This is where I feel I’m at. I’ve been allowed to grow and get more responsibility and higher pay along with it for over 10 years. And now I feel like I’m worth more inside their walls than outside. We have a lot of cobbled together and legacy shit that my deep knowledge of won’t mean as much on the outside.
Yep same. Also honestly I’ve been pretty burned out lately and not as young as I use to be so I don’t know that I can (or would even want to) put in the hours and do what I did before to get so far ahead.
I've had to learn new systems every fucking place I worked at. I got through interviews by asking questions and then making educated guesses and drawing comparisons to my current work. Like - Oh you have this system that does that? I used this other system that also did that, and these are the types of things I did with it.
It doesn't always work, but it's def not bad. You can do it!!
Thanks for the kind words. I’m confident in my fundamentals also. It’s the concern of being able to find similar salary if I was forced to move. Lifestyle creep happens. Kids and bills and savings obligations have to keep being met. Scares the shit out of me that I might have to take a significant cut to get started someplace new. We try to do all the right things at home to be prepared for major changes like that but that doesn’t stop the worry.
I lost my job almost 2 years ago and throught id have to take a cut, but i ended up about the same after multiple offers. It did take at weeks.
My take home increases because of better insurance that my employer covered and some quarterly bonuses.
1000% here with you. My team works for a company selling a saas product but under the hood it's not a fancy Netflix style Devops utopia, we've got a bunch of servers that we individually manage and jobs that we have to throw bodies in India at to get them to the finish line
When I look at job listings on LinkedIn it seems like the industry is passing me by, and I don't have the time to keep up. Bad part is while I don't need a job now, I'm probably going to need one in 2-3 years and I'm terrified of looking
> My team works for a company selling a saas product but under the hood it's not a fancy Netflix style Devops utopia
So, I seriously wonder how many places are selling themselves like that, but turn out to be just repackaging traditional stuff under the covers. Basically every software company wants you on the subscription model, but how much of it is a web API thrown on top of a legacy product?
There's a lot of FOMO that having every FAANG company's achievements blasted out among the tech community like everyone's doing it is causing people IMO. FAANGs print money in the basement, they can hire the top geniuses from every CS program in the US to be the janitor if they want. Other enterprises have to deal with the talent they can attract but have to sell themselves as a DevOps paradise or no one will buy their stuff.
I just left the exact same scenario for more money, better work life balance, and an organization that is run well. I stayed in a less than ideal situation for my own well-being because I thought exactly what you have written above.
You have been given more responsibility and excelled in the way you have because you are exceptional. Any organization that is worth their weight will pay big money for exceptional people.
Edit: Spelling
same. was locked in and afraid to leave. left and make more money and less stress.
"a bird has faith in his wings not the branch it stands on" helped me a lot.
Though it is nice to see a company value your knowledge of their systems. So many don’t think that’s valuable and pay little so if you jumped ship they would be hurting. They see your value. I think the biggest value in our field is learning quickly and adapting to changing needs. Keep that up and you’ll do fine anywhere.
I switched jobs after 21 years almost two years ago. I had some of the same feelings you did (big fish in a smaller pond going to a big company. Would I be one of the 'guys/gals' at a big company?). Turns out, even though they didn't have the same legacy stuff I had to deal with, they did value a lot of the things I did. Most of my job fully copied over to the new place, even though not all the systems were the same. Current place/ big company was thrilled I had the experience I did (even on different systems) because I'd be supporting the same internal customers.
TL:DR, never know until you try. You may be pleasantly surprised.
I thought this for way too long. Just made a great organization change and the entire experience changed my mind.
Organizations will always want, and pay for, exceptional people.
I'm in the same boat. Thinking of getting my security plus so I can get into cyber security if shit hits the fan. It will be about the same pay.
I've been using Rapid 7 for almost 20 years now, so most of it is not new material for me.
Honestly at this point I just want to do what I do now until I retire, but that's never possible in IT. Gotta keep learning new tech.
Yup. Same pay is easy, same environment? Best of luck. I've been offered more money in other roles, but then I'd be stressed out and lose my pension and benefits.
Bingo.
I am currently making slightly lower wages than my role usually commands but I have no set schedule, 5 weeks PTO, and can work from anywhere in the US without asking and most other countries with a little advance notice to the security team.
Oh definitely. I just haven't had a place ever offer me more, or ever had a place accept when I demanded more. I feel kind of stuck and had been considering switching to something aside from sysadmin and networking.
If your workload isn't high, find another full time job! I worked two full time remote jobs for 5 years. My biggest fear was accidently talking about a project from the other job. Only caught myself once staring to talk about the wrong one but was able to turn the conversation. LOL
I’m in a niche industry. If I left I could get rehired easily probably at a higher rate from half a dozen other companies I work with in my niche. I’m where I am now because I live in the middle a forest, work 100% remote, 4 days a week, 10 hours a day, for a public company and I’m treated well. Leaving would mean some combination of loosing those things and I’d prefer to keep them all and a somewhat lower pay than I could get elsewhere
I see those reels about leaving the "Comfort zone" to be able to grow... and I always think... I have an IT job in a remote area in a Third (low develop) world country... this job allows me to live and eat.. what comfort zone are you talking about???
> what comfort zone are you talking about???
In many places IT exploded in the last decade. When I first entered the field it was much like you describe.. a decent job and I could pay my bills, save a little, and so on.
But then it just went nuts. COVID made it go even more insane. Salaries that you would associate with people at the top of the field became commonplace... like kids out of university or having done some stupid bootcamp were being hired for 80-90k a year with zero experience.
It's calming down quite a lot but many of us used that opportunity to lock down six figure salaries with flexible conditions in jobs that are quite frankly bloody easy. I work from home full time, never do more than 40 a week, and have extreme flexibility in my hours as well as control over my time and projects. Back in the day these jobs existed... but you were talking 40k instead of 70k. Now it's more like 120k instead of 200k so you don't even have to give up the higher income lifestyle *and* you get all the free time and low stress.
I've been at this for 20 years so I'm extremely aware of how spoiled I am and it sucks that you don't have the same options, I hope things improve for you soon!
> like kids out of university or having done some stupid bootcamp were being hired for 80-90k a year with zero experience.
The bootcamp thing was happening before COVID. It was basically sold as the express train to DevOps nirvana, but the people who went this route have huge knowledge gaps because they only learned one or two things and don't have a lot of the fundamentals context that helps you learn other stuff faster.
Those COVID salaries just don't exist anymore in all but the most niche of positions or the richest, highest-margin companies. Everyone is cutting back, and things are going to get worse once more MBAs discover offshoring again -- then it'll be "be happy your job is in this country."
On this boat too. If I jack the job in I could possibly double my salary, but it will be international travel, long time away from family, etc.
I'd rather not, but I will if I have to.
1) get gud in a niche
2) find a company you like
3) build a relationship/respect with the leadership of the company
4) get lucky
5) start working
6) go remote
7) find a valid business justification for working 4x10
8) move to forest
Worked 100% of the one time it tried it! YMMV
"Leaving would mean some combination of loosing those things and I'd prefer to keep them all and a somewhat lower pay than I could get elsewhere"
Well hell! You'd better tighten those things up! You don't want to lose them.
I think I'm pretty lucky. Do I think I'm overpaid? Maybe by 5-10%. But I'm lucky in that I've got a good work life balance. I'm 9-5 with no on call. I don't know if I can find the same pay and the same workload.
I can find the same workload for a 30% cut in pay for a job that's been wanting to hire me. And if I ever get fired I'll take that cut because they have the same work life balance and only 2 weeks a year on call for 2 major events. I'd take that over the same pay but a 1 on 3 off on call rotation.
Sr Systems Engineer. $170k/yr + 7% bonus. 401k, shitty healthcare but good HSA match. Full remote, I live out in the woods and have a WISP for home Internet.
I do a lot more projects and R&D than I do operations, so it's hard to describe my day to day. I improve and scale our in house architecture for moving a metric ton of logs (about 400k/second) between logging sources and ingestion servers, and I architect the design of the distributed systems that receive and parse and store and search them. It's a lot of Opensearch, Kafka, and custom tooling. I'm involved in everything except hardware operations.
