EQ Never

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
. Your comment is both directionally accurate and misses the point that the most talented engineers will be better paid elsewhere. The highest end gaming developers don't seem well paid or particularly talented as a group. From experience, Amazon pays six figure starting salaries to campus-hires to work in Java on (for example) eventually consistent file stores, distributed caching technologies, network virtualisation, video streaming encodes, etc. I know Google and Facebook offer similar pay scales for grads with equal diversity in skills. A senior talented engineer at these companies makes from $200,000-$400,000, which is vastly beyond what I have seen listed for gaming developers. The top end developers would be leaving $100k++ on the table each year to work in gaming.
Knowing people who have worked at Apple, FB and Amazon these salaries aren't given out simply on talent. A 60 hour week is considered a normal non crunchtime work week. During crunch time you basically live there. This is why they target new grads. They lack families and they just grind on them until they quit. People with a family and kids simply can't work the hours and have a proper balance.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
Knowing people who have worked at Apple, FB and Amazon these salaries aren't given out simply on talent. A 60 hour week is considered a normal non crunchtime work week. During crunch time you basically live there. This is why they target new grads. They lack families and they just grind on them until they quit. People with a family and kids simply can't work the hours and have a proper balance.
As someone with a family, I'll work 60 hour weeks for 100k+ a year.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
As someone with a family, I'll work 60 hour weeks for 100k+ a year.
You may for a few years until it wears on you. And it will wear on you. Eventually you'll realize you can cut your hours by 25% for a 20% pay cut. These tech giants generally attract young grads who are wide eyed about working on something people actually use. They'll get what they need out of them until they quit. There is a reason many of these places offer laundry services and free lunch and dinner. Because you're expected to stay there for dinner. Hell Apple is even offering college style dormitories which feature free rent for many of their employees now. We lost someone on our team to go work for Apple while getting her Masters at Berkley. She was a smart girl but nothing amazing. They just have typical engineers working at these places who are just willing to put in the hours. Personally I'm lazy as hell and I can usually skate by working 32 hours a week. It will take more than 20k/yr salary increase to attract me away from this gravy train.
 

a_skeleton_02

<Banned>
8,130
14,248
You may for a few years until it wears on you. And it will wear on you. Eventually you'll realize you can cut your hours by 25% for a 20% pay cut. These tech giants generally attract young grads who are wide eyed about working on something people actually use. They'll get what they need out of them until they quit. There is a reason many of these places offer laundry services and free lunch and dinner. Because you're expected to stay there for dinner. Hell Apple is even offering college style dormitories which feature free rent for many of their employees now. We lost someone on our team to go work for Apple while getting her Masters at Berkley. She was a smart girl but nothing amazing. They just have typical engineers working at these places who are just willing to put in the hours. Personally I'm lazy as hell and I can usually skate by working 32 hours a week. It will take more than 20k/yr salary increase to attract me away from this gravy train.
100% with you on that, I've shot down offers from other companies with big pay increases because my position is secure, no one bothers me and I can put in what ever hours I want.

Being in a childfree relationship also helps a lot with that mindset as well, I'll take vacation days over salary increases any day.
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
Yeah I'm up to I think 5 weeks of vacation + 5 personal days a year. With 240 hours of vacation rollover per year AND a full compliment of sick hours which I have like 300 hours of banked up. Like I said 32-40 hour weeks, great benefits, I get to pretty much work on what I please and make a very competitive salary for my regional location. Sure I wish more people used and cared about what I work on but at the end of the day I'd prefer to have a healthy life-life instead of enjoying the stink of my own farts by holding my head up high going "Well I work for Google/Twitter/FB/Amazon/Apple."

Circling back to the conversation I'm sure there are many skilled developers out there like me who would just prefer to skate by instead of actually worry about leaving some legacy on computer science and gaming
 

Tenks

Bronze Knight of the Realm
14,163
607
Nah but I do work for a non-profit. We are probably one of very few companies that doesn't have much of a difference for our workers in the states, UK, Netherlands, Australia, Germany or Canada for our time off. Only difference is it seems like those countries have like double our national holidays. I am fully aware of the sweet gig I have and don't take it for granted.
 

