
I'm Begging for Work - brokedev
http://brokedev.tumblr.com/post/128758443470/im-begging-for-work
======
ecliptik
I'd suggest the following,

    
    
      active twitter account
      completed Linkedin profile
      active github account
      active website (Github Pages allows free static hosting)
    

For a remote job search, sign up for a free RSS site (I recommend
[https://newsblur.com/](https://newsblur.com/)) and add some remote-only
feeds,

    
    
      https://goremote.io/rss
      https://jobs.github.com/positions.atom
      https://careers.stackoverflow.com/jobs/feed?allowsremote=True
    

Other good remote job sites are,

    
    
      http://jobs.remotive.io/
      https://www.flexjobs.com/
      http://skillcrush.com/2014/10/10/sites-finding-remote-work/
    

Finally, setup a profile on [https://hired.com/](https://hired.com/) and
[https://www.smarthires.io/](https://www.smarthires.io/) which are dedicated
to linking candidates and companies in a more selective manner.

Hope this helps and good luck.

~~~
skimpycompiler
Why Twitter?

~~~
sdoering
[rant on] Because in this filter bubble here you are not worth a dime, if you
can't brag about how friggin' awesome you are - thats what twitter is for.
[rant off]

Imho he should apply for jobs, apply more and even apply more. Having studied
literature, I have jumped ships from publishing to tourism (marketing analyst)
to being a full time data analyst via doing the work and having a resume to
show it.

Having an application, that differentiates one from the competition did maybe
help a little bit.

If @brokedev would like, he could shoot me a mail and I would show him, what I
had for an application. Helped me get a lot of interviews - in the end I could
choose between jobs.

[edit on] Have just updated my profile - seems to be cached. In some minutes
my email should show there. [edit off]

~~~
puranjay
Fellow literature student here.

I'm very curious how you managed to shift to data analysis.

I've made a successful shift to marketing, but technical work still eludes me.

~~~
gregcohn
literature major here, just chiming in to say it can be done! (I'm a
founder/CEO now.) Follow the things that challenge you and that you can learn
from, that intersect with things you have some strength in. Maybe marketing in
the context of developer platforms?

~~~
sdoering
Hey Greg,

whenever you scale to Germany, please shoot me a line. What you are building
seems to me the ideal service to use. So many use cases shooting through my
head...

Greetings from the old world Sven

~~~
gregcohn
thanks -- will do!

------
vellum
1.) The best time to find a job is when you already have one. Next time, find
another job before you quit or make an ultimatum.

2.) Don't spend so much time thinking about why your company is screwing you.
People job hop every 2 years, because it's the only way they'll get a 20k
raise. Your salary will eventually hit a plateau as you move up, but early in
your career, you shouldn't stay too long at one place.

3.) Don't reek of desperation. It's a turn-off to dates and it's a turn-off to
interviewers. Ranting with a throwaway account is fine, but don't mention your
situation in an interview.

4.) Use your rails skills and scrape indeed's listings for rails jobs in your
area. Make a private rails app and filter out all the recruiters and IT
staffing firms. Why? A lot of them are just doing arbitrage with the existing
listings, and they don't have exclusive access. Do direct applications first,
and if you're still not getting hits, then go to recruiters.

5.) Do research on data.jobsintech.io, glassdoor.com, crunchbase.com, and
angel.co for company information. Message past devs on linkedin. Oh, and half
of all glassdoor reviews are fake and from the HR departments. If they don't
talk about negatives or give weak ones, it's usually fake.

6.) If you haven't already, look into your county's social services for any
benefits you might qualify for. Your daughter might be eligible for disability
benefits, and in the meantime, your family needs to eat.

~~~
Mikushi
Right, blame the guy for being exploited like so many others.

1/ He did not quit or made any ultimatum. He acted on what was promised,
nothing wrong with that. But right you should always lower your head and
submit to the startups and their heads.

2/ Typical protection of abusive companies by telling employees who are being
openly screwed : "Deal with it". Such a healthy advice, lets not question the
ethics and working of most of the tech sector who all have been dipping their
toes in shady hiring practices.

3/ Easy to say when you're not living paycheck to paycheck and you see your
dream slowly crumble before your eyes because of a company's unacceptable
behaviour (acceptable to certain on HN though who probably think the CEO was
right).

WHile 4 & 5 are valid, your first advices put the entirety of the blame on OP,
when in fact that blame lies entirely on the CEO and startup in question. If I
were in his position I would have made sure that their name are public and
known to prevent others from being exploited.

~~~
vellum
I think the CEO's a sociopath, and I could care less if he gets shamed like
that dentist that shot Cecil the Lion. But the OP is supporting a wife and 4
kids, so I'm giving him tactical advice.

>That I’d been told $75k was reasonable, and that I would have to look for
work elsewhere if it was going to be $44k.

That sounds like an ultimatum. The problem is he's bluffing. He gets his bluff
called, and then what? He's out on the street, in a worse place then he
started from. My advice is not to bluff. Get a job first, don't look back.
When you take a counter-offer, you also run the risk of having them get
resentful, and firing you the first chance possible.

>2/ Typical protection of abusive companies by telling employees who are being
openly screwed

This is based on what I've seen. I think companies should pay their employees
market wages. But most companies will only give you a 5% raise, not a 20k one.
If you know how to consistently get companies to give you a 20k raise, please
share.

>3/ Easy to say when you're not living paycheck to paycheck and you see your
dream slowly crumble before your eyes

I'm being realistic. Companies don't like hiring people who will take any job.
He doesn't have to walk in there like Don Draper. Being nervous is fine. A lot
of people get anxious. But going in there with a sob story isn't going to help
his case. Even if they don’t turn him away, they can still use his living
situation to lowball his salary.

~~~
s73v3r
"I think the CEO's a sociopath, and I could care less if he gets shamed like
that dentist that shot Cecil the Lion."

I do care. I want him to be shamed. I want his entire business to fall apart,
so that the CEO finds himself in the same position as this guy.

~~~
cholantesh
I tihnk he deserves as much, but will it really help the OP?

------
mmaunder
Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill
area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I
wanted to give you my 2c on getting into extremely hirable shape fast:

Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up,
get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from
friends, etc.

Do the online profile cleanse. Make sure everything is very professional
looking. Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about
previous employers. Looks like this blog post is anonymous. Keep it that way
and make sure that email address isn't associated with anything. Employers
will google your email address. They'll even drag your profile pic into google
image search, so the cleanse includes anywhere that appears.

Get code into GitHub asap and make your profile there sound like you're a team
player, super positive, super keen, all that good stuff.

Stop blogging about how tough your life is and don't ever mention it in
conversation. Whether you like it or not (personally I don't), that idiotic
quote in American Beauty from the motivational tapes is true: "In order to be
successful, one must project an image of success at all times.". Yup, that
came from the real-estate King himself. Seriously douchey and seriously true.

What employers care about is that you're going to be a great addition to the
team, make the rest of the team happier and more productive and be super
productive yourself. That's pretty much it besides not being a liability or a
risk. Hence the profile cleanse, positivity, demonstration of ability by
getting your code into GitHub and so on.

Then go forth and market the hell out of yourself with tons of positive vibe.
What I'm telling you here is pretty much to do very much the opposite of what
you're doing. Absolutely don't beg. You may get charity but I don't think
you're going to be happy with it considering your salary expectations and
family situation. You're going to want to land a job earning $75K upwards with
excellent benefits in a stable and growing business. That means they need to
think that you're awesome, so make yourself awesome and go and kill it.

Best of luck!!

~Mark.

~~~
vruiz
> get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from
> friends

Really? as a CEO those are signals for you? the profile picture is debatable
but the endorsements are just a joke and everyone knows it, people just
exchange them like they do with twitter follows. If anything, too many of them
would be a negative signal for me.

Completely agree with the rest of your comment though.