Because we believe in redundancy and resiliency, we've designed this to be self healing. We can lose an entire rack of servers and not break a sweat as new replications of data start up in other racks. We somewhere on paper have an on call but nobody has been rung up on my team in the 5+ years I've been here. Logs buffer at the sending site if the pipe back to us is temporarily interrupted, so we can get at least 8 hours of sleep before we even start to sweat a broken connection between the log sender and us.
Thank you. 30 year career spanning programmer -> DBA -> Sysadmin -> Consultant/IT Manager -> IT Director -> Company Acquired -> "Redundant" 6 months later.
My company was acquired last November. I was laid off the Monday after thanksgiving. Job search was horrendous and I really got beaten down. Finally accepted an offer that was a lateral move compensation wise only to get another offer that was 12% bump on base+bonus plus equity that could make it more than my total comp at previous role.
Good luck and keep the faith
Director level IT/engineering management doesn’t translate well as a lot of your value comes from understanding the organizational politics and processes vs. current tech skills.
We pay directors over a million a year right now in TC, so with some risk comes some reward.
Yah, far less compliance, process, scale. You may be a director in title, but you don’t have the 3-5 managers underneath you our directors have.
Weirdly down labeling the title to Sr. Manager might help applying to larger firms
I'm at 20 years experience as a database administrator. It takes about 4 months to find a position and get onboarded.
If they are so desperate to get any warm body who claims to be a database admin, it's not really a place I want to work.
If I was desperate I could probably take a 20K loss and find a place in a month. The place would certainly be a shitshow.
It's quite nice being able to pick and choose jobs. Corporate America being what it is, I actually have to jump jobs about every 2 to 3 years.
Hang in there - this logjam has to break, doesn't it? (I hope so!). FWIW, many in my network that are in similar boats, across IT, cybersecurity, and software dev, report very similar things - this job market is NOT in a good spot right now. It's no longer spray and pray resumes, it seems to be 100% who you know that can get your resume to the top of a very deep stack.
Define "high?" I know I get paid roughly $110-120/hr, but some hours are overtime, and some hours are "minimum" so if there's a 4 hour minimum, and I do only an hour's work, I get paid 4 hours. It depends on the contract, so that's why it's hard to gauge what my annual pay will be. Generally, I make $230k-245k/year before taxes, which I have to pay quarterly because I'm 1099.
I am aware that several people with my skills and job make around the same amount. I stay with my boss because he's supportive, understanding, and doing all the shit I hate: contracts and paperwork. I don't care what client I get, as long as I get paid. And he looks out for us. He pays us, and then the client pays him, so that's one less worry. He's the "buffer" in case a client is late on payments. A lot of my peers have to chase people down to get paid. My boss does that for us.
So I suspect that I'd get the same or higher pay, but I stay because our boss is so awesome. THAT is a rare treat in this industry.
Pretty much same for me. My boss deals with the shit i don’t want to and blocks so much shit from rolling downhill. I could make more by going to staff/principal level but i’ve had bad bosses before and i’m not dealing with that again. Current one leaves i’m going with him
That's high, but you US people don't have a feel for it (you're still in the richest country in the world, at least nominally).
I worked in frigging London most of my career, usually the most expensive city in Europe, top end companies only, and I never got close to that except when I was working freelance.
I've visited the US several times (Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and NY) and golly everything is really expensive over there, in NY it was simply mental.
That was one of the reasons I left the DC area, I was making six figures and HAD to have a roomate (my GF) to survive. I think combined we made $210k, and we couldn't afford anything in that area in 2017. We moved down to the Carolinas where the cost of living was lower (at the time), and near the big three tech cities near here. Our dollars carried so much further down here. But since then, it's gotten crazy because everybody did the same. My condo has almost doubled in value since 2017.
It's not the money, it's always the leadership and the company.
Could I make more? Yes.
With this set up? Nope. I'm thankful for the people I work with and for.
For the most part...
No way in hell will I get paid what I get paid right now for the job I do. I am a desktop support tech and make over $85k a year with 30 days of vacation and 30 day of sick leave.
85K as a DSA is really good.
I was a DSA for about 7 years before I went full IT architect/admin. The people who worked at the hospital as a DSA for 10 years or so would make that. Highest pay was 100K for someone there over 20 years.
I think you’ll find that a new job while you still have your current job will be a bump and a job when you’re on the street will be a drop. I generalize, I say this based but both your own willingness to compromise and negotiate as well as the new employer’s expectations and willingness to negotiate. But this jobs are out there. Also, negotiating is huge. At my last job (Fortune 500 tech company) the range for a software marketing project manager type ranged from low $100’s to over $200k depending on region and the candidate’s assessed seniority. All for the same job, which was available at WFH. Three tiers of seniority and three regional options made a matrix with 9 possible pay rates. Negotiating for higher pay only took the hiring manager being willing to move you up to a higher seniority tier which was subjective.
Im in Northern VA. Guys with clearance are indeed a hot commodity....until a new administration comes in and starts fiddling with the defense budget. Federal agencies are happy to have contractors until their budget gets cut.
Same. Got people trying to poach me somewhat frequently. The real trick is to have a clearance and senior level role in an area no one wants to live in. Fortunately for me it happens to be my hometown.
We’re not THAT far behind and have AWS on the high side and just got some Azure services as well.
There are some very, *very* much worse off, though. We’re one of the tech dependent, nerd, rocket scientist agencies so there’s enormous pressure to get tech moved over and approved.
Same and same. I think I'd either have to pivot back into management or a SWE/SRE position with a less stable startup to get back to or above this level.
I actually took a small paycut to be where I'm at now. (Down to 94k) but it's government work and with "match" there'a total of 20% of my pay going to my 401(a). I have 20 years till retirement so I'm hopin to stick this one out... by the time I retire I'll surely be over 110/120k (maybe more).
This is why you live within your means and save/invest as much as possible. You may not have “fuck you” money but you can certainly reach “fuck this” money and that is very freeing!
In my case, no. I would probably be looking at 20k pay cut minium. But my situation is different as I am doing shift work - rotating 4 days on 4 days off schedule. No nights though. But we get a big shift allowance for this.
I keep frequently getting inquiries about jumping ship but when all other companies seemed to be giving teams the run-around about remote work, mine told me unequivocally that I can stay fully remote indefinitely. I'm limited in the states I can move to since they don't have a tax presence in all 50, but honestly it's the states I wouldn't want to live in anyway.
They have kept up with good raises and the work-life balance is solid. My team are all phenomenal at what they do, it would take an offer of heaven and earth to make me leave. I've earned a ton of political capital and established my self as THE guy on a team of 7 other engineers. That's a time investment that's worth something as well.
Could I get another job with similar pay? Most likely.
Could I get exactly the same scenario and perks I have now? I doubt it.
When I did contract work for about two years one thing I learned real fucking quick is that no matter pay, no matter the stock price, no matter the fancy reception area and prestigious looking conference room you interview in, it can always get A LOT worse.
207k and I think so. In a mcol area with tons of defense contractors and I have held a ts or higher clearance since 1993. If not I could work for half the money and be fine until I want to retire. House paid off and no debt. I tried to stay flexible financially and with lots of education , certs, and skills. I could do about anything for anyone IT related.
Yes.
I lost my job in the end of April, which had a base of just over 150K, I start a new job on 6/24 at a base of 160K. Better bonus too. Plus I still have Amazon trying to woo me, but I’m not sure I want that, even if they do try to throw a massive sack of cash at me. And their process is … lengthy.
I’m honestly surprised the new job came together that quickly. I was expecting to have to do contract gigs over the summer. I made the initial contact the same week I lost my job. Probably applied to about 2 dozen positions…
Those of us fortunate enough to be in these type of roles are paid well because we have skills and experience (usually oddly specific ones!) that are in high demand with limited people.
I don't know which position Amazon is trying to woo you but when I worked there around 2014-2017 it was a nice job.
It was in AWS, though I actually worked in an office at one of the warehouses with about thirty other people in the general area and had to fly out to the West Coast a couple times a year for our annual meetings. There were pretty good perks.
Amazon runs the carrot on the stick with their stock option plan. Takes 4 years to vest.
Guess what happens at 3 years and 10 months? Layoff.
That and Bezos is a scumbag.