Vitality

HUSTLE
5,808
30
Nah but I do work for a non-profit. We are probably one of very few companies that doesn't have much of a difference for our workers in the states, UK, Netherlands, Australia, Germany or Canada for our time off. Only difference is it seems like those countries have like double our national holidays. I am fully aware of the sweet gig I have and don't take it for granted.
CIA confirmed
 

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm
25,364
33,032
Knowing people who have worked at Apple, FB and Amazon these salaries aren't given out simply on talent. A 60 hour week is considered a normal non crunchtime work week. During crunch time you basically live there. This is why they target new grads. They lack families and they just grind on them until they quit. People with a family and kids simply can't work the hours and have a proper balance.
I don't work in the tech industry. But it's not unheard of for companies that have the long hours that can nearly turn into 24 during parts of the year to actively look for people who of an age to have a family and just moving into a house etc....they want people with debt that need to work long hours.
 

Tearofsoul

Ancient MMO noob
1,791
1,257
Yeah I'm up to I think 5 weeks of vacation + 5 personal days a year. With 240 hours of vacation rollover per year AND a full compliment of sick hours which I have like 300 hours of banked up. Like I said 32-40 hour weeks, great benefits, I get to pretty much work on what I please and make a very competitive salary for my regional location. Sure I wish more people used and cared about what I work on but at the end of the day I'd prefer to have a healthy life-life instead of enjoying the stink of my own farts by holding my head up high going "Well I work for Google/Twitter/FB/Amazon/Apple."
Out of curiosity Tenks, how long have been with the company?
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
You may for a few years until it wears on you. And it will wear on you. Eventually you'll realize you can cut your hours by 25% for a 20% pay cut. These tech giants generally attract young grads who are wide eyed about working on something people actually use. They'll get what they need out of them until they quit. There is a reason many of these places offer laundry services and free lunch and dinner. Because you're expected to stay there for dinner. Hell Apple is even offering college style dormitories which feature free rent for many of their employees now. We lost someone on our team to go work for Apple while getting her Masters at Berkley. She was a smart girl but nothing amazing. They just have typical engineers working at these places who are just willing to put in the hours. Personally I'm lazy as hell and I can usually skate by working 32 hours a week. It will take more than 20k/yr salary increase to attract me away from this gravy train.
I hear you and I've got a cushy ass position myself. The kicker for me though is 100k is significantly more than a 20k increase for me.
 

shabushabu

Molten Core Raider
1,408
185
I don't work in the tech industry. But it's not unheard of for companies that have the long hours that can nearly turn into 24 during parts of the year to actively look for people who of an age to have a family and just moving into a house etc....they want people with debt that need to work long hours.
Honestly, tech is not as bad as people think. I have been in tech for years ( software engineer, now sales engineer ) and many of my friends are Software guys and don't do 60 a week, more like 45-50. If you can find a defense contractor even better.. you work 40 no more and if more they pay u every hour ( not always but some places ). Northrop Grunmann, SAIC i know a lot of peeps at.
 

Ukerric

Bearded Ape
<Silver Donator>
8,280
10,219
I don't work in the tech industry. But it's not unheard of for companies that have the long hours that can nearly turn into 24 during parts of the year to actively look for people who of an age to have a family and just moving into a house etc....they want people with debt that need to work long hours.
The thing is, every study tells you that long work hours not only mean less productivity, they also mean more errors that you have to fix later. The guy who just pulled a 80-hours week? Not only did he made barely more code than the guy who did 40, but you will have to spend half a week tracking and fixing the bugs.
 

Big_w_powah

Trakanon Raider
1,887
750
5 weeks vacation sounds fucking awesome. I thought being able to take Christmas week through the end of the year with a couple days throughout the year was awesome, but taking from Thanksgiving to the end of the year sounds jizz-worthy.