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csalvato

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bdb

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I dunno what to tell you, aside from that you're probably talking to the wrong people.

I get approached by people who have a 70-90k salary in mind for my role. They do exist, but they don't even process into my thinking. When I hear their comp expectation, I literally laugh and send a polite email saying that their expectations need adjusting.

I don't get on the phone with anyone who doesn't disclose a total comp package that exceeds $200k and I'm still getting approached and having phone calls.

And I live in Colorado. I'm not coastal.

Under 100k is for someone who is just getting started. People who are competent working remote are actually worth a premium now.

Stop looking for local jobs in poor areas. Look for remote jobs in companies that want to grow fast - ideally who are profitable or with Series A funding or better.

EDIT: One other note; language or framework is important here. I believe JS developers make less than Ruby developers based on a report from Stack Overflow I saw. Caveat here is that my memory is fuzzy on that, so it would be worth re-investigating.




This takes you front to back on creating web apps with RoR, including git and a Ruby primer. I tell most people to start here, even if they don't plan to stay with RoR.

To be more precise I'm in Texas and in my experience the offers here hover around 85k - 95k as a javascript developer (react, react native, angular, vue) assuming that you have a couple years of verified experience. Last December-November 2018, I interviewed with at least 10 companies and those were the average offered salaries for fully remote positions (which are hard to come by btw as everyone wants them).

I had a couple companies drop me during the interview process even after sending complete react + redux code assignments so it means that they have no problems finding enough people for their roles for less than 100k. Its worth mentioning that I had been using react for around 1.5 years and angular for about 3 years by then.

After weeks of that I managed to find one that is fully remote but it was not easy and it pays below 115k with full benefits though. Having said that I did find that you can get paid a lot more with onsite jobs compared to remote but I was actively avoiding those.


Which sites do you use to search for these high paying jobs while avoiding those foreign sounding recruiters calling you for 25 dollar / hour jobs:) ?
 

csalvato

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To be more precise I'm in Texas and in my experience the offers here hover around 85k - 95k as a javascript developer (react, react native, angular, vue) assuming that you have a couple years of verified experience. Last December-November 2018, I interviewed with at least 10 companies and those were the average offered salaries for fully remote positions (which are hard to come by btw as everyone wants them).

I had a couple companies drop me during the interview process even after sending complete react + redux code assignments so it means that they have no problems finding enough people for their roles for less than 100k. Its worth mentioning that I had been using react for around 1.5 years and angular for about 3 years by then.

After weeks of that I managed to find one that is fully remote but it was not easy and it pays below 115k with full benefits though. Having said that I did find that you can get paid a lot more with onsite jobs compared to remote but I was actively avoiding those.


Which sites do you use to search for these high paying jobs while avoiding those foreign sounding recruiters calling you for 25 dollar / hour jobs:) ?

Your experience is so radically different to mine, and everyone I know. I feel like something deeper is going on here.

When I'm actively looking for jobs, I go on weworkremotely.com. I didn't even exhaust all those jobs when I got an offer for more than my target salary + benefits, after looking for ~3 weeks in 2018.

When I'm not looking, I have a LinkedIn profile set to "Open to Opportunities" that lays out my experience, using the names of the technologies and competencies I hold, so I come up in keyword searches. When I am in this state, my profile appears in 200-400+ searches per week, and I get at least 2 inquiries per week. I'd say at least 40% of them are within my target comp range.

But I don't really interview anymore. It's too time consuming and takes away from other things like family, and building out my own business.
 

bdb

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Your experience is so radically different to mine, and everyone I know. I feel like something deeper is going on here.

When I'm actively looking for jobs, I go on weworkremotely.com. I didn't even exhaust all those jobs when I got an offer for more than my target salary + benefits, after looking for ~3 weeks in 2018.

When I'm not looking, I have a LinkedIn profile set to "Open to Opportunities" that lays out my experience, using the names of the technologies and competencies I hold, so I come up in keyword searches. When I am in this state, my profile appears in 200-400+ searches per week, and I get at least 2 inquiries per week. I'd say at least 40% of them are within my target comp range.

But I don't really interview anymore. It's too time consuming and takes away from other things like family, and building out my own business.

