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Ithaqua posted:Don't even bother. There's something really wrong with that company -- a text message is in no way an acceptable way of contacting a potential employee. On top of everything else, it's just another really bad sign. I sort of do want to hear what they have to say, though. The contract clearly states that they don't have a group health insurance policy. I understand that not every company does this, but it would be respectable to compensate for it as such. On the other hand, a retirement savings is arguably the most fundamental benefit to any full-time job, to the point that McDonald's offers a 401k plan on top of insurance and health benefits (this are exceptions to this, but for sake of argument let's assume most employees have access to it). If I can field 65k with relocation assistance and some other benefits, I would consider the offer, but there is simply a boatload of risk involved with moving to a new location. If, in the worst case scenario, something bad happens and I lose my job (trust that I would put in the effort, so it would not be due to this), I would not have the money saved to support myself while looking for a new job. This also considers the fact that even in the cheapest terms of sharing an apartment, it will cost close to $2000 as first/last month's rent is expected in almost every posting I have seen, plus the potential commitment to X number of months of living there.
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Dec 19, 2012 16:21
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gucci void main posted:I sort of do want to hear what they have to say, though. The contract clearly states that they don't have a group health insurance policy. I understand that not every company does this, but it would be respectable to compensate for it as such. On the other hand, a retirement savings is arguably the most fundamental benefit to any full-time job, to the point that McDonald's offers a 401k plan on top of insurance and health benefits (this are exceptions to this, but for sake of argument let's assume most employees have access to it). Why are you so stuck on this company? SE's are in demand and there are plenty of companies out there that won't treat you like this.
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Dec 19, 2012 17:03
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Strong Sauce posted:If all you're doing is this it's probably not going to take you more than 2 weeks, I would say 3 weeks give or take for the load testing. But again it's dependent on your actual skill and what they actually mean when they say they want "plug-ins" and "load testing" because it's never what you think it is. They seem pretty reasonable with their demands and don't really want to try to break Wordpress like some people want, but yea clients are weird. I'm in a bidding war though. Finally got a look at their wireframe and it's pretty big redesign so it's looking like a 4-6 week project since I'll be doing this part-time. They have some plug-ins in mind already. The nav looks tricky, but it's looking doable. cheese eats mouse fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Dec 19, 2012 |
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Dec 19, 2012 17:41
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awesmoe posted:What do you mean? Ridiculous good or ridiculous bad? (I'm from a country with actual labour laws so I might have a different perspective than you) Ridiculous bad. "At will" means that neither the employer nor the employee  are legally compelled to keep working, by mechanism of the state (labor contracts are still enforceable if present). This is all a wonky way of saying that your manager is allowed to say "you're fired" whenever they drat well please and starting at that moment, you're no longer an employee. The theory is that it goes both ways in that an employee can bolt off to a better job as soon as they get it. Because "equality" means that both sides can do the exact same things!  So, a friend of mine has given me some tasks/assignments to help me build up my skill base and also a general info dump on skills he feels would help make me more marketable. I'm currently looking at learning what he refers to as "Data Storage Technologies," in which he suggests either learning SQL, XML, or JSON. I'd like to get a little crappy program written up (or at least started on) before this weekend, but I don't know which one to go with. I'm learning towards SQL, but if one of the other two would be more marketable (since, let's face it, that's all I care about at the moment), I'd switch to it in a heartbeat. For reference, it'd be focused on one of my stronger languages, C++, JAVA, or, possibly, C#, which, to me, is just another point towards SQL.
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Dec 19, 2012 18:01
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Pweller posted:Since this is probably a better place to ask than the Business subforum, what level of annual benefits are you guys getting right now in terms of pension, retirement funds, company shares, stock. I'm trying to gauge what's normal for software these days (please temper your cali/ny anecdotes with reason). Pretty much exited new-grad status, and am looking for creative ways to consider bumping up compensation soon (have other strong offers recently but my company is awesome and I want to make it work). The job before this would match 25% of your contribution, with their match capped at 1% of your annual salary. Their contribution vested over five years. About 10 months into my tenure there they suspended the match due to the economy, saying "we are a profitable company but our investors require a certain return." When I quit and rolled over the 401k, the amount of vested employer contribution I got out of the match would have been barely enough to buy a nice dinner for two. I work in academia so my base salary is lower but I get a heap of other benefits, like free classes (I took a bunch of glassblowing classes for free and got a graduate degree for 50% off), the retirement match, and some great health insurance. There's also free college for my kid if I stick around long enough for that. I also signed no intellectual property assignment agreements, so they're not going to get in the way of whatever side projects or freelancing I do.