~~~
Bonogongo
Hiring is a filtering game. With 100 candidates, first thing you do is filter
out 80, I wish more candidates would understand this.

~~~
ericdykstra
Using something like "professional-looking LinkedIn picture" as a filter is
just throwing out candidates for the sake of getting the number lower. Any
company that would be this lazy as to potentially throw away their best
candidates in the first round of filtering on criteria that has such little
actual signalling is not one that I would want to work for anyway.

~~~
tomhagen
I doubt people get filtered out solely on their profile picture. Yet when you
have two similar resumes, things like this might (and probably will) decide
who'll be filtered out.

Pro-tip: no one wants to see a Nikon in your profile picture and no one cares
about your photography hobby on your resume. I'm talking to you, half of the
tech community on Linkedin!

~~~
Jach
People are filtered all the time for BS reasons, e.g. there's a fairly well-
known "I only hire lucky people" filter where a random half of the application
pile is tossed out without a glance.

~~~
DanBC
That "I only hire lucky people" is clearly parody. Noone actually does that in
real life.

I agree that many of the filters that people use are bullshit.

~~~
Jach
Fair enough. Though I still can't help but think there have been people out
there who read the fable and then said, "That's a good idea, I'm going to try
it."

(You've most likely also read
[https://web.archive.org/web/20120501193533/http://raganwald....](https://web.archive.org/web/20120501193533/http://raganwald.posterous.com/i-dont-
hire-unlucky-people) too, a point in which is that other BS filters act just
like the toss-half one in that they aren't really useful when your qualified
applicant proportion is small.)

------
cplease
Dude, you got shit on, but your entire post screams unprofessional. If you
want to be a professional, and be treated like a professional, you need to act
professional. Harsh perhaps but that's the truth.

If this is a serious job solicitation and not just catharsis you are doing it
all wrong. Starting with how desperate you are, how proud you made your mom,
and how shitty you've been doing and been treated does not make the hirers of
desirable jobs want to hire you. If nothing else, go google "just-world
hypothesis."

I'm not in a hiring position right now (although I know plenty of hiring
managers itching for referrals) but if I were I wouldn't touch you with a
10-foot pole even if on some level you make your plight sympathetic. Why?
Because your post radiates "danger, high risk, unprofessional, possibly
unstable individual who does not know how to behave in a business setting."

Scrub this and start over.

~~~
nilkn
I felt this way at first, but not after reading the entire post. Yes, it was
emotionally driven and certainly goes against a lot of rules for job
solicitation.

But I actually think he's shown himself to have good character here. He isn't
attempting to sabotage the company even though he could. This happened very
recently so you'd expect some of the emotions to be raw. I don't think this
person is "high risk" if firing them after abusing them means that they're
still loyal enough to you to not reveal your identity publicly. It sounds like
this person was a trooper right up to the very end and is in fact pretty much
the opposite of high risk.

~~~
Bonogongo
He blackmailed his boss, used f* f* f* in a conversation with him and you
think "hink he's shown himself to have good character here."? Holy Batman.

~~~
Bonogongo
@nilkin "You give me more money or I leave." vs. Just walking away from the
negotiation. From my experience if you give in to "You give me more money or I
leave" 6 months down the road it will be another "You give me more money or I
leave" and then another.

Wikipedia: "Blackmail is an act [..] involving unjustified threats to make
[..] cause loss to another unless a demand is met."

~~~
nilkn
It sounds like you've had a bad experience with a former employee, but this is
not blackmail. That's just standing up for himself. The OP was working there
contingent on his boss's promise of a raise, and both parties knew this,
including the boss. In fact, the OP was remarkably generous towards his boss
by doing something very foolish: knowingly taking an unlivable wage out of
trust that the boss would live up to his word.

Regarding your Wikipedia quote, leaving a job in which you are abused and
underpaid is not at all unjustified.

~~~
Bonogongo
It sounds like you have done this in the past, and it is blackmail.

And I understand that you don't want to see yourself as a blackmailer.

"I'm more worth than that" and leaving is standing up.

"Give me more money or I leave" is blackmail.

"Regarding your Wikipedia quote, leaving a job in which you are abused and
underpaid is not at all unjustified."

Leaving is not the blackmail part, threatening to leave is the blackmail part.

~~~
icebraining
First, blackmail is about information, so if anything it would be extortion.

And it's not extortion because the "threat" was not wrongful; the boss is not
his owner nor is he entitled to his work.

The word you're looking for is haggling, and it's a common part of
negotiations.

~~~
DanBC
But "give me more money or I'll leave" is a bad way to go about haggling, and
is likely to lead to the employee leaving. "I'm worth more than you're paying"
is better, even though the employer and employee both know that "and if yu
don't pay me more I'll leave" is an unspoken part of that sentence.

HN regularly mentions the book "how to win friends and influence people" or
talks about hacking various interpersonal processes.

This is just an interpersonal hack. Saying "give me more money or I'll leave"
causes many - but admittedly not all - managers to respond with "go ahead and
leave then", even when the manager knows that replacing the leavig employee
will require a higher wage than the employee is currently getting and some
expenditure on the recruitment process.

 _People are not rational_ and they do mot make rational decisions. We know
that management, and recruitment, is very broken.

~~~
icebraining
Oh, for sure, it's not a _good_ negotiation tactic, no argument there.

------
ak39
1\. Tell your wife. Trust me you'll feel better afterwards.

2\. Keep looking for new opps. Get your CV out to as many places. Keep your
hopes up. Spend time with your kids in the mean time. Kids are great company
when you are "present with them".

3\. Note for yourself: get numbers in writing before making changes to your
life about opportunities.

4\. Never use the word Fuck or any other expletives or crass language in any
communique where you have the moral high ground. That just makes you look like
the guilty one. Don't give the fuckers that chance.

Good luck bro.

~~~
roflchoppa
Dont spill all the beans to your wife, she's gonna bring it up in a fight
later one. ask me how i know.

~~~
igravious
Don't listen to this advice. Be honest. Don't ask me how I know.

~~~
enneff
Be honest. I'm happy to answer questions as to why I believe this is good
advice.

~~~
igravious
Oh I see. Sorry. I didn't mean it to come across like that. Just had a recent
personal situation I'd rather not go into on a public forum that would have
turned out a whole lot better if me and the truth were more in alignment, sad
to say : / Anyway, one lie begets another. Just tell the truth, less cognitive
overload, less trust issues. Easier said than done I know; we all want to save
face, we all have our shame to hide.

~~~
mcv
I'd say if you can't trust each other in a long term relationship, you have no
business being in that relationship. You're in it to support each other. This
is a situation where you need support.

------
brokedev
My email is blowing up. Sorry I haven't answered anyone, I really didn't
expect much of a response and this on top of everything else is overwhelming.

I really can't post my personal account names publicly, that would give away
the company and, as I've said previously, I do really like the dev team. My
team leader has a kid as well and works his ass off, and I want to see that
pay off for him when they get through some of the deals they're working on.
There are other devs there who are really good people, including one whom I
consider a friend. They all depend on it as well. Who am I to fuck with their
livelihood to screw with a guy who's going to be rich regardless?

Hell, I'm not mad at the CEO either. I don't really understand if he's just
forgetful, but he claims in the emails that he never said any of that about my
salary. He's been running around to meetings, so I get why I'd be the last
thing on his mind.

To those wondering about the financials, I know that one of their rivals (with
what I consider an inferior product) is in the billion dollar club, and
they're set to be profitable very soon.

~~~
chrisbennet
Don't make excuses for the CEO. He didn't forget because he's a busy guy. He
straight up exploited you.

"I don't blame my boyfriend, he only beats me when I deserve it."

You learn many valuable lessons on that first job. One of them is that if they
pay you cheaply initially they will almost never see you as "valuable" after
that. It's just human nature. Another lesson is that the best way to get a
raise is to switch jobs.

HN's patio11 has perhaps _the_ most awesome blog post on salary negotiations.
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/)

Good luck and stay strong bro.

~~~
mcv
> You learn many valuable lessons on that first job. One of them is that if
> they pay you cheaply initially they will almost never see you as "valuable"
> after that.

