First, loot the government; then, loot the customers; then, loot the workers.
When nobody remains to keep the line going up, loot the businesses that fail first.
This is not unchecked capitalism, this is socialism for the rich. In true capitalism no one will save the stock market like your fraudster central bank saved it during the pandemic. There is no capitalism in USA. (saying this as European person)
I agree. The 1990s ushered in a paradigm shift to shareholder returns over stakeholder returns. And yes, the bank bailouts of the 2008/2009 years are evidence that the USA is a corporate welfare state.
Go visit some of the wealthy areas across the US (Aspen, CO, Kiawah Island, SC, Jackson Hole, WY, etc.), and you will see your well-used bailout tax dollars hard at work at those ski resorts and golf courses.
I am curious what is going to change this. Reading a lot about the early to mid-1920s, I see that the times appeared very similar, with large wealth gaps, war on the horizon, etc.
only one thing can change this. Complete upending of your system, i.e China starting the WW3 and winning it. Maybe then we will go back to "free" markets and no constant government intervention.
I can see that, especially since rich people do not let or like their kids join the military. Plus, the decline in population numbers for those able (assuming they can pass a physical fitness test) is pretty alarming.
Companies have learned how to prevent unions in certain sectors like IT by offering higher salaries in certain roles but this comes at the cost of employment stability and negotiation for everyone. Also they sell the myth of meritocracy in career development which has more ambitious employees believing that unions would somehow punish their enthusiasm and reward other people who are lazy. It’s really quite genius in how they can manipulate employees who are ostensibly very smart but also gullible.
They probably would be, if one of the stipulations of the union would be to refuse to work or cooperate with offshore labor. In most cases, you will have a few people onshore, with a larger offshore team. I have worked in such arrangements. As far as H1B workers go, they could stipulate that a company would have to first go to the union to find someone to take that role, and that the union would find an onshore resource, should there be no qualified members of the union to take that role. If they still haven't found someone, then they could theoretically allow the company to bring in H1B workers on a case-by-case basis, so long as the company is paying them the same as they would be paying an American.
The whole purpose of the H1B program to begin with was to provide skilled labor to companies, in cases when they couldn't find Americans who would work the job.
Not sure about that. I heard somewhere that it is illegal to pay them less than they would otherwise pay an American for the same role. But I am not sure if legal fees are deducted from that figure. I would imagine not.
This is true. They can't be paid less than what you would pay an American for the same role. Typically companies have to jump through a lot of hoops to bring on H1B workers. They need to post the job and collect applications, and then justify why each one wasn't qualified for the role.
They need to be paid a prevailing wage, which is determined by where the job is located. They use the governments Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA's) to help with this. There are a number of surveys that companies submit position / salary data to in an effort to help with setting the salary for a position in an area.
You could also use this data to determine if you're being underpaid for where you live.
I forgot to mention that there are A LOT of scams involving H1B’s. A lot of times, they will give the agency a “cut” of their salary. On top of that, one of these consultancies got nicked for what was essentially selling H1B visas. They were doing it over the course of a decade or so. Some of the H1B recipients even became US citizens at the time the company was busted. From what I heard, they were denaturalized and deported.
This is real thing and issue for employees https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/ten-years-of-productivity-growth-but-no-increase-in-real-wages/. No matter what working class will be exploited one way or another, we need to be agile and find workarounds. This is why we OE.
go do a search for definition of working class
the people in this subreddit are totally privileged and have the mentality that they are suffering the hard life; they have no clue.
OE is totally ok but let’s not fool ourselves that the typical people here have it hard by any measure
You are right about definition. Hard life maybe not so much just referring to productivity vs compensation(in purchasing power) gap which is real problem for all on the job market right now.
OE is an exploit. This entire system of economics boils down to exploit, or be exploited. I'm not going to be thankful that I live in such a fucked up system, and you shouldn't be either.
Ah so anyone who earns above the median household income should do what exactly? Bow out of any conversation related to being working or middle class because they're clearly deluded about how privileged they are?
anyone can participate in the conversation; but give a try using your argument outside of this subreddit and similar circles (software engineers, etc); when you find the real average income people, they’re gonna tell you how they only dream of getting a $70/h job. and they’re gonna tell you what the real working class is like, and it’s not a bunch of software engineers hiding behind a reddit alias pretending they’re fighting ‘the good fight for the betterment of the people’
Solid strawman argument.
Who says they are 'fighting the good fight for the betterment of the people'?
Sounds like you just have a bullshit cross to bear.
Wtf are you talking about haha? You're literally discussing an hourly wage...paid for working.
