Foreclosure ban end.

[sdrealtor]

Duly noted. Only with hindsight will we know. Speaking of which we are almost at the one year anniversary of the davelj Sell all risk based assets NOW call. I think it’s safe to say that was dead wrong

[sdrealtor]

Yup, I’m like you. Lack the stomach for anything but fixed. I bought my first townhouse and my current house initially with 5/1 arms expecting rates to go down and selling/ refinancing as soon as it made sense. Hindsight would’ve been straight adjustable

[barnaby33]

I’m definitely seeing huge salary inflation for software engineers.

Where? I’m seeing big demand increases. Salary increases almost not at all.
Josh

[an]

[quote=barnaby33]

I’m definitely seeing huge salary inflation for software engineers.

Where? I’m seeing big demand increases. Salary increases almost not at all.
Josh[/quote]
All the candidates I’m interviewing. I see their expected salary. Also, head of recruitment does a yearly salary market evaluation, and she kept a very close tab on that. She’s confirming that the market is in line w/ what the candidates are asking for.

[sdrealtor]

Its the difference between what workerbee Josh sees and hiring manager an sees

[Coronita]

[quote=an][quote=barnaby33]

I’m definitely seeing huge salary inflation for software engineers.

Where? I’m seeing big demand increases. Salary increases almost not at all.
Josh[/quote]
All the candidates I’m interviewing. I see their expected salary. Also, head of recruitment does a yearly salary market evaluation, and she kept a very close tab on that. She’s confirming that the market is in line w/ what the candidates are asking for.[/quote]

Here’s an ugly truth.. I’ll give an example.
I have a senior engineer who’s been with the company for some time. He’s never moved around, just stayed at our company for some time. Yes, I’ve heard he’s not too happy about his compensation after working for years here, but since he hasn’t motivated to move around or seek a higher/better position elsewhere, pretty much all the managers/directors before me didn’t do shit.

Me. I’m a weak Director. I actually go out of my way to care about some of my best people, so when I heard about this through the grapevines, I looked at this comp, and indeed he’s well below market, so I gave him a $10k raise to bring him up to something closer to market rate for his level. That was beginning of this year, during covid economy. I don’t know, I guess I care about employee retention even though I had assurance from other directors/vp, there’s no way he would ever leave (IE other directors/vp have already profiled him and figured out he would never motivate to leave even if we didn’t adjust his comp because he doesn’t squeak and motivate enough and asked why I was going to do that)….So anyway, he’s happy now, and probably won’t ask for an adjustment again for some time.

Meanwhile, I’m looking to hire 4 mid-level engineers this month..And guess what? All the good mid-level engineers are asking for the exact same compensation that my senior engineer (the one that I just made an adjustment for at the beginning of the year) is currently making. Because that’s what the market is paying them to move out of their cushy current secure job and get them to work remotely. And since my company isn’t a sexy company to work for, I probably need up the base pay above what others our offering just to attract top talent…

Question: you think HR/VP’s are going to allow me to go back and re-adjust my senior engineer’s pay above what I’m going to have to pay any mid-level I hire now, after already making an adjustment at the beginning of the year?

Why does this happen? Well for a few things…
The best way to stay stagnant with a W2 paycheck is to get too cushy at a current job and get stuck with that 1-3% annual raise that a company gives you. Even if you’re pretty vocal about it, it’s unlikely you’ll get a big bump unless you are indispensable (and chances are most people arent)

Keep in mind that even me, going over backwards, I was only able to bring one engineer up to market rate few months ago…Keep in mind the rest of the directors and VP basically thought I was stupid to do this for someone who probably won’t leave anyway… And I’m sorry to say this, those VP’s directors are a lot more common than people like me….I know for a fact, both when I was an engineer and now talking to people that are my peers….

It’s one of the main reasons why when my tour of duty as a director+ ends, and no one wants me anymore to do this, it’s highly unlikely I want to return back to being just an engineer, unless its for my own company or for a company that I have a sizeable equity stake in that can be measured by double digit percentages. I’d rather retire and open a boba drink place or speed shop…There’s this Taiwanese 29 year old chick that is a family friend, and she did this after she was laid off from her IT job.. And she opened a drink place during covid in Acadia. Does probably 5x what my comp package is.