I remember at my second job, I discovered that a co-worker who worked there
longer, made less money than I did, and I considered myself underpaid. And
that was actually a pretty nice company with decent founders. The co-worker
started there as a student I think, and maybe he was never assertive enough in
asking for raises, or maybe a bunch of 5% raises still don't amount to much if
you start low enough.

Whatever the case, I learned through personal experience that the best way to
get a raise is to switch jobs. For some reason, it seems you have more
leverage with a prospective employer than with a current one.

~~~
chrisbennet
I had the same experience except it was my 3rd job. My colleague dropped out
of MIT to work there and was _easily_ 2-3 times the coder that I was and had
written all their software. I'm positive he was getting paid less than I was.
(Our boss/the owner was also great.)

The good news is that when I left I they gave him a huge raise, I think they
doubled his salary.

------
atroyn
Holy shit. I'm going to send you some mail and see if I can help you out
directly in about a minute, but I'd like to comment on your situation here
too.

This is the third time this month I've heard of a startup "CEO" screwing their
employees out of pay and/or benefits, specifically exploiting 'interns' or
severely low-balling entry level hires who don't know better. Startups are
hard. They're supposed to be hard - you're trying to build something big
without the resources of a big company. That means you can't pay what a big
company would pay. That doesn't mean you get to screw people over.

As a founder you have three options:

\- Do tons more work as a founder. Fill in the gaps you can't hire for on your
own, until you can pay to get that help. That's why you get the equity, and
that's how you build your founding team.

\- Be up front with people about what they can expect in terms of pay,
especially early on. Let them know about the risk. Hope your idea and the
state of the company so far excites them enough to join anyway. Work your ass
off to improve their situation and get them to stay.

\- Lie to people, obscure expectations, and basically screw up people's lives
because you want to be the next Steve Jobs.

The first two are not only ethical, but pragmatic. Being able to do things on
your own is a prerequisite to being a founder, and it means you need to take
on less investment, you get to keep more of the company. Being able to put
your ass on the line by letting people know the real risks is the way to build
a strong, loyal team of tough people.

If you're going to be a founder, mull that stuff over. Accept that this is
hard. You don't get to pretend it's not, because that will bite you in the ass
a hundred different ways.

------
redpillbluepill
I'm not a dev per se (I'm a sysadmin), but I perfectly know how it feels ...

I didn't graduate from a uni either, and always get passed. But that was years
ago. I'm lucky to have the recent two companies I work with are awesome.

I hope these will help you out:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/railsjobs](https://www.reddit.com/r/railsjobs)

[http://www.cybercoders.com/jobs/ruby-on-rails-developer-
remo...](http://www.cybercoders.com/jobs/ruby-on-rails-developer-remote-jobs/)

[http://www.indeed.com/q-Ruby-On-Rails-Developer-Work-
Remotel...](http://www.indeed.com/q-Ruby-On-Rails-Developer-Work-Remotely-
jobs.html)

[https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

~~~
brobinson
Being in the US helps a lot for those remote jobs. Many "remote" companies
only want people in US timezones.

As an expat, this has been very frustrating for me recently since it excludes
seemingly 75%+ of remote positions. I went from generating tens of millions of
dollars of revenue for startups to being unable to get a reply from startups
when applying for their remote positions.

~~~
xentronium
The "being unable to get a reply from startups when applying for their remote
positions" part is 100% true. I'm in such a position now and it's amazing how
many companies complain about there being not enough good programmers and at
the same time don't do a basic courtesy of responding to their candidates.

~~~
lagadu
> it's amazing how many companies complain about there being not enough good
> programmers

I've heard this complaint before; it's absolutely ridiculous. You can get
plenty of developers for nearly any technology as long as you stop offering
pathetic wages. It's a seller's market, deal with it.

~~~
brobinson
It hits close to home, too, because you'll see YC-funded startups posting the
same job ad on HN for _months_. One I saw repeatedly was even for a "founding"
engineer or something similar. Literally what are you doing on a daily basis
if you don't have your initial engineer(s)?

------
tdicola
You mention healthcare as a concern for your family--make sure you look at
your state & federal healthcare exchange (healthcare.gov, etc.). Losing your
job, for any reason like quitting or being fired, is deemed a 'qualifying
event' that can let you get healthcare at a very low rate. In some states it's
even subsidized completely if you have no income.

Unfortunately there are some states that have refused to setup the exchanges
and take federal funding. The best advice there is to move out as soon as it's
financially feasible. It's an awful situation and I wish you luck.

edit: Also contact everyone you worked directly with (find them on LinkedIn,
Facebook, etc.) and ask if they know anyone hiring, have contacts, etc.
Anything to get some leads or get your foot in the door somewhere.

------
krig
Also, I just realized: My employer is looking for Rails people, among other
things. Remote workers are more than welcome. I am one myself. More
information:
[https://attachmatehr.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseac...](https://attachmatehr.silkroad.com/epostings/index.cfm?fuseaction=app.allpositions&company_id=15495&version=6)

~~~
arasmussen
.silkroad.com? wat...

~~~
rev_bird
Not that one. It's a recruiting platform... don't try to buy heroin from
anyone on there.

------
giaour
Best of luck, brokedev. The only piece of advice I have is that you should see
remote work as a long-term goal, not an immediate solution to your problem.
Remote jobs are generally harder to find, usually pay less, and are almost
always more competitive. The easiest way to get a remote job without years of
experience is to perform well enough at a non-remote role that they trust you
to work from home full time.

(About your former boss: I know that in most states, employers can fire you at
any time for any reason, but generally you'd expect them to actually fire you,
not just delete your slack account. Makes me wonder if he was planning on
telling you at all or if he instead intended to just stop payment on your
paycheck and hope you'd figure it out for yourself. What an asshole.)

~~~
dba7dba
I second this. Pretty much a lot of tech workers prefer remote jobs over
onsite job, for good reasons.

The only ones that get remote jobs are either very senior, have proven track
record or they are free-lancers. So I'd say keep looking for it every once in
awhile but focus on getting a local job.

And always be learning. Always try to work on side project. It will help learn
and also may turn out to be an income source.

------
Jake232
I'd recommend adding some kind previous work examples (Github maybe?).

You also don't state which city/location you're in; that could be useful for
potential employers.

It may also be worth checking out if there's anything in last weeks HN Who's
Hiring post to see if anything suits you:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809)

------
undershirt
I'm not saying this makes sense, but the perception of an employee wanting to
leave a company goes from "terminable flight risk" to "an asset worth fighting
to keep" as soon as you get an offer from another company. This is why
employees never share that they're looking for work until they've received an
offer, which allows negotiation. It's a strange reality I think.

My condolences that you're going through this. You did good demanding what
you're worth. contact any tech headhunter in your area, and you'll find work
in no time.

~~~
fsloth
"the perception of an employee wanting to leave a company goes from
'terminable flight risk' to 'an asset worth fighting to keep' as soon as you
get an offer from another company."

This is so true. An offer changes the dynamic of the negotiation totally. I
think the psychology and economics goes like this: If there is no counter
offer, then the company would pay just more for the monthly asset they will
likely have any how.

However, if there is a direct offer they are competing with, it means there is
on the balance an acute need to find and train a replacement - one whom might
actually cost more than the current employee is paid. Also, the value of the
employee is validated by his demand in the job market.

The emotions, which will be present but subdued in a professional setting, are
also different. Without a counteroffer, the employee will just sound greedy.
With a counter offer, the employee is actually generous by offering the
current employer a chance to save in hiring and training costs (unless the new
wage is ridiculously high).

Silly and strange world we live in.

------
Timucin
What a bastard!

Sorry for the language guys, but guess we all know someone like that boss!

It's not that hard when you're single but the things are totally different
when you had a family and kids. The situation can drag you to any point when
it comes to a hungry brother, sister or children. I know, I've been there
(thank god it's a history now).

But the good news is, you are really valuable. I mean, you are a ruby
developer. You'd be having £400/£450 per day if you were a contractor in
London/UK.

So don't give up yet! Check the links other users provided and open a linkedin
account as suggested as well as job site accounts and upload your CV. Just
hold on couple of weeks and I am sure things will be better.

Hacker News is a great community. So keep us updated and let us see what we
can do about it.

Also it might be useful if you can tell us where are you based (I may have
missed that if it's already in the article).

