbai if they're willing to relocate anywhere.

I totally get that people here think they can't fill roles, so there must be a shortage of quality people. Total crap. There is a shed load of top end people unhireable by the recruitment processes currently used in our industry, processes which particularly punish fresh graduates.

That's why, as I keep reiterating, you want to bypass those processes using a network of relationships and contacts you build throughout your career. So you never have to deal with recruiters, or HR. You just jump right over all that rubbish, get yourself into roles which have the best wealth dividend rather than chasing salary all the time.

Niall