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Businesses The Almighty Buck Technology

More Than 60% of Tech Workers Feel They're Underpaid (cnbc.com) 209

gollum123 writes: Tech workers are the envy of labor market -- they earn some of the highest starting salaries and often command top-notch benefits. But money doesn't always buy satisfaction. Entrepreneur reports that tech workers in major American cities earn an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough. The survey also breaks down how tech workers feel about their pay by company. The five tech companies with the highest percentage of employees who felt they were underpaid shared one important characteristic: They were all founded before 1998. Cisco, Intel, Expedia, VMware and Microsoft employees were the most likely to say that they did not make enough money. Cisco had the highest percentage of dissatisfied employees, with 80 percent telling Blind that they did not feel adequately compensated. Facebook employees, on the other hand, were the most like to say that they are overpaid, with 13.8 percent saying that they felt their employer was overly generous.
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More Than 60% of Tech Workers Feel They're Underpaid

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @12:53PM (#57033772)
    they are underpaid and would like to get paid more. I am shocked!!!

    That it is not 100%

    Just my 2 cents ;)
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Maybe they should form a union [google.com].

      • by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:20PM (#57034020)

        The goals of that IT workers union are something we all can agree on:

        OVERVIEW
        This document investigates the needs of Information Technology workers and the likely parameters of an IT Workers Union.
        GOALS
        1. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit
        2. Sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

        Historically the goals of Unions have not always been about pay. the first Trade Unions (beyond mere guilds) in the USA were the Train Worker's union. Their the goals were about quality of life and longevity of careers. Their promise to the bussinesses was that in return they would be able to develop a more professional class of tranin worker and decrease expensive accidents. This actually did work out pretty well. Train workers were scheduled so they would return home every couple weeks rather than having to flop in railroad owned hotel-bars. The bars in the company owned flop houses were closed down. Merit based pay was insituted. And train wrecks did decrease and on-time schedules got better. It was only later that the collective bargaining began to focus on having worker's capture a larger slice of the profits. But even then Unions recognize that growing the pie was as important to wages as the slice of the pie they got. However like all things some weird dynamics set in, in which collective bargaining at Ford would set the wage rate at GM too. All ford cared about was making sure any price rise they incurred was felt by GM too and vica versa. Pass it along to the consumer. So Unions and management became less focused on keeping the company competitive as they could both pass along the costs. They paid dearly when foreign imports ate their lunch. As a results Unions got a bad name.

        But the idea that a union can foster career development that benefits an industry as opposed to treating workers as disposable cattle is still valid.

        However Millenials dont' seem to subscribe to the idea of career longevity. So Unions aren't going to happen in the IT industry.

        • Yeah I never did finish that one out. The goals are basically what you said: providing bargaining power to protect the employee. I was more interested in the details.

          However Millenials dont' seem to subscribe to the idea of career longevity. So Unions aren't going to happen in the IT industry.

          I actually factored that in. Under Employment Security on page 4:

          IT Workers generally avoid job protectionism: workload sharing, cross-training, and work automation are all commonly held in high regard among IT Workers. Gregory Ferenstein polled workers in 2013 and found technology workers heavily-biased toward advancing technology, even technology which replaced their own jobs.

          There are certain breaches of security which upset IT workers immensely, however. The most notable is the one-to-one replacement with cheaper workers. People talk about immigrants a lot due to xenophobia; however, once in a while you hear a quiet mumble about employers f

          • But we already have bargaining power. The only thing unions can offer tech workes is a professional class of bargainers, but unions cannot offer any further bargaining power than we already have.

            Instead of joining unions, we should be finding agents.

            • by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:10PM (#57034438) Homepage Journal

              Individual workers don't have bargaining power because they can't control the entirety of the bargaining unit. Your employer can replace you with an individual with better terms. Unions bargain a contract which covers all workers of a certain class: if the employer hires someone new, that worker is also covered by the bargaining contract.

              In other words: individual bargaining--YOU--carries zero weight because we can hire someone else and fire you, negotiating lower salary and benefits with your replacement. Collective bargaining carries total weight because we can fire you and replace you with someone who gets similar salary. In an IT union, salaries would likely be more-flexible, and locked into pay grades: we can't replace an $80k worker with a $60k worker because the position is $75k-$85k. The union, however, also negotiates a just-cause replacement, so they can't simply replace you with someone cheaper anyway.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          However Millenials dont' seem to subscribe to the idea of career longevity.