~~~
mikekchar
I hate to break it to you, but if you are making £400/£450 per day as a Ruby
contractor in London with less than 1 year of development experience, you are
either insanely good or insanely lucky (probably both).

Although I'm working on contract in Japan at the moment, I spent the last 2
years working in London and interviewing people for positions almost every
day. Entry level for a good Ruby dev is £30-40K for a full time position. Some
companies pay higher (some significantly higher), but they will only hire one
in 1000 applicants, probably. There are still people in London making £22K per
year as a full time Ruby dev.

And, no, you can not live on £22K per year in London :-P

~~~
lhnz
It's not an entry-level salary certainly, however you probably only need 4-5
years of experience to achieve it. Skill-level, signalling ability and
confidence are all you need.

Entry-level for a good junior engineer is what you say it is, however
senior/lead probably reaches around £100k for particularly impressive
candidates, and finishes at around £60-80K for other engineers.

Contracting on the other hand seems to top out at about £650 pd. There
£300-400 is entry-level, £400-450 is mid-level or low-end senior, and £500+ is
high-end senior, architect or lead. Generally you get more if you work for
financial institutions and have a skill that is extremely difficult to recruit
for. Basically it's generally not about how good you are - that is the wrong
frame. It's about how cleverly you have fit a pain point within the market.

My numbers might be a little wrong but it should give a general feel.

It's certainly unfortunate that there are engineers that are only making £22K
but ultimately in many cases it's low confidence in testing the market. They
can get more.

------
etchalon
I really wish posts like these could mention the startup, so I could make note
to never do business with them.

No matter what transpired between the OP and his boss, that is not how you
fire someone with a family. Period.

You can hate the guy. You can think he's terrible. You can wish him all the
ill in the world, but if there's a family involved, you give them notice and
you help them move on.

Anything less than that, you're just a selfish asshole.

------
onerous2017
OP, I have been in a similar boat as you.

Back in 2013, my daughter was born and within 2 days I was laid off from my
position as IT Manager at a small MSP in Dallas.

No college degree at the time, no savings, wife and I were not working. The
one thing I did have though (fortunately) was experience in the industry -
about 8 years of IT experience (dev, systems engineering, architecture,
management).

I freaked out initially - the stress of a new kid, no money kind of ate at me.
For not only was I a dad (a young one at that), but also now my family has no
income (wife was on maternity leave).

The first thing I did was head to a local coffee shop and busted out my
laptop.

I hadn't edited my resume in a few years. I deleted everything and started
over. I knew this crappy employer wasn't going to dictate my families future.
I also knew what I was worth.

I immediately got on LinkedIn and started connecting with everyone I
knew/asked for references and then started connecting with hiring managers at
prospective companies.

I created a burner phone number (google voice number) and used this on my
resume - then created a Monster, Dice and Careerbuilder accounts (to attract
headhunters) and filled out those profiles entirely.

Having not spent a lot of time in a few years looking at salaries in different
segments of IT, I spent a few hours figuring out what in the hell I wanted to
do - and what would make me some $$$.

I found that in the Dallas/Fort Worth area (at the time), Amazon Web Services,
Microsoft Azure and VMware were heavily searched terms by recruiters on
LinkedIn and Indeed.com.. I started looking at what I could do to leverage my
current knowledge/skills and find a lucrative position.

After spending a few hours researching, I found that I could leverage my
systems (Windows/*Nix) administration experience and help developers deploy
their code. I was pretty good with Python and was interested in learning Ruby.

Bingo - DevOps!!

I found what interested me - the best of both worlds and I started targeting
my job searches/applications towards that.

By the end of the day, I had a call from a local recruiting agency looking for
Cloud and DevOps engineers. By the next morning I was on the phone with the
hiring manager - and by the end of the day (3 phone interviews later) I had an
offer in my inbox ($90K more than my last job).

In summary: What you went through completely sucks. Don't beg. Show people
that you can get shit done. Do the work, be the prize.

~~~
pappageorgio
Wow man - amazing story.

I am a single dude with no family of my own, but I will say a few things:

A) When you are looking for a job - make friends with headhunters. Do
everything you can to get unsolicited phone calls/emails from them as much as
you can. Post your resume on Monster and make a really good/clean profile. I
also recommend doing this on StackOverflow and Indeed as well.

The whole point is to get these headhunters to work for you. Yeah you will
eventually start getting 20-30 emails a day from them and the same number of
phone calls. A lot will be for jobs in completely random cities. Filter them
out, anything that looks pretty good - follow up on it. (For the love of god,
use a burner number, you will regret it later if you don't)

B) Use LinkedIn and Indeed to your advantage. With Indeed for instance, you
can setup a profile as a company and search key terms in specific geo areas
looking for talent. As someone looking for a job - you can do the same thing.
Make your employee profile, then make a profile for "your" company and see
where you stand in the listings.

On LinkedIn, I highly recommend upgrading to a Job Seeker paid plan (if you
can do it - they sometimes have a free trial too). That will give you access
to see who has viewed your profile (for longer periods of time), where you
stack up against other candidates for LinkedIn job posts, plus you get a few
InMail credits to use.. USE them! Find companies in your area - from startups
to big corporations and just start connecting with anyone you can. When you
get to a Director of IT, or VP of Engineering, start asking about potential
opportunities within the company. Develop a connection with them and the folks
in HR (actual internal recruiters). Polish your resume, your CV and LinkedIn
profile. Don't be afraid to send messages (shit have a form message ready to
go if you need to).

Lastly, don't ever give up. As other posters have said - you can get a job, if
you make it your fulltime job. A big part of finding a job is hustling.

If you have less than 2 years of dev experience, I highly recommend brushing
up your GitHub account, maybe working on a small coding project to showcase
your skills.

I don't know where you live, so it is not fair to comment on salary - as that
is super variable according to where you live.

------
rev_bird
I can't be the only person who wants to know what company could have abused an
employee like this, if only to never apply to them or help support whatever
godawful business they're trying to run.

~~~
brokedev
Honestly I don't think they're bad. I have a lot of respect for a lot of the
dev team and the product itself, which is why I'm so vague on details. Like I
said in the post, I'm fairly private and didn't bring much up with anyone
until the end, so I don't think anyone understood the situation.

Actually one of the things that was encouraging during the past few months was
remarks from former employees that [CEO] is a dick, but [Company] pay is what
makes it worth it.

~~~
onion2k
If you don't name names you might as well be condoning what happened to you,
and damning other people to the same fate. The _only_ way to stop this sort of
thing happening is for CEOs to realise there is a very big downside risk of
being outed as an unethical business.

~~~
mikekchar
That's great if your life doesn't hang in the balance. Maybe if he gets
another job first, but naming names, even if it is for great justice is _not_
going to help him one little bit right now.

------
d4rky
If you're really desperate for job, create a LinkedIn account. There are
literally thousands of headhunters there, judging from my inbox looking for
just about anybody.

~~~
riffraff
this is a good suggestion, increasing the chances to get an offer or anything
is certainly good, but:

It seems to me that a lot (most?) of the head hunters on linkedin use a
"shotgun approach" to recruiting where they basically just send you a message
if you have a random matching keyword in your profile, ignoring actual details
of your skills, ability to relocate/location, seniority, wage expectations
etc. So you might easily get a full inbox, but going from that to a real
position might not be trivial.

------
mariopt
You can't simply fuck around with your boss without having, at least, a second
source of monthly. Next time try to get some freelancing gig before making
such a dangerous move.

I don't approve your ex boss behaviour but sometimes companies struggle to get
your pay check at the end of the month, it really depends on companies.