Thanks I'm planning on searching for a new job this next year, I'm going to give that a try. I don't think my experience is that different as I met a dude who was straight out of a boot camp and he was having a hard time finding jobs, he interviewed for 3 months with no luck with only about 6 months of dev experience.
Your experience is so radically different to mine, and everyone I know. I feel like something deeper is going on here.

When I'm actively looking for jobs, I go on weworkremotely.com. I didn't even exhaust all those jobs when I got an offer for more than my target salary + benefits, after looking for ~3 weeks in 2018.

When I'm not looking, I have a LinkedIn profile set to "Open to Opportunities" that lays out my experience, using the names of the technologies and competencies I hold, so I come up in keyword searches. When I am in this state, my profile appears in 200-400+ searches per week, and I get at least 2 inquiries per week. I'd say at least 40% of them are within my target comp range.

But I don't really interview anymore. It's too time consuming and takes away from other things like family, and building out my own business.


I think you are highly experienced in backend dev with additional managing experience and that is why you get such high offers. I went to weworkremotely and did a quick search for the first post offering some kind of visible figures in my field for senior and non senior role and found this:

Company A

We're XXXX, a bootstrapped startup with a flat culture that makes powerful tools for dental offices that are dead simple to use. We're growing rapidly, and we're looking for self-motivated people that can make awesome things.

We're looking for an strong developer to join our team that's comfortable working with a broad scope. We're always looking for new ways to innovate for our customers, and while we focus on web technologies, some days that may mean building a VOIP integration with Electron and others an online booking tool.

What we're looking for:

Highly proficient in Node.js
Strong communication skills.
React
Ember.js is a big plus
SQL
Experience building fast, scalable applications
Electron is a plus
Some PHP is a plus
React native also a plus
Must be US based

Salary
$80k - $100k dependent on skillset and experience

Benefits


Medical & Dental
401k
Paid holidays
Remote



Company B

Senior Front End Developer
Qualifications
  • 4+ years of relevant work experience: CSS/HTML, JavaScript, React, Node.js / JSX and AWS EC2 / RDS / ElastiCache (Redis)
  • Expertise in Object-Oriented Design, Database Design, PostgreSQL, and XML Schema
  • Serious design chops are a must. A demonstration of experience designing intuitive UX and UI for user comprehension of complex datasets
  • Github or similar repository with code samples
  • Experience with Agile or Scrum software development methodologies
  • Ability to multi-task, organize, and prioritize work
  • Candidates located in Tampa, FL will be given extra consideration
Salary: $80,000.00 to $100,000.00 /year

For the rest of jobs I found, they didn't post salaries and the majority require 2+ years of qualified experience in order to be considered, might need to a deeper search though.

I guess what I see is that not every coder out there is earning 100k+ with little experience. Theres an entire world of developers earning less than that. You never hear of them though.
Thanks for the input on this so far I might need to switch to backend dev now :)
 
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csalvato

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I think you are highly experienced in backend dev with additional managing experience and that is why you get such high offers.

I don't expect that people coming out of a boot camp would get 150k+

If this is your first job, you can definitely get hired for 60k, but I know I couldn't hire anyone good for less than 80k.

The people I've hired at 80-90k with little experience were making over 120k each after a year on the job.

A problem I ran into when hiring is that all these boot camp graduates think that a boot camp is enough. They were doing it for a paycheck. Hiring managers want to invest in someone who is a product minded engineer, not a paycheck chaser:


If you embody that and demonstrate it, you will get higher offers. @GrayCode's story corroborates that. As entrepreneurs, we should all be product-minded engineers - the most valuable engineers in a business.

If you've been programming for a few years and you're still not at 150k+, then the problem is something you're doing.

For example, for someone who wants to make more, you're focusing a lot on proving the point that there are 80-100k job opportunities out there. Of course, you'll find that.

I don't even register those job offers because I find them insulting - not just for me, but for anyone with more than a year or two experience working on web apps.

If you want to make more money, you need to figure out who you need to be to earn that wage and filter out all the stuff that doesn't fit your criteria.

Stop focusing on the jobs that you don't want. Focus on the jobs you do want.

I think you are highly experienced in backend dev with additional managing experience and that is why you get such high offers. I went to weworkremotely and did a quick search for the first post offering some kind of visible figures in my field for senior and non senior role and found this:

You're making some assumptions worth calling out.