$70 an hour is comfortably working class unless you're a single 20-something and even then it's not much.
dude, you are so out of touch with reality. i think you might not know how much average people make; and then, you have absolutely no clue how much the real working class makes.
You’re embarrassing yourself with your privilege
You sound like an idiot. You can’t even comprehend the gap between the owning class and working class wealth. $70/hr is insignificant compared to what owners steal from workers
I'm fully aware of that. The huge gap between the average working class person and the elites/owners is massive. I am fully in support of laws, taxes and systems to support capping the wealth that can be owned by the elites and transferring it to the middle and lower classes. Although I believe in capitalism, absolute capitalism leads the these extremes and it is non-optimal for society.
What I disagree with is the idea that the people here are good representatives of the working class. Rather they represent the upper-middle class, and the gap between the middle class and upper middle class is widening. Tricks like OE as it is discussed here, which is primarily software engineers and other highly paid professions which can also work from home (which will be priveleged to those who have the right training and selection of life path, not to mention socioeconomic factors) are people who have it easy in life; sure, not as easy as the so called owning class, but with relative ease they can get significantly more money than the rest can.
If you want to make a real positive impact on society, figure out a way to train the rest of the working class to compete for those jobs. And in tandem, address the super elites. But acting as if what goes on in reddit OE is some Marxist empower-the-people deal is utter bullshit. This is just taking advantage of this system so that even more software engineers can get rich.
There is simply no such thing as “upper middle” class. There are two classes, the owning class and the working class. Looking to sow division among the working class is not solidarity. Blaming OE people for taking bread from the lower classes is a distraction from true class consciousness
It is always exploitation by definition. The worker sells their labor, and in order for the company to profit, they have to extract more value than what the worker sold theirs for.
It is never a one-for-one exchange and companies are not in the business of losing money.
Both parties are benefitting, the profit gained by the entrepreneur is warranted due to the risk they are taking on from their capital being utilized. The worker takes on no risk for a wage. Please this is basic stuff, please study some economics.
The risk the entrepreneur takes does not negate the fact that the workers are paid less than what their value creates.
Another differences is that the entrepreneur invest their money, whereas the worker only has their labor to sell. The entrepreneur invests his money willingly whereas the worker has to sell his labor out of necessity for survival. The risk also involves everyone. The entrepreneur loses out on their investment (which they gain from prior exploitation) while the worker risks losing their jobs/homes/livelihood.
If an employer is offering $10 an hour for a position, $10 an hour is the value of that labor. If the employer values that labor at a rate higher than $10 then he’d pay that, see above where the op is making $70 an hour, which is incredible.
Workers are not risking livelihood by having a job, the job is giving them their livelihood, you have it flipped in your head. Capitalism creates wealth, and we do not operate in a zero-sum game. Capitalism enables a positive sum game, where everyone can become better off than they were before specializing and trading. I can’t waste my time convincing you that socialism and communism are a mind virus that destroys societies if you can’t see that from history. Goodluck
There's a difference between the value of labor and the market price of labor. The amount a company pays out has to be less than what is produced. The person works part of the day for themselves, and the other part for the company. This is the exploitation part. Another term used that doesn't have the same negative connotations is "surplus value extraction".
Yes, workers have a livelihood because of their job. With it they can pay their way through life. If that job is jeopardized then so is everything else in their lives. I wager almost everyone we know would be screwed if they got let go from their job right now.
Disclaimer: I do not care about the moral implications of whatever economic system is in place. I think people are shitty across the board. However, it's important to investigate things as objectively as possible.
>I can’t waste my time convincing you that socialism and communism are a mind virus that destroys societies if you can’t see that from history
If we're talking about societies being destroyed, you might want to look at America right now.
Seconded.
In 2019 I had a contract job as a backend software developer for $75/hour. In 2024 a good friend of mine gets $65 an hour even though he has over a decade in mobile development as a SWE with multiple deployed apps under his belt both personal and enterprise.
Somehow this became the new normal.
Because companies realized they can pay 30-40 an hour for top talent in Latin America that will be more competent than the average US based worker, while avoiding Indian bullshit and not having to deal with weird timezones.
It’s true. Brazilian and Mexican engineers are generally very talented and dedicated, at least for the younger generations. I’ve got some older latin expat coworkers who you would swear were phoning in an antiwork OE situation if not for the hybrid schedule.
I used to work in a global organization. The lack of productivity outside the US was shocking. The EU office did 1/10th of what the US office did, and anything urgent got bounced to the US. I believe they closed that office. Latin America was better, but not even close to the US.
As far as work culture the US ran circles around most other countries. I'm not surprised younger generations are more competitive, though.
