Equal Pay for Equal Work?

Lyrical_sl said:

And I was an Executive at a Fortune 10 company by the time I was 30. Most successful people know what they are worth and how to get it. If I was in his shoes, I'd either get competitive offers or be patient. I remember when I was first put at that level, I was underpaid also, compared to my peers. I had to wait five years to get equal pay. It took pay raises of 10% a year for those ten years to get there. I was unable to generate competitive offers, as I didn't have enough time at that level. No one wants to take a chance on a guy that just got there (at least in the industry I was in). I stopped whining when I couldn't get the competition to pay me more, and had to just sit still and wait my turn. Finally I figured out that you only get what you are worth by owning your own thing, as someone else said in the thread earlier.

P.S.: When I'm full staffed, pruning trees nets me in one day what I made in a week at a corporation, I like it just fine.

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And what does any of that have to do with software development? I wonder, did they teach you about supply and demand in business school? Because here is a tip, the demand for semi decent developers, or better, is through the roof and way outpaces the supply. Anyone with a few years of experience and decent shower habits can obtain a job programming with or without a degree. A degree only helps one get his foot in the door, nothing else.

grumblethorn_sl said:

Don't mind wormie she's just some cunty paper pusher in the mortgage industry.

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Nope. You are stupid.

Lyrical_sl said:

Did you miss the part I said about getting competitive offers, or are you a moron?

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Did you miss the part where whatever you did at a corp has nothing to do with the field that jake is in so comparing the ability to get job offers between the two is relegated to the realm of the retarded?

Lyrical_sl said:

Definitely correct on the cunty part.

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That part is correct. I called him stupid because i am not that other shit that he said. Anyway, experience trumps degrees with programmers. If Jake wants more money, he needs to brush up on his interviewing skills (lots and lots of data structures) and then switch jobs a few times. Degree not required.

Lyrical_sl said:

You are repeating what I said, thank you for that.

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What you said is how awesome you are for getting a business degree and how important that degree is for getting a good job. So yeah I am totally repeating what you said.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

No, he actually said that is one way to get more pay

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Looks like he did. I only read the first paragraph. Whoops.

Lyrical_sl said:

You are repeating what I said, thank you for that.

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Yup, you were right.

ShakyJake_sl said:

Let me get this straight: you have two individuals applying for thesameposition. One has a degree, the other does not. However, both individuals, given their work experience, are equally qualified for the job. However, because the degree holder "took time out of the workfoce and spent money" automatically entitles him to greater pay? I call bullshit on that. Granted, maybe thatisreality, but that's bullshit. As a employer I don't give a shit if you spent a crap ton of money on a education at some highfalutin university. All I care about is if you cando the damn job. If the two people are equally capable then the pay should be exactly the same.

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Kinda like a good ole boy network isnt it?

Shits like this all over the place. Im in automotive engineering and they wont even look at you anymore without a piece of paper. It was not like this in the past. Some of the best engineers I have met were non-degreed, entering the automotive workforce in the 60's as technicians, designers, draftsman Then they worked their way up through the roles. Now the problem is the influx of foreigners which makes things even worse. Dudes from India and Mexico are trying to enter the field but instead of wielding BSME, the have Doctorates and masters from some University of New Dehli.

And I worked with some of them, still do. some are just as good if not better than average joe. But some still suck and have no place being in the industry. Its the same old bullshit wherever I go, 80-20, 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. The rest are there as just "filler".

Somewhere around 6-7 years ago at work we were not able to hire anyone in to an Engineering position without an actual engineering degree. It created a lot of situations where people that had been field engineers for 10, 15, 20 years or whatever couldn't leave that position and come back, because they weren't degreed. Kind of ridiculous and seemed like HR nonsense. Even as a new hire almost a decade ago it was obvious that these 'non' engineers knew a metric shit ton more than I did. There were a few situations where one would leave for a sales position or otherwise and would move back. We'd have to work around HR and get them hired in under some random job title that was at the same pay grade but not an 'Engineer' titled position.

Then you have the situation where I was promoted at a much more accelerated rate than a lot of the engineers that came in at the same time and was making significantly less than other people at my same level. They had been through more promotions, salary adjustments, yearly raises, moved through pay terciles, etc... I took it as more an opportunity to move up faster and didn't argue / negotiate the pay discrepancy. Maybe bad on my part but it is in the past. But things like that happen as well.

Lastly in some cases you could actually leave the company and get hired back in at the same position and make appreciably more. The requirements for an internal promotion salary adjustment (or even a yearly merit increase) aren't as competitive as hiring outside talent. And to HR in these situations it appeared as if it was outside, which I guess it was, so they got in at the market rate and not their shitty 4% pay increase for the promotion rate. Seems like a lot more risk but saw it happen quite a few times.

It is an interesting game and you can spend a lot of time trying to min/max it if you're so inclined.

wormie_sl said:

Keep in mind lyrical prunes trees and knows zero about software development

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I know about software development and I agree with him. What's annoying is that before your rant you agreed with what he said. Switch jobs.


Oh and we go around about this in the CompSci thread. Yes, there are a lot of great software developers without degrees and a lot of poor software developers with degrees. The degree, however, is hard proof of your accomplishment. Proving your a good software developer is very difficult. Pointing to a 5 year body of work is nice, but it's difficult for someone to determine your impact on that project.

Every software project I've ever worked on has had people involved with it that were carried. If we all go out and look for jobs who can gain the most credibility in claiming ownership of that project? Generally the people who can talk the talk the best. It's just like MMO gaming. Someone claims to be a big part of a server-first kill of Heroic Lich King, then later you find out that they weren't even in the raid and were only invited to the guild because their brother-in-law was the MT.