          That's because there are no jobs left that provide long careers. Everything these days is short-term contract work with at-will employment rules designed specifically to cut people off if there's even the slightest hint that keeping them on will cost more than absolutely necessary, and no companies are willing to foster talent. Most Millennials would kill for job security/longevity like their parents had, but ironically the jobs with that kind of longevity/security are mostly filled by their parents who ref

      • by garcia ( 6573 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:35PM (#57034168)

        I worked in a unionized environment for 10 years; I make 6x as much as I did then.

        My biggest issue with unions, aside from their political lobbying and, previously, mandate I pay them a percentage of my salary to give me what they consider to be adequate representation is that should, for some reason, make the same as or less than the amount my coworker does when they are less educated, less talented, less able, and less efficient just because they've been there longer than I have.

        This is what comes to mind when someone says union to me.

        • by bluefoxlucid ( 723572 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:07PM (#57034410) Homepage Journal

          Generally, IT job positions have pay grades, and you get a range inside there. That's how it works in government positions.

          Unionized workers can negotiate salaries however, including by putting those positions into a hierarchy of pay grades and leaving it up to the individual to negotiate within that range. Much of the time, the workers don't know all the details of negotiating on their own, so the union sends experts to handle that. Unions are more-organized than the average worker and tend to have more control over the bargaining process in the same way a lawyer has more control over a class-action lawsuit.

        • I worked in a unionized environment for 10 years; I make 6x as much as I did then.

          I worked in one for 5, and have never made as much money as I did back then.

          Anecdotes are not substitutes for evidence.

    • by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:09PM (#57033910)

      I would think that it would be normal for 50% of people to be paid less than the median salary for any given set of identical positions. so 60% of them feeling underpaid yet having the same job description as their peers who are paid more is lcose to what you might expect.

      • In the IT industry, salaries and benefits also reflect career. If you go into a government job maintaining legacy technology, for example, your career advancement is shot. As a result, these jobs pay huge wages and huge benefits: you're stuck there, you're not moving up, and a job making half as much with career advancement prospects in a few years is much more valuable.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          I'd like to see that government tech job that pays "huge wages". While the benefits are good compared to many private sector jobs the wages are limited by the fixed GS scale which for purely technical roles tops out at GS-13 step 10 or $126,000 in the DC area. That is well below the average of $135,000 referenced in the article. A senior software engineer in the DC area can easily get a paid in $150k-$200k at a private company which is way more than they could ever make working as a federal employee.

    • they are underpaid and would like to get paid more. I am shocked!!!

      That it is not 100%

      Just my 2 cents ;)

      How much is the workers not making enough for their qualifications and how much is the workers not making enough to buy all the new tech toys they want to play with?

      • by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:35PM (#57034166)

        How much is workers being paid over the national median, but having to live in extremely expensive, high cost locations such that a six figure salary actually doesn't mean much.

        • Nowhere does "a six figure salary actually doesn't mean much". Sure, you can live MUCH better in Jackson MS on $100k+ than San Fran, but you can still have a nice lifestyle on six figures anywhere. 90% of the population makes less than that. The median household income in SF is $78,378, so if you make 100k you are 25% more than that. Again, not rich but not poor.

          • I'm not really sold on that, to actually live in San Fran on 100k.. is not reasonable unless you're unencumbered with the normal trappings of life, (Kid or two, a dog or two).. Even assuming a stay at home partner to raise kids.. that is brutal. I have friends who are making $250k between them, and are not even in the running to purchase property close to work. Just renting a room is brutal..

            whole thing is wonky
      • by Bigbutt ( 65939 )

        Considering training is basically non-existent, the only way to keep up on new tech is to be able to get all the new tech toys plus spend hours of personal time getting familiar with it.

        Where I work, we're not doing any sort of Cloud computing but that's a big draw in the area. Either I spend the bucks to get an Amazon, Google, and/or Microsoft account and figure things out on my own, or I'm stuck. I recently interviewed for a position doing Kubernetes work. I'm reasonably proficient at it being the only gu

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:39PM (#57034202)

      I used to drive tow trucks in an inner city. Then I was an auto mechanic. At work I've been shot at, assaulted, crushed, cut, and burned. My hands and arms are covered in scars and there's still some metal in there.