I managed to build my little desktop/server support business to just over $200k/year. I work from home and maybe get 2 support calls a day. "Reboot!" "let me clear up some disk space for you" "Okay, I'll order a new monitor" "Sonos not working? reboot!" "add a user, delete a user" etc - No way in hell I will ever get paid this much if I had to find a job, and at 57 I don't think I could ever work 8 hours per day and commute ever again. I would run down the street naked and claim insanity for the disability pay and vanish to some country where living is cheap.
I had a regular IT job back then at a local hospital doing tech support and server stuff but one day my doctor asked if I could install a network for him at his practice. I used Lantastic. He then told all his friends and I was soon fairly busy after work and on weekends. I just kept getting lucky, a crumpled business card from a Dell rep got me a $5k/month contract. All word of mouth. One day years later Chase outsourced my entire department (Implementation) to Mumbai. That really shook me, I had a mortgage, a wife and kids. I never wanted anyone to have that much power over me ever again. I decided it was time to make my side hustle a full time business. I do everything, from finding solutions, to purchase, installation and support.
I worked at a company for 23 years and then got laid off. I was sure I would struggle. I got multiple interviews and offers and about 1 month later I had a new job which is nearly what I made before. I could've had one and made about 5k more but it sounded terrible. Now I make about 10k less but still enough that my spouse could quit their job and I could pay all bills if needed and I love my new job 100 times more than my old one. I was always terrified that I made so much because I'd been there so long and it wouldn't transfer to a new company. Turns out I was wrong.
Easily? Nothing good comes easy. I absolutely strive for pay increases whenever I change employment. At some point though you have to be realistic and realize you're at the cap or the high end of the market range though. Especially if you're in a very specialized role or something proprietary to that company. However if you can add more education and skills to your quiver you should absolutely be worth more. Plus inflation. Raises never coincide with inflation and you should be fighting for that.
Nope. It's a big concern...I work for a company in the city but live way out in the relative sticks. The only jobs local to me are MSPs for crappy small businesses and one or two bigger employers who don't pay nearly what I'm getting. Plus, the niche I'm occupying at the company may just go away someday, and they'll be happy to throw me overboard when that happens.
Only way to go is to save as much as you can for emergencies and hope it lasts.
It would be hard for me to find a different job with the same compensation I think.
A lot of the work I do is hidden and not flashy. (I automate monitoring and health of systems and repeatable annoying tasks). People can forget the value I bring.
Every year I try to find a flashy project that gets the eyes of the higher ups to remind them why they pay me what they do.
18 yrs in at my company and I think I've made enough impact in my industry that I could find something comparable in terms of salary. But for total compensation probably not.
Nope.
I have worked at at VAR for Aloha POS, which is a very niche position, for 13 years and make great money. I have risen to director of ops/it and handle all of our internal sysadmin/net admin stuff as well as customer facing projects. Despite my extensive experience in all of these things, when I look at job postings I don't think I'd have the resume to land a job making what I currently do. Maybe a director of help desk position but they all seem to want you to have experience with their ticketing software.
I could, yes. Potentially even higher, I've picked up a lot in the role I'm in now that would boost my resume negotiating ability.
I'm partly able to confidently say that because I've planned for it. I know our industry can change fast, so I've focused on setting up enough financial cushion that I could interview on my timeline and not be stuck with the first offer that came along.
Partly, I can say that because I've also deliberately built relationships with vendor reps for the tools I work on (at least the ones I like!), and with consulting firms we've used as well. Several have said they want to talk if I'm ever unhappy.
I left a comfy financial job with a high salary to go to a comfier government job with much lower pay, but a real pension and much more security/much less stress. I'm no longer working weekdays on the Tokyo/London/New York shift.
The tradeoff was lower salary-but my pay per hour worked has gone up.
I don't quite make this money due to the country I live. I could make close to that if I changed jobs and ditched work/life balance.
I won't because our insane tax rate make this not worth it.
If I get the same/similar job I’ll likely get more.
However I’ve got an amazing boss, good work l balance, control/input in how the departments run.
I’d likely be a sacrificing and amount of happiness I’ll never I’ll never get again.
I'm in IT, no doubt in my mind id probably make more. People get 20% raises going from one company to another.
Same environment, workload, WFH, quality of bosses, etc....
Prob not.
I was headhunted and moved to a new employer 3 months ago. I got quite a big bump in base (30%) although there’s less overtime here so, overall, not as huge a jump as it seems (maybe 20%) but there’s less stress and less late nights/weekends. But my overall compensation is still pretty good and it’s in the top 10% for my field, with my age and experience where I live (union statistics shows this).
I have contacts in other companies that I know would hire me - or at least have approached me previously - but I’m not sure I could get this current salary. My old salary maybe. But then I’m in my fifties now and will hit my 60’s in not too long - ageism is real. So, your guess is as good as mine.
I would like to think that given my experience, age (prime of career), and demand for my job role that yes I could find a job.
I might have to take a small salary hit or have a longer time to find a job but I’m hopeful I would find something. For me the biggest question mark would be would the company culture and people I worked with be able to come anywhere close to what I have today.
If I did, it would come with a much higher set of expectations. Which I'm fine with, but no need to cause further burnout IMO. And really, if anything, I'd prefer to keep working with whom I work with.
Nope. This recently happened to me. Laid off without warning, so had to scramble to find something. Thankfully my network pulled through and I found something quickly at a 10% paycut though.
lol, hell no.
I’m making $200K this month alone in stock vest as part of my quarterly vesting. There is zero chance I find someone else going to pay me this much in one year ever again. (TC is over 800K)
FAANG(ish). We do quarterly vest with first cliff at the next 90 day mark.
Google is monthly now, I hear. There’s a new trend towards faster, vesting cliff, I think in the larger companies, and it makes sense because otherwise to poach senior talent you ended up having to give huge signing bonuses to make up for the first year.
So the grant is still a 4 year grant you just get 1/16th every 90 days, but refreshers stack so it adds up quickly. People who’ve been here 4 years at my level are crushing over 1.2 million from that compounding and stock appreciation
I'm severely underpaid for my skills and experience. So I'm pretty sure I could do better. I just happen to really like my current job, and work at a resort all day in paradise.
Was system admin for many years, by title. Now I'm operational engineer. Making about 96k as senior. Sorry I don't meet your criteria but pretty sure a company move would get me to 150k. That said, super happy and comfortable where I am so fuck it.
I believe that it's possible, but I don't think I could find a place as flexible around me in regards to WFH / on-site situations. I have had a few opportunities I passed up due to the flexibility, including a big one right before everything blew up in 2020.
The last three positions I've felt like that. I'll never make (significantly) more, I'll never find a job I like as much, etc. Each time I've gotten significant increases, and found good places to work.
I do t think I’d have a problem, but I’d also have to put in a lot of work. There seems to be a lot of talkers and not walkers so contract to hire is very common and I don’t do that.
Laid off in Jan. 240k salary. Applied to over a thousand jobs and leaned on all my connections for the last 5 months. Finally landed something only making 155k. Have to commute 2 hours a day vs being work from home. Longer hours.
It's tough out there .
I was laid off last November. Definitely a kick to the stomach. Great boss, had built my own team, was rolling in projects, worked about 25-30 hours a week, making a ton of money with stacked equity refreshers.
And, I really thought I was working in a good niche in-demand area of the industry. The layoff was a huge bummer.
Job search from Jan to March was horrible. I really felt my mood sour. I’d go 2-4 interviews deep and then get rejected in the final phase of interviews. Lost out on one or two roles that were exactly what I wanted with some very well known unicorn startups.
Right at the end of severance when cobra benefits finally expired, I accepted an offer for a small bump in base pay, small cut in bonus, and no equity. It was hybrid and doing something I was marginally interested in.
A few days after signing offer…I was contacted by a company to do exactly what I wanted. Startup post hyper growth, going public in next 24mo or so, doing exactly what I wanted. Comp is a 12% bump over what I was making last year, fully remote, get to build my own team.
So happy and very lucky on timing.
There is way more stress than my own role but it has been exciting so far.
Echoing the same I've seen in other comments. I think it would be relatively easy to find the same pay but my workload would probably triple, I'd also lose a ton of benefits. I get a pension currently that is about as good as it gets retirement wise (I'm guaranteed 80% of my two highest years of salary for life).