I'm not a back end dev. I'm a full stack product engineer. I do whatever is necessary to get a fantastic product out that solves problems - so I operate across the whole stack, including managing if that's what it takes to create an incredible product.

If you aren't finding what you want in "your field", then change "your field" to be the field where people are making 50%+ more than you.
 
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GrayCode

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I don't expect that people coming out of a boot camp would get 150k+

If this is your first job, you can definitely get hired for 60k, but I know I couldn't hire anyone good for less than 80k.

The people I've hired at 80-90k with little experience were making over 120k each after a year on the job.

A problem I ran into when hiring is that all these boot camp graduates think that a boot camp is enough. They were doing it for a paycheck. Hiring managers want to invest in someone who is a product minded engineer, not a paycheck chaser:


If you embody that and demonstrate it, you will get higher offers. @GrayCode's story corroborates that. As entrepreneurs, we should all be product-minded engineers - the most valuable engineers in a business.

If you've been programming for a few years and you're still not at 150k+, then the problem is something you're doing.

For example, for someone who wants to make more, you're focusing a lot on proving the point that there are 80-100k job opportunities out there. Of course, you'll find that.

I don't even register those job offers because I find them insulting - not just for me, but for anyone with more than a year or two experience working on web apps.

If you want to make more money, you need to figure out who you need to be to earn that wage and filter out all the stuff that doesn't fit your criteria.

Stop focusing on the jobs that you don't want. Focus on the jobs you do want.



You're making some assumptions worth calling out.

I'm not a back end dev. I'm a full stack product engineer. I do whatever is necessary to get a fantastic product out that solves problems - so I operate across the whole stack, including managing if that's what it takes to create an incredible product.

If you aren't finding what you want in "your field", then change "your field" to be the field where people are making 50%+ more than you.
Spot on. You know... @csalvato, correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that a lot of these reasons for not finding higher paying work (as I see a lot of comments regarding that) has less to do with the opportunities being available and more to do with the specific engineers confidence and self-esteem with being able to relentlessly seek better opportunities and know their own personal worth and what they will and will not accept.

Also, on your point about being a product engineer. I think that's going over some people's heads a bit. There is a large difference between a full-stack capable-engineer and a full-stack capable-engineer who is also entrepreneurial.
 

csalvato

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Spot on. You know... @csalvato, correct me if I'm wrong. It seems that a lot of these reasons for not finding higher paying work (as I see a lot of comments regarding that) has less to do with the opportunities being available and more to do with the specific engineers confidence and self-esteem with being able to relentlessly seek better opportunities and know their own personal worth and what they will and will not accept.

Also, on your point about being a product engineer. I think that's going over some people's heads a bit. There is a large difference between a full-stack capable-engineer and a full-stack capable-engineer who is also entrepreneurial.

Definitely. Let's take a look at Medium's engineering ladder as an example. Here you can put in a person's approximate level of skill across various domains and calculate how "senior" (i.e. well paid) they are:


29114

The higher you are on more of these, the better your title and salary.

Only five of the sixteen have to do with writing code.

You get more valuable when you can be a good-enough programmer and do the other 11 things that are valuable to the organization.

So how do I stand out from other engineers who have more experience coding than me? I crush it on those other 11 things, and am really good at the 5 coding ones, too.

If anyone's interested, several other companies publish their engineering ladders here: progression.fyi

You'll notice the same thing is true over many successful companies hiring engineering talent. And for those of us, like me, who are building software teams, this is useful in understanding how to hire a high caliber engineering team.
 
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I wanted to post this here as motivation for others and proof that @MJ DeMarco is having an actual effect on changing people's lives. This has been a long time coming...

I first read MFL in 2015 and it changed how I approached things. I wound up learning to code from scratch self-taught. It was a long journey (the process) of ditching my late 20's and digging in to learning code. Head buried in books, podcasts, blogs, courses, and anything else I could get my hands on. It started paying off last year when I got hired full-time as a software engineer.

Went from being a personal trainer making maybe $30k a year to making $100k per year as an engineer. It was a huge upgrade for me and I stuck with my minimalistic living (in NYC) to keep bills low so I can finally get ahead. Paid off some credit debt and never looked back.

