

Ask HN: Changing jobs with excellent prior salary - anon_programmer

I'm in a pretty good programming job that pays very well. Salary + bonus is around $200k.<p>However I wish to do something different technically. I'm started applying to the usual companies. My question is whether this kind of salary range is sustainable for a programmer.<p>I guess I'll know for sure when I get the offers but I thought I'd ask anyway to set my expectations accordingly.
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patio11
The salary you get will depend much, much less on what is "sustainable for a
programmer" and more on how skilled you are at demonstrating value to
prospective employers and then aggressively negotiating to capture a fraction
of that value.

The first step: stop describing yourself as a programmer. You can buy
programmers for cheap in India. Can you buy you for cheap in India? No. So
don't sell yourself as if you are a close substitute for other code monkeys
except you cost ten times as much.

Instead, you offer a virtually unique and _impossible to hire for_ combination
of skills which has previously and will continue to make firms lucky enough to
employ you huge stacks of money. Exactly what skills you emphasize are up to
you, but "I know technology X and Y" is a _lot_ less important than "Knowing X
will let me make you several million dollars; here's why. Knowing Y will...
You will find it virtually impossible to find X and Y in the same guy
because..."

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gimpf
AFAIK you do not hire programmers in India, you hire a CMMI level 5 certified
"team" having at least 50% Senior Software Architects on board.

More to the point: I doubt that any company paying a salary in the above
mentioned range which is also an interesting place to work (the OP obviously
doesn't do it for the money) is giving a dime on how you title yourself.

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Skywing
Well, I've been in the field, professionally, for about 3 years and have yet
to see anything above $70k, so from my perspective you're doing just fine. :)

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redthrowaway
Where are you located? In many markets, your best chance for a significant
raise is a lateral move to a new company where your compensation is determined
by what you bring to the table, and how ably you can demonstrate that, versus
your current company where you can never fully escape the rubrik of past
compensation.

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staunch
Generally: No.

If you're willing to work in finance or similar soul-sucking industry that's
definitely doable.

If you want to work in most other fields then no. Certainly no (good) startup
is paying $200k cash compensation to their programmers.

I'd say $150k is around the ceiling if you value the quality of work/company.

Much more common is $120k-$140k for a good and experienced programmer at a
good company.

This all assumes you're in a major US city.

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zmmmmm
I'm hardly an expert but from my experience if all you are coming to the table
with are standard programming skills then I think the positions in that salary
range are few and far between. You will need to be bringing something special
to the table, I would think.

But what do you want out of life? I'm currently looking at halving my salary
(which wasn't as high as yours) to enter a field that I just think is
fascinating and important to humanity (genetics / biotech). In the end it's
more important to me that I can look back on life and think that I did
something useful / important than just made a crap load of money.

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lscharen
My most recent job transition was from a programming position in a large
metropolitan area to one in a very rural area. I moved for lifestyle reasons
and took an ~60% pay cut -- so the best answer I have to you is "it depends".

If you want to maintain something close to your existing salary, you must _at
least_ look for companies or locations that actually pay that kind of salary
to begin with.

This is probably quite obvious advice, but I think we (as developers)
sometimes lose sight of the fact that there is not "one true salary range" for
any particular set of skills.

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Osiris
If you're looking for something more challenging and a change a scenery,
perhaps what you should do is bank a significant portion of your income for
the next year or so and start the process of creating your own startup or
finding partners to build a new startup. That's certainly a challenge.

 _Note: I'm currently looking for a technical co-founder, it's not easy to
find someone with great skills willing to work for equity_

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gte910h
You likely need to go (or stay) in finance to get that.

Atlanta (BofA needs C++ guys), NY or Raleigh are good bets.

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known
You're _building_ stuff as a programmer and your company is doing good at
_selling_ it for $200K+expenses+profit+taxes.