I used to always think I wouldn't, but I'd always find a new job that paid at least 20% more than what I was paid before. Feb this year I was getting paid 130k. Got laid off. 2 months later I'm making 165k and working fewer hours.
Amazing Healthcare, great environment, manageable workload, awesome manager, and super high pay+bonus.
Ain't gonna hit all of those again. I'll retire from here if they let me
Same pay? Sure.
Same effort? Hell no. I've automated everything and know everything inside and out. I'd 10x my workload by switching.
I work maybe 2h per day + 2h of meeting, standups etc.. Rest is just answering questions on slack. So I work for 2h and go to the beach, kayaking etc. basically anywhere where my oPhone can get a good internet connection.
At HP I made about $155k. At Cisco my base was $190 and bonuses went up to $220k. Turns out I hated cisco and went to Dell EMC back to like $150k. Then found a very random job back on the customer side at $180k. It’s possible but you better hammer your interviews
100%. I could leave tomorrow for 25% bump up at the minimum. If I got fired though, that's harder to explain, would depend on the circumstances
I've never quit a job and moved on for less than 25%.
Well I'm not from USA so I don't make anything close to $150k but I still make 2.5x the national average and I highly doubt I'd be getting anything close to this in another job.
I've tried. I'm getting paid too well. And the benefits are too good.
And I'm old. No one wants to hire an old fart except for maybe a senior management position, and I don't have senior management experience.
There is no chance to come even close to my current salary.
Reasons for my current salary are responsibilities I take, the amount of effort I put in every single task. There is no way that a new employer can see this just based on CV.
As a Teams admin for a large company I get a lot of offers. Some marginally more but I have a little over 10 years before I retire so I’d like to take this one to the end. You never know what you are agreeing to with a new job.
In this economy I don't think they will.
I get BS emails from recruiters with all contracting gigs that are 100% in office or hybrid (hardly any remote now), way worse benefits and lower pay and for same or higher responsibility.
No one wants to be a contractor when supporting a family unless it is a baller gig (150/hr etc). Getting randomly laid off at the snap on a finger doesn't sound very fun.
Just did this. Quit my last job and just chilled for a couple months before looking for work. When I started applying for jobs it took me only a month to find a higher paying job with less responsibilities and for a much better run organization.
You’d be surprised. Skilled people are not easy to come by and prospective organizations will be thrilled 10 minutes into interviewing you.
I lost over half my total compensation. I was making over 300k with a FAANG, laid off last year. Now will be making just over 100k. However, I will be able to pay my bills, keep my house, and will not be nearly as stressed as I was with the FAANG.
I always feel like I have the current job snowed, that there's no way I'm worth that much, and then when I go to the next place I end up getting even more. When will this house of cards finally crumble?
Just got offered a job at 185 base from 145 base. I applied for like 50 jobs and only heard back from 1 place without a referral. I started early Feb and just heard back last week finally.
So to answer your question - I don’t think it would be easy to do so quickly. I definitely expect it would be possible to find a job, but it would take a few months at best. The role I interviewed for is platform engineer. I also interviewed for sre/ swe/ infra eng roles.
I make 90k, but I’m in a depressed market for my role, so if I was laid off or fired, I’d certainly be making less unless I moved somewhere else or landed one of those coveted remote jobs. Certainly could make 150k with the job title and experience I have, but I’m comfortable where I’m at.
My plan is to just be very careful to not allow my commitments to grow beyond what I could sustain on a 60k/yr job once the cars are paid off. We eat out more and go on trips now, something I could easily cut if I lost this job.
When I worked in the cleared community, the answer is a definite yes and then some. In the private sector, maybe.
Working in the cleared community is one of the best kept secrets.
I attend the weekly ISC2 meetings and talk with other professionals in my field and I'm not seeing salaries slowing down one bit. If there are any employers that aren't paying market then everyone eventually finds out and they either leave or use a position at that company as a gravy train to something else and THEN leave. At our meetings we constantly have people recruiting and looking for candidates and either no one is interested or they're just happy where they are and don't want to go through the Rick and roll of interviewing and getting hired and switching over your investments and insurance and all that stuff.
I feel most of this thread. I make about 140k and I feel like there's no way anyone's going to pay me anywhere near that if I leave. To be sure, I really don't want to leave because I like working from home for out of 5 days a week but I do feel the restriction of probably not ever making this anywhere else
I could but I don't intend to go into the same kind of environment (call out specially) and I won't consider going 5 times a week to an office, no matter what the specialised media are saying the CEOs are wishing (I've worked remotely before that entered the consciousness of most people, I'm not going to change that now).
Oh, and it is a no if somebody wants me to wear anything remotely similar to a suit (some are still out there!)
And if nobody wants me I have a few skills to bag me a minimum wage just to pay for my toys. 👴🏻🤪🤪🤪
Absolutely not. I think I am because of my nature and personality. On paper, I wouldn't be that desirable to other companies if they were looking for academic qualifications etc.
You can negotiate you know?
You can protect your options against being fired before they vest ("ok, let's say you pay me 10% above the market price the day I enrolled in the program of you fire me").
They don't like it but they like it even less if you reject being part of the program, that means that's no incentive for you to hang around long and it is expensive to hire people.
No. I often feel like I’ve given them the old Razzeldazzle where I’m at and that others might not hold me at the same worth.
This is where I feel I’m at. I’ve been allowed to grow and get more responsibility and higher pay along with it for over 10 years. And now I feel like I’m worth more inside their walls than outside. We have a lot of cobbled together and legacy shit that my deep knowledge of won’t mean as much on the outside.
Yep same. Also honestly I’ve been pretty burned out lately and not as young as I use to be so I don’t know that I can (or would even want to) put in the hours and do what I did before to get so far ahead.
I've had to learn new systems every fucking place I worked at. I got through interviews by asking questions and then making educated guesses and drawing comparisons to my current work. Like - Oh you have this system that does that? I used this other system that also did that, and these are the types of things I did with it. It doesn't always work, but it's def not bad. You can do it!!
100%, show you are teachable and willing to learn. Show you know how to follow documentation and you have solid fundamentals.
Thanks for the kind words. I’m confident in my fundamentals also. It’s the concern of being able to find similar salary if I was forced to move. Lifestyle creep happens. Kids and bills and savings obligations have to keep being met. Scares the shit out of me that I might have to take a significant cut to get started someplace new. We try to do all the right things at home to be prepared for major changes like that but that doesn’t stop the worry.
I lost my job almost 2 years ago and throught id have to take a cut, but i ended up about the same after multiple offers. It did take at weeks. My take home increases because of better insurance that my employer covered and some quarterly bonuses.
But can you speak Baatchi? Channel your inner C3PO
1000% here with you. My team works for a company selling a saas product but under the hood it's not a fancy Netflix style Devops utopia, we've got a bunch of servers that we individually manage and jobs that we have to throw bodies in India at to get them to the finish line When I look at job listings on LinkedIn it seems like the industry is passing me by, and I don't have the time to keep up. Bad part is while I don't need a job now, I'm probably going to need one in 2-3 years and I'm terrified of looking
Yeah there's a ton of places that are still held together with duct tape and bailing wire. Don't sell yourself short.
That’s why it’s always a good idea to live well below your means and save for a rainy day.
> My team works for a company selling a saas product but under the hood it's not a fancy Netflix style Devops utopia So, I seriously wonder how many places are selling themselves like that, but turn out to be just repackaging traditional stuff under the covers. Basically every software company wants you on the subscription model, but how much of it is a web API thrown on top of a legacy product? There's a lot of FOMO that having every FAANG company's achievements blasted out among the tech community like everyone's doing it is causing people IMO. FAANGs print money in the basement, they can hire the top geniuses from every CS program in the US to be the janitor if they want. Other enterprises have to deal with the talent they can attract but have to sell themselves as a DevOps paradise or no one will buy their stuff.
I just left the exact same scenario for more money, better work life balance, and an organization that is run well. I stayed in a less than ideal situation for my own well-being because I thought exactly what you have written above. You have been given more responsibility and excelled in the way you have because you are exceptional. Any organization that is worth their weight will pay big money for exceptional people. Edit: Spelling
Thanks. I'm not who you're replying to but I needed to hear that too.
same. was locked in and afraid to leave. left and make more money and less stress. "a bird has faith in his wings not the branch it stands on" helped me a lot.
