> This is silicon valley. You are an engineer earning a top 5% salary in one of the richest countries in your 20s. You can do whatever you want, the ball is in your hands--not your employers. I get 10 emails a week from recruiters and founders trying to get me to come work for them. Don't put up with the 60-80 hour a week bullshit.
1. To be in the top 5% of earners nationally, you need a household income of more than $180,000/year[1]. In the San Francisco Bay Area (which includes the Peninsula and South Bay), you'd need household income of $350,000 to be in the top 5% of local earners. Most single twenty-something engineers in Silicon Valley are not earning more than either number.
2. Emails from outside recruiters != decent job offers. Recruiters are drawn to warm bodies, so they'll talk to anyone who they think they might be able to put in front of a company. While some companies choose to work with them, keep in mind that because a relatively small percentage of new hires typically come through recruiters, candidates brought to a company via one are often at a disadvantage right off the bat.
3. A lot of companies here, particularly startups, expect work and work-related activities ("culture fit" often involves extracurricular "fun") to be a big part of your life. What that translates to in terms of hours will vary, but if you believe that those founders attempting to lure you away from your current job are offering you a straight 40 hour work week that guarantees you your weekends, you're probably going to be disappointed.
I'm not saying "put up with the 60-80 hour a week bullshit" (it almost never makes sense) but the notion that "you can do whatever you want" and take advantage of the hot job market in Silicon Valley is a bit unrealistic.
Based on how your current employer responded to your threat to quit, it sounds like you have made yourself invaluable to your employer. But if you think that a big-name tech company or hot startup would respond as favorably to the same threat because "we have the power, not the employers", I suspect you'd be in for a rude awakening.
This is exactly what's wrong with comments on the internet and it makes me mad to see it! Someone makes an argument, then someone else comes and derails the conversation by nitpicking at random stuff just to one-up the person instead of focusing on the overall argument and doing the least bit of reading between the lines.
What the author is doing is called "pulling numbers out of your ass". Whether it's 5% or 6% really doesn't matter! He's making a point. You get the point, don't you? His main argument is "You can do whatever you want, the ball is in your hands--not your employers." And this is absolutely true! Any engineer with a bit of people skills and some self-respect (which is like only half of us) can get his/her way. The other half need some personal development before they'll get anywhere in life. It's the sad truth of engineering.
The thing is, what each person wants is different. If you want work-life balance, go work for a 100-person revenue-generating startup. They go home at 5pm. If you want to build your personal brand or get rich, go put in the crazy hours at the latest hot big startup that's trying to prove itself.
Apparently you didn't read my comment because the point was very clear: engineers cannot do whatever they want and expect to take advantage of the currently hot job market.
The author suggested that the average twenty-something engineer in Silicon Valley was in a far higher echelon of earners than is actually the case. Without any confirmation, he took emails he was receiving from recruiters to mean that he had virtually unlimited job options. And he assumed that the founders who were interested in recruiting him would be offering him a high salary in exchange for less than what his current employer demands. All these things give him a false impression of reality on which his argument was based.
No, not every six-figure engineering job in Silicon Valley requires ten hour-plus days day in and day out, but companies are not paying these salaries and offering perks like catered lunches and dinners, house cleaning, the best equipment, a free laptop, group events, etc. with the expectation that their most valuable employees are going to be out the door and off the clock at 5 pm.
If you truly believe that there is an abundance of six-figure 9-to-5 engineering jobs at major tech companies and funded startups here in the Valley, you're simply wrong. And as I noted, if the person I responded to believes that the type of threat he made to his current employer would be well-received at recognizable companies here, he'd be in for a rude awakening.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. When your employer is paying you, say, $140,000/year and needs you on a weekend to put out a fire or finish a major release, unless you have FU money and are working for the fun of it, you had better have another job already lined up if you're going to threaten to quit. And you might as well line up the next two jobs while you're at it because most jobs (in any industry) that pay above a certain amount come with the expectation that you'll go the extra mile when asked.
Regarding (1), it seems you're comparing individual incomes with household incomes. Due to the prevalence of dual-income households, this is a fatal mistake. Two engineers married in Silicon Valley, both one year out of college, will easily hit $180k in combined income, probably even $200k or more. That's why the local 5% mark is as high as $350k for households.
Regarding same-sex marriage, you don't have to be married to live together, and while I can't say for sure, typically in income surveys there's a distinction made between household income and family income, with the latter being reserved presumably only for formally married couples. If this pattern holds true in this case, then these data would include unmarried couples living together.
Also, there are a number of careers in the Bay Area that are going to pay a lot besides software development. I was really just using developers as a metaphor for any job paying in the low six figures.
1. To be in the top 5% of earners nationally, you need a household income of more than $180,000/year[1]. In the San Francisco Bay Area (which includes the Peninsula and South Bay), you'd need household income of $350,000 to be in the top 5% of local earners. Most single twenty-something engineers in Silicon Valley are not earning more than either number.
2. Emails from outside recruiters != decent job offers. Recruiters are drawn to warm bodies, so they'll talk to anyone who they think they might be able to put in front of a company. While some companies choose to work with them, keep in mind that because a relatively small percentage of new hires typically come through recruiters, candidates brought to a company via one are often at a disadvantage right off the bat.
3. A lot of companies here, particularly startups, expect work and work-related activities ("culture fit" often involves extracurricular "fun") to be a big part of your life. What that translates to in terms of hours will vary, but if you believe that those founders attempting to lure you away from your current job are offering you a straight 40 hour work week that guarantees you your weekends, you're probably going to be disappointed.
I'm not saying "put up with the 60-80 hour a week bullshit" (it almost never makes sense) but the notion that "you can do whatever you want" and take advantage of the hot job market in Silicon Valley is a bit unrealistic.
Based on how your current employer responded to your threat to quit, it sounds like you have made yourself invaluable to your employer. But if you think that a big-name tech company or hot startup would respond as favorably to the same threat because "we have the power, not the employers", I suspect you'd be in for a rude awakening.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/01/15/business/one-p...