The best way to get a big raise, if you’re really *that* good, is to walk over to a company that needs your skillset and ask for that 20-25% pay bump that they’ll have to pay you to poach you from your current company. Because in the worst case scenario, you don’t need to move, and in order to change the environment, the new company simply has to give you more. And you want to do this while you have a job, not after you’ve been laidoff/fired. Because then HR will pick up on that and think you are desperate and totally try to lowball you (even if you are not).

The closest analogy I can think is the long term tenant/landlord relationship. Often times a landlord like me doesn’t bother to raise rent prices for someone that’s staying on that’s a good tenant…even though if I kick out the tenant and get someone else, chances are I can get more rent..Just like it pays me to shop around for new tenants that’s willing to offer more money, it pays a employee to shop around for a company willing to pay more. If this sounds like prostituting yourself out. Well, that’s one way to look at it. But consider this. If a company needs to lay people off due to cost, how loyal or good your were is often times irrelevant to that decision process….Now, there is a PITA factor of switching jobs just like there’s is for switching tenants. So the question is , how much is that PITA factor worth it to you. For some people, like me, I don’t like too much PITA factors, even though I can be one at times.

And if you’re really clever. You leave your current company ON GOOD TERMS (IE don’t trash your current company by complaining to HR on your way out) and go to that new company that gives you a 20-25% pay bump…And if you hate it, in 1-2 years, you find a better position with a higher title at your old company, and let them hire you back, with the higher position, higher title, and higher compensation…(because of all the new experience and title(mainly) you got at the new place, while all the other people that didn’t motivate to move are still stuck at the same level doing the same stupid shit because the company didn’t give those people a better opportunity). It’s a lot quicker to “move up” or get a bigger comp package that way, than to expect all the stars to align at your current company, and god forbid you to be picked to get promoted.. (I think that might happen if someone gets fired or dies. Good luck waiting…)…

Now these rules don’t apply if you work at a company that while your position might suck, and your base pay/bonus might suck..but you have a a boatload of stock or stock options that are worth something..(IE Qualcomm, Intuit, ServiceNow, Illumina, etc).. But then if that’s the case, you’re in a completely different category.. You’re in the “rest and vest” category in which basically you really shouldn’t give a shit what they ask you do, so long as you can sit there and fully vest and put in your time…

But other than that, I wouldn’t count on your annual review to really give you a bigger paycheck next year. I mean the difference between a “star” performer and a “regular” performer at many companies is the difference between getting a 3% raise versus a 2% raise..which after W-2 taxes, that 1% *might* be able to get you a couple of extra starbucks coffees.. I say might, because the price of starbucks probably increased more than your raise.

Which is why some of us engineers who have figured this out a long time ago, would rather spend the extra time that we would have been required to spend to get that extra 1% raise doing something else….like buying real estate and doing rentals when the markets crashed years(decade?) ago…..

This very simply axiom probably goes completely against the grain over every shred of hair on an engineer’s body. But it’s the reality..As an engineer, short of you being incredibility talented+lucky who started something on your own and/or either went public, sold something off to someone else, etc….you’re day to day salary isn’t going to cut it imho unless you really want to live like a Spartan. I didn’t want to do, so I swallowed my pride and joined the 75% rest of the population that aren’t engineers to do the same stupid shit that other people do to make money…

Frankly, it’s an Asian thing. Real estate. Every asian person I know always ends up buying real estate no matter how rich or poor they started out. First, second, third generation…My parents bought real. Their parents bought real estate, and the parents before them bought real estate. As I’m buying real estate and my kid is now understanding the importance of buying real estate…etc…
That’s why if you marry someone asian, chances are at one point your in-laws will ask you “when are you going to buy real estate?”. Yes, I know it’s fvking annoying at times, but it is what it is…That’s why you see a bunch of 1st generation asian engineers who make significantly less than their american bosses (due in part to wage discrimination in USA) who drive the shittiest cars..but eventually ends up being a lot wealthier than their bosses…