One advice: Being "good with computers" does not means that you're worth a 75K
wage. When someone in India does Rails apps cheaper, you need the skills to
prove 75K and even more. Having a college degree proves that you've learnt the
basic toolset to be able to solve problems, however you can learn it on your
own. Your challenge is to prove you posses those skills without a diploma.
It's possible, I'm a drop out myself, but it's takes time, effort and
networking to get there.

------
rebyn
Hey brokedev,

I can help with your CV. That's something you can improve right now (besides
active Twitter account/Github/Blog) to start shooting for jobs. I haven't been
in your situation before but have dealt with such management, so I understand
the feeling. Let me know if I can help. My contact is in my profile, or you
can reach out to me via Twitter @rebyn.

Cheers, T.

------
tsurantino
Doesn't this person deserve some form of severance or the equivalent of?

It's kind of ridiculous that he was "cut out" from a job like some kind of
child who was no longer part of the "club". It's grossly unprofessional to
disconnect an employee without any due process or policy.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised given the events leading up to the situation.

~~~
AdieuToLogic
> It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due
> process or policy.

In the US, it depends on what state the company is headquartered. Many are
"right to work" states, which means any employee can be fired so long as it is
not for reasons such as age, sex, weight, religious beliefs, or sexual
orientation.

In those states, an employee literally can be fired for a reason such as "you
upset the owner" with no further obligations.

~~~
hwstar
Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"?

Right to work means that you can work for an employer without having to join a
union or pay union dues. Right to work is used in conservative states to keep
unions from forming.

Employment-at-will means your employer or you can terminate the employment
relationship for (most) any reason whatsoever. If you are an employer, you can
fire someone for wearing the wrong color shirt (This really happened). If you
are the employee, you can say "I quit" and leave with no notice for not having
coffee available in the workplace (also, really happened at one of my previous
employers).

The problem with employment-at-will is that the employer has more power
because the employer-employee relationship is asymmetrical.

We need to teach this stuff in high school civics so everyone can see how
disgusting employment-at-will really is.

~~~
AdieuToLogic
> Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"?

You are right, I used the wrong term (Right to Work) where I meant "Employment
at Will." Thank you for pointing this out as they are different.

While 22 states practice Right to Work laws[1], Employment at Will appears to
be much more prevalent:

    
    
      Virtually all states are employment at
      will states, meaning that all states
      uphold the Doctrine to some degree. To
      what degree states uphold the Doctrine
      regarding employers' rights to discharge
      employees varies by state.
    
      EmploymentIssues[2]
    

1 - [http://employment.laws.com/right-to-work-
states](http://employment.laws.com/right-to-work-states)

2 -
[http://employeeissues.com/at_will_states.htm](http://employeeissues.com/at_will_states.htm)

~~~
hwstar
49 states are at-will in various degrees. Montana is the exception: it
practices "Just Cause" like the rest of the developed world.

------
arasmussen
Take a look at September's edition of whoishiring:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809)

You can search for keywords like "remote" and "rails".

~~~
dang
It's not too late to add a post to the "Who Wants to Be Hired" thread, either:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152811](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152811).
Worth a try. Good luck!

------
bechampion
In my country we say "Dios aprieta pero no ahorca" which translates to
something like "God will hurt you but won't kill you". I wish you all the best
, and I'm sure you have a great future coming your way.

------
scarface74
I hate to be that guy, but....

"That I’d been told $75k was reasonable, and that I would have to look for
work elsewhere if it was going to be $44k."

That was a dumb move. Why tell the boss anything? He should have thanked the
boss, gone back to work and started interviewing while he had a job. He let
his pride get in his way.

------
NKCSS
Seeing this on the front page, gives me hope he'll be helped with all the
exposure. I'm not in a position to help, but good luck to you and I wish you
all the best.

------
UK-AL
You really need to detach yourself emotionally from work. You need act less
with emotions and more rationality.

When people promise something x in the future, without any official contract I
automatically assume that its not going to arrive. It's just carrot. Expect
the worst, and be a bit stoic. In many ways less gain now, is better than
larger potential gain later because of the risk you take.

Don't try to forcefully negotiate, or use ultimatums without any BATNA. When
he broke his promise, don't say anything. Find another offer, come back and
say I have offer x now, bye. Maybe he will give a counter-offer if he really
cared.

I've learned this from experience.

~~~
rev_bird
> When people promise something x in the future, without any official contract
> I automatically assume that its not going to arrive.

This was a painful realization I had to make, and I've pretty recently acted
on it even though my employer probably had genuinely positive intentions. It
was a short-term change that I'd have loved, but they wouldn't put anything in
writing -- even an _email_ \-- about a long-term commitment that this would be
my new job. I had to not believe them.

------
krig
The whole notion of loyalty is insane. It's a contract. It's not a romantic
relationship. Any employer that even mentions loyalty deserves to go out of
business.

~~~
cryoshon
Agreed.

I really wish employers would stop talking about "our culture" also. "Culture"
and culture-worship are just another attempt at enforcing loyalty in a world
where everyone knows loyalty is dead.

------
upbeatlinux
As already stated add links to Github and LinkedIn. Also see

[https://remoteok.io](https://remoteok.io)

[https://www.upwork.com](https://www.upwork.com)

[https://careers.stackoverflow.com](https://careers.stackoverflow.com)

~~~
tluyben2
Do you have good experience with Upwork? Like every project having 100+ bids,
most of them very low.

~~~
upbeatlinux
As a freelancer I've had pretty good luck with Upwork. The art in getting
hired is crafting an apt proposal, being personable and accommodating. This
might require doing a bit of research on the client (not necessarily easy to
figure out), learning about their vertical, understanding what they are
actually asking for, etc. A lot of this is common sense but often overlooked.
However, many of these details are gleaned from an initial interview.

A few notes

\- Obviosuly, don't apply to jobs you lack skills for

\- Similarly, don't apply to jobs you wouldn't be a good fit for

\- Keep your Upwork profile up to date

\- Use the Github, LinkedIn, etc accounts integrations. This helps clients
verify your experience skill-set

\- Don't be afraid to adapt your profile to the job you are applying for

\- Be sure your rate matches your experience. If you're billing $100/hour but
can't prove your skill-set, experience or the value you provide you won't get
hired.

Since 2010 I've worked from a few hours a week, to part-time and in full-time
capacity on Upwork. Its gotten me connected to a lot of great startups (mostly
SF) and recurring gigs. However, it was _very_ difficult getting started.

All this being said if you're based in the US and can verify your skills you
have a lot better chance of landing quality gigs than your international
counterparts putting in very low bids.

------
mikekchar
Sorry to double post in this thread, but I just realized something. You should
consult an employment lawyer. Your former boss may actually be liable for
improper dismissal. It really depends _a lot_ on the situation and the laws in
your area.

Any good lawyer in this area will give you a free consultation. This is not
legal advice and I am not a lawyer. A qualified lawyer will be able to
determine the possible merits of the case. It is _not_ unusual to sue your
past employer in these kinds of cases. In some areas it is very common.

------
devilshaircut
Please see my profile and email me your resume and GitHub. I run a small Rails
firm and all of our devs work from home; happy to share details with you if
you contact me via email.

------
dig1
Welcome to the modern IT world. First dude, you will need to cheer up, since
many of us had been in the same position. As a matter of fact, I've been there
couple of times and that is the path of The Professional (learning things on
your own skin). Here are couple of my own remarks:

1) You are good dev and teamplayer, as other respected you, just that other
guy steal the day somehow. Who knows, maybe he is someone closer to CEO or he
managed to sell himself really good (CEOs often think like this: this new guy
is expensive, have shiny CV, hence it is good. BMW is expensive and shiny,
hence BMW is a good car).

2) I'm sorry you used the word f* during the talk, but it's not bad, this is
your first real work after all. To be honest, your destiny has been determined
long time ago when CEO started to look for alternative, so no matter how
polite, honest or hard working you were, you would get fired at some point.

3) As others mentioned here, don't beg for work. Make your profile/blog
looking professional, remove that post we all read here and write about Rails
tricks you learn on daily basis. Write about it in weekly or bi-weekly span.
Use blog to write about life, your kids and family (under different tag), so
recruiters can see how positive you are (also CEOs and recruiters looooove
devs with family as they can be easily locked within the company).

4) Start your own small business. You do have experience with plastics plants,
go to your previous employer and ask to create a web page or a management tool
for him. Offer it for free or a small fee; offer free support. You will see
that people will start calling you after some time.

Be patient and the work will come. And good luck!

------
gambiting
"And no one started at $40k. The general consensus was that maybe I hadn’t
gone to college, but I had proven myself in the past 8 months. I deserved the
same starting salary as everyone else, which was about $75,000 "

Holy fuck. I work as a full time C++ developer with a couple years of
experience now and I make $30k/year. And I have a first class Masters Degree
in compute science. Games industry man.

