Quote :

"I see so many talented/hardworking people that are just too complacent. "

guilty as hell right here. Been same place for 5 years. I loved my flexibility. Work from home when i NEED to, go in whenever, leave whenever. Just get my projects done. I might put in 20 hrs of solid solid work. Rest is just meetings and checking the box. I love my free time and time with family.

4/17/2017 7:07:43 AM

^ By your own admission, I don't think you're guilty of "hardworking".

[Edited on April 17, 2017 at 8:30 AM. Reason : .]

4/17/2017 8:29:54 AM

work smarter > work harder

4/17/2017 8:35:03 AM

^I agree there, too. I wish more jobs were based on deliverables and not just physically having my ass in an a chair for 40 hours a week just so they have piece of mind that I'm constrained to their oversight.

4/17/2017 9:34:03 AM

^ Be your own boss.

^^ True.

4/17/2017 10:09:32 AM

you shouldn't have to own a company or be some freelancer to have that flexibility. a lot of places do already - it's a cultural thing that is changing and will change as more Internet savvy generations take leadership positions. there are certainly benefits to being in an office, though, and a lot depends on the type of work you do and the amount of autonomy and client interaction you have.

4/17/2017 11:37:16 AM

^This.

Yeah I work hard Monday-Thursday and often just take Friday's off to ski or head to the mountains. We don't track PTO and I just take time off when I want and can. If it's a larger 1-2 week chunk then I'll officially tell everyone I'll be gone and out of pocket but as long as you get your work done, can work remotely effectively, and take calls from anywhere then the whole 9-5 in office idea is kind of antiquated.

4/17/2017 3:30:05 PM

Quote :

"Also, how are you going to grad school if you never finished undergrad?"

I just applied using mostly my resume, references, and links to things I'd built. The work and lessons aren't bad, but the time commitment is really for someone who doesn't have anything else to do besides school. Even at 1 class at a time, it's often a struggle.

4/17/2017 5:10:20 PM

You people are definitely more successful and make more money than me that is for sure. The one thing I can say though, is I enjoy life more than 95% of people...just wish I could have more money to do even more =)

4/18/2017 1:55:51 AM

Major: Architecture
Job/Employer: Small Town - Planner Intern
Starting Salary: 20,000 in 2004
Benefits: none
Negotiate offer: tried
Location: small town Virginia
Hours per week: 40

Now, making close to 3 times that as a City Planner. 10.5 years in state retirement pension.

4/18/2017 5:02:15 PM

No degree. Started in EE and switched to History and later dropped out. Fairly common

Initial job: Admin work with local custom home builder (2005)
$11/hr
No benefits
No negotiation
Location: greater Triangle area
40 hours/wk

Current job: PM with large residential construction company
$67K salary with quarterly bonuses that could total $10-$12K/yr, $400/mo vehicle allowance, $100/mo phone & data allowance
Benefits: 3 weeks PTO, 11 paid holidays, decent health/dental/vision, can work from home on occasion
No negotiation
Location: greater Triangle area
35-50 hours/wk

4/18/2017 10:06:35 PM

How does anyone like 3 weeks of vacation but making ^ type of money when you can't do anything with it?

Question for all....who would take 1200 less a year for 1 more week? also DOUCHE how do you even get into what you were stating with no to little savings?

4/18/2017 11:55:00 PM

Quote :

"How does anyone like 3 weeks of vacation but making ^ type of money when you can't do anything with it? "

wut?

4/19/2017 12:22:16 AM

Maybe he didn't get past the $11/hr part?

4/19/2017 7:23:14 AM

Becoming a broker takes about a month and a few hundred dollars. Pretty easy process other than time commitment, which you should have plenty of.

Once you get licensed, residential firms will send letters kind of like after a speeding ticket. Hard to get into commercial without knowing someone, but you don't need a separate license.

4/19/2017 7:34:49 AM

I can't remember if I ever actually filled this out.

Major: Political Science, Master of International Studies, Master of Public Administration - Public Policy, PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (current)

Job/Employer: University Business/Program Manager
Starting Salary: $23/hour in 2010
Benefits: none but I worked remote 75% or so
Negotiate offer: No. I was surprised/thrilled to make that as a grad student. I had originally interviewed as an admin. assistant at what I thought was like $9 an hour and they came back with that offer. I thought I had hit the fucking lotto.
Location: Raleigh
Hours per week: 20 but I also interned at RTI International for 20 hours a week when I was out of school.