There were so many milestones I hit along the way. Here I am 4 years later, getting ready to go into the next decade with new life, pep in my step and my focus on being full-time fastlane.

@MJ DeMarco ... Thank you.

And thanks to everyone else whom I've learned things from over the years. If there's any way I can give back by helping answer questions or etc, I'd be happy to.

Probably should’ve read the title, saw the bank and was like whoa man, solid! $65K is a great start for a year...

Then I realized it was a month.

And my mouth dropped.

And it’s still open.

Great job man! Keep up the stellar work! Just imagine, if you’re here already, where will you be in a few years? If you invest, look into adding bonds per your age as a percentage of your portfolio and watch that money multiply into retirement . Seriously man, stoked for you!
 

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I'm a RoR programmer + have worked as a CTO-level leader.

Whenever I am looking for jobTYGs, my inbox fills up fast with recruiter messages. I often have to tell them I won't even look at their job unless it's over $200k/year, the ability to work fully remote all the time on my own schedule, fully paid healthcare, and an office budget.

And even then, they still want to interview/hire me.

I think there's enough demand.
I'm a RoR programmer + have worked as a CTO-level leader.

Whenever I am looking for jobs, my inbox fills up fast with recruiter messages. I often have to tell them I won't even look at their job unless it's over $200k/year, the ability to work fully remote all the time on my own schedule, fully paid healthcare, and an office budget.

And even then, they still want to interview/hire me.

I think there's enough demand.

I'd love to know your story. I'm getting started also
 
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Congrats my man! @GrayCode I have a very similar story to yours. Self taught and added a lot of value to myself through £10 Udemy courses!

A well paying job (ideally one with skills crossover to your side-business e.g code, marketing) is instrumental in becoming fastlane imo. The job hate in the forums, which I was part of until I became broke and clinically depressed after entrepreneurial failures, is very misguided imho.

Question: can you go a little deeper into your stock market ventures?Where you started, what books you read, your thinking behind your investing strategy etc.

I’m a complete noob to investing but know the current recession is an opportunity of lifetime to skill up and invest.
 

GrayCode

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A well paying job (ideally one with skills crossover to your side-business e.g code, marketing) is instrumental in becoming fastlane imo. The job hate in the forums, which I was part of until I became broke and clinically depressed after entrepreneurial failures, is very misguided imho.

100% agree with you, I used to be there too. It's so misguided. I don't think people realize how much they can advance in life really fast if they stop the job hate and find something that actually allows them to expand. Most people are navigating this whole journey with their eyes closed, blinders on, and thinking the success fairy is going to pull their card and rain money down from the skies on them.

Question: can you go a little deeper into your stock market ventures?Where you started, what books you read, your thinking behind your investing strategy etc.

I’m a complete noob to investing but know the current recession is an opportunity of lifetime to skill up and invest.

I'm actually intending to write a longer dedicated post on this shortly. I haven't written anything in a bit, and you're right the recession was the opportunity of a lifetime. I cleaned up (so far). Will need to write a longer post on it shortly.

There are more opportunities for sure.
 

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Cheers bud, I’ll keep an eye out. Anything you’d recommend i read up on in the meantime? I’ve been doing some miscellaneous reading and googling on stocks but without much direction or focus.

Expanding on my earlier post, I’m now in a job where I’m surrounded by top-tier programmers with years of experience who are mentoring me daily and only 1 slack message away from answering my questions.

The company funds all my courses and bootcamps all while paying me a very healthy salary. I even get to spend up to 8 hours of my work week on any side project I want to and if theres potential of a real business they’ll fund the biz for a 10% stake. Not to mention the network of investors and people who have already built multi-million businesses. The job is literally shaving off years from the learning curve and experience while still making bank.

I think many TMF readers misconstrue MJs fastlane concept. Your end goal shouldn't be life derived from the job, but that doesn’t mean the job isnt part of the FL process. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

Also +1 on MFCEO project. Andy saved me from my depression to get back on the self development and entrepreneurship horse.
 
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GrayCode

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Cheers bud, I’ll keep an eye out. Anything you’d recommend i read up on in the meantime? I’ve been doing some miscellaneous reading and googling on stocks but without much direction or focus.

