[quote=kev374]I’m surprised at all these high salaries considering it is extremely difficult to get a job in Software Engineering right now. A friend of mine has been searching for over 2 months in the Bay Area and hasn’t found anything yet. His skills are in Informatica and MicroStrategy. Another one I know is Sr. Java with 15 years and can’t find anything, a hiring manager mentioned that there were 50 resumes from Indian temp workers (who have creatively circumvented H1b laws) on his desk within a day for 1 open position…that’s where this competition is coming from.
For me, I didn’t have too much difficulty switching companies, because I knew some on the hiring management team, and apparently they put in a good word for me, and so I was fast tracked. It took about 1 1/2 weeks from the time I was contacted until an offer was extended. So I’m thankful for that. Things go much easier through the colleague route that’s you’ve worked with in the past versus the traditional way of applying through a recruiter. So, keep your bridges wide open, especially those that recently moved to another company…Because you never know when it might come in handy.
Negotiating a compensation package that came close to what I was previously being compensated was more challenging. That took and additional week, going from a much bigger company with a much higher title down to a much smaller company with a flat structure. Towards the end, it ended up being comparable. What helped the salary negotiations was having opportunities elsewhere in OC on the table, that didn’t think my existing comp package was a problem. Some mentioned they could top it if there was mutual interest. But after that local SD company came close enough to my existing comp package, I stopped looking since overall, the opportunity at the local company seemed better than those that I was looking at OC…and also didn’t have the long commute to OC.
I know a few engineers in Qualcomm SD at the Senior Staff/Manager level, and I think total package included, they were pulling in around $220-30k/year on a W2, in so-so year (well, that could change in the next few weeks 🙁 ). It’s not really “worse” off to be on W2 versus an independent contractor, unless you have been doing contracting a long time and have an established base of customers based on your reputation, who would then be willing to pay you more. If you’re new to the contracting, I would guess you would get lumped in with all the other people offering to it for cheaper. That said, being salaried does suck when it comes to tax time. You can’t write off anything, and probably the worst way to try to build wealth by itself.
