So I'm not at one of these big companies but I'm currently working out of Santa Monica as a DevOps engineer and making roughly 100k. I keep seeing these salaries for 150k+ and wondering how in the world you even get close to negotiating that payscale? I have at least 12 years of programming experience, 8 years of professional experience, 3 years of freelancing, a BS in computer science, and plenty of side projects to showcase my abilities. I can't get my foot in the door for senior positions for some reason and during interviews I feel like I capably answer the questions asked. I'm a white male if that makes any difference, of which I hope it doesn't... There are the few questions that have optimal runtimes of factorial. I have a hard time getting those, are there steps to take so I can get by the interview question tricks?
Just LeetCode until you become Jeff Dean, ain’t really no shortcut about it.
I guess...
leetcode
Well, here is a hard to swallow pill. There's what you think is your value and your real value. You might have a disalignment between those two concepts because you are factoring your experience as the main driver of that value. Unfortunately that's not the case. There's always going to be someone younger, smarter, more capable, with more impressive side projects than you, but half of the experience. You would say, "well I have twice the experience, I gotta be at least as valuable as that person even though my side projects are not as impressive"...well no. Here's what someone hiring would see: "why should we give an interview to this guy if with 12 years of experience he is still at this theoretical level. Maybe he is great, but I can't get that from his experience or projects, so I would go with this other guy who on paper looks more promising and with more potential" That's the ocam's razor of hiring. You don't want to guess and play bets. You go with what's simple and safe on paper. Now let me rephrase all this and give you an advice. Seniority is not only about experience measured in time but also experience measured in impact. I rather hire the guy with 3 years of experience dealing with highly complex and critical systems than hiring the guy with 6 years who is solid but has been working in less critical systems and more mundane tasks. My advice is. Readjust your perception of value. Don't apply for senior positions. Apply for mid-level positions. If you're smart and good you will get promoted fast. Good news is that you can get +$150k salaries with mid level jobs and you don't need a FANG company for that. Many companies will pay those salaries for good engineers. So in summary. Recalibrate your expectations.
It's not necessarily a hard pill to swallow, there is some reason I'm not getting mid to senior positions and I don't have the illusion that # of years equals higher pay but I thought with all of things it would at least add to something. I'm not striving to work at any FANG company right now, it could very likely be how I struggle with the theoretical whiteboard problems.
What do you think companies are looking for in more senior candidates? If you think it’s technical proficiency, or experience with a wide range of technologies then that might be part of why you are having trouble getting those. Certainly you need to be able to solve those puzzles in the interview, but those same puzzles are solved by the new grads. Seniority means leadership, autonomy, and comfort with ambiguity. For a senior engineer I would expect to see these things in a resume and during any soft skill interviews. Hope that helps.
I've managed a small team before, but I'd expect senior engineers to be able to answer questions the regular engineers have.
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You have to keep in mind that most of the users are in big cities where cost of living is higher. For big companies they don’t care about your current TC so if you get an offer it will be in the same ballpark as the rest generally. That being said if you want higher TC you have to move but your spending would also increase
Santa Monica isn't cheap at all, I feel the salary in this area should at least be 135k but I'm bringing in 100k and spending almost over 50% on rent itself. I could live far out into LA but I don't want a commute where I spend 2 hours a day doing nothing but driving...
You’re right but Santa Monica isn’t a tech scene. I think there’s only Hulu and Snap? I’ll give you an example, Hawaii is expensive af but I bet their tech salary isn’t high either