Job/Employer: Management Analyst / Administrative Officer for the National Institutes of Health
Starting Salary: ~52,000 2015 (GS-9)
Ending Salary: ~61,000 in 2016 (GS-11)
Benefits: Awesome Federal benefits. Flexible schedule with telework once a week or so. 12 annual leave days, 12 sick days, 14 Federal holidays a year.
Negotiate offer: Not able to
Location: RTP
Hours per week: 40

Job/Employer: Analytics Manager at a university...
Starting Salary: ~76,500 in 2016
Benefits: Main thing is the tuition waivers for my doctorate and flexibility in scheduling so I can take courses during the day if I need to. Being on campus is a benefit in itself and like 5 minutes from where I live. I think the state benefits are good - I pay like nothing for insurance, 14 annual leave, 12 sick days, 12 university holidays, supposed to get telework soon.
Negotiate offer: Yes and also negotiated my own office.
Hours per week: 40

[Edited on April 19, 2017 at 8:28 AM. Reason : social sciences 4 lyfe ]

4/19/2017 8:20:09 AM

^I'm sure you get crazy good benefits, a pension and tons of sick time. Quality of life sounds good.

Unless you get into sales, I don't think you'll ultimately reach your peak potential, but sounds like you are in a good place.

4/19/2017 9:28:05 AM

Major: Civil Engineering
Job/Employer: Large Engineering Firm
Starting Salary: $59,150
Benefits: 10% 401k match, 2 weeks PTO
Negotiate offer: Nope
Location: Raleigh
Hours per week: 40

4/19/2017 8:19:38 PM

Major: Business Administration
Job/Employer: Network Engineer @ Cisco Systems
Starting Salary: $62,000
Benefits: 4.5% 401k match, ~7% bonus, 3 weeks PTO
Location: RTP
Hours per week: 40+ depending on workload

4/19/2017 10:32:30 PM

Seems this thread is getting a ton of action.
4 weeks is standard for what I would ask for or what I would want to be able to earn. Anything more is gravey train. At the same time, the said poster makes 67K so I am quite positive he could make a lot of after work Friday flights with that spending potential and get back late sunday/early Monday to keep the 3 weeks from evaporating!

4/20/2017 12:46:04 AM

Major: BA in PoliSci, minor in journalism, MS in communication
Job/Employer: Communications director for a trade association
Starting Salary: $130,000
Benefits: 6% 401k match, 6% profit sharing, annual bonuses, 4 weeks PTO, the usual insurance
Negotiate offer: Asked for a few more days PTO to get from 18 to 22 total
Location: Washington, D.C.
Hours per week: 40

4/20/2017 7:38:07 PM

major: BA in Poli Sci
Job: Sales - Waffle Mix
Salary: its commission - 50 to 60, could very well be more if I keep expanding the business
Benefits: all the regular stuff, and they give me a $250 clothing allowance
Location: Charlotte
Hours: ~40, depends of how hard you work and if you like to talk and lolligag

First job out of college and it pays double what most other CHASS-y type jobs wanted to pay. Downside is living in Charlotte. Would have liked to stay in Raleigh. I basically treat it like my own business, skys the limit on potential income

4/20/2017 10:23:35 PM

Graduated May 09
Major: MS Mechanical Engineering
Job/Employer: Small Engineering Consulting (30 employees, learned a lot!)
Starting Salary: $40K (was lucky to find a job)
Ending Salary: Same (worked only for 1 year)
Benefits: 10 days paid vacation, 401k match upto 10%
Negotiate offer: no
Location: Durham, NC
Hours per week: 40-45

2nd Job

Job/Employer: Mid Size Engineering Consulting Firm
Starting Salary: $52K
Ending Salary: 75k (worked there for 6 years)
Benefits: standard benefits, 19 vacation days, shitty 401k match
Negotiate offer: no
Location: Started in Upstate NY, moved to Chicago
Hours per week: 40-45 was paid straight overtime

3rd Job

Job/Employer: Energy Consulting Firm
Starting Salary: $84K
Current Salary: $85k (still work here, been only 10 months)
Benefits: standard benefits, 10 vacation days, 10 Sick days, 3.5% 401k match, 4 days work form home
Negotiate offer: no
Location: Philly
Hours per week: 40
I make around $5-6k on the side from Real Estate another $1-2k from dividend income and minor stock trading. Hopefully will be able to scale my real estate up a decent amount in a 10 years or so and retire by 45. I'm 31 now.

