Those in telecom, what do you actually do? TC breakdown?
Sometimes titles can be ambiguous at best, inflated at worst. I’ll go first - I’m a switch engineer on the repair side of the house. On the surface, we mostly work call completion, audio, and IPTF/IPIVR issues that occur outside of a customer’s CPE. We check stats on LD trunk groups and if we see errors, refer it out to field dispatch to visit the central office and test. Most of our work is in DMS, 5ESS, EWSD, and DEX switches, command prompt style inputs and barely colorized menus (think Windows 1.0, yes actually 1.0, not even 3.1). Sometimes we use Iris to search calls that hit our VoIP network, but other apps (Like GeoProbe for SS7 calls) must be run under emulation because it is a 16-bit app trying to run on Windows 10 64-bit. As far as pay and comp, I believe I’ve hit the ceiling for what I do, as an FTE at least. Short of some 6-month gun for hire contract, I will not be searching for new opportunities. $43.87/hr in NC, not union, but hourly w/overtime (2.0x after 51) and we partake in management benefits (read: cheaper premiums) as opposed to “associate” benefits which have higher deductibles and cost more to the employee. I regularly participate working overtime, when available. Annual bonus is 10%, I also receieve a 10% shift differential for working evenings. Our overnight guys get 15%. TC (base + bonus) $100k TC (base + bonus + diff) $109k TC (base + bonus + diff + OT) $151k last year Most money is made during outages, strike coverage, and even sometimes when other carriers’ networks fail and it affects some of our traffic that passes through. Job satisfaction: 100%
This guy gets it...
It's nice to do a job that has a purpose!
I'm an Outside Plant Engineer, TC 100k, no diff and no OT opportunities available on a regular basis
Application developer/system engineer ( truly depends on the day) TC 100k Midwest Love my job, I work 36 hrs a week and my boss/coworkers think I’m a rockstar.
IP routing and switching infrastructure security work - core IP network which support many services (from applications and websites to VoLTE, partner connections, VoWIFI, etc). All the SiP/VOIP, SS7/Sigtran, backhaul links, LTE/IMS/Messaging services pass through the IP core.
You are IT! I know a T-Mobile call before I even do a LNP lookup on the ANI by the fact that it comes in via Inteliquent (former Neutral Tandem) They’re a great handoff carrier and always entertain our trace requests, even for the most far-fetched Hail Mary you can think of.
I can second this, I love Inteliquent!
Bookmarking you
Network planning...TC 160k, 80/20 split base versus bonus target
Really, when did that change? You're a V6 right? 20% bonus went away?
I think what he means is TC is 160k (and yes, 6V is 20% annual bonus). You have to solve for B to get base. Making us think. Base in different terms is 100%, bonus is 20% of that. So 160/1.2=$133k base. Wireless and wireline are two COMPLETELY different animals for pay structure. They want to “combine orgs” aka move everything to Wireless because their 6V tops at 150k base when wireline is $130k-$191k. There’s also more revenue per GB and less infrastructure (fiber to the tower, there is no “last mile”.) But RF being what it is, you will never have a wireless data center. Spectrum is finite. There will always be wireline. SAR limits, handset batteries, and Netflix keep us in business 😂
Eng 3 band, really doesn't matter the specific name, tbh, a 3 band in Network. 110k base, 10% base fluctuating bonus, when we get one. So 120ish TC. Was a Principal Eng in VZ, hit 120 before ousted, was usually hitting full 20% bonus or more. So 140ish TC. About 19 YOE. I really can't complain, still love what I do, even if what i do changes day by day. I really liked when you talked about the DMS, ESS and EWSD...heh, old iron is slowly being supplanted by virtual and that shit still looks like ancient UX tables and prompts....advanced "hardware", God awful ancient UIs...
Right because even if you no longer use commands for record / stats retrieval, at some level you will interface with SIP switches via a CLI. For maintenance, upgrades, and writing scripts. TDM was and still is a cash cow. I hope it never goes away. I anticipate the life span to be 70-80Y. I am investing in myself and hope to one day be as in demand as those guys who write COBOL for financial networks. Bonus points if you know I just bought:
Yikes, light homework there
I'm an OSP Engineer with 9 YOE, 72k base, 90k target. Last year TC 83k. I think I am underpaid, I work consistent 55+ hour weeks and go on call 7 days straight every 4-5 weeks. Those weeks I clock 90+ hours. That, while being expected to maintain my daily responsibilities with no extra comp. Am I a fool or is anyone else experiencing this? How do I open negotiation of fair comp if I am indeed being underpaid? Suggestions? Opinions?
How do you manage to stay so satisfied, when a lot of us in tech can't do the same even though our jobs are more comfortable and TCs are typically higher?
A lot of what I do is very enjoyable to me, learning about legacy tech. There’s a certain “calm” in knowing that talent is growing more scarce and I will have more job security the longer I stay in it. When we have interviewed, we get a lot of Cisco (CPE) experts and “IT” guys but hardly any “carrier” or service provider technicians. Great group of people I work with, hard workers, very wholesome crowd. I can pay my bills (very small mortgage <$1000 / mo), do whatever I want, and still save 30% with ease. Part of the reason is that my needs are low, I guess. It’s the most money I’ve ever made in my life and I feel very fortunate. 30 y/o, 7 YOE
+1 I’m ex-AT&T. I worked in mobility but loved the legacy wireline stuff. We had a 4ESS team in our office and would volunteer help sometimes just to learn. I went to Google and never really enjoyed my job much since. TC350k