Ask HN: Advice on job/salary/etc | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Advice on job/salary/etc

4 pointsanon10146 comments

Posting as anonymous to protect my identity if my office finds this.

Situation: Currently employed by very small Indiana based Advertising agency as front-end developer. I have around 2 years professional experience and another 8 years experience working as a freelancer/tech geek. 24 yrs old. In addition, I handle our IT, dabble is custom software development, backend work, and a few other areas. I make $30,000/annual with no benefits other than vacation + paid sick days.

I'm obviously severely underpaid, but I took the job when freelance work ran out and finding a job in my city was hard. I needed any money.

Last week I asked my company for a raise, showing them I make at least $15,000 less per year than I should be and that I needed benefits. They just offered me $6000/yr raise and $100/mo for health. HOWEVER, they are requiring me to sign a contract saying I will not leave in the next year or I'll be penalized (pretty much refunding the salary increase). This obviously sounds like bullshit to me.

When they first presented me with the idea I said sure, just thinking about getting extra money. Now I'm having serious doubts and they're pressuring me to sign the contract because they think I'm staying for a year. As much as I love the job and the people I work with, I don't think I can afford to stay at $36k. I know they can't afford much more.

What should I do? Tell them I'm going to continue looking for a new job and risk getting fired or making the office atmosphere awkward and having my bosses harbor resentment against me? Just take the raise and sign and pay the penalty if I leave? Just quit altogether?

Help me out HN... What should I do?

The absolute best piece of advice I can give you is to start exploring other cities and consider leaving what, I assume, is your hometown. You're artificially limiting your opportunities by sticking in one area (and let's be frank, I don't know of a thriving tech community in Indiana).

You're 24 years-old, which I assume means you are single and do not have children (or, if you do, they are very young). You also probably don't own a home so the material and emotional costs of moving elsewhere are quite low compared to what they will be later in life. One of the best pieces of advice my grandfather gave me before he passed away was presented as a question about 3-4 months before I graduated from college:

Q. Where do you plan to live? A. Where the job is.

It's just that simple.

As far as the terms offered to you by your current company; they are bullshit--but they are typical for the advertising world. I wouldn't take them if I were you. As I said above, you're young and you have freedom; don't trade it for what you know is continuing to be underpaid and under-appreciated.

Yeah, I just recently started looking elsewhere to see what I could come up with. The Bay Area craigslist for internet jobs is ridiculous compared to the Indy one.

I took the job when freelance work ran out and finding a job in my city was hard

I'm sure that there is plenty of work out there for a freelance front-end developer that pays more than $17/hour (the equivalent of your $30k/year). You can look at freelancing sites or staffing agencies like Creative Circle. I used to do freelance work for Creative Circle, and front-end work for their clients usually pays $35/hour and up.

I'm sure you'll get a lot of advice in this thread about moving to the Bay Area or New York where you can make $80k, $100k or more, but remember that the cost of living is much higher there. You should be able to find work online that pays more than your current job, while living in a place with a low cost of living.

Sounds like you already know what to do. PS. A good boss would want to help you grow in your career.

Do you want to live in the Bay Area/SF? If so email me - I might have some contacts for you if you are interested in working for a consulting firm.

36K is low and their terms are probably not legal in most states.

Yep! I actually have an interview with airbnb sometime next week. I hadn't really considered Cali much before, but as others have said, I'm young, have no attachments, and have endless freedom right now. I'm a pretty damn good front-end developer with a decent understanding of backend rails development, and I keep getting better at what I do every day.

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