[Edited on April 21, 2017 at 9:03 AM. Reason : .]

4/21/2017 8:48:56 AM

I just applied for my first new job in 7 years. It feels odd.

4/21/2017 4:43:45 PM

Quote :

"Hopefully will be able to scale my real estate up a decent amount in a 10 years or so and retire by 45. I'm 31 now."

Retire by 45? Damn, son. I'm 36 and the way I see it it'll be gravy if I can retire before 70.

5/2/2017 4:16:47 PM

Either the company who posted the job I applied for is in no hurry to hire, I'm a terrible candidate, or it's a fake job listing to make it look like they're growing to potential investors.

5/2/2017 4:19:26 PM

man I applied to like 50 jobs just at where I work now before I took this one (interviewed for maybe 3-4 others and the fit wasn't right). gotta cast a wide net in job searches nowadays.

I wonder the percentage of jobs posted that are seen all the way through to an actual hire (don't lose funding, get reposted, etc.) and don't have an internal or referred candidate pretty much already guaranteed. And even if you get over that hurdle, then the actual competition begins.

5/2/2017 5:19:20 PM

Applying for jobs is definitely the worst way to get a job.

The two last times I applied for a job were:
March 2003 - they called me back for an interview around July of that year.
December 2017 - they never called me back.

My last 5ish offers have been through referrals. "Come on into the office for a chat", turns into another chat, turns into a formal interview. I didn't take the offer in all of the cases, but it puts you in the best position. You have the inside scoop from someone who works there about what they're looking for, and when it comes time to negotiate you're in the best position since they often want you more.

7/27/2018 5:12:13 PM

Quote :

"Retire by 45? Damn, son. I'm 36 and the way I see it it'll be gravy if I can retire before 70."

Save more money faster.

https://networthify.com/calculator/earlyretirement

7/29/2018 12:28:09 AM

we still updating these? hit a ceiling and made the leap into the private sector.

Major: Political Science, Master of International Studies, Master of Public Administration - Public Policy, PhD in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media (current)

Job/Employer: University Business/Program Manager at NCSU
Starting Salary: $23/hour in 2010
Benefits: none but I worked remote 75% or so
Negotiate offer: No. I was surprised/thrilled to make that as a grad student. I had originally interviewed as an admin. assistant at what I thought was like $9 an hour and they came back with that offer. I thought I had hit the fucking lotto.
Location: Raleigh
Hours per week: 20 but I also interned at RTI International for 20 hours a week when I was out of school.

Job/Employer: Management Analyst / Administrative Officer for the National Institutes of Health
Starting Salary: ~52,000 2015 (GS-9)
Ending Salary: ~61,000 in 2016 (GS-11)
Benefits: Awesome Federal benefits. Flexible schedule with telework once a week or so. 12 annual leave days, 12 sick days, 14 Federal holidays a year.
Negotiate offer: Not able to
Location: RTP
Hours per week: 40

Job/Employer: Analytics Manager at NCSU (managed team of two)
Starting Salary: ~76,500 in 2016
Ending Salary: ~78k in 2019
Benefits: Main thing was the tuition waivers for my doctorate and flexibility in scheduling so I could take courses during the day. Being on campus is a benefit in itself and like 5 minutes from where I live. Benefits are good and were initially free for basic health, etc. but upped to $40/month. 14 days annual leave, 12 sick days, 12 university holidays. One day telework. Left just before EHRA conversion, so would have upped my leave to 24, 12 sick, 12 university.
Negotiate offer: Yes and also negotiated my own office.
Hours per week: 40

Job/Employer: Analytics Manager / BI Leader at a major tech company (manage a team of 7 to start but should grow as the programs and my position grow)
Starting Salary: 135k base, 15% bonus plus additional incentives, $10k signing bonus, stock options
Benefits: 20 days PTO, 5 volunteer days, 12 company holidays including winter break, 3 floating holidays, super flexible scheduling, solid insurance, 4.5% 401k match, $10k/year for school, 2+ days telework, very casual dress code
Negotiate offer: Yes
Location: RTP
Hours per week: 40

Pretty pumped about this - never thought I'd be into any of this as a lowly political science major, and I'll be very interested to see how this all pans out. Public sector life was pretty cushy. I'm sure it varies wildly by company/department/team but I'm curious to see if this is really going to be the culture and workload shock that my private sector friends say it will be.

