Background: B.E. Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering M.S. Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Experience: 5.2 years (Firmware development, platform development and RF system design over 2 jobs before & after Masters) 7 months internship (full time internship developing the validation platform for a mid-sized semiconductor company) Current Job Title: Software Quality Engineer (Small Semiconductor company based in Austin, Texas) Current package: $93000 (Base pay) No bonus plan & stocks that are currently worthless (Company has been around for 10+ years but doesn’t want to go public) Job Duties: Write C code to test out accurate functionality of the hardware, simulator, instructions and communication protocols. Might soon do some performance analysis. Use Bash shell and Tcl scripting in conjunction with C code. Python on rare occasions. Analyze test failures, find and file bugs and assist in adding solutions to improve the test suite. Assist the RTL team with some test automation. Complete Situation: I have been working at my current small sized company for the past year. On negotiating before joining, I could raise the initial salary from $90k to $92k. No signing bonus or annual bonus. Since I mentioned that I was expecting a much higher pay given my 4 years of prior experience. (2 years before masters & 2 years after), they mentioned that once I spend 6 months in the company, my performance will be evaluated & I’ll get a raise accordingly. Fast-forward 7 months in & the company is not doing too well. I decide to not ask for a raise until things stabilize. After a month & new funding, everyone in the company got a pay hike to “match industry standard salaries”. I got a hike of $1000 & was told that since I was not with the company for even a year, that’s all that I would get. A few days later, I setup a meeting with my manager & expressed my appreciation for the bonus. But I also mentioned to him that I was promised a review that should lead to a hike 6 months in. I told him that I would wait until I complete a year to approach the topic again. He has always been very accommodating, understanding & is a great Manager. He agreed that it was the right way to approach things. Since we don’t have official reviews, during a casual talk with my Manager a while back, he mentioned that he got an overall good feedback (apart from me asking a lot of questions at times). I am planning on talking to him about the raise soon & wanted to have a good case to bring to him. Therefore, here I am, asking you veterans out there for some advice. Since I joined, I have learnt Tcl & Perl for various projects, expanded myself to help people from other teams when they have technical questions & have generally been very flexible. Have worked with almost every team. I like the work, love working with & learning from my colleagues & love the flexibility of the job. However, I feel that the total compensation is highly inferior to my peers. For my current level of experience, am I underpaid? If yes, what would you say would be a good range? (eg. 95k-100k, 100k-105k, etc.) Note: It is a common fact that moving companies or getting a competing offer will get you a pay rise. I'm looking for some industry figures for someone with my experience so that I can use it as a reference while I talk to my Manager. (HR uses the "industry standard" for reference to decide the raise.)
Dude if on top of this you can debug ddr speed clock issues on SOMs and know Linux better than all these people on blind, I have a job for you in sunny LA starting yesterday with relocation
lol for real :) those clock issues suck . @OP see what I told you , demand is real high and hardly any good firmware people around . In one of my last jobs my team took 1 year to find a competent one but hiring bar was high
Haha. If I was only looking for new opportunities right now, this would have been an interesting story to tell your colleagues. "One fine evening, I met this random guy on Blind....."
Are you in NI by any chance? Sounds like the sort of thing they'd do
NI is more than 20 year old ?
Not in NI. But I've heard similar things about them.
NI offered me 65K after my masters in 2011-12
Same in 2013 after undergrad.
I heard that the pay in general is low at NI but they get great benefits.
Intel offered me 70k in Portland after a PhD in 2005 - 2006 Low-ball kings
Intel has a decent sized office in Austin. Any idea whats the salary of a Validation Engineer with about 5 years of experience?
70-80K
Sounds alot like my former employer.
Hope you're in a better place now.
Firmware engineers are in high demand specially someone with RF knowledge . Try for several startups in Bay Area (160-180) minimum or one of the big companies 200-250 TC. Just be ready for many offers as you don’t even know but you are in high demand
I am currently more interested in raising my pay at the current company. Was wondering if you could share some insight regarding compensation for someone in my current role & with comparable experience? (Especially in the Austin area.)
If I do the math correctly you should be getting paid Total Comp (base bonus stocks ) around 100-120K depending on how good you are and not more than 135. It’s Austin Texas no state tax and cost of living is half or more than half compared to Bay Area or Seattle