      Now I sit in a climate controlled cubicle on an ergonomic chair and make ten times as much money.

      Not that I'd turn down a raise, but overpaid/underpaid are relative terms. The times I feel underpaid, I have to remind myself of the days working on tractor trailers in the summer heat of the deep south.

  • by sjbe ( 173966 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @12:56PM (#57033798)

    Entrepreneur reports that tech workers in major American cities earn an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough.

    I think this is the Dunning Kruger effect [wikipedia.org] in all it's glory. Tech workers are routinely stricken by it, especially here on slashdot.

    • by Luthair ( 847766 )
      I feel like the statistics are skewed by one or two markets, while obviously not the same market I live in a major Canadian city and no one I know in tech is earning near 135k USD.
      • by Luthair ( 847766 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:13PM (#57033966)
        Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.
        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.

          I work for a large publicly traded company. Part of the federal regulation mandates that it publishes median employee compensation (excluding C level management). This raw number is meaningless because we have offices in multiple states within the US and multiple countries (not to mention it includes everything from Software Engineers to Receptionists). My own commutable area has two distinct areas: one averaging 90k per year and the other averaging 70k per year for "IT workers". Five years ago the areas we

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <[ten.frow] [ta] [todhsals]> on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:32PM (#57034614)

          Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.

          I think if you ask anyone, they'd think they're being underpaid. Not just tech people, but anyone. From the small business owner who barely makes minimum wage (running a business is hard work), to the janitors who break their backs nightly mopping floors to the CEOs who always believe they need more.

          I don't think there's anyone who would answer that they make enough money right now.

          • I agree. Bear in mind this is what they think, and I'm not sure if you can even get a reliable answer for whether they actually are or not.

            If there's a surprise, it's that the percentage is so low.

        • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          Actually, I should also say this is why most tech workers believe they are underpaid as they know of people in silicon valley earning twice or more their salary.

          And the tech workers *in* Silicon Valley know of people elsewhere making twice as much after adjusting for the cost of living. (Alternatively, they know of people who own a house that's bigger than 600 square feet.)

        • Well, my salary if very nice. However the cost of living for me is very high in Silicon Valley so it doesn't feel like I'm rich. Give me this salary in Kansas and I'd be very well off.

          One problem is that for some reason, entry level rates for simplistic tech jobs in Silicon Valley can be very high, like there's not even such a thing as "entry level" any more and you have to work your way up, they're starting in the middle instead. No wonder that their cookie cutter jobs are being outsourced.

          To me, don't

      • Most of these report are based off on US markets; and while private sectors in Canada doesn't pay as well as its US counterpart, you will find plenty of tech workers making the Ontario sunshine list each year making well over 100k
    • I disagree. You can't just talk about total salary. You also need to consider the number of hours worked since programmers are usually required to work a lot more hours than anyone else. I make more than twice as much as my project manager who is also on salary, but she only works 35 hours a week since she has to leave early to pick up her kids. I usually work over three times that many hours a week, so I'm making less per hour. I don't think it's wrong for me to think I need to be paid more.

      • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        I make more than twice as much as my project manager who is also on salary, but she only works 35 hours a week since she has to leave early to pick up her kids. I usually work over three times that many hours a week, so I'm making less per hour. I don't think it's wrong for me to think I need to be paid more.

        I read that as you need to be paid at least half as much as you do now and your company needs to hire another person to do half your workload. Do I qualify for an MBA now?

      • I doubt you usually work over 15 hours a day, 7 days a week. And if you do, it's because you aren't any good at your job, which a competent person would be able to do in less than half the time.

        Either way, you don't need to be paid more.

      • Technically you can't require someone to work longer hours, legally. Instead you assign tasks and goals and hope they work longer. This especially works for younger workers who seem to think that the long hours are required, or other workers have told them that this is normal. A few long days now and then during a "crunch" is ok but if this is non stop then you should bring it up with your manager or get that resume updated and see the doctor about stress.