9/17/2019 4:10:14 PM

nice job! tbh many of the best technologists I've worked with came from liberal arts backgrounds

9/17/2019 10:55:45 PM

Job/Employer: Director of Engineering @ Fortune 15 Company
Starting Salary: 10% bump from #lastjob, 20% cash bonus and 30% stock compensation
Benefits: Corporate Card, 2 weeks vacation bumping to 3 weeks 2nd year, great health benefits, free lunch
Negotiate offer: yes, got more stock comp and base salary.
Location: Los Angeles
Hours per week: 40

9/18/2019 9:20:11 AM

^^^ welcome to the Cisco Family

9/18/2019 11:46:46 AM

I figured those details would be pretty obvious to somebody

9/18/2019 4:51:08 PM

I've posted earlier, but I'll update (4 years since last update)
BS in technology education
BS in graphic communication
MEd in technology education, minor in Industrial Design

Middle school teacher in CMS
$31,000. One year
Crappy benefits
No negotiation.
55+hours a week

Process Engineer to Quality Manager; small automotive part manufacturing (35 people)
$45,000 start, $57,000 end, 4 years there
Crappy benefits
Minimal negotiation
40-75 hours a week

Quality Engineer: small automotive, aerospace, manufacturing (250 people)
$68k start, $76k end, 4 years there.
Excellent health, 401k contribution, vacation days (start at 10 and goes up every year), cost of living raise every year, annual performance bonus (company and personal objectives)
No negotiation, offer was higher than I was expecting
40-70 hours a week

Quality/ EHS Manager: large packaging manufacturing (42 people my site, >100 facilities worldwide)
$85k starting
Small COL raise every year, no bonuses, crappy benefits, 401k match to 4%, 3 weeks vacation.
Negotiation: Yes, extra week of vacation, $5k salary.

I graduated in Dec 09, and hit the double original salary Sept 2014, so about 5 years. I'm now on track to triple my original salary in roughly 10 years.
I'm making over 70k at this point, but not sure if I'll ever reach 100k. (Getting closer)
The benefits of getting out of teaching were immediate, but not being a 'real' engineer caps some of my opportunities.

9/25/2019 9:49:18 PM

lol I forgot about that CuntPunter exchange a few years ago

update: GS-14 Step 3 (since this past April) as a primary patent examiner; still work from home full-time

9/26/2019 11:23:17 AM

^^I'm in the same boat. I have a technical degree from nc state(Agronomy -soils, minor in environmental science). I'm a Customer Quality Engineer at my current manufacturing job, but I've been here for 11 years. how did you go about interviewing/negotiating when you don't have an engineering degree? did you find it difficult to get interviews?

[Edited on September 26, 2019 at 1:15 PM. Reason : carrot]

9/26/2019 1:15:22 PM

I'll do one, #MTWWGA
Job/Employer: Electrical Eng./Team lead/Major Defense Co.
Starting Salary: 110k
Benefits: 15 days PTO, typical health, dental vision, ~4.5% 401k matching, weekly paycheck, 9/80 schedule (every other Friday off), company shutdown 1 week of Xmas/NY w/pay.
Negotiate offer: Yes
Location: FL
Hours per week: 40-9/80-(every other Friday off)

[Edited on September 26, 2019 at 8:00 PM. Reason : .]

[Edited on September 26, 2019 at 8:01 PM. Reason : ..]

9/26/2019 7:56:42 PM

^^ I just started replying to the Linked In cold messages, or looking at the random job opening emails.
From first QM to QE was probably 15 interviews.
QE to QM where I am now was 3weeks from first contact to starting, and I had a competing offer from another manufacturing gig, which allowed me to negotiate a little. Other gig still offered more, but was farther away.

In my early jobs I was an auto mechanic, part of maintenance, production planning, SQE, process engineer, and parts of HR. I always pushed continued education and trainings. My plastics work in grad school definitely helped as well.

The last part, is that I'm not looking at chemical or metallurgy type positions, so I stay within the knowledge I'm at least somewhat comfortable with.

9/30/2019 9:35:40 PM

Sometimes when I read this thread or speak to my friends about salaries, everyone is either nudging 6 figures or they've gone well above it. What I find most interesting is it's not as if these are all people from my immediate circle or that we come from largely the same background. It's not even the same industry.
It's so common that it makes me ask myself "does going to college and working consistently for several years immediately put you into the six figure arena?".

I know this can't be true, because there are people out there struggling every day and individuals with college debt who can't seem to get ahead. But the thing is I don't know any of those people, no matter who I meet or reach out to as long as they 1) went to college and 2) worked for ~10 years.

