Waaypoint

Waaypoint t1_jdpzelg wrote

I've seen some really exaggerated comments about Americans all landing 200k a year jobs after taking a few online classes.

The reality is that the average pay is around 113K USD for a role like SW developer. Further, most of the high salaries are if you work in the bay area. (San Francisco, Sunnyvale, San Jose, etc, California, USA)

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

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By state views.

https://www.statista.com/chart/22030/average-tech-worker-salary-in-us-cities/

One thing you will notice is that these cities are the ones all our "red" state Americans complain about. e.g. Shit in the streets, zombies on meth, crap.

Two things about that.

  1. There are very large homeless populations in these cities (and growing). I live in one of these cities and the only place with income disparity worse is Brazil.
  2. The cost of living in those areas is very high compared to other US states. I can buy a house for 100k in my midwest hometown. The same size house in the city I live in now is over 1M. A two bedroom 700 sf house with no parking goes for 500K on the low end.

Looking at the UK the average pay for a SW developer is 65K pounds (79,300 USD with Google's current conversion rate).

So, lets say there is a 35K difference is pay on average. Again, this is probably skewed by CA, but meh.

I pay around 25k out of my salary for my retirement in the US and about 15K in health insurance. That is not unusual and it is much more if you have a spouse who does not work. Anyway, that extra pay disappears quickly because we do not have a safety net or universal services in the US.

TLDR: You might feel like you have more money in the US, but the reality is that that money disappears quickly because America is mostly a fast food restaurant pretending to be fine dining.

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Waaypoint t1_jdljeq6 wrote

Salary is lower but things like healthcare access and cost, educational opportunities for kids, and freedom to access information are better in the UK at the moment.

That and working in the US is highly dependent on where you live and it has been exacerbated by recent changes in laws in certain states.

For example, women cannot receive adequate care in many states because of draconian abortion laws. If you have a child who is trans they might not be able to receive treatment.

You also have major educational gaps developing in some states. There are states that are trying to ban mentioning the existence of the LGBTQ population or racial bias in public schools. Setting aside the perceived morality of this, it hamstrings the students if they want to go into certain fields. If you have a child educated in this system they are going to be at a significant disadvantage relative to their peers from other states.

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Waaypoint t1_jdlir1q wrote

I've largely had this experience. It was more expensive, added levels of management difficulty, and introduced other intangible challenges. It wasn't some nebulous corporate "greed" it was the fact that we could not find enough candidates for certain roles in the US. Finding local talent wasn't really an option in a lot of cases. I head hunted at colleges, sponsored paid internships, advised on courses and classes that would place someone at the front of the line for our jobs.

The bigger travesty is when we wouldn't promote internal candidates with tons of institutional knowledge, good performance reviews, and drive (regardless of their immigration status). The company always caped their salary expansion or always refused to match external or internal offers. Those people rightfully left for better paying jobs taking their experience and internal knowledge with them. We would then hire some green recruit who we would spend thousands onboarding and training for more than the previous employees ask because we had to hire within industry pay bands. In my experience, every single person that asked for an increase or match ended up leaving, so it wasn't a bigger picture numbers game. If anything, it encouraged other workers to seek employment elsewhere.

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Waaypoint t1_jdhm69l wrote

Yep, and the production cost goes down as soon as you use enough of the more expensive infrastructure to build units; set-up, development, purchasing new machines, building new processes have a steeper initial cost than you would pay to maintain their operation. It is a whole new platform with entirely new equipment and processes.

Most of the objections against EVs are not based on how they are performing in the market, their desirability, and the ROI over time.

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Waaypoint t1_jdhfapj wrote

EVs are overpriced !

They are sold out.

Did you hear they are raising their prices even higher !

They are sold out.

The tax credit doesn't even get them into the price range of ICE cars !

They are sold out.

They are losing BILLIONS because no one wants them !

They are sold out.

They won't work for MY road trip !

They are sold out.

Squeaky clown shoes sounds...

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Waaypoint t1_jd7qlth wrote

I hate to say it runs like this but it sort of does.

They need to be in the same groups and clubs as the people working or hiring at the companies they want to work for.

While they may eventually get something with just a resume, referrals from local infosec groups, meetups, and clubs is extremely helpful.

Also, at least in infosec, I haven't seen FAANG companies all that interested in hiring remote work at the moment. In fact, those remote seem to be disproportionately targeted in these rounds of layoffs. I've had more remote or hybrid job offers from smaller infosec companies. Just take care if they are looking at a private company without a predetermined exit strategy.

In my experience these smaller companies expect you to know their specific product and services prior to interview; particularity in cloud (e.g. containers, docker, apps, etc).

TLDR: There are a solid number of small public (and private) security focused companies with remote work. Getting referred in from people you know is important. Knowing the specific product/tech wins the interview.

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