        Also, time spent at Slashdot does not count towar

    • You are incorrect. Companies intentionally move jobs to lower cost of living areas so that they can pay employees less. This is especially pronounced in older companies that have offices scattered across the US. I could feel underpaid because I know my counter parts in California are paid more than me but honestly I get paid good money for the area I live in. The company can save money, and still pay me more based on the local cost of living. Those people in high cost of living areas like California are str

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I have a colleague in California that commutes an hour one way because living closer to our office there would just cost to much. He get's paid more than I do but not enough to make up for the difference in the cost of living. He's started talking about asking the company to transfer him out to the mid-west hoping they would let him keep his current salary.

      • Companies intentionally move jobs to lower cost of living areas so that they can pay employees less.

        I wish there was more of that. There's no reason to add to population density that's already out of control and there are a lot of other great places to live than Silicon Valley. And companies really should be smart enough to find a productive way to spend less on employees rather than just paying badly in a high-rent area.

    • But CEOs get the salary they rightfully deserve, right? Does this also include the government bailouts and the golden parachutes?

    • Tech workers are routinely stricken by [ego], especially here on slashdot.

      Come on, every field is full of blowhards and egos.

      There is some evidence narcissism may have an evolutionary advantage [nationalgeographic.com] under the right circumstances.

      See, evolution made me an asshole, it's not my fault ;-)

    • when 80% of your populace is living paycheck to paycheck [theguardian.com]

      The productivity gains from the last 40 years have gone completely to the top 1%. When you're barely getting by and your parents did just fine and we've doubled productivity then you better believe you're underpaid. Folks are getting to the point where they notice they've been had.
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @12:56PM (#57033800)
    but wages declined 12-14%. _Everybody_ is underpaid except the ruling class. We gave up our Unions and with them collective bargaining. Rather than fix a little minor corruption we threw baby out with bath water and we're paying the price.
    • Unions made American industry unstable with strikes and transferred money to organized crime. Costs rose and quality plummeted, so industry outsourced.

      If the workers had simply pooled resources to buy voting shares in their company, they would have come out much farther ahead.

      The real reason that wages are so low is that there are too many people here with more coming each day. Law of supply and demand, remember?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anubis350 ( 772791 )
        You assume a zero sum economy, it doesnt work that way, more people also means more spending, more money flowing, a bigger economy. Capitalism relies on the velocity of money, and that means more people spending money, not concentrations at the top as we do see (and which we wouldn't if your premise was correct, the money simply wouldnt be there, the problem isn't that employment or money has moved out of the country, it's that the wage disparity between the top and the bottom has become so huge because of
      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 )

        The real reason that wages are so low is that there are too many people here with more coming each day

        And yet, for some reason, the right wing is mostly pro-life...

      • Thats a tad over simplified.

        There are for instance companies that are run by the mafia, and unions that are not corrupt.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward

        The most wealthy countries in the world also tend to have the highest wealth. Ignorant xenophobes like you think immigrants come over because we're wealthy, wildly oblivious to the fact that we're wealthy because we allow immigrants to come here.

        What, you think America, a newly discovered country was magically wealthy from day 1? Nonsense, America is built on migration, and attracting both the brightest and best at the high end, and the cheapest and hardest working at the low end.

        Both of these are essential

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:35PM (#57034638)
        without [theguardian.com] money [wikipedia.org]

        And what happens when you buy stock in a company like General Motors and they fold the legal entity rendering the stock worthless? Or how about Hostess where they sold the brand and machinery so they could raid the pension fund and bust what was left of the Union?

        Workers can't absorb the losses that ruling class have. And they can't buy off politicians the same way to get bail outs. The working class needs to organize or they lose. That's exactly what's happening now and what every single economist (who doesn't work for a right wing think tank) says is the cause of declining wages.

        As for organized crime, would you shut down our banking system because sometimes somebody robs a bank? Or would you throw the bank robber in jail? The whole organized crime thing is a red herring to distract from the points I made above.
      • Given that there is more money *per capita* present in this country than ever, the people who have your money are really glad you think that. You'll never find it if they can keep you looking in the wrong direction.
    • by locopuyo ( 1433631 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:02PM (#57034384) Homepage
      Productivity of what? You're trying to link a bunch of vague, unsourced statistics for some sort of class warfare propaganda. Are you trying to say quality of life has decreased? Because I would say the opposite. Quality of life has more than doubled. Everything is safer, cheaper, and just better compared to 40 years ago. Internet, cell phones, tvs, transportation is much safer and more comfortable. For the average person life 40 years ago is crap in comparison with today.
  • by darth_borehd ( 644166 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:03PM (#57033862)

    If I calculate the amount of time I actually work rather than look at my yearly salary, I am making less than a lot of non-technical unskilled labor jobs.