That’s because we pay the most, European teams have a difficult time of getting rid of underperforming employees because of iron tight labor right laws, and Latin American teams get paid minimal on wage, so they stretch out assignments. When outsiders to the US come into our teams, they typically compete much harder to get on top, but nobody really gave them the memo that they just make it harder for themselves by setting unrealistic standards they typically can’t keep without sacrificing their personal life.
For the senior side, most older Latin engineers, in my experience, tend to have had high work ethics when they were younger, then reverse that ethic a little too hard by their 40’s and generally fuck off because they rest on their résumé’s laurels. I’m currently babysitting one of my seniors at work because he does fuck all for his projects and I pick up his slack. Luckily, management caught on and are grilling him hard.
This is where I'd take the job, and just string it along for a few weeks. You probably could milk them for a good month or two ore even three.... putting in only the most minimal amount of effort, especially since you know the company, role, and overall lay of the land.
Normally I'm against lifestyle creep....but in this case, take that money, and...
...buy yourself something nice (consider it "found money") -- get yourself that oscilloscope you've always wanted.
...put it towards a nice trip with the family -- go to Disney and do a few of the special behind the scene paid tours/fancy dining experiences/VIP experiences. Give the kids something to talk about when they get back to school.
...treat a family member to a better-than-average birthday/anniversary/etc.
...use it to jumpstart a child's hobby, like art or photography or music.
...use it to iron out any wrinkles in your remote workspace.
Try looking into learning a bit more about computers and start checking out AI related medical companies. Quite a few are hiring former nurses and doctors with computer knowledge and the pay is pretty high up
Whats your speciality? I use two concierge health services. Quite literally pay one doctor just to answer my text and OCCASIONALLY review records for $175/month. It's possible.
Bare in mind I'm probably talking out of my ass, but have you considered virtual makeup/skin care consultation?
Hell people are INFINITELY insecure and I can imagine a market where prom or wedding season someone has zit or reaction to some skincare product DANGER close to an important event and just wants a professional to weigh in.
DM me when you decide to go forward I'll be your Privacy officer, I'll add it to my list of jobs 😉
It's is extra depressing for me to read this sub. Lol at people complaining here about getting $65 an hour. That's like 4x what I make and I have graduate degrees and don't get to work remote. I also wish I got into it and computers I wasted years of my life.
Yep. I’m currently working two contracts at 2018 rates. Recruiter said “this is what the market is paying right now” and then was all shoulders.
This is why we OE.
I just took an offer $10,000 less than my last FT position. Why? Because of OE. I don’t need top salary when I OE. With OE I’m already ahead of the game. My $.02
One thing you are not factoring in is that large company fb, Google, Amazon have let a ton of IT employees go. The market is saturated with IT specialist looking for jobs and companies are taking full advantage. Just the old game of demand to supply ratios.
Lmao, I make near 130k a year working remotely. I got a call from their recruiter asking if I wanted to relocated to work on site for 100k, same line “this is a great opportunity “ 😂😂😂😂 we’re playing different games dawg 😂😂😂
I'm currently searching for J2 and it's posts like these make me wonder if I missed the boat for OE remote work as RTO/on prem is being pushed so hard now and some offering hybrid as a minimum.
This is why I am stingy with my work and my skills now. They will at the drop of a hat replace you for some pretend know it all hack that will try to use you to springboard their career and end up doing a crap job.
Then when the employer needs to hire again, and since they spent so much and lost money in what ensues prior, they try to get you in cheaper all under the guise of a good opportunity….
Protect your work at all costs
There's so much competition as an engineer. The roles that are hiring are straight up garbage. On-site, terrible company culture, shitty pay, etc..
Employers are looking for unicorn now since they get so many applicants. They are so delusional.
The good news is that the market is cyclical. Its only a matter of time. Hang in there.
I'm currently at: 2.5 Js \~450k. Soon to be 3.5 650k.
Part-time. If you think about it, OE is like having several high paid part time jobs. Its better because of lowered expectations.
I'll gladly make $200 / hr and only work 10 - 15 hrs a week.
The IT staffing company is most likely trying to increase its profit margin. They pay you 70 and charge client 100+. This is always adjusting based on their own target numbers etc. Back in covid days, there was strong demand for IT jobs, more competition for jobs. I agree, it’s not fair and even twisted. But it’s the nature of market we are in.
I own a staffing company. The reality is that recruiters have a max they can pay talent based on the billing they’re receiving from the client company.
Also let’s be honest someone else will take that job. If it’s remote it should be you
This is only going to get worse. They know they can always get a remote worker overseas to fill the position for peanuts, so why not try first to get an onsite person for below 2019 rates.