At my old company, one guy in the office just did that. He’s this Chinese guy 10 years younger than me, and never had any aspirations to be a manager/architect/lead etc. He put in his time as a senior engineer, 40 hours, spent the rest of his time buying selling real estate and getting his license, and when they laid him off, he was laughing all the way to the bank because they had to give him a layoff package…and he was already planning on quitting so he could do run his real estate brokerage business full time… He’s done incredibly well part time. One of the top listing agents i think

[svelte]

[quote=Coronita]
Question: you think HR/VP’s are going to allow me to go back and re-adjust my senior engineer’s pay above what I’m going to have to pay any mid-level I hire now, after already making an adjustment at the beginning of the year?

…

Now these rules don’t apply if you work at a company that while your position might suck, and your base pay/bonus might suck..but you have a a boatload of stock or stock options that are worth something..(IE Qualcomm, Intuit, ServiceNow, Illumina, etc).. But then if that’s the case, you’re in a completely different category.. You’re in the “rest and vest” category in which basically you really shouldn’t give a shit what they ask you do, so long as you can sit there and fully vest and put in your time…
[/quote]

When I was in my first decade in the software industry, it was well known that the only way to keep a salary up equal to comps was to jump around from company to company.

So that is what I did. Eventually I found a company I liked a lot, but the same old problem reared its head…companies tend to think once you’ve been there 5 years, that you’ll stay and they don’t have to give you decent raises. So I left!

I went to work somewhere else. I got a big bump in salary, worked there a few years and when they tapered off in raises, went back to the company I had liked and got another big bump *and* a severance package from the company I left because they were about to do layoffs. When I got back to the company I liked, I found out that they had struggled during the years I was gone and for a couple of those years they gave out no raises at all none! So I came out even further ahead than I thought.

Another added benefit: for years after that, they could look at my history and knew I wasn’t afraid to leave. If I felt short-changed, they knew I’d find the exit. So my raises were pretty darn good for years after that.

Gotta know how to play the game.

[svelte]

Thinking about what I just wrote more, everybody won in that situation:

– The company I liked obviously didn’t need me in the period I was gone, or they would have given their folks raises during that period…they probably had too many folks anyway.

– When I came back, I had experience from outside their walls that I could apply to their problems.

– When I came back, they were obviously needing help and that’s why they were willing to give me a generous raise…probably well above those folks who had stayed.

– I was able to keep my salary rising at a much greater rate than had I stayed.

Win win!

As one of my astute bosses once said as he handed me a great raise, I bet you don’t go home and create these software widgets for fun in your spare time…you do it for the money. How right he was.

[Coronita]

For me, moving around was probably good for my skills, experience, responsibilities, and my yearly paycheck. However, it probably was not good for my net worth….

The red herring for me has always been the stock option/stock grant….WRTO stock options/stock, I was always at the right place.. Just at the wrong time…In hindsight, if my timing wasn’t off and I left when the job got stale or when there was limited growth potential or if I was in danger of getting laidoff …and just held on longer to fully vest, no matter how shitty the job was, I don’t know. …I probably wouldn’t have thrown about $5million of stock options/RSU stock grants into the trash. Although in lieu of those stable companies, I did have a few that eventually were either acquired or IPOed, it probably was not quite as good as probably if I was able to fully vest at those other places I was at.

Oops. Oh well….I never need to buy a lotto ticket, because I already had a fair share of them, lol….If it wasn’t for some of those other IPO’s/acquisitions people like sdrealtor convincing me to buy short sales when they were available back then, I probably would be still crying over spilled milk….lol. Somehow though, I didn’t really want to pull cables out of cellular infrastructure equipment the rest of my life. Though, some of my peers who have done that, seemed to have done financially well too…lol. These days, I guess some companies no longer give out meaningful stock/options grant, so if that’s the case, it’s an even easier decision if you aren’t getting the experience/pay/role you want.

[svelte]

[quote=Coronita]The red herring for me has always been the stock option/stock grant….WRTO stock options/stock, I was always at the right place.. Just at the wrong time…[/quote]

That appears to be where you and I parted philosophies.

