Laughed real hard that this. The absolute perfect gif.

I have in places where there was extreme dysfunction and it wad a living hell.

I agree with this. The point I am making is that if this is a less dysfunctional situation and money, recognition, authority aren’t enough then it is time to maybe consider this isn’t the right career. My view jmakin should probably take the increase in salary and status then see it through for a while at least. We don’t know for sure if jmakin’s company is abnormally dysfunctional. It his is first job out of school. I am not sure if he knows.

They laughed at the suggestion of the raise and I just said well I need to leave then. I didnt even say a number I just said we need to talk about compensation. So they said re-evaluate salary after I deliver and "prove myself." I said I took offense to that statement because if I had not already proved myself you would not be putting me in this situation. I said that's not how this is gonna work - you get what you pay for and you are expanding my responsibilities/job title and not paying for it. This is not right for me and is not worth the frustration and setting myself up to fail.

Probably projected a little too much insecurity so they decided to just reduce some of my responsibilities so I can deal with my health. They still want me to put people in line and come up with processes for us (we have none). I'll just take this time to go out and look for work. Bunch of putzes man. I think they think I'm bluffing or something.

I agree with you. This is fairly common BS one can get from employers.

Yeah probably time to move on

Lol GTFO of there now.

Move to LA - there's a billion startup jobs here. And you're the right age.

Or maybe get a corporate job for a while. I've had a much better experience with them than my startup or small consultancy jobs.

Don't quit. Keep the job. Mail it in. Look very very hard for a new job.

Yes please don’t quit. As Goofy said earlier, you will lose leverage in negotiations.

Try less at work and start interviewing hard.

I have a buddy of mine, same school, quit in January and that SOB still hasn’t found a job yet. I don’t think it’s that easy in SoCal.

Idk i think im a good interviewer. I got a few offers barely trying. Maybe I was really lucky but I get recruiters hitting me up even with my threadbare linkedin.

I've taken a big chunk of time off 4 times in my career - once to do a side job (9 months), twice to play poker (1 year, then 2 years), and once to do my big trip (7 months).

Never had much trouble finding a job again - and man do I relish those memories - lots of amazing travel. And damn it feels good to be a gangster hanging out at the coffee shop at 1pm with all the service economy people and jobless. I went months w/o wearing pants. Until that gets boring eventually.

Also it staves off burn out.

The leverage in negotiations comes from not giving a crap if you get this job or wait for the next because you don't urgently need the paycheck to make ends meet, not from the actual wasting of good relaxation / job search / interviewing time doing a job you hate.

I think this is fairly obvious but in case it's helpful - in the corporate world, most people think of additional high-level responsibilities being given as a positive, even without any raise because typically there are more people than opportunities and the right opportunities can raise your future earning potential significantly. Also, all else equal, you're better off working with people who see great potential in you, as opposed to those that see you as disposable.

Now the situation being what it is, it may not be a great opportunity from your perspective but from their perspective, it seems like they were expecting you to be impressed with both 1) the opportunity for advancement they were offering and 2) their belief in your potential and they were quite insulted that you wanted more salary on top. I don't know how exactly it played out but I don't think they necessarily wanted to give you all these additional responsibilities, but more that that's what they thought you wanted and the prospect of you successfully growing into this role was worth the risk.

Also, if you do want more money, given that you're dealing with a small company with people negotiating that have a personal stake, the exact opposite stance may be helpful. Your actual situation here is that you hate your job situation so they need to offer an above market compensation in order for you to stay. And it seems that you made that far too transparent. Most people intrinsically don't like that proposition - imagine if you went to a barbershop and the barber said, you gotta pay 30% more than everyone else because I just don't like cutting your hair. Even if this was objectively a better deal than what you can get elsewhere, you may feel insulted and go elsewhere. The attitude you want to project instead is, I really love this job, but you're paying me so little compared to what I can get elsewhere that I just can't afford to be here. I know I can get X (my fictitious market value) but I will take X - 5% because I really love this job. Even if you're asking for the same amount and even if they feel you're delusional about your market value, it plays better because you're essentially making them feel better about themselves.

It's probably because I'm a sad corporate soul but I literally cannot relate to this at all - a regular job, especially if I'm no longer trying hard because I'm definitely going to quit in a short period of time, is not that different from a vacation.

I don't have any first-hand experience since I've pretty much worked non-stop forever but at least judging from people I know, I think this is a bit overstated - lots of people that I know in tech have spent months traveling or whatever and gotten great jobs/offers. The key thing is that for good tech jobs these days, it helps if you're well-prepared and it's easier to prepare that's your full time job. Also what helps with negotiating is multiple offers and it's easier to get multiple offers if interviewing is your full-time job.

