I got a better offer in San Diego yesterday. (For the naysayers: http://s28.postimg.org/qtobq9al9/Rasterizer_Image.gif) $16x,xxx from another company, plus sign on bonus plus bonus and stock grants. So for me, this will be a step up. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be posting which employer it is right now, because there are a few other open positions the I want other colleagues I've worked with to have a first shot at it, so I'll be pumping their resumes through when I join next week. But if there is anything else afterwards, I'll post details here so others can take a shot at them. Nevertheless, for software folks, I don't think it's so bad in San Diego as people think. I've had quite a bit of a number of phone calls for the past two weeks, and not many of the companies tried to undercut me in terms of compensation. The ones that did try to undercut me were startups that didn't seem to be well funded anyway, so I wasn't really interested. The compensation from the rest of the companies were more or less the same (with the exception of this one, which was well above the average.) I can't speak for the non-software opportunities in SD, but the software opportunities sure seem to be enough. So, uh yeah, I'm not going to be relocating out of SD. Maybe, if at all, I'll be moving closer to the coast if we do have any sort of housing correction. So folks that are impacted by this, stay positive: it's not as bad as others are making it out to be. Either that, or it just so happens my skills are in demand.
35 replies (most recent on top)
I am the original poster, made this all up, haha jokes on you guys !
Anonymous169545, Lol. I know. But hey, I'd rather have a company that skimps on HR and Recruiting versus a company that has a oversupply of overhead HR and Recruiting and skimp on engineering, like cough...some employer cough
Anonymous169514, that makes it worse. It's not like you are the first hire, and a template need not look so unprofessional. It's straight fill in the blank!
I guess part of the thing was also, I told them I had to make a decision that very same day, so they must of rushed the offer letter. In person interview lasted about 3 hours. DocuSign documents dispatched to me and needed to be signed quickly. Snail mail actual paper copy via express the next day. I guess they also needed to do an extensive background check that same day, so that's why some of the paperwork was rushed electronically.
Anonymous169460, I believe the recruiting dept is outsourced to headhunter temps, and they are the ones that write the offer letter using a template with some minor changes. I think my recruiter was in his early 20ies, so yes. In fact, most of HR functions are done by a third party, rather than in house. I believe the CRM and HRM system they use internally is a SAAS solution, so as to minimize HR/IT headcount (Imagine that. Qualcomm take note!). Most of their IT appears to be cloud hosted too. All the paperwork were e-based using DocuSign.
Anonymous169394, it's still so poorly written. Is HR outsourced to high school interns?
Lol... I think it's pretty funny that people actually think I doctored the offer letter. The only thing I did was X out most of the written verbiage after the stock grant info, since the company's name, and details was scattered all over the place, and technically offer letters are company confidential. Anyway, company isn't Intuit, though Intuit does pay pretty damn well too. Boring as hell company though. I'm surprised that so many engineers actually think that being underpaid in the low $100k's is the norm. No wonder when it comes to compensation negotiations, most engineers always get screwed. HR knows this, because in most cases, HR/recruiter (in dealing with engineers) usually say "well, we can't pay you this, but are you willing to take a salary cut?". I'm surprised so many engineers end up caving to this sort of game and, well, get screwed. Anyway, I'll just go with the flow and tell you that I fabricated this all up to make some of you feel better, because apparently many of you think it's unobtainable anyway and because it will make some of you feel better thinking low pay is the norm. Cool. Next time my employer is hiring and I'm on the recruiting team, I'll keep that in mind, when I suggest that the engineers probably won't mind taking a 20% haircut from their current comp. Afterall, most of them think low pay is the norm now.
QC sucked up thousands HW engineers in the past 5 years, like a vacuum cleaner. That created an artificial demand for HW engineers. Now Thousands of them will come back into a job market that is already weak. It is a double whammy.
Plenty of Software Engineer jobs right now, it's all the HW folks that are in deep doo doo.
Maybe OP is from HR to make people forget about all the fraud.
Anonymous168997, careful dude! OP may want to blacklist you from future employment, as well as wedding and bar mitzvah invites . but don't do him any favors by posting your home address and SSN
I like that the salary is above anything on glassdoor . and "The Plan" is referenced before even being defined. It's like an offer letter coding mistake.
You managed to capture the imagination of 800 people with your fake job offer. Bet the fax machine is jammed with resumes lmao
Well, it turns out that you will get cut soon eventually. Intuit is famous for getting rid of people consistently. Check WARN notices to see that their company's name has been consistently mentioned. Good luck, bitch.
They've gotten so sitngy with the words. Must be desperate to cut toner cartridge costs. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/896878/000089687814000163/fy14q4-ex1088.htm
I Know, Intuit. Haha
not Intel but another bigger software employer in SD that starts with same three letters.
Is that Intel? I hear that Intel provides competitive salary.
There are two (2) types of people in this world, 1 (one) of whom is consistent in their behavior. I like that the HR person who allegedly wrote the letter is not one of these people.
OP - Awesome news. Yup, life goes on after QC and for most people, it will improve. Its time to throw off the shackles of that sweatshop and let QC fester in the environment that it created. Thanks for posting. Good luck. At least someone is willing to post more than most of the hate on everything kind of posts.