    Putting in 50-80 hours a week degrades your quality of life and takes much more valuable time away from from family, but cutting down to only 40 hours a week degrades your productivity and puts you on a track to being fired. Tech workers also take less vacation too.

    Because IT is a cost center at most companies, the workers are under more pressure from management to prove themselves essential to the bottom line.

    • by alternative_right ( 4678499 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:11PM (#57033952) Homepage Journal

      "Underpaid" can mean a few things including "I'm not paid enough for the shit I have to put up with."

      IT requires seeing some of the worst of humanity, working long hours, and facing constant competition from management which just wants to cut IT costs.

      Maybe a solution is to find other ways to cut IT costs, like automating some of these mindless tasks...

      • by tsqr ( 808554 )

        I hate to break it to you and the OP, but the overwhelming majority of "tech jobs" are not in IT.

        • But, as a computer engineer, I can say that sounds very familiar. I could have worked 40 if I didn't care to have a career. Few did that. In my early years, I averaged double that and rarely got paid for more than 48 or so. That was just what a "team player" did. If they didn't, nothing was ever said, but the raises and promotions wouldn't be there because they couldn't compete productivity-wise with those that did.

          It shocked me a few times when I compared across industries. In 1995, I was making about $55K

  • When I look at the dollar amount of the projects I manage and the equipment I work on, it's no surprise that I feel I am underpaid, especially due to the nature of responsibility and blame if something goes wrong. Hell, one particular kind of controller is $75,000 and there are twelve of them.

  • More Than 60% of Workers Feel They're Underpaid

    FTFY

  • by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:09PM (#57033918)

    ... "on average" every one in the bar is a billionaire.

    (see "earn an average of $135,000" for more bad statistics.)

    • by rnturn ( 11092 )

      ^^^^^^^^ This.

      I'm living near one of those major cities and salaries--and even contracting rates--don't come anywhere near $135K even though I get emails from crap outfits like Glassdoor telling me that's what someone with my background should be making. Try telling a corporate recruiter that your salary needs are in that neighborhood and they'll be hanging up on you in short order.

    • The median is pretty sucky though, depending upon the bar.

  • by NormAtHome ( 99305 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:11PM (#57033954)

    I have any number of friends in technology fields and over the last 10 years I've heard the same story "We had layoffs and I wasn't cut but half my department is gone and now I'm doing the work of three or four people; working an extra 3-4 hours a day (and working at least one weekend a month) and I haven't had a raise in 3 years".

    Company's are taking advantage of people like this, making them do the work of three or four people and work substantially more hours while paying them the same and basically saying "Just be glad you have a job!".

  • by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:15PM (#57034004)

    $135,000 is good outside of the bay area!

    • $135,000 is good outside of the bay area!

      $135k would make me feel very wealthy where I live

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • See the tax man before you go hog wild.

          Even if various taxes pulled 50% of the increase from what I'm currently making, I wouldn't really know what to do with the extra money.

    • by Rhys ( 96510 )

      Not when the CEO makes that in a day and it takes a developer a year. The CEO isn't producing (nor "adding value") nearly as much in a day as a "average developer (making $135k/year)" does in a year.

  • No Shit, Sherlock (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsqr ( 808554 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:18PM (#57034012)

    Cisco, Intel, Expedia, VMware and Microsoft employees were the most likely to say that they did not make enough money.

    No kidding? Cisco, Intel, and VMWARE are located in Silicon Valley, where cost of living is astronomical. Expedia and Microsoft are in Bellevue, WA and Redmond, Wa, where the median cost of a home hovers around $900K.Toss in excessive unpaid overtime, and a person would be crazy not to consider themselves underpaid.

  • . . . or go out and get a better paying job. There's literally never been a better time to do either. It's a total employee job market right now, especially in technology.
    • by xtal ( 49134 )

      That's because most of the experienced people exited the profession, and now the demand for skilled programmers and engineers is heating back up - automation and AI are hard problems.