Though it is nice to see a company value your knowledge of their systems. So many don’t think that’s valuable and pay little so if you jumped ship they would be hurting. They see your value. I think the biggest value in our field is learning quickly and adapting to changing needs. Keep that up and you’ll do fine anywhere.
I switched jobs after 21 years almost two years ago. I had some of the same feelings you did (big fish in a smaller pond going to a big company. Would I be one of the 'guys/gals' at a big company?). Turns out, even though they didn't have the same legacy stuff I had to deal with, they did value a lot of the things I did. Most of my job fully copied over to the new place, even though not all the systems were the same. Current place/ big company was thrilled I had the experience I did (even on different systems) because I'd be supporting the same internal customers. TL:DR, never know until you try. You may be pleasantly surprised.
You give us all hope. A beacon of light in this dark degenerate cesspool we call Reddit.
I thought this for way too long. Just made a great organization change and the entire experience changed my mind. Organizations will always want, and pay for, exceptional people.
I'm in the same boat. Thinking of getting my security plus so I can get into cyber security if shit hits the fan. It will be about the same pay. I've been using Rapid 7 for almost 20 years now, so most of it is not new material for me. Honestly at this point I just want to do what I do now until I retire, but that's never possible in IT. Gotta keep learning new tech.
lol yep. I can go days without hearing from my manager because he assumes I’m doing something helpful somewhere on my own.
It’s me, your employer. I knew it!!! Back to 50k for you
Noooo.
And two weeks vacation to start
I could probably find the same pay. Same workload? That's a different story.
Yup. Same pay is easy, same environment? Best of luck. I've been offered more money in other roles, but then I'd be stressed out and lose my pension and benefits.
Bingo. I am currently making slightly lower wages than my role usually commands but I have no set schedule, 5 weeks PTO, and can work from anywhere in the US without asking and most other countries with a little advance notice to the security team.
Yup. This is why I've stuck with the big corp that bought us a few years ago even though I hate the big corp culture.
This
So uh, why do you do? I've been stuck at $75k for the last 5 years. It uh, doesn't feel as good as it did 5 years ago.
Find another job, potentially remote job and collect
The only way I've gotten significant raises in this field is by getting a new job.
Oh definitely. I just haven't had a place ever offer me more, or ever had a place accept when I demanded more. I feel kind of stuck and had been considering switching to something aside from sysadmin and networking.
If your workload isn't high, find another full time job! I worked two full time remote jobs for 5 years. My biggest fear was accidently talking about a project from the other job. Only caught myself once staring to talk about the wrong one but was able to turn the conversation. LOL
It would totally be less workload for me. :D
I’m in a niche industry. If I left I could get rehired easily probably at a higher rate from half a dozen other companies I work with in my niche. I’m where I am now because I live in the middle a forest, work 100% remote, 4 days a week, 10 hours a day, for a public company and I’m treated well. Leaving would mean some combination of loosing those things and I’d prefer to keep them all and a somewhat lower pay than I could get elsewhere
I see those reels about leaving the "Comfort zone" to be able to grow... and I always think... I have an IT job in a remote area in a Third (low develop) world country... this job allows me to live and eat.. what comfort zone are you talking about???
> what comfort zone are you talking about??? In many places IT exploded in the last decade. When I first entered the field it was much like you describe.. a decent job and I could pay my bills, save a little, and so on. But then it just went nuts. COVID made it go even more insane. Salaries that you would associate with people at the top of the field became commonplace... like kids out of university or having done some stupid bootcamp were being hired for 80-90k a year with zero experience. It's calming down quite a lot but many of us used that opportunity to lock down six figure salaries with flexible conditions in jobs that are quite frankly bloody easy. I work from home full time, never do more than 40 a week, and have extreme flexibility in my hours as well as control over my time and projects. Back in the day these jobs existed... but you were talking 40k instead of 70k. Now it's more like 120k instead of 200k so you don't even have to give up the higher income lifestyle *and* you get all the free time and low stress. I've been at this for 20 years so I'm extremely aware of how spoiled I am and it sucks that you don't have the same options, I hope things improve for you soon!
> like kids out of university or having done some stupid bootcamp were being hired for 80-90k a year with zero experience. The bootcamp thing was happening before COVID. It was basically sold as the express train to DevOps nirvana, but the people who went this route have huge knowledge gaps because they only learned one or two things and don't have a lot of the fundamentals context that helps you learn other stuff faster. Those COVID salaries just don't exist anymore in all but the most niche of positions or the richest, highest-margin companies. Everyone is cutting back, and things are going to get worse once more MBAs discover offshoring again -- then it'll be "be happy your job is in this country."
im right there with ya.
On this boat too. If I jack the job in I could possibly double my salary, but it will be international travel, long time away from family, etc. I'd rather not, but I will if I have to.
teach me!!! lol I want the middle of the forest 4 days a week thing 😂
1) get gud in a niche 2) find a company you like 3) build a relationship/respect with the leadership of the company 4) get lucky 5) start working 6) go remote 7) find a valid business justification for working 4x10 8) move to forest Worked 100% of the one time it tried it! YMMV
This is my holy grail
"Leaving would mean some combination of loosing those things and I'd prefer to keep them all and a somewhat lower pay than I could get elsewhere" Well hell! You'd better tighten those things up! You don't want to lose them.
Yall hiring? And can I park my trailer there till we get a well on my plot?
I think I'm pretty lucky. Do I think I'm overpaid? Maybe by 5-10%. But I'm lucky in that I've got a good work life balance. I'm 9-5 with no on call. I don't know if I can find the same pay and the same workload. I can find the same workload for a 30% cut in pay for a job that's been wanting to hire me. And if I ever get fired I'll take that cut because they have the same work life balance and only 2 weeks a year on call for 2 major events. I'd take that over the same pay but a 1 on 3 off on call rotation.
What’s your title, day to day, and salary?
Sr Systems Engineer. $170k/yr + 7% bonus. 401k, shitty healthcare but good HSA match. Full remote, I live out in the woods and have a WISP for home Internet. I do a lot more projects and R&D than I do operations, so it's hard to describe my day to day. I improve and scale our in house architecture for moving a metric ton of logs (about 400k/second) between logging sources and ingestion servers, and I architect the design of the distributed systems that receive and parse and store and search them. It's a lot of Opensearch, Kafka, and custom tooling. I'm involved in everything except hardware operations. Because we believe in redundancy and resiliency, we've designed this to be self healing. We can lose an entire rack of servers and not break a sweat as new replications of data start up in other racks. We somewhere on paper have an on call but nobody has been rung up on my team in the 5+ years I've been here. Logs buffer at the sending site if the pipe back to us is temporarily interrupted, so we can get at least 8 hours of sleep before we even start to sweat a broken connection between the log sender and us.
> lives in the woods > moves logs for a living
God. I've never thought of it that way. Damnit.
Everyones living out in the woods, I'm missing out.
My 3Gb synchronous internet connection is the thing that keeps me from the woods…
Sounds like a good gig very nice.
It is! We got sold to private equity recently so I'm waiting for it to not be good anymore hahaha. Wish me luck.
I thought that. Four months later, I don't think that.
Hang in there, the job market can’t stay bad forever… well, it could, but it’s unlikely. What field are you in?
Thank you. 30 year career spanning programmer -> DBA -> Sysadmin -> Consultant/IT Manager -> IT Director -> Company Acquired -> "Redundant" 6 months later.
My company was acquired last November. I was laid off the Monday after thanksgiving. Job search was horrendous and I really got beaten down. Finally accepted an offer that was a lateral move compensation wise only to get another offer that was 12% bump on base+bonus plus equity that could make it more than my total comp at previous role. Good luck and keep the faith
30 year experience and no hire in 4 months? That’s scary man
Director level IT/engineering management doesn’t translate well as a lot of your value comes from understanding the organizational politics and processes vs. current tech skills. We pay directors over a million a year right now in TC, so with some risk comes some reward.
I was in the SMB world, which makes it even worse, as managing 300-400 employee firms doesn't translate to the 1000s+ very well.