~~~
rev_bird
> Games industry man.

It's a small market with a zillion people who want to work in it. They benefit
from "paying" people with "working in the industry they love." That said,
$30,000 for 40-hour weeks is now literally less than minimum wage in some
states. Seems suspiciously low.

------
mburst
Do you have a github or any other publically available code/projects?

------
tdsamardzhiev
Dude, get your stuff together and _stop playing a victim_. Just.. stop! It's
embarassing.

~~~
dba7dba
Having a daughter that you can't provide for adequately can be crushing. I'd
say 'stop playing a victim' may be ok. But saying it's embarrassing is bit too
much.

~~~
tdsamardzhiev
I'm sorry, didn't mean to be a jerk.

------
flipp3r
Well, that sucks for you, and you're stupid for putting emotional baggage
online. Its not you boss' fault that you felt entitled for double pay, that
you didn't communicate properly, or that you have 4 kids, these are things you
just have to deal with now and learn from. Yes your boss was a dick, deal with
it.

If you want a job fast use linkedin and recruiters to your advantage. There's
loads of recruiting companies that are waiting for people like you. Getting a
job with some IT skills is very easy, don't expect a well-paying job as a
junior ruby tester though and make it clear to recruiters what you need.

------
siquick
I can't really add anything that hasn't been written in other answers except
good luck. This is a really unfortunate story and I hope you get the job you
deserve.

------
anonfounder1980
I'm sorry, but brokedev did EVERYTHING WRONG here, NOT the CEO. You don't get
paid based on what you think you are worth or what other employees think you
should be paid. Your salary is set by market forces. And from what I read,
this CEO took a chance on brokedev in the first place. He gave him a job doing
something that brokedev had no background in and has been compensating him not
just with salary but also with work experience that would be hard to get
otherwise.

I mean really, coming back less than a year later and demanding nearly TWICE
the salary? Come on.

If brokedev really thought he was being underpaid, he should have tried to
silently get another job while he was still employed. Then he could see the
market realities for what a programmer with 8 months of work experience is
really worth. If he could find a job that offered him $75k, then he could go
back to the CEO and say: "I am worth $75k because someone else is willing to
pay it, but you were the one who took a chance on me so if you can match the
salary I would rather stay with you."

Then he wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

It's sad how self-righteous some people are these days. No sense of honor or
dignity for themselves or the people who try to help them out.

~~~
potatosareok
I am really bothered by your comment esp. since you call yourself
"anonfounder", which I assume means you are also a startup founder.

I agree brokdev did many things wrong, namely not communicating concretely
what he expected his salary to be. I've been in that position before where,
because of in my case were insecurities, I did not communicate clearly what
pay I was expecting. Secondly, I agree he should have looked for another job
before things came to a head like that. Thirdly, he may have been lucky to get
that job opportunity initially, although I'm not too familiar with tech hiring
markets.

However, you clearly say "EVERYTHING", and I think that the company too did
things wrong. Just as he did not communicate, the CEO did not communicate what
he was projecting. The CEO should have, in my opinion, given a ballpark range
at least. I think that it is reasonable otherwise for brokedev to have
expected comparable salary to his coworkers, unless something is missing from
this story.

Secondly, for the CEO, I am bothered that he did not buy the equipment for the
guy. How much is 1.5k for company to spend, consider they spend it on every
other employee really? That in my opinion is very disrespectful of them.

Thirdly, and again I'm giving brokdev the benefit of doubt in how he portrayed
the story, the way the CEO handled the firing was in my opinion very
unprofessional.

Just because a person is in a situation where maybe they do not have a lot of
options, doesn't mean that you should take advantage of them. I think brokdev
was taken advantage of. Maybe you think same which is why you make throwaway
account for your post?

to brokdev, my 2 cents: \- You should have communicated your salary
requirements clearly, even though it might be scary to hear no. Better to get
the no sooner rather than later. \- Doesn't do much for you but good luck! I
unfortunately don't know any positions atm.

------
mcv
"Why the fuck didn’t he just tell me what I’d be getting from the beginning?"

Because then he'd have been out of a couple of months of cheap labour. You got
screwed. He set out to screw you right from the start. It sucks. Not the
entire industry is like that, but your boss is clearly an asshole. And worst
of it is that there's no way to get payback, because what he did is probably
totally legal where you live.

~~~
rev_bird
There are still plenty of ways to get legal payback, though not in a "slash
his tires" kind of way. Personally, I'd LOVE to add this company and its
managers to my list of "assholes to never work for." The only pressure we can
assert on manipulative employers is to refuse to be their employees.
Eventually they'll have to either shape up for fail.

------
Kiro
Something tells me OP is overestimating his coding skills by magnitudes.

------
graycat
It appears that quite broadly in the US, Asia, and more that single men can
just get by and that there's no room for fathers, mothers, children, buying a
house instead of renting, etc.

E.g., for jobs in the US, fire the fathers and mothers and hire single men at
maybe half the salary and work them maybe 80 hours a week.

It appears that maybe the situation is better in the Scandinavian countries.

Still, in the more advanced countries, e.g., US, England, Germany, the
Scandinavian countries, the native populations are going extinct, i.e., not
having enough babies. So, there's no room for families, mothers, children.

Extinct? In Finland, the average number of children born per woman is 1.5
instead of the minimum for a stable population of 2.1. So, from

    
    
         (2.1/1.5)^10 = 29
    

in 10 generations 29 Finns will become 1\. In at least one area of Spain the
number has been less than 1.0 -- some whole villages are deserted and for
sale.

single men and fire

------
dba7dba
brokedev, First, I don't have some of the hardships you have but you have been
paid working as a developer, which I've been trying to get to but failed so
far. So you are ahead of me. Hope that cheers you up.

I recommend following

1\. Get examples of your work online somewhere. Quick. It should be neat,
professional. Easy to view. It means a real URL like yourname.org or something
like it. Check out personal blogs/tutorial sites of other developers to get
ideas. I had a hardest time finding a linux support position, because I had
been out of work awhile. I think what really helped me get current job was
having a blog with examples of my work (scripts/howto) online. You should make
it easy for the recruiter/manager/future-coworkers to accurately judge your
skill, and resume is worthless.

Github is good. But for me, it was a hand coded html/css website. Didn't use
wordpress either. Put it up asap but don't spend all your time on it. Put
something up quick, go apply for jobs, and keep coming back every few days or
once a week to check for typos/improvements to fix/add. The process is much
like writing a paper or a book.

Remember this URL/website is like your brand. More important than your resume.

2\. You mentioned working in a plastic factory before. Now this may sound
weird/frivolous, but look at yourself in the mirror. Do you see someone who
looks like a tech worker? Or a factory worker? Do you wear t-shirts like the
other coders in the office wear? Rails T-shirt? Linux T-shirt? Near haircut?
Shaved?

A lot of job matching is about image. Do you project the image of a Rails guy?
Or a plastic factory guy?

3\. You shared your story about your family and your living situation. I'd
keep that story away from recruiters/managers/coworkers. Keep it vague.
Nothing about shame or being poor. You just want to look like someone who can
fit in. Weird but remember the whole culture-fit stuff at tech shops.