      I've seen this cycle twice now, next up you'll start seeing articles about CS enrollments increasing.

  • by martiniturbide ( 1203660 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:26PM (#57034062) Homepage Journal
    All the money that companies used to spend on technology went to marketing. We are on the age of "Bending Reality with Marketing" not on the age of actually doing things.
  • by xtal ( 49134 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @01:54PM (#57034328)

    I'm a EE. I worked in tech for 20 years. I only got a raise when I switched jobs, and worked comically hard for what I was paid.

    I switched to finance and I started off making 2.5 times what I did doing engineering work. My next move will double what I make now again, maybe a little more.

    If you're smart enough to do tech, you're smart enough to do something else. Do not work in tech as an employee. If you do, work only long enough to do something else or acquire enough capital to set yourself up to engage directly with the market - e.g. own your own company, be it software, consulting, or better yet, something like law or accounting and make use of the tech skills to lower overhead.

    Folks have no idea how much money gets made. If they'd did they'd riot. Or at least unionize.

    I'll be able to retire at 45. If I worked in tech, I'd still be struggling to have any savings.

    YMMV and there are exceptions everywhere. Get a large enough sample pool and the trends are very clear.

    • I don't understand this kind of stuff really.

      I work in tech as a software dev. I'm 29 and so far have roughly 250K in my retirement investments. As far as I understand I think I am doing OK.

      I work 40 hours a week and never a minute more and I like what I'm doing. I also take 4 weeks of vacation a year and always travel when I do. My boss gives me about a 5% raise every year because he likes my work and values me. Most of my other college friends are in similar situations to me as far as I understand wh

    • I'll be able to retire at 45. If I worked in tech, I'd still be struggling to have any savings.

      You expect to retire at 45, and yet...

      I worked in tech for 20 years.

      What's your life expectancy? 50? Or do you count those 20 years in tech starting from birth?

      Even if you started working at 16 and left tech at 36, you'll earn/make enough in 9 years to last 30 or 40 years of retirement? Either you're making a lot more than 2.5 times what you were, or you're vastly understating how much you made and saved/invested during those 20 years in tech.

  • ... in lake Woebegone, all the children are above average.
  • This is typically the end result when wages do not keep pace with cost of living or inflation. It's been this way for quite a long time now.

    This is also subjective based on where you live.

    $130k doesn't go nearly as far in San Francisco or New York as it does in Houston or $lower_cost_of_living_city

  • by HeckRuler ( 1369601 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @02:48PM (#57034746)

    an average of $135,000 and yet, a survey of 6,000 tech workers conducted by workplace app Blind and reported by Quartz found that over 60 percent feel they aren't being paid enough.

    The AVERAGE includes all those rockstars who make millions and the near-retirement specialists who are the last surviving member who knows just WTF is going on and the company cannot survive without them. Also all the millionaires in SanFran who can't afford a lean-to dilapidated shack. You'd be wanting to look at the median, and even then split it out across different cities or different Cost-of-Living rates. And (all?) those old companies have workers across the globe.

    Listen, statistics is hard. Sociology even harder. This is a bullshit sub-journalist blip just made to start an argument. It's not science.

  • "Feels" - what a joke /. has become.

  • Most employees of tech firms are not techies.

    And most of your options won't vest.

  • 80% of all workers feel they're underpaid
    95% of people feel they're underappreciated.

    So at 60% unhappy, relatively, tech workers are doing pretty fucking well!

    (See how useless stats can be out of context, in case you missed the actual point of this post?)

  • by DMJC ( 682799 )
    Most tech workers ARE underpaid. Because most tech workers are not rock star coders. They are sysadmins, and network engineers who slave over keyboards all day building/running/maintaining systems for large/middle/small companies. Thanks to contracting it's getting worse. I work for one of the top 100 most profitable companies in the world but as a contractor. I pull $60,000/year. If I was an internal staff member I would begin on $70,000/year and with my current skills/experience would be on $90,000/year b
  • Hypothetical:

    You run a tech startup with 10 employees, including yourself.

    Your employees are all paid $15/hr.

    You pay yourself $250/hr.

    The average pay at your startup is $38.50/hr, despite the fact that not a single employee makes anything close to that figure.

    Tl:Dr - excessive pay to upper management really fucks up the charts.

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