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Dec 19, 2012 20:36
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awesmoe posted:What do you mean? Ridiculous good or ridiculous bad? (I'm from a country with actual labour laws so I might have a different perspective than you) Other countries are what's ridiculous. I don't know what you mean by "labour laws" (we have them here in the U.S.) but generally if somebody sucks at doing their job you should be able to fire them right away, without worrying and without the overhead of potential legal costs, without having to spend time and effort documenting that they were bad employees. What's ridiculous is the notion that you should have to keep giving your money to people you don't want to give money to. If you look at countries with restrictive labor laws that try to make it difficult to fire people, you'll find that employers are much less willing to hire people, because it's very risky, and the labor market is less fluid in general. The employment market would be a much better place if there was no cost to hiring somebody, trying them for a week (and paying them what you agree on), and firing them if they're not a conscientious employee. That would certainly help a lot of the people you see here in this thread get started on their careers. There is still arbitrary regulatory costs of hiring in the U.S., thanks to paperwork overhead and some legal overhead. (Somehow you're more likely to be discriminatory if you hire somebody for a week and fire them, than if you didn't hire them in the first place!) Unemployment rates are consistently higher in countries with worse labor laws than those in more liberal countries. For example, see the unemployment rates of Denmark and France (the first two countries I thought of): https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...employment+rate . This is the result you'd expect, because Denmark is known for having fairly reasonable labor laws, while France is known for its labor laws which lean the other way. I'm not sure what BirdOfPlay is drinking. There's not really any notion of "equality" behind the idea of at-will employment. The economy is not a zero-sum game. The main reason for wanting labor laws (other than the civil rights anti-discrimination laws, and ignoring economically absurd notions about things) is to tweak the bargaining power balance in a typical employer-employee relationship. Making it easier for employees to switch jobs is important to giving them bargaining power. Just look at software developer salaries in e.g. Germany, compared to those in a random location in the U.S., and you can see which country's employees have better bargaining power. shrughes fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 19, 2012 |
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Dec 19, 2012 20:37
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shrughes posted:The employment market would be a much better place if there was no cost to hiring somebody, trying them for a week (and paying them what you agree on), and firing them if they're not a conscientious employee. You've been in the tech bubble too long. In industries which are not engineering/CS, people do exactly this... except it's months rather than a week, and the agreed upon pay is $0. If you balk at this, you take your bargaining power right out the door, because there are a few other people who are waiting for their opportunity to work for no pay.
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Dec 19, 2012 20:56
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Amarkov posted:You've been in the tech bubble too long. In industries which are not engineering/CS, people do exactly this... except it's months rather than a week, and the agreed upon pay is $0. If you balk at this, you take your bargaining power right out the door, because there are a few other people who are waiting for their opportunity to work for no pay. As a rule of thumb, if unpaid internships are the norm for a given field, that field does not constitute and industry (also the great majority of these are illegal by the letter of the law)
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Dec 19, 2012 21:24
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Don't feel like re-typing it all in depth here but go look at my CJS posts in YOSPOS if you want to know how negotiations went. - 55k max, and I doubt they'll up to this. 80k is completely unreasonable and from what I gather, it is "what their very experienced people get paid" - No health cause "they can't afford it," go read my comments to laugh at what he said. - No 401k - No relocation because "it's not that far" The only reason I'd take it is if it ups to 55k which ends up bout 3k a month. I can get by on it if I find a cheap-ish apartment. I'd then look for another position at another company, which would be easier for getting interviews because I'm already there. If anyone has a potential position for me in Philly or NYC doing Rails or something, let me know. I'm nowhere near perfect, but I'd like to think that I can do better than this. 
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Dec 19, 2012 21:38
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Amarkov posted:You've been in the tech bubble too long. In industries which are not engineering/CS, people do exactly this... except it's months rather than a week, and the agreed upon pay is $0. If you balk at this, you take your bargaining power right out the door, because there are a few other people who are waiting for their opportunity to work for no pay. Unpaid internships are straight up illegal if they aren't for something educational (if I'm remembering my employment law correctly). DoL was supposed to be cracking down on this lately so if you're feeling vindictive you could report firms. e: Here's a better list: http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/keeping-unpaid-internships-legal-six-re-42428/
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Dec 19, 2012 21:52
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Rurutia posted:SE's are in demand and there are plenty of companies out there that won't treat you like this. How long is this demand expected to keep up? I know someone in this thread posted earlier that the industry is dealing with low CS graduation rates because few people studied CS after the dot-com bubble burst. But with the current demand so high, surly more students are taking up CS classes or learning on their own. How many more years will the job market be this hot?