4\. You said f __* to the jackaxx ceo. Please don 't do it. Sure, you were
upset and he was taking advantage of you when you desperately needed the money
for your family (not even for yourself). I know you were not trying to make
big bucks to drive a BMW, but rather for your family. Still, no need to say f
word to higherups. You don't have to go down to the gutter he's in.

Best revenge is living well. And being a Rails coder, it should be relatively
easy.

Cheers

------
booruguru
> Sorry for the awful writing. I can’t think straight at all anymore.

If the author is reading this, you should know that your post was very lucid
and engaging. Much better than most of stuff posted on Tumblr.

You seems very capable and determined, you should consider freelancing. Please
keep us posted on your progress.

------
nurettin
I can't even imagine having a 40+K$ salary in my country (Turkey) that's like
3x what I make.

~~~
dkarapetyan
SF devs make 150k+. It doesn't mean anything because at the end of the day
after taxes and rent they probably take home less than you.

~~~
vacri
What a ridiculous statement. Taxes are what, a third of that? Leaves 100k.
This means that rent would have to be $5k/mo before you get to the same
starting point of $40k. And now you have $40k of money post-tax and post-rent;
nurettin is talking about $40k _before_ tax and accommodation. US$40k in
Turkish lira loses a third to income tax as well, and I have no idea what
accommodation is like there.

$5k/mo rent exists in SV, but if you're paying that much, it's because you
choose to, not because you have to.

I love this industry, but it sickens me when people on six figures moan about
how they're 'so poor' or 'hardly make anything' and try to distort the numbers
to make it sound bad.

~~~
dkarapetyan
No one is moaning. I'm pointing out that envying someone making more than you
is a pointless exercise.

~~~
vacri
You were making a nonsense value judgement that a 150k+ engineer would take
home less than a 40k engineer in a different place. Both places take a third
in income tax at those levels. I don't know how much rent is in Turkey, 40k is
27k after a third is taken for tax - if you wanted to match even this number,
that means you would have to be paying $73k in rent in SV, even higher than I
was suggesting.

So yes, "probably take home less than you" is definitely moaning and has no
substance. It's playing to the "omg, I'm so poor" crap that's prevalent in
some parts of our industry.

Living expenses are higher in first-world countries and that does need to be
taken into account, but claiming to have less money than someone on a quarter
of your wage "because tax and rent" is nonsensical self-pity.

~~~
dkarapetyan
You should relax and tone it back a little bit. I already said several times
you are taking things a little too literally so by all means move to SF and
make as much as all those rich developers if you want.

~~~
vacri
You're apparently just very bad with numbers. "Once" != "Several times".

------
Grue3
So $44600 is considered a low wage? I'm earning 3 times less than that and I
have 5 years of experience and graduated from the top university in my
country. I'd work for half of this salary if somebody offers me relocation!

~~~
xentronium
Consider taxes and increased living expenses.

------
tikumo
I am sensing that you've asked for the 75k a very wrong way. Also first search
a new job before you threaten to leave current one, burned bridges and stuff.
Did you have a contract and talks preceding the contract?

------
mikekchar
I'm sorry I can't offer you a job. I can only offer a couple of pieces of
advice (some of which I wish I could wait a while to give... but since I
probably will never get the chance to speak to you again...)

1\. Tell your wife ASAP about the job situation. No matter what stress she is
under, learning about it later may cause serious problems. She can help you
(emotionally and in trying to find answers to your problems). The better off
you are emotionally, the better chance you have of finding a job quickly.

2\. I've seen stories like yours a lot in my career. Some people are selfish.
A disproportionate number of these seem to end up in management/entrepreneur
roles (luckily, not all!!!). To your boss you were merely a source of cheap
labour. Take the "cheap" out of the equation and he was not interested any
more. I'm afraid that this is probably not the last time you will run into
this, so be prepared.

3\. This is locking-the-door-after-the-horses-have-bolted kind of advice, but
if you find yourself in a similar situation (it happens a lot in this
industry): get the new job first and negotiate for salary second. It's
horrible, but that's the way you have to do it.

4\. If you get the new job first, think hard about whether or not you really
want to negotiate salary in the first job. If in doubt, don't negotiate --
just leave. I tell my employers up front that I don't negotiate salary, so
they have to be prepared to offer me enough that I will accept. They won't get
a second chance.

5\. Remote working with no academic background and 8 months of experience
means that the next job is going to be tough to find. Keep at it, even if you
have to take another job doing something else in the mean time. Eventually you
will make it, though you may be in for some difficulty for a couple of years.
Trust me on this one.

6\. I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your
salary expectations may not be reasonable. For example, $45K USD is very
nearly $30K GBP. In London, I can get university graduates with intern
experience lining up outside my door for that salary. In hourly wage it
represents $22.50 per hour worked (8 hour day -- excluding holidays). That's
2-4x minimum wage in the US. If you are offered that salary again, I advise
you to take it. Just do whatever it takes to keep working (easy for me to say,
I know). Keep looking for the bigger payout and don't worry about "loyalty"
for now. Once someone respects you enough to offer you a good wage, _then_
work on building a good relationship with them so that you can grow together.

\- It may take you some time to find another job. In the mean time, spend
every free second you have writing code. Build an amazing portfolio. Some
people don't care about it, but I have gotten good jobs from my side projects.

Again, the biggest thing I have to say is not to get too upset or
disappointed. Just keep moving forward -- even an inch is enough. Whatever you
can do right now is enough. Never give up. Good luck!

~~~
silencio
> I hate to say it (I really do), but depending on where you live, your salary
> expectations may not be reasonable.

On the flip side, $45k may well be borderline questionable depending on where
OP is located. In California, for example, the minimum that a programmer needs
to be paid to be considered overtime exempt is $86k/year. It can become fairly
expensive to pay for overtime, so that $86k tends to be roughly the starting
salary for lower level jobs.

Definitely a case where OP needs to do their due diligence to find average
salaries for their location to use during salary negotiations.

~~~
mikekchar
Yes. This is an excellent point. There are some websites that show data for
salaries (including outliers for extremely low and extremely high values). It
is very much worth it to search around for them as opposed to asking other
programmers. Some companies routinely pay up to double (or half) of the median
rate, so anecdotes can give you very misleading numbers.

$70K may very well be a reasonable starting salary for the OP. I think my main
point was that $45K is at least twice the base pay for the plastics factory
work (although that probably pays overtime), so even if being abused it still
might be worth it as a stepping stone.

I honestly wouldn't worry about having too many job switches at the beginning
of a career path like this. You can always say, "I'm trying to get as much
experience as possible, and accepted some jobs at a very low pay. I'm looking
for stable work now, though."

------
panorama
I hope you land something soon, the HN community is strong. In case it takes
you a while and you are ready to begin interviewing, I actively help junior-
level devs get jobs in the industry. I wrote a book on the subject
([https://kokev.in/hired-fast](https://kokev.in/hired-fast)) and would be
happy to send you a copy for free. My email is my profile and I'd also be
happy to go over things with you (applying, interviewing, Rails).

------
novaleaf
Trying to give useful advice here, sorry if it stings.

Perhaps you are not worth 75k/year? Just because your friends mention that as
a standard salary doesn't mean everyone (you) are at that level. Going in and
demanding a 75K salary when you are being offered 40% lower seems to be a poor
negotiation strategy in any case.

As others here mentioned, if you really want to improve your salary you do so
by jumping around, not by forcing your employers hand.

Best of luck in your future, and hope you can bounce back from this.

------
angelofm
I'd like to donate some money and I am sure other people would do that as
well, how can I donate a few $$$?

After having kids and be broke myself in the past I really feel for you.

~~~
webXL
Uh, how do you know this is legit?

I feel for him too, but let's be wise.

------
bthomas
If the OP sends this thread to the CEO and asks for severance - or he'll
update the post to identify the CEO+company - is that extortion?