Expanding on my earlier post, I’m now in a job where I’m surrounded by top-tier programmers with years of experience who are mentoring me daily and only 1 slack message away from answering my questions.

The company funds all my courses and bootcamps all while paying me a very healthy salary. I even get to spend up to 8 hours of my work week on any side project I want to and if theres potential of a real business they’ll fund the biz for a 10% stake. Not to mention the network of investors and people who have already built multi-million businesses. The job is literally shaving off years from the learning curve and experience while still making bank.

I think many TMF readers misconstrue MJs fastlane concept. Your end goal shouldn't be life derived from the job, but that doesn’t mean the job isnt part of the FL process. They aren’t mutually exclusive.

Also +1 on MFCEO project. Andy saved me from my depression to get back on the self development and entrepreneurship horse.
Yeah Frisella is great! and as far as reading goes - I've read some books. But I prefer being in the markets and learning as I go.

I developed my own personal strategies and ideologies along the way. I try not to let other peoples opinions control my life and everything I do.

Self help books are great and they helped me too, but at a certain point they start to really screw with your mindset - I got into a place where I felt like I needed a book on X before proceeding. It's a bad mindset to be in.

That being said - if you want to listen/read anything there's a good podcast by a guy who interviews traders. The podcast is called 'Chat with Traders'.
 

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@GrayCode Just wanted to say your posts are very inspiring. Thank you for encouraging people and sharing your story. It makes such a difference to read positive encouragement in relation to learning to program.

I dabbled a little in html css and python long back but the desire has come back recently after reading your posts here.

Coding is such a meditative flow based skill. Maybe not the learning part :)

Anyhow, just wanted to say thanks and looking forward reading your future posts.
 

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@GrayCode Just wanted to say your posts are very inspiring. Thank you for encouraging people and sharing your story. It makes such a difference to read positive encouragement in relation to learning to program.

I dabbled a little in html css and python long back but the desire has come back recently after reading your posts here.

Coding is such a meditative flow based skill. Maybe not the learning part :)

Anyhow, just wanted to say thanks and looking forward reading your future posts.
Thank you - If you have a passion for coding and what it can bring to your life, then I highly recommend it.

You never really stop learning, but once you get past the initial hump and you can start doing things on your own it's great!

Obviously you can use it for anything you want, business or otherwise. And at the very least the skill will guarantee you won't be scrounging to pay your bills should you only take so far as a FT job. Can easily find 6 figure + job.

Truth is not everyone is an entrepreneur no matter how fancy the term and idea of it became. But everyone can unscript themselves from the 9-5 with programming.

You can think of any niche with a sizable market of customers and easily carve out 20k a month for yourself. Depending on the size of the market ofcourse. In a $2b+ market (random number) it's not impossible for one engineer to do his own thing over a long period of time and build to $100k+ per month
 
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iamben

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Thank you - If you have a passion for coding and what it can bring to your life, then I highly recommend it.

You never really stop learning, but once you get past the initial hump and you can start doing things on your own it's great!

Obviously you can use it for anything you want, business or otherwise. And at the very least the skill will guarantee you won't be scrounging to pay your bills should you only take so far as a FT job. Can easily find 6 figure + job.

Truth is not everyone is an entrepreneur no matter how fancy the term and idea of it became. But everyone can unscript themselves from the 9-5 with programming.

You can think of any niche with a sizable market of customers and easily carve out 20k a month for yourself. Depending on the size of the market ofcourse. In a $2b+ market (random number) it's not impossible for one engineer to do his own thing over a long period of time and build to $100k+ per month

True, I think having coding skills can give you a lot of versatility. Even with entrepreneurial blood using coding skills will nicely supplement that! There is so much to create and sell over and over again or build a SAAS.

Currently trying to figure our what I really like and which route / languages to start out with.

Looking forward reading more of your inspiring posts :)
 

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I'm a RoR programmer + have worked as a CTO-level leader.

Whenever I am looking for jobs, my inbox fills up fast with recruiter messages. I often have to tell them I won't even look at their job unless it's over $200k/year, the ability to work fully remote all the time on my own schedule, fully paid healthcare, and an office budget.

And even then, they still want to interview/hire me.

I think there's enough demand.

What is RoR programming? I've never heard of that.
 

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