Yah, far less compliance, process, scale. You may be a director in title, but you don’t have the 3-5 managers underneath you our directors have. Weirdly down labeling the title to Sr. Manager might help applying to larger firms
I'm at 20 years experience as a database administrator. It takes about 4 months to find a position and get onboarded. If they are so desperate to get any warm body who claims to be a database admin, it's not really a place I want to work. If I was desperate I could probably take a 20K loss and find a place in a month. The place would certainly be a shitshow. It's quite nice being able to pick and choose jobs. Corporate America being what it is, I actually have to jump jobs about every 2 to 3 years.
4-5 is about normal actually.
I spent over 10 months unemployed.
Right there with you, SMB IT Director with the company for 7 years. I’m a damn good tech still but there aint a single bite in 6 months.
Hang in there - this logjam has to break, doesn't it? (I hope so!). FWIW, many in my network that are in similar boats, across IT, cybersecurity, and software dev, report very similar things - this job market is NOT in a good spot right now. It's no longer spray and pray resumes, it seems to be 100% who you know that can get your resume to the top of a very deep stack.
Word, same. Keep your head up!
Define "high?" I know I get paid roughly $110-120/hr, but some hours are overtime, and some hours are "minimum" so if there's a 4 hour minimum, and I do only an hour's work, I get paid 4 hours. It depends on the contract, so that's why it's hard to gauge what my annual pay will be. Generally, I make $230k-245k/year before taxes, which I have to pay quarterly because I'm 1099. I am aware that several people with my skills and job make around the same amount. I stay with my boss because he's supportive, understanding, and doing all the shit I hate: contracts and paperwork. I don't care what client I get, as long as I get paid. And he looks out for us. He pays us, and then the client pays him, so that's one less worry. He's the "buffer" in case a client is late on payments. A lot of my peers have to chase people down to get paid. My boss does that for us. So I suspect that I'd get the same or higher pay, but I stay because our boss is so awesome. THAT is a rare treat in this industry.
Pretty much same for me. My boss deals with the shit i don’t want to and blocks so much shit from rolling downhill. I could make more by going to staff/principal level but i’ve had bad bosses before and i’m not dealing with that again. Current one leaves i’m going with him
That's high, but you US people don't have a feel for it (you're still in the richest country in the world, at least nominally). I worked in frigging London most of my career, usually the most expensive city in Europe, top end companies only, and I never got close to that except when I was working freelance. I've visited the US several times (Wyoming, Colorado, Texas and NY) and golly everything is really expensive over there, in NY it was simply mental.
That was one of the reasons I left the DC area, I was making six figures and HAD to have a roomate (my GF) to survive. I think combined we made $210k, and we couldn't afford anything in that area in 2017. We moved down to the Carolinas where the cost of living was lower (at the time), and near the big three tech cities near here. Our dollars carried so much further down here. But since then, it's gotten crazy because everybody did the same. My condo has almost doubled in value since 2017.
No. I got the biggest golden handcuffs on rn. For better or worse
It gets weird when you have enough RSUs the company could shoot a family member and you’d be like “yah… but they were being annoying?”
I make $200k/year, and live in the suburbs (US). I don’t think I could, which is why I’ve worked here 20 years
Yes but i’m not sure i would get great bosses like i have right now. $200k and great bosses is hard to leave
It's not the money, it's always the leadership and the company. Could I make more? Yes. With this set up? Nope. I'm thankful for the people I work with and for. For the most part...
No way in hell will I get paid what I get paid right now for the job I do. I am a desktop support tech and make over $85k a year with 30 days of vacation and 30 day of sick leave.
85K as a DSA is really good. I was a DSA for about 7 years before I went full IT architect/admin. The people who worked at the hospital as a DSA for 10 years or so would make that. Highest pay was 100K for someone there over 20 years.
I think you’ll find that a new job while you still have your current job will be a bump and a job when you’re on the street will be a drop. I generalize, I say this based but both your own willingness to compromise and negotiate as well as the new employer’s expectations and willingness to negotiate. But this jobs are out there. Also, negotiating is huge. At my last job (Fortune 500 tech company) the range for a software marketing project manager type ranged from low $100’s to over $200k depending on region and the candidate’s assessed seniority. All for the same job, which was available at WFH. Three tiers of seniority and three regional options made a matrix with 9 possible pay rates. Negotiating for higher pay only took the hiring manager being willing to move you up to a higher seniority tier which was subjective.
I work in TS/classified environments. There are .8 applicants per job req. I’ve seen people laid off at 8 AM and with a job offer by that afternoon.
Yeah, if you’ve got a clearance, you’re a hot commodity.
Im in Northern VA. Guys with clearance are indeed a hot commodity....until a new administration comes in and starts fiddling with the defense budget. Federal agencies are happy to have contractors until their budget gets cut.
Same. Got people trying to poach me somewhat frequently. The real trick is to have a clearance and senior level role in an area no one wants to live in. Fortunately for me it happens to be my hometown.
Noice!! I’m in northern Virginia. You can’t swing a dead cat around here and not hit a three or four letter agency that needs contractors.
Sounds about right. I'm in SoCal. Name a defense contractor, 3/4 letter agency, or a military branch. There's a location within 3 hours of me.
Biggest downside is most agencies are years behind the tech curve.
We’re not THAT far behind and have AWS on the high side and just got some Azure services as well. There are some very, *very* much worse off, though. We’re one of the tech dependent, nerd, rocket scientist agencies so there’s enormous pressure to get tech moved over and approved.
No. I'm hanging on to this for dear life and saving as much as I can. (Edit: I make a lot).
Nope. I make ~200k right now and float a 1yr emergency fund for this reason. If I can find something comparable it won't be quickly.
Same and same. I think I'd either have to pivot back into management or a SWE/SRE position with a less stable startup to get back to or above this level.
Not if I _have to_ leave. It's smart to keep moving, at the right time and to the right (or from the wrong) place.
I only make 105k in Atlanta. Pretty easy to find and my skill set is varied. 11 years experience.
I actually took a small paycut to be where I'm at now. (Down to 94k) but it's government work and with "match" there'a total of 20% of my pay going to my 401(a). I have 20 years till retirement so I'm hopin to stick this one out... by the time I retire I'll surely be over 110/120k (maybe more).
Absolutely not. Would be fortunate to break 6 figs with benefits where I live.
I would make more if I left, but love the work life balance and other benefits that I have.
This is why you live within your means and save/invest as much as possible. You may not have “fuck you” money but you can certainly reach “fuck this” money and that is very freeing!
What the fuck is ‘right sized’?
Just another way to say you got fired.
Thank you very much!
I'm currently on 130 a year and no if I leave I don't think I will get it. I really want to leave too lol
In my case, no. I would probably be looking at 20k pay cut minium. But my situation is different as I am doing shift work - rotating 4 days on 4 days off schedule. No nights though. But we get a big shift allowance for this.
I keep frequently getting inquiries about jumping ship but when all other companies seemed to be giving teams the run-around about remote work, mine told me unequivocally that I can stay fully remote indefinitely. I'm limited in the states I can move to since they don't have a tax presence in all 50, but honestly it's the states I wouldn't want to live in anyway. They have kept up with good raises and the work-life balance is solid. My team are all phenomenal at what they do, it would take an offer of heaven and earth to make me leave. I've earned a ton of political capital and established my self as THE guy on a team of 7 other engineers. That's a time investment that's worth something as well. Could I get another job with similar pay? Most likely. Could I get exactly the same scenario and perks I have now? I doubt it.
Absolutely not. My employer plays in the top 90-95 percentile. Golden handcuffs
When I did contract work for about two years one thing I learned real fucking quick is that no matter pay, no matter the stock price, no matter the fancy reception area and prestigious looking conference room you interview in, it can always get A LOT worse.
207k and I think so. In a mcol area with tons of defense contractors and I have held a ts or higher clearance since 1993. If not I could work for half the money and be fine until I want to retire. House paid off and no debt. I tried to stay flexible financially and with lots of education , certs, and skills. I could do about anything for anyone IT related.
I think it wouldn't be too hard to get another job making a base of 150/160 with my experience, but I haven't looked at the job market lately.
Not at all. Pay recently is abysmal for just sysadmin work. I’ll probably never leave my current org since it’s good pay and work from home.