Certainly not endorsing, just curious.

~~~
Stratoscope
Whether it's extortion or not, it's the low road. Take the high road instead.

------
vectorEQ
looked for 7 years for a job in IT, got one now in it security.... earn less
that i did in factory work stackin boxes and preparing orders... :D welcome to
life!

theres tons of sites where u can get freelance work easily (truelancer? not
sure if it good ,but sites like that can be helpful), if you then get a
reputation on there it's ok for some extra money. lots of requests for web/api
work to, sounds right up ur alley! on the other hand, u can always look for a
job outside of IT. it's perhaps not your dream job ,but money is money. if u
need it there's lots of different ways to get it! (legally... not suggesting
anyhting bad!)

what helped me a lot when i wasn't in IT yet was to get stuff like forklift
licence etc. ,that kind of work there always is and it's enough to pay for
food and rent for a modest living place. if u then get something 'steady'
outside of IT you can start looking of that dream job again ,but this time
with less stress which will yield better results. (stress is reflected in
meetings job interviews etc. ,so going for that awsome job, you might want to
get into a bit more relaxed space before you apply.)

------
grigri9
You should be reaching out to ALL of your former coworkers as your first
priority since it seems like you left on good terms with them. Way more likely
to get you a job asap than updating twitter/linkedin/github.

If anyone asks I wouldn't go into all this detail and just tell them you were
unexpectedly let go.

P.S. I made my first comment on HN because it is fucking criminal no one has
emphasized this yet.

------
upbeatlinux
Doesn't seem to be any updates on this recently. I had a number of Rails-based
clients reach out this guy via email. I'm sure he had quite the volume to
respond to but didn't follow up with any of their inquiries. That's rather
unprofessional when you're begging a "hacker" community for work.

------
reustle
I feel like something needs to be said about having _4_ children while
bouncing around minimum wage. Everyone knows raising a kid isn't cheap, and
I'm not saying you shouldn't be allowed to have as many kids as you want
(different discussion), but having 4 without the funds to do so seems
irresponsible.

~~~
xiaoma
Children last longer than jobs do.

------
doridori
Your in a good place being a Ruby dev - I went with a family member to a Ruby
conf where he was trying to find devs for his startup and there was hardley
any devs for hire and about 100 people looking for devs TO hire! Also in the
UK ruby contracting has a higer day rate than mobile! Picked a good tech imho
:)

------
Moto7451
Try Hired.com. A friend of mine got a great response from a few good companies
and he was very green at the time.

------
kristopolous
1\. Advertise your phone number and your email everywhere you can. You'll get
a lot of recruiters - really.

1a. Write a few small technical articles on some specific thing you know a lot
about. (this is totally just a ripped patio11 recommendation)

2\. There's this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10152809)
which I made a script for, and a number of people ran with (like
[http://hnwhoshiring.herokuapp.com/](http://hnwhoshiring.herokuapp.com/))

3\. Lots of people recommend [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs)
... you can probably hit up a few dozen companies a day; it's ok, the worst
they can do is ignore you. There's also
[http://crowdfunder.com/](http://crowdfunder.com/) \--- look at the companies
that were financed recently - they will definitely be in a hiring mood.

4\. Try going to company-you-want-to-work-for.com/(jobs|careers) ... really.
Send an introductory email and if you don't get a response, respond to your
own email. Do it every 2 days or so until you get a response.

If this doesn't exist, then look at /sitemap.xml or the whois record and email
that person. Also, typing in the company name followed by "HR" and "linkedin"
can usually get you a name that you can find a personal email address to. Just
hit them up during business hours and explain how you got the email. It's
fine.

If they don't respond, change the subject line to "[follow up #2]" and then
"[follow up #6]" etc ... stop when you get a "no". You may actually get a
"let's set up a call". This does work, I've done it - and gotten the gig.

Oftentimes the people who are hiring have a lot of things on their plate.
Sometimes you need to nag them to make your candidacy more of a priority.

5\. Go to meetup.com --- find the tech-centric meetups with the most
attendants and go to those. Arrive early and talk to anyone you can. Don't be
ashamed to say "I'm looking for work." or "I just want to build things and get
paid." along with "A regular job would be great right now." ... straight-
forward, non-bullshit honesty goes a long way.

6\. Don't dismiss craigslist. There's lots of ok short-term gigs at below-
industry, but not-to-terrible pay. I also got a 120k/yr job through
craigslist.

7\. Use all the above methods in tandem. They all work together. Find out who
the decision makers are, where they go, get to know them ...

If you make getting a job your full-time job it will come faster than you
think.

------
atopuzov
Please someone hire this guy i a nice company.

------
upbeatlinux
@brokedev - any update on your job search?

------
timwaagh
pretty silly to think devs get a lot of money. only if you are really good.
and with so little experience, you are not going to be much better than me.
and i know what i'm getting.

~~~
wyclif
But his goal is to be a good developer. And good developers do make a lot of
money. You don't get experience by whining "oh, I have so little experience!"
He just has to keep working, and he'll get there. Baby steps. Everybody has to
start from zero in this business.

------
Bonogongo
As a manager if someone tries to blackmail me with leaving, I usually say
"Then leave". Never let people blackmail you.

Would I hire someone who swears and uses f* in a conversation with his boss?
No.

Would I hire someone who creates a blog to make his boss look bad? No.

All of this with 4 kids I surely would not trust on you any responsibibility
acting so irresponsible.

So everyone here who wants to hire this guy, a have nice time.

My advice: Try to understand why your boss only wanted you give $45k and work
on yourself.

~~~
onedev
You seem really bitter for no reason.

~~~
DanBC
Probably because of the needlessly aggressive pile on heir getting.

They make a reasonable point: first stage of hiring is filtering out people;
this blog post will to some emoyers be ideal signal to cause OP to be filtered
out; it might be an good idea to try a different style when looking for work.

------
bru_
Look this comes off as totally weak. If you're a strong developer as you claim
you have no god damn problem. Tell your wife, "Look these assholes are busting
my balls, I'll figure something out within a month" and hustle your ass off
and you'll get a job. The market is hot as fuck right now and it is easier
than ever to get a high paying job.

If you have no university degree and next to no industry experience, 40k is
not that far off the mark. But if you're doing the work of a 75ker, you should
be able to convince someone you're worth at least say 60k. I find it strange
that you had kids before you were making the kind of money you need to support
them.

~~~
wyclif
_I find it strange that you had kids before you were making the kind of money
you need to support them_

I hate comments like this one. You're assuming far too much here: that he had
children when he was in the same financial position he's in now. I very much
doubt that's true.

------
s73v3r
That company needs to be named and shamed.

Seriously, firing him for being "disloyal"? I do believe people were hung for
less back in the old days.

------
godzillabrennus
Jump on [http://www.joinjune.com](http://www.joinjune.com) TODAY!

The gist is you get paid to hear job offers, and with your development
background you should be in demand.

------
terryCloth
You don't have what it takes to be a software developer. Please, do yourself
and everyone else a favor and stop trying to be one.

Why? Pick one. It's like the other poster here said: you're doing it all
wrong.

If you ARE a programming fool (like me for example) go out and find a new gig.
Move it! Move it! That's what I tell myself.

Then I get my act together and make it happen.

~~~
AdeptusAquinas
Lot of weird trolls on this comment thread. New accounts to post anonymously.

What does that even mean, 'you don't have what it takes to be a software
developer'? We work in a professional, respected industry where if anything
the OP's boss should be pushed out, not the OP.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
No, because OP is clearly delusional. He took what other people told him about
what he should be making as gospel and then told his boss that he'd have to
look for work elsewhere when an offer was made to him, because it was less
than his "pie in the sky" number. Pay no attention to the fact that the guy
has zero education and less than a year of work experience, or that his
company clearly didn't value his production to the level of the other devs due
to the fact that he didn't even have a company laptop.

Yeah, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is that he was fired.
Because clearly, his boss is an evil mastermind who delights in the pain and
suffering of uneducated people with overpopulated families and no prior work
history.

Bottom line: he thinks he's worth 75K. Let's see him get it.