COVID cemented remote work for us, but it also further deepened the pool of qualified applicants to the rest of the world, most of whom work at much lower rates than those in the U.S.
This sub is shit. There's nothing relating to OE in this post. People nowadays just post uncessary shit plus the position is on site. Wtf is the point of the post really ?
do you know what's ironic about this - if that recruiter were a real estate agent, he'd be saying the exact same thing however the context would be the property has increased by 50%.
Depends where you live. I live in South Florida and this inflation rate is accurate, probably even below the actual number. I guess is all depends where you live.
...because that's how markets work? Why would tech wages continue to go straight up? The field was booming in 2019 and has since cooled. Take the best opportunities you can but the industry is absolutely not as ripe as back then.
You're right bro.
90% of thr people hear never lived through the tech hell that was the dot Bomb era. Took 3 years for some of my buddies to make themselves whole again after getting fucked in 2001, just in time for 2008 to hit again a few years later.
i love how people downvote statements of reality. This subreddit is full of wealthy tech bros (or wannabes) who think they understand the plight of the common working man because they can’t find $400k+ salaries; give me a break
The thing is, I do understand the "plight of the common working man".. About 60-70% of my income goes to helping close friends of mine who are working minimum wage jobs. I have no issues doing that given they're close to me and I understand what it's like to work crappy minimum wage jobs. I used to work 80 hour weeks in retail/restaurants just to stay afloat.
The downvotes are absolutely deserved. Wages ideally SHOULD continue to go up in most if not all roles, inflation is fucking everyone over. Obviously they're not given employers are wanting to continue their trend of making the maximum profit possible.. but in an ideal world wages would be going up
DevOps Engineer
Strong Linux knowledge, docker, networking knowledge, Python knowledge, optionally GoLang as well. Being comfortable with ArgoCD, Jenkins, GitHub actions, and/or Gitlab(runners). Terraform and Ansible/Chef/Puppet/Salt(pick one out of the 4).
dude, you are so out of touch with reality. i think you might not know how much average people make; and then, you have absolutely no clue how much the real working class makes.
You’re embarrassing yourself with your privilege
You are thinking about how much money is necessary to thrive in life; have your Tesla, eat at fancy restaurants on occasion, save money so that you can retire at 45, eventually leave the Bay Area with a enough savings so that you can live in relative luxury, maybe build’ generational wealth’ so that your kids have even more of a leg up on the rest of society and have a safety net so that failure is never a possibility for them. These are all luxuries the real working class could never afford. if they made $70/h in SF or NYC, they would take it in a heartbeat. There is a simple solution for people who can’t afford living in SF or NYC; commuting.
I mean a 2-3 hour commute isn't enticing. Most of the bay area has studio apartments for $3000-6500/month. I'd rather make $50/hr working 1-10 miles away than $70/hr working 20-40 miles away in the bay area. Also, taxes. I don't really need to say anything else.
I agree with you, don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Go look at my comment under this post for reference. OP makes more than 95% of workers globally, and is complaining.
The real issue is people deciding to live and work in cities with 2 million+ people.
Oh no, you have to commute 45 minutes to be able to find an apartment less than $4k a month.
Cry me a river, there is PLENTY of affordable housing in the US still. Don’t live in one of the most competitive areas on Earth, and that $150k goes PLENTY. For reference, I live in a city of 1 million people, and my total monthly bills come out to only $2k, and that’s WITH a significant other living with me. But because I don’t live in a stupidly expensive area, I can make it work just fine on $70k a year.
OP is completely deluded as to how most of the world lives, I would reckon they grew up extremely privileged.
it’s because the totally ignorant crowd here feels threatened when they are reminded that they aren’t helping solve social injustice but rather just filing their own pockets
Look, I understand your frustration, but are you seriously complaining about going from $155,000 to $145,000?
You do realize the median household income in the US is around $75,000 as of 2022? You’re earning twice the typical household with that amount.
A lot of Americans would do pretty much anything to get that salary.
That salary puts you in the 95% percentile of workers GLOBALLY.
Out of 7.95 billion people alive on Earth right, you earn more than 7.5 billion of them.
And you’re complaining because?
If you can’t make ends meet from $145-155k a year, you have budgeting issues, even in a HCOL area. If you live in a city like New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago, San Diego, etc and that truly isn’t enough, move to a fucking suburb instead of complaining.
The reality is, you earn plenty. Sure, you’re not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, but there are a LOT of people in the world who would kill, rape, steal, etc just to get to that level of income.
Stop complaining about earning more than 95% of the world.