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Dec 19, 2012 21:54
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PlesantDilemma posted:How long is this demand expected to keep up? I know someone in this thread posted earlier that the industry is dealing with low CS graduation rates because few people studied CS after the dot-com bubble burst. But with the current demand so high, surly more students are taking up CS classes or learning on their own. How many more years will the job market be this hot? Probably for awhile. IIRC there was zero growth in graduation for CS after the dot com bubble crashed until 2009 or something, and even then it was in the 5% year on year rate. Another issue is that the number of people entering CS majors is increasing a lot faster than the people graduating, a lot of people drop out or switch majors, and people don't tend to transfer into it. Nobody really knows for sure what things will be like in ten years but the next 4 or so look pretty good.
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Dec 19, 2012 22:03
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NovemberMike posted:Probably for awhile. IIRC there was zero growth in graduation for CS after the dot com bubble crashed until 2009 or something, and even then it was in the 5% year on year rate. Another issue is that the number of people entering CS majors is increasing a lot faster than the people graduating, a lot of people drop out or switch majors, and people don't tend to transfer into it. Nobody really knows for sure what things will be like in ten years but the next 4 or so look pretty good. Also, I think a lot of people still aren't aware of just how much demand there is for these types of jobs again. They think of successful startups and think that they're fully staffed rather than urgently looking for people. Maybe that's just what I've seen and doesn't translate to everyone?
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Dec 19, 2012 22:11
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shrughes posted:Unemployment rates are consistently higher in countries with worse labor laws than those in more liberal countries. For example, see the unemployment rates of Denmark and France (the first two countries I thought of): https://www.google.com/publicdata/e...employment+rate . This is the result you'd expect, because Denmark is known for having fairly reasonable labor laws, while France is known for its labor laws which lean the other way. Out of the big countries in the EU, only France and Italy has worse unemployment than the US. http://www.bls.gov/fls/intl_unemployment_rates_monthly.htm#Rtable1 I'm pretty sure all the countries in the table other than the US are not work at will countries. Plus EU workers get better and cheaper healthcare, more vacation time, and overtime pay to compensate. L-O-N fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Dec 19, 2012 |
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Dec 19, 2012 22:21
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gucci void main posted:Don't feel like re-typing it all in depth here but go look at my CJS posts in YOSPOS if you want to know how negotiations went. I feel like your experience with this company is a great example of why initial extreme lowball offers are almost always a red flag that the company doesn't have their poo poo together and/or doesn't respect their employees at all. They probably aren't even worth working for had you negotiated up from 45k to 80k unless you were absolutely desperate. Look around some more in NYC, I'm sure you will be able to find more opportunities.
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Dec 19, 2012 22:39
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gucci void main posted:- 55k max, and I doubt they'll up to this. 80k is completely unreasonable and from what I gather, it is "what their very experienced people get paid" This is what graphic designers with 5-10 years experience get paid in Kentucky. That's laughable for NYC.
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Dec 19, 2012 22:42
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L-O-N posted:Out of the big countries in the EU, only France and Italy has worse unemployment than the US. You're looking at quite recent figures, not historical figures that represent a more averaged view of the situation. Also, labor laws are only one contributing factor to unemployment numbers. Look where Japan's numbers are, and tell me they have a healthy economy. (Also, look at youth unemployment numbers.) Besides, at-will employment is only harmful to employees that the employer would like to fire. What's the problem with that? (If you want to look for a real problem with the U.S. labor market, it's that health insurance is often tied to employment, thanks to tax incentives and the need to join a large insurance pool -- though Obamacare might help fix that slightly. If that were really fixed, our unemployment rate would probably be higher, and that would be a good thing.)
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Dec 19, 2012 22:45
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shrughes posted:Other countries are what's ridiculous. I don't know what you mean by "labour laws" (we have them here in the U.S.) but generally if somebody sucks at doing their job you should be able to fire them right away, without worrying and without the overhead of potential legal costs, without having to spend time and effort documenting that they were bad employees. What's ridiculous is the notion that you should have to keep giving your money to people you don't want to give money to.
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Dec 19, 2012 22:49
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I think using it as an 'in' into NYC and then immediately looking for another job is a great idea. Maybe next time they won't lowball people as much if they realize it means employees won't stick around. But really if you find a better job just go with that one.