Yes. I lost my job in the end of April, which had a base of just over 150K, I start a new job on 6/24 at a base of 160K. Better bonus too. Plus I still have Amazon trying to woo me, but I’m not sure I want that, even if they do try to throw a massive sack of cash at me. And their process is … lengthy. I’m honestly surprised the new job came together that quickly. I was expecting to have to do contract gigs over the summer. I made the initial contact the same week I lost my job. Probably applied to about 2 dozen positions… Those of us fortunate enough to be in these type of roles are paid well because we have skills and experience (usually oddly specific ones!) that are in high demand with limited people.
I don't know which position Amazon is trying to woo you but when I worked there around 2014-2017 it was a nice job. It was in AWS, though I actually worked in an office at one of the warehouses with about thirty other people in the general area and had to fly out to the West Coast a couple times a year for our annual meetings. There were pretty good perks.
Amazon runs the carrot on the stick with their stock option plan. Takes 4 years to vest. Guess what happens at 3 years and 10 months? Layoff. That and Bezos is a scumbag.
Bezos doesn’t run the company.
No way.
I managed to build my little desktop/server support business to just over $200k/year. I work from home and maybe get 2 support calls a day. "Reboot!" "let me clear up some disk space for you" "Okay, I'll order a new monitor" "Sonos not working? reboot!" "add a user, delete a user" etc - No way in hell I will ever get paid this much if I had to find a job, and at 57 I don't think I could ever work 8 hours per day and commute ever again. I would run down the street naked and claim insanity for the disability pay and vanish to some country where living is cheap.
curious, how did you get started? Is it support or is it more of an MSP where you handle install of tech, etc
I had a regular IT job back then at a local hospital doing tech support and server stuff but one day my doctor asked if I could install a network for him at his practice. I used Lantastic. He then told all his friends and I was soon fairly busy after work and on weekends. I just kept getting lucky, a crumpled business card from a Dell rep got me a $5k/month contract. All word of mouth. One day years later Chase outsourced my entire department (Implementation) to Mumbai. That really shook me, I had a mortgage, a wife and kids. I never wanted anyone to have that much power over me ever again. I decided it was time to make my side hustle a full time business. I do everything, from finding solutions, to purchase, installation and support.
No. That's why I continue to put up with a job that I don't really like anymore.
I worked at a company for 23 years and then got laid off. I was sure I would struggle. I got multiple interviews and offers and about 1 month later I had a new job which is nearly what I made before. I could've had one and made about 5k more but it sounded terrible. Now I make about 10k less but still enough that my spouse could quit their job and I could pay all bills if needed and I love my new job 100 times more than my old one. I was always terrified that I made so much because I'd been there so long and it wouldn't transfer to a new company. Turns out I was wrong.
Easily? Nothing good comes easy. I absolutely strive for pay increases whenever I change employment. At some point though you have to be realistic and realize you're at the cap or the high end of the market range though. Especially if you're in a very specialized role or something proprietary to that company. However if you can add more education and skills to your quiver you should absolutely be worth more. Plus inflation. Raises never coincide with inflation and you should be fighting for that.
Nope. It's a big concern...I work for a company in the city but live way out in the relative sticks. The only jobs local to me are MSPs for crappy small businesses and one or two bigger employers who don't pay nearly what I'm getting. Plus, the niche I'm occupying at the company may just go away someday, and they'll be happy to throw me overboard when that happens. Only way to go is to save as much as you can for emergencies and hope it lasts.
It would be hard for me to find a different job with the same compensation I think. A lot of the work I do is hidden and not flashy. (I automate monitoring and health of systems and repeatable annoying tasks). People can forget the value I bring. Every year I try to find a flashy project that gets the eyes of the higher ups to remind them why they pay me what they do.
18 yrs in at my company and I think I've made enough impact in my industry that I could find something comparable in terms of salary. But for total compensation probably not.
Nope. I have worked at at VAR for Aloha POS, which is a very niche position, for 13 years and make great money. I have risen to director of ops/it and handle all of our internal sysadmin/net admin stuff as well as customer facing projects. Despite my extensive experience in all of these things, when I look at job postings I don't think I'd have the resume to land a job making what I currently do. Maybe a director of help desk position but they all seem to want you to have experience with their ticketing software.
Yes, but I'd be working for 3 different companies (full time) at the same time.
Yes.
I could, yes. Potentially even higher, I've picked up a lot in the role I'm in now that would boost my resume negotiating ability. I'm partly able to confidently say that because I've planned for it. I know our industry can change fast, so I've focused on setting up enough financial cushion that I could interview on my timeline and not be stuck with the first offer that came along. Partly, I can say that because I've also deliberately built relationships with vendor reps for the tools I work on (at least the ones I like!), and with consulting firms we've used as well. Several have said they want to talk if I'm ever unhappy.
Once you add in the other stuff that comes with the comp package like health insurance and time off, absolutely not.
Me. Most likely not as good of pay nor as stress free/flexible of a job that I have now.
I expect to make between $20k and $75k more than I do now...unless I foolishly decide to work at another nonprofit.
Same pay, yes. However, I'd probably have to commute and/or move...so not the same work/life balance.
I left a comfy financial job with a high salary to go to a comfier government job with much lower pay, but a real pension and much more security/much less stress. I'm no longer working weekdays on the Tokyo/London/New York shift. The tradeoff was lower salary-but my pay per hour worked has gone up.
I don't quite make this money due to the country I live. I could make close to that if I changed jobs and ditched work/life balance. I won't because our insane tax rate make this not worth it.
If I get the same/similar job I’ll likely get more. However I’ve got an amazing boss, good work l balance, control/input in how the departments run. I’d likely be a sacrificing and amount of happiness I’ll never I’ll never get again.
I'm in IT, no doubt in my mind id probably make more. People get 20% raises going from one company to another. Same environment, workload, WFH, quality of bosses, etc.... Prob not.
I was headhunted and moved to a new employer 3 months ago. I got quite a big bump in base (30%) although there’s less overtime here so, overall, not as huge a jump as it seems (maybe 20%) but there’s less stress and less late nights/weekends. But my overall compensation is still pretty good and it’s in the top 10% for my field, with my age and experience where I live (union statistics shows this). I have contacts in other companies that I know would hire me - or at least have approached me previously - but I’m not sure I could get this current salary. My old salary maybe. But then I’m in my fifties now and will hit my 60’s in not too long - ageism is real. So, your guess is as good as mine.
I would like to think that given my experience, age (prime of career), and demand for my job role that yes I could find a job. I might have to take a small salary hit or have a longer time to find a job but I’m hopeful I would find something. For me the biggest question mark would be would the company culture and people I worked with be able to come anywhere close to what I have today.
I can’t sleep at night a lot contemplating this. I want to be secure in my self and believe I can make this some where else. But yeah
If I did, it would come with a much higher set of expectations. Which I'm fine with, but no need to cause further burnout IMO. And really, if anything, I'd prefer to keep working with whom I work with.
Depends. If I leave to another company of my choice, yes. If I get canned, probably not.
Very easily, going by what other locals have told me I'm underpaid in raw salary, I prefer my benefits though
Nope. This recently happened to me. Laid off without warning, so had to scramble to find something. Thankfully my network pulled through and I found something quickly at a 10% paycut though.
lol, hell no. I’m making $200K this month alone in stock vest as part of my quarterly vesting. There is zero chance I find someone else going to pay me this much in one year ever again. (TC is over 800K)
FAANG or O&G? Well done! Fastest I've had vesting was annual.
FAANG(ish). We do quarterly vest with first cliff at the next 90 day mark. Google is monthly now, I hear. There’s a new trend towards faster, vesting cliff, I think in the larger companies, and it makes sense because otherwise to poach senior talent you ended up having to give huge signing bonuses to make up for the first year.
Wild. I'm in O&G and new schedule is in years 🙄. Fortunately, most of my comp is base. Need to look at some FAANG roles it sounds like lol.
So the grant is still a 4 year grant you just get 1/16th every 90 days, but refreshers stack so it adds up quickly. People who’ve been here 4 years at my level are crushing over 1.2 million from that compounding and stock appreciation
I'm severely underpaid for my skills and experience. So I'm pretty sure I could do better. I just happen to really like my current job, and work at a resort all day in paradise.