I wanted to be paid in full with a paycheck as I did the work. If they said I would get stock options as a part of my compensation, I said no thanks unless my pay was going to be market value.

I wanted a sure thing, not a lottery ticket. I guess that guaranteed that I wasn’t going to get filthy rich, but it also guaranteed I wasn’t going to provide my skills for less than they were worth.

[an]

[quote=svelte][quote=Coronita]The red herring for me has always been the stock option/stock grant….WRTO stock options/stock, I was always at the right place.. Just at the wrong time…[/quote]

That appears to be where you and I parted philosophies.

I wanted to be paid in full with a paycheck as I did the work. If they said I would get stock options as a part of my compensation, I said no thanks unless my pay was going to be market value.

I wanted a sure thing, not a lottery ticket. I guess that guaranteed that I wasn’t going to get filthy rich, but it also guaranteed I wasn’t going to provide my skills for less than they were worth.[/quote]
Different stroke for different folks. I’m in Coronita camp. There are tax benefits under certain salary point for certain situation that allow me to net more when I was making less. Which allow me to take the risk with option while still have a high enough take home pay to not feel like I’m being taken advantage of.

[sdrealtor]

We made our own lottery tickets Coronita! They may have smaller payoffs but they also have a continuing income stream for life that grows with inflation and comes with tax advantages:)

[Coronita]

[quote=svelte][quote=Coronita]The red herring for me has always been the stock option/stock grant….WRTO stock options/stock, I was always at the right place.. Just at the wrong time…[/quote]

That appears to be where you and I parted philosophies.

I wanted to be paid in full with a paycheck as I did the work. If they said I would get stock options as a part of my compensation, I said no thanks unless my pay was going to be market value.

I wanted a sure thing, not a lottery ticket. I guess that guaranteed that I wasn’t going to get filthy rich, but it also guaranteed I wasn’t going to provide my skills for less than they were worth.[/quote]

i should clarify. i never attempted to follow the stock option lottery. I always tried to follow the opportunity that gave me the ability to work on something new or cutting edge or lead a bigger team or both.

i think though if i swallowed my pride and put up with more shit along the way, things might have turned out financially better for me. its a tradeoff. sometimes one has to put up with shit in order to reap a reward. and sometimes having no alternative options (ie the case of several h1bs who were stuck at qualcomm while i left) wasnt bad at all.

[an]

[quote=sdrealtor]We made our own lottery tickets Coronita! They may have smaller payoffs but they also have a continuing income stream for life that grows with inflation and comes with tax advantages:)[/quote]
This is why I’m hoping for another big crash so I can buy a few more. Want in the position to take full advantage of the crash on 2008.

[Coronita]

[quote=an][quote=sdrealtor]We made our own lottery tickets Coronita! They may have smaller payoffs but they also have a continuing income stream for life that grows with inflation and comes with tax advantages:)[/quote]
This is why I’m hoping for another big crash so I can buy a few more. Want in the position to take full advantage of the crash on 2008.[/quote]

well considering i put in an offer for another rental property yesterday….if i get it, there’s a high likelihood that will cause prices to fall, just like interest rates were kind enough to rise the week that i locked at 3% and once i was funded , was kind enough to fall back below 3% lol….Murphy law of my investments for me i guess.

normally i dont like to talk about pending transactions since i dont normally want to jinx them before they materialize. but honestly, in this case , if things fall apart, dont really care that much…im basically coughing up almost $100k more this time on this property slightly nicer than the previous one. hopefully will rent $3k/month or more. its pricey for $3k/month…but i dont trust my stock picking skills to return something decent over the next 15-20 years, and i need to force myself to take some money off the stock market roulette table in case there is a major correction and avoid doing something more stupid if i just see cash lying around earning 0.02% interest….

If i do get this place, my total net rental cashflow will be close enough a mid level sw engineer’s salary. and finally i can stop working if i choose. And then im going to have a bug grin on my face the next time i talk to my boss on Zoom…heh heh….

It only took ,oh god , a quarter of a century to get here…i cant believe ive been doing this for 25 years. im about 5 years behind my original financial plans i made in my early 30ies…so many detours and roadblocks….but i had to stick to the plan…

[Author]

Posts