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Dec 19, 2012 22:52
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Cicero posted:I think using it as an 'in' into NYC and then immediately looking for another job is a great idea. Maybe next time they won't lowball people as much if they realize it means employees won't stick around. That is literally the only reason I would take an offer. It would theoretically be far easier to schedule interviews if I was living there, though taking time off or scheduling them may pose more difficult. nachos posted:I feel like your experience with this company is a great example of why initial extreme lowball offers are almost always a red flag that the company doesn't have their poo poo together and/or doesn't respect their employees at all. They probably aren't even worth working for had you negotiated up from 45k to 80k unless you were absolutely desperate. Look around some more in NYC, I'm sure you will be able to find more opportunities. The worst part is that I can't seem to dig up anything substantial on the parent company or its owners based on cursory searches. It does strike me as a red flag as a result, even if the working environment/location is seemingly nice.
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Dec 19, 2012 23:01
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gucci void main posted:The worst part is that I can't seem to dig up anything substantial on the parent company or its owners based on cursory searches. It does strike me as a red flag as a result, even if the working environment/location is seemingly nice. The insulting compensation is enough to politely decline all on its own; add not being able to find out anything about the company and it's reason enough to run screaming.
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Dec 19, 2012 23:06
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gucci void main posted:Don't feel like re-typing it all in depth here but go look at my CJS posts in YOSPOS if you want to know how negotiations went. I live in NYC area and I was pissed off at 70k with health insurance and profit sharing for my first non-contract job - I threatened to quit after my first year and they threw 20k more raise at me and a 10k bonus. 55k wouldn't be bad "living at your parents and don't have a CS degree so need to get your foot in the door" pay, but for relocating to NYC area it's awful. Nobody should put up with the bullshit that is commercial/enterprise software development for chump change.
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Dec 19, 2012 23:29
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Che Delilas posted:The insulting compensation is enough to politely decline all on its own; add not being able to find out anything about the company and it's reason enough to run screaming. I can dig up information on the owner. He founded and ran a company from 2003-2010 which seems very similar to the one that he co-runs now (2010-present). In fact, upon inspection the former company seems/seemed to run an almost exactly similar SaaS platform to this new subsidiary company. I'm somewhat confused. I almost want to share some of the information and see what people can dig up on it.
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Dec 19, 2012 23:38
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I think you need to move on.
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Dec 19, 2012 23:41
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gucci void main posted:I can dig up information on the owner. He founded and ran a company from 2003-2010 which seems very similar to the one that he co-runs now (2010-present). In fact, upon inspection the former company seems/seemed to run an almost exactly similar SaaS platform to this new subsidiary company. I'm somewhat confused. This sounds like a place that doesn't even proper payroll services in place and will pay you by check at the end of the month, net 30. I've worked at a place like that
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Dec 19, 2012 23:44
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awesmoe posted:This is a really big discussion and this isn't the thread for it, but interesting to see your viewpoint. Don't think I've ever actually seen anyone defend it before. One thing to note is that complete at-will employment (which we don't actually have in the U.S., since you can't fire somebody for being black) is possibly less practical when you have more labor laws. The situation in the U.S. is more generally that you can fire somebody for any reason as long as it's not illegal. For example, firing somebody because they refused to work during lunch (which is, I believe, of some legally mandated minimum duration for non-exempt positions) would be illegal. You'll find that companies in the U.S. that want to get rid of somebody for illegal reasons like that will often resort to finding a petty excuse to fire them. Because of the legal environment, they might also do this if they want to fire somebody for legal reasons. This doesn't apply to software development positions anyway, because they're usually "exempt" -- i.e. salaried positions that aren't paid hourly wages and aren't paid overtime. Now suppose you're in some typical European country where you have 75 weeks of vacation per year, and suppose an employer wants to make it "understood" that you're expected to work for all but 4 of those weeks. If you had pure at-will employment, you'd find that everybody inexplicably decides to work for free for all but 4-6 weeks per year! Some countries have also decided to make it illegal to work more than N hours per week, or maybe to make taking vacations mandatory. You could argue that this reduces workers' freedom to do what they want (and it does), but it also improves their bargaining position. Reducing your set of choices to improve your bargaining position is a classic tactic when... bargaining. As a result, European employees get better vacation benefits, shorter workweeks, and directly or indirectly absorb a larger chunk of their employer's profit margins. If you can just fire somebody, no questions asked, it would make those rules moot. The labor laws that do exist in the U.S., on the other hand, are mostly redundant -- breaks for non-exempt employees is something that any sensible cafe would schedule, for example, if they want their customers to be smiled at in the afternoon. (Occupational safety regulations, however, are a dynamic I'm rather unfamiliar with.) (One regulation that affects me is the California law which says anything I do on my time and my equipment unrelated to work belongs to me, not my employer. At-will employment doesn't de facto negate that right, the way it might with vacation time.) There's still some inherent balance-of-power considerations after you already have a job, depending on supply and demand in the job market you're in, with at-will employment. If you work in a no-skill field, then once you have a job, the employer is more capable of giving you poo poo like "Hey, we really need you to fill this <graveyard shift> tonight." If you don't like it, they can always fire you and find a replacement in a day because it's a no-skill field. If you want to switch jobs, you might have to try much harder. Of course, you could argue that once they find an employee more willing to randomly work graveyard shifts, you have a more economically optimal pairing of employer to employee. And you do. On the other hand, that economic value ends up going to the employer, instead of having the employer be a bit more careful at minimizing the probability of needing to reschedule employee shifts, which would benefit the employees at the cost of the employer. In software development, however, you don't just fire a programmer who can write actual code for some bullshit reason like that, because you're going to have trouble replacing them and the knowledge they've built up over their time working for you. The main effect of at-will employment in software development is that the general cost of hiring people is less, and you're less likely to have lovely coworkers.