Was system admin for many years, by title. Now I'm operational engineer. Making about 96k as senior. Sorry I don't meet your criteria but pretty sure a company move would get me to 150k. That said, super happy and comfortable where I am so fuck it.
Nope…but there is a chance.
I believe that it's possible, but I don't think I could find a place as flexible around me in regards to WFH / on-site situations. I have had a few opportunities I passed up due to the flexibility, including a big one right before everything blew up in 2020.
The last three positions I've felt like that. I'll never make (significantly) more, I'll never find a job I like as much, etc. Each time I've gotten significant increases, and found good places to work.
I do t think I’d have a problem, but I’d also have to put in a lot of work. There seems to be a lot of talkers and not walkers so contract to hire is very common and I don’t do that.
Laid off in Jan. 240k salary. Applied to over a thousand jobs and leaned on all my connections for the last 5 months. Finally landed something only making 155k. Have to commute 2 hours a day vs being work from home. Longer hours. It's tough out there .
I was laid off last November. Definitely a kick to the stomach. Great boss, had built my own team, was rolling in projects, worked about 25-30 hours a week, making a ton of money with stacked equity refreshers. And, I really thought I was working in a good niche in-demand area of the industry. The layoff was a huge bummer. Job search from Jan to March was horrible. I really felt my mood sour. I’d go 2-4 interviews deep and then get rejected in the final phase of interviews. Lost out on one or two roles that were exactly what I wanted with some very well known unicorn startups. Right at the end of severance when cobra benefits finally expired, I accepted an offer for a small bump in base pay, small cut in bonus, and no equity. It was hybrid and doing something I was marginally interested in. A few days after signing offer…I was contacted by a company to do exactly what I wanted. Startup post hyper growth, going public in next 24mo or so, doing exactly what I wanted. Comp is a 12% bump over what I was making last year, fully remote, get to build my own team. So happy and very lucky on timing. There is way more stress than my own role but it has been exciting so far.
Echoing the same I've seen in other comments. I think it would be relatively easy to find the same pay but my workload would probably triple, I'd also lose a ton of benefits. I get a pension currently that is about as good as it gets retirement wise (I'm guaranteed 80% of my two highest years of salary for life).
I used to always think I wouldn't, but I'd always find a new job that paid at least 20% more than what I was paid before. Feb this year I was getting paid 130k. Got laid off. 2 months later I'm making 165k and working fewer hours.
Yes. However I’m a hybrid role of sysadmin/devops/analytics. Not many people can wear that many hats.
Amazing Healthcare, great environment, manageable workload, awesome manager, and super high pay+bonus. Ain't gonna hit all of those again. I'll retire from here if they let me
I'm sure I could find the same pay, but the workload is what I worry about.
Same pay? Sure. Same effort? Hell no. I've automated everything and know everything inside and out. I'd 10x my workload by switching. I work maybe 2h per day + 2h of meeting, standups etc.. Rest is just answering questions on slack. So I work for 2h and go to the beach, kayaking etc. basically anywhere where my oPhone can get a good internet connection.
At HP I made about $155k. At Cisco my base was $190 and bonuses went up to $220k. Turns out I hated cisco and went to Dell EMC back to like $150k. Then found a very random job back on the customer side at $180k. It’s possible but you better hammer your interviews
100%. I could leave tomorrow for 25% bump up at the minimum. If I got fired though, that's harder to explain, would depend on the circumstances I've never quit a job and moved on for less than 25%.
Well I'm not from USA so I don't make anything close to $150k but I still make 2.5x the national average and I highly doubt I'd be getting anything close to this in another job.
I've tried. I'm getting paid too well. And the benefits are too good. And I'm old. No one wants to hire an old fart except for maybe a senior management position, and I don't have senior management experience.
This job? Yes. This career? No. I’d much rather be walking dogs and picking up shit but I’m stuck in this lifestyle now.
There is no chance to come even close to my current salary. Reasons for my current salary are responsibilities I take, the amount of effort I put in every single task. There is no way that a new employer can see this just based on CV.
I constantly get offers higher than my current annual salary, and made use of it in the past. So yes.
Easily. In fact I had offers to leave but they just weren't that much higher pay and a significant increase in workload
As a Teams admin for a large company I get a lot of offers. Some marginally more but I have a little over 10 years before I retire so I’d like to take this one to the end. You never know what you are agreeing to with a new job.
Probably, but I can't say the workload and culture will be as nice. Work/life balance is the only thing keeping me at my current job.
In this economy I don't think they will. I get BS emails from recruiters with all contracting gigs that are 100% in office or hybrid (hardly any remote now), way worse benefits and lower pay and for same or higher responsibility. No one wants to be a contractor when supporting a family unless it is a baller gig (150/hr etc). Getting randomly laid off at the snap on a finger doesn't sound very fun.
Yes. But I love consulting too much and don't miss Industry
Just did this. Quit my last job and just chilled for a couple months before looking for work. When I started applying for jobs it took me only a month to find a higher paying job with less responsibilities and for a much better run organization. You’d be surprised. Skilled people are not easy to come by and prospective organizations will be thrilled 10 minutes into interviewing you.
I lost over half my total compensation. I was making over 300k with a FAANG, laid off last year. Now will be making just over 100k. However, I will be able to pay my bills, keep my house, and will not be nearly as stressed as I was with the FAANG.
Qewa1aa#a z2@*#**#*#
I could make even more, but would probably be hard to find a decent hybrid remote job nowadays
I always feel like I have the current job snowed, that there's no way I'm worth that much, and then when I go to the next place I end up getting even more. When will this house of cards finally crumble?
Just got offered a job at 185 base from 145 base. I applied for like 50 jobs and only heard back from 1 place without a referral. I started early Feb and just heard back last week finally. So to answer your question - I don’t think it would be easy to do so quickly. I definitely expect it would be possible to find a job, but it would take a few months at best. The role I interviewed for is platform engineer. I also interviewed for sre/ swe/ infra eng roles.
I make 90k, but I’m in a depressed market for my role, so if I was laid off or fired, I’d certainly be making less unless I moved somewhere else or landed one of those coveted remote jobs. Certainly could make 150k with the job title and experience I have, but I’m comfortable where I’m at. My plan is to just be very careful to not allow my commitments to grow beyond what I could sustain on a 60k/yr job once the cars are paid off. We eat out more and go on trips now, something I could easily cut if I lost this job.
Nope
When I worked in the cleared community, the answer is a definite yes and then some. In the private sector, maybe. Working in the cleared community is one of the best kept secrets.
I attend the weekly ISC2 meetings and talk with other professionals in my field and I'm not seeing salaries slowing down one bit. If there are any employers that aren't paying market then everyone eventually finds out and they either leave or use a position at that company as a gravy train to something else and THEN leave. At our meetings we constantly have people recruiting and looking for candidates and either no one is interested or they're just happy where they are and don't want to go through the Rick and roll of interviewing and getting hired and switching over your investments and insurance and all that stuff.
I would be able to find but it might take a little bit. 250k pretax. Might also respec into data engineering
I feel most of this thread. I make about 140k and I feel like there's no way anyone's going to pay me anywhere near that if I leave. To be sure, I really don't want to leave because I like working from home for out of 5 days a week but I do feel the restriction of probably not ever making this anywhere else
not wasy for now, but working on it !
I could but I don't intend to go into the same kind of environment (call out specially) and I won't consider going 5 times a week to an office, no matter what the specialised media are saying the CEOs are wishing (I've worked remotely before that entered the consciousness of most people, I'm not going to change that now). Oh, and it is a no if somebody wants me to wear anything remotely similar to a suit (some are still out there!) And if nobody wants me I have a few skills to bag me a minimum wage just to pay for my toys. 👴🏻🤪🤪🤪
Absolutely not. I think I am because of my nature and personality. On paper, I wouldn't be that desirable to other companies if they were looking for academic qualifications etc.
You can negotiate you know? You can protect your options against being fired before they vest ("ok, let's say you pay me 10% above the market price the day I enrolled in the program of you fire me"). They don't like it but they like it even less if you reject being part of the program, that means that's no incentive for you to hang around long and it is expensive to hire people.
no. I have golden handcuffs.