Yes sabbaticals are fairly common.

I appreciate the thoughtful response and i think you are right.

But I’m not asking above market. We didnt even get to numbers yet, it was a conversation that went roughly like this (not verbatim obviously just the gist of the convo)

“we ****ed up by not giving you the proper support and tools you needed. We’re in a bad spot right now and need you to do (lists a huge expansion of my authority and responsibilities). What do you say?”

Me: “ok, if i understand what you’re saying, you’re effectively making me a program manager (list the responsibilities of a program manager)”

“Correct”

“Ok then i think we should talk compensation”

Them: “LOL”

I think i’m barely at market for my current job title. You guys confirmed this. On the one hand i get how they think the opportunity alone is worth more than any monetary amount they could give me. OTOH idgaf about titles and i dont even know if i wanna be a manager for my career anymore.

A promotion with no raise? Idc about title really. The message theyre sending me is effectively that they expect me to leverage this offer to go somewhere else and in the meantime fix their problems until they can dispose of me. I’m having a hard time seeing any other message here. They even said that this offer was worth a lot of money at my next job. Either that or they think i wont really leave. I thought i made it suuuuuper clear that i have basically nothing to lose here and i’m here for a challenge and the moment the frustration is overwhelming me i have no problems just creating an exit plan for me for them. I even offered to help them train someone to replace me in my initial attempt to resign.

Even if i have a new title, if i’m not learning and increasing my skills i just dont care. I dont think ill be able to learn anything with this new job other than a bunch of mistakes and a new cynical outlook in tech. I am defintely on track to be extremely bitter and burned out by 35.

Our HR/lawyer guy took me to lunch and wanted to feel me out about what was going on and i told him pretty candidly what the situation was and what all the convos were. He was kind of surprised too at my position when it came to compensation. But, he ****ed up by saying all the engineers got a large raise at the beginning of the year. So they’re all making like 110-130. Which is fine. But i’m managing people making like 30% more than me, i have all the accountability, what? Is this common or fair? If it is i’ll stfu. I know its the nature of tech but other than like one guy, none of them are particularly talented or amazing at what they do. I know myself and it’s just gonna make me resentful and a jerk.

Median tech program manager salary in LA is 122k fwiw. I am in LA suburb so id put my fair market value at like 105 accounting for my extreme lack of experience.

Updating my resume and linkedin today. **** really hit the fan yesterday, i think the major problem child got fired or is in the process of being fired. There was some major meltdown /some kind of drama with her when they broke the news about me, and i dont know what happened. All my other team was trying to figure out what the hell happened and asking me too many questions about it.

I told you engineers are more indispensable. Program/project/whatever managers have very little leverage compared to building have the system and it falls apart w/o you.

Yea i get that. But other than like, one guy (our best c programmer) i think they’re all replaceable.

If i am replaceable then they should replace me. That was the main message i was trying to send them. They say i am not. I don’t believe they mean it anymore. So regardless it’s time to start looking elsewhere but idk what the **** i want to do

They are saying you're replaceable by refusing to give you the same raises as the engineers (who do less work than you). Get out of there now.

Do you really not like programming? Don't get discouraged if some stuff took you a bit to pick up. That's normal. I've seen plenty of really good programmers who for whatever reason weren't immediately rock stars.

I only have experience at one company, but I'm almost positive that senior developers made more money than the project managers who "managed" them.

I’ve always been great at java and server side programming. In my downtime or when its slow at work i can just start taking udemy courses. Any recommendations? I dont think anything i picked up here will be valuable to me other than i have a really really solid understanding of unix based systems now

lol at thinking managers should make a lot more than solid devs. jfc. I mean they proly do at a lot of places. but managers pretty much suck so they shouldnt.

but also super lol at managers making a 30% less than devs. obv you should get better compensation.

I think it depends on what "manager" means. If you actually report to the person it I think it would be rare to make much more money than them, but it doesn't seem weird at all for a dev to make a lot more than a project manager.

Yea i definitely dont think i should make more than them. But i know for certain they make waaaay more than me. I found that out a while ago even before i learned about the pay bumps they got.

My company is ran by engineers so it makes sense they value engineers a lot. But the consistent feedback i get from everyone up high is that we really need firm management.

IME "manager" managers - like bosses - usually make about the same amount or a little more than the mid-senior devs they manage. Their boss makes more obviously.

Super senior devs can make crazy amounts if they keep getting raises or in our case - if the company had to offer them an amazing deal to get them to convert from contract - where they were making bank obviously.

Project/product managers generally are hired as contractors, then if they're good are converted at maybe 80-85% of what the devs they're managing make.

At my work program manager meant project manager boss. They made about what I made as a mid-senior dev (level II).