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Dec 20, 2012 00:18
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gucci void main posted:I can dig up information on the owner. He founded and ran a company from 2003-2010 which seems very similar to the one that he co-runs now (2010-present). In fact, upon inspection the former company seems/seemed to run an almost exactly similar SaaS platform to this new subsidiary company. I'm somewhat confused. I don't get why you're so fixated on this company  It sounds like a terrible boss to work for, the salary is so low it's offensive, and you won't let it go. There are absolutely zero upsides to this job and you still sound like you're going to take it.
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Dec 20, 2012 00:19
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quote:labor markets What employers want is the ability to fire anybody at any time for any reason. What employees want is exactly the opposite.
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Dec 20, 2012 00:26
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Chasiubao posted:I don't get why you're so fixated on this company Probably because thats the only offer he's seen since he started looking a long time ago. For the record, if I was offered a job for 45K in NYC, I'd take it in a heartbeat. I would still look for a better job with better pay, though. It is much easier to get a job in NYC if you live in NYC (replace NYC with any city and it still holds true)
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Dec 20, 2012 00:41
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Would you like to take this to D&D, because I'm quite sure many people have a lot to say in response, enough to easily derail this thread. Suffice to say software development is a very privileged area of employment whose dynamics don't necessarily apply elsewhere.
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Dec 20, 2012 00:57
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how!! posted:For the record, if I was offered a job for 45K in NYC, I'd take it in a heartbeat. The difference being you'd deserve it.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:18
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Three hours later after a phone call and it's now at 55k + 500 for relocation. I guess bitching does get you increases, at least. Edit: Yes, I know this rate is still poo poo.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:27
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how!! posted:It is much easier to get a job in NYC if you live in NYC (replace NYC with any city and it still holds true) Your interview stories tell it differently.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:29
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JawnV6 posted:The difference being you'd deserve it.  gucci void main posted:Three hours later after a phone call and it's now at 55k + 500 for relocation. I guess bitching does get you increases, at least. You managed to talk them up to 10,000 less than a reasonable starting salary. You're tenacious, I'll give you that. Still, don't work for them.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:42
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gucci void main posted:Three hours later after a phone call and it's now at 55k + 500 for relocation. I guess bitching does get you increases, at least. If you started looking for jobs paying 55k in NYC how hard to you think it would be to find one better than this?
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Dec 20, 2012 01:42
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gucci void main posted:Three hours later after a phone call and it's now at 55k + 500 for relocation. I guess bitching does get you increases, at least. Don't work for this place, but I'd keep negotiating purely for practice. See how high you can get them to go.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:50
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awesmoe posted:If you started looking for jobs paying 55k in NYC how hard to you think it would be to find one better than this? Are you questioning whether I think I could find something better in general, or if I took this one and looked to peace out ASAP, or...?
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Dec 20, 2012 01:59
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gucci void main posted:Are you questioning whether I think I could find something better in general, or if I took this one and looked to peace out ASAP, or...? The former. If you want to use this one as a stepping stone, you should think about whether this job is lovely even by stepping-stone standards.
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Dec 20, 2012 02:07
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Tell them you're holding out on them because it is literally impossible for you to move there without $X in relocation up front, then offer to take $55k - $X to work for them if they give it to you, plus the $500. Then move up there and look for another job ASAP. Maybe try to squeeze in some extra vacation or sick days to make finding a job easier.
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Dec 20, 2012 02:12
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I bet part of the reason they don't do relocation is because their turnover rate is so high 
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Dec 20, 2012 03:10
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