There is a long run-on sentence, and "sign on bonus" words are inconsistently shown (lowercase and then uppercase) which shouldn't exist from an HR official letter. This is a good example of someone who tried to fool other people but has failed miserably. The OP mentioned and defended multiple times regarding H1Bs. I am sure he/she is a proponent of them. Whatever your agenda is, I don't care. Next time, please try to proof-read what you write. Now, haven't you regretted for not taking English courses seriously in high school or college? :)
"Do me a favor...". Oh man, listen to this Internet Tough Guy talk.
@Anonymous168601, exactly. @Anonymous168583, damn you are sour. The point wasn't the inflated number, the point is that how does a "scan" make it legit, any more than just typing it on a message board. LOL.
Okay, I looked at your (real) offer letter (http://s16.postimg.org/c1f22wkth/Rasterizer_Image.gif). So, the name of your company is "The Company"? Are you kidding me? Just give the name and the industry out! What is it that you get to lose? A 5th grader could type that from a sample offer letter. Try harder. Hilarious. Also, based on the greyed-out name of the company, it seems like the name of the company is about 10 to 11 characters including spaces. You should try to type and take better screen shot, dude.
corrected: Maybe that's why companies are doing more contract to hire because....
Whatever. If I was going to change the number, I would have inflated them. But whatever. Stay miserable and unemployed,underemployed bitching about H1-Bs. Funny, considering my new company doesn't have any H1-B's, due to regulatory issues of using out of the U.S. employees. But whatever. Do me a favor, give me your name and contact information, so I can blacklist you out from future employment prospects. I wouldn't want someone so damn negative working with me. It's sort of a drag. Maybe that's why we're companies more contract to hire because of it, so they can toss the ones with personality issues easily. Go figure.
Anonymous168551, i rescanned your offer letter and changed the salary to $190K. I start tomorrow. looks like you got a raw deal
Anonymous168528, offer letter says otherwise.
http://s16.postimg.org/c1f22wkth/Rasterizer_Image.gif
Anonymous168487,
And as I said in thread Anonymous168411, the haters and doomsayers that are miserable in life for having fallen short for many many years well before the Q will always look for any excuse to continue hating and thinking the world is crashing. Because for them, it's the only possible explanation for their own personal shortcomings.
Good bullshit. For sure you'll be on another layoff at least.
I guess the lesson to learn here is that you don't need to be rocket scientist to get paid reasonable decent, so long as what you can do (as dumb as people think it is) is in demand and there's a niche for it. I suppose some folks with a PHD or Masters probably do better at the Q. Oh well, I was never PHD or Masters material.
Anonymous168452, Good morning! I haven't been able to sleep last night (today), because I really didn't expect this to happen. I would have been perfectly fine with the startup opportunity too. So I'm totally stressed about turning in all my paperwork today. Definitely a huge weight lifted off my shoulders for the past few weeks. Regarding your question, I normally don't consider the bonus and stock grants since there's so many variables that could affect those things. The bonus will depend on my individual performance and the company performance. The former is completely within my control, so I doubt there will be issues with that (I am consistently a good performer). The company's performance is anyone's guess. However, if everything works out right, salary + annual cash bonus should put me into the $180k range, again if the company ends up paying out the bonuses like they say they will, which is a big if, so I'm not holding my breath on this. As far as stock compensation, the vesting is over 4 years, so vested amount each year roughly corresponds to about $40-50k, with the big assumption that the stock price stays at or near where it is. Again, I wouldn't hold my breath on that either. So, assume the stock grant value divided by 2. So I guess that puts me into the $200k+ category, assuming ideal conditions of the company's performance and stock performance, which is a big assumption in the current volatile market. I can't complain. Not bad for a purely technical, hands on (non managerial) position. I think I'm in a little unusual situation in that they were looking to hire 3 different people with 3 different skills. I happen to be able to do all 3 things: cloud computing related stuff AND mobile software on two platforms so I guess they were willing to pay me considerably more with the hope they won't need as many people. So, joking aside about Ruby on Rails and Mobile app development, my new employer thinks I they are getting a nice threesome from me.
Just curious. Do you mind sharing what your total compensation is expected to be (roughly) including bonus and stock grants annually. Just curious how it stacks up to the Bay Area and the Q.
OP. Congrats! Well done. I also left for another company last month in San Diego. And you are correct, it's not that bad for a well qualified software engineers in SD, or for that matter, in Southern California or Bay Area.
Of course, my attempt at shining a light at what many of you might feel is a dark tunnel who were impacted will inevitably be met by a bunch of pessimists and doomsayers that will do their very best to convince you the sky is falling and that you are totally screwed. I'd say it's most likely from people who themselves are screwed and/or have been totally screwed for a much longer time than you have been, and they are just looking for new recruits in their category so that they can feel better. The question is whether you really want to relate to these people. After all, I don't think things are going particularly well for those people, and probably haven't been going well for them a lot longer than you, and probably will never get better for them. That's usually what happens to pessimists and doomsayers that elect to spend more time and energy being miserable and looking for other people who can remain miserable with them. Meanwhile, life goes on for the rest of us.