Is netting 6 figures plus as simple as going to college?

10/1/2019 9:33:14 AM

you seriously don't know anyone not making six figures?

10/1/2019 9:56:14 AM

im going to go kill myself now guise

10/1/2019 10:05:26 AM

^^ Great question. Let me clarify a little bit more:

I don't any household in which both are college educated, have been working for ~ 10 years, and at least one person isn't 85K+.

The majority of households I know are definitely $150K+. These aren't all people from where I work, or from affluent families, or something like friends I've collected as social events from affluent neighborhoods or country clubs. The most consistent thing about these people, other than race, because it is mostly white, is that they went to college. It's not even major dependent. I studied engineering and know a lot of engineers, yes, but even associates who studied communications, business, and history are pulling in those figures.

A lot of them have snaked into roles of higher responsibility, so there is certainly a lot of bias and perhaps the bigger question is how am I only attracting people of that type into my social circle, even though I keep my bars divey, don't live in a neighborhood with large or fancy homes, etc.

Definitely not the thread for this in depth of a discussion but :shrug:.

10/1/2019 10:50:29 AM

Quote :

"how am I only attracting people of that type into my social circle"

birds of a feather...

also, going to divey bars is kind of a hipster thing to do now, so you'll likely find other people of affluence there. lots of folks do that to be ironic. It's the ol' "I'll ironically go to this shady place because everything around me is otherwise coated in elegance" play. Most lower income folks are drinking at home now since craft alcohol is driving up bar bills.

I recommend meeting public school teachers and social workers. They would fit in your "well-under 6 figures but highly educated" criteria and then you can say you have a smart, poor friend.

[Edited on October 1, 2019 at 11:37 AM. Reason : sorry if that comes off as an attack on you, it just should be obvious where the struggling folk are]

10/1/2019 11:33:35 AM

I know a decent number of teachers, social workers (best friend's wife is one, so is my sister in law), and architects (they get paid very little) That's why I switched it to households because their spouses are lawyers, consultants, doctors, directors or VPs for businesses, etc.

My first consideration was birds of a feather, but even if I do habitat or a stream clean up I will speak to people and again they'd be high income. I tried F3 on a whim and those people were even worse. But there is something to what you're saying because there are other subtraits they'll have- liberal, choose modest homes/cars/clothing, etc. that fit.

10/1/2019 11:45:37 AM

well sure, for households where at least one spouse is in some kind of profession then six figure household income would be pretty normal not too long out of college with just a minimal amount of effort

10/1/2019 4:22:48 PM

Might be geographic, too. Where do you live?

Thanks for the well-wishes earlier btw everyone

10/2/2019 11:30:27 PM

When I worked for one of the big-name defense contractors as an engineer (and worked with other engineers from our subcontractors), there were a ton of engineers who didn't have engineering degrees. A few of them were every bit as technically savvy and capable as those who held the degrees. Most were more like super-duper technicians. A few weren't any better (or even as good) as any other tech, but were either hired under the "engineer" title because the company needed them (and would have been handcuffed by HR policy on paying them enough to make the hire otherwise), or sometimes they were decent techs, good enough that the company would want to retain them, but they'd bring in a competing offer from another company, and we'd have to promote them to engineer and pay them more for retention.

That said, the company wasn't perfect, but on the whole they did a pretty good job of having pay reflect how much value added people were. My degree got me in the door and got me a decent starting salary--more than many of the non-engineering degree types were paid--but then after a year or two, I got paid at least 25% more than most of the other engineers on my team. I was also the team lead and being groomed for higher level project management positions when I left for my current job.

Short version: yes, companies will hire non-engineers to be engineers for a variety of reasons, but not all engineers are viewed or paid equally--even at the same company, even at the same location, even with basically the same job description, even at the same "level" (e.g., Advanced Engineer I or II, in my case).

The flip side...if you're not at engineer on paper, but you can "jump the fence" into an engineering job and succeed at it, I think it can be a big boost, professionally. Sure, other companies know that there are a bunch of bullshit jobs with "engineer" in the title, but you can advance within your company to a point where you're building some real resume material.

10/3/2019 11:27:40 PM

^what was your undergrad degree?

10/7/2019 2:41:30 PM

Mech eng

[Edited on October 9, 2019 at 10:34 PM. Reason : But my title was systems engineer. I did a lot of stuff. Mech, elec, software stuff]

10/9/2019 10:33:44 PM