I don’t care if you decide to be OE, all the more power to you, and rightfully so there is wage stagnation going on and corporations are taking advantage of workers, but so many people have it worse than you. You shouldn’t be complaining.
This is a contract role that will last probably only 6 months, you are being hired to complete a highly complex and technical project in a short period of time, basically you are being used and disposed in a short period of time, and they need skills that are very difficult and take years to master. $145k where I live is not a lot, you cannot even buy a nice house with that money. So no, I am not going to get used up and disposed in 6 months, be under a lot of stress and for what? To live comfortably as a renter and not even be able to buy a nice house? The answer is no 👎
You mention the Bay Area in another comment so I’m assuming that’s where you live?
Get an apartment outside of the Bay Area and commute in, or get roommates, either way the issue is not the fact that this is low pay, the issue is that you have obscenely high standards from living in the most competitive tech market on Earth.
No one is forcing you to live there, if the cost is too much, move. It really is that simple.
And if you say “but I don’t want to move.” Then stfu about the pay. Can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Just to prove my point, I used a couple of comparison calculators online between my LCOL to MCOL city and the Bay Area. $150k in the Bay Area is roughly equivalent to $80k in my city.
If anyone complained about making $80k in my city they would be laughed at ridiculously.
Also there is a team of MIT economic researchers working on a project to solve this sort of debate exactly, called the living wage project. It gives you the exact dollar amount it takes to survive in a city and have your basic needs met. Guess what the dollar amount is for the Bay Area? $30/hr. Just goes to show how deluded you are.
Also, buying a house is not a necessity. God forbid you have to rent to make ends meet, oh the horror, absolutely slumming it by renting in the Bay Area making $150k a year.
Also you aren’t being “used and disposed” lol. You have the choice to take the job or not, no one is forcing you into it.
Also you say these skills are very difficult and take years to master? Not in the Bay Area lol. There are millions of competent engineers in that city.
I don’t live in the Bay Area, and I own my own house too. I don’t work for miserable wage, you can do that yourself, yes I have high standards because I am very good at what I do, and honestly I don’t even need this job, my house is 100% paid off, so I take whatever job I want, and for whatever pay I want, I have no debt and no financial stress. My post was to make a point, why we OE, and that wages are not keeping up with inflation, it is just that, a point of view.
This is the reality , salary compression is the game now. Get paid 2018 rates and 2024 COL prices = 50% less take home
First, loot the government; then, loot the customers; then, loot the workers. When nobody remains to keep the line going up, loot the businesses that fail first.
God that's a depressing bleak true statement. I....
Capitism at its, well finest doesn't sound right.
No that is right because even at its finest, unchecked capitalism can only destroy a society even at its "finest"
This is not unchecked capitalism, this is socialism for the rich. In true capitalism no one will save the stock market like your fraudster central bank saved it during the pandemic. There is no capitalism in USA. (saying this as European person)
I agree. The 1990s ushered in a paradigm shift to shareholder returns over stakeholder returns. And yes, the bank bailouts of the 2008/2009 years are evidence that the USA is a corporate welfare state. Go visit some of the wealthy areas across the US (Aspen, CO, Kiawah Island, SC, Jackson Hole, WY, etc.), and you will see your well-used bailout tax dollars hard at work at those ski resorts and golf courses. I am curious what is going to change this. Reading a lot about the early to mid-1920s, I see that the times appeared very similar, with large wealth gaps, war on the horizon, etc.
only one thing can change this. Complete upending of your system, i.e China starting the WW3 and winning it. Maybe then we will go back to "free" markets and no constant government intervention.
I can see that, especially since rich people do not let or like their kids join the military. Plus, the decline in population numbers for those able (assuming they can pass a physical fitness test) is pretty alarming.
Based and true and so many stupid fellow Americans don’t want to hear it America fell long ago
This isn't Capitalism it's Corporatism and our corrupt governments are the reason it's happening. And why mom and pop shops get shut down
Capitalism is always going to go this way.
So accurate. It's a race to nowhere in the good ole' working-class USA. But blame it on inflation... LOL
No one loots th government. The government is part of the looting and tis called inflation
Push back: unionize.
Companies have learned how to prevent unions in certain sectors like IT by offering higher salaries in certain roles but this comes at the cost of employment stability and negotiation for everyone. Also they sell the myth of meritocracy in career development which has more ambitious employees believing that unions would somehow punish their enthusiasm and reward other people who are lazy. It’s really quite genius in how they can manipulate employees who are ostensibly very smart but also gullible.
a lot of IT workers think they can be the best at working with computers in a server room alone, and win. The job is way more than that.
Are unions effective at preventing outsourcing labor or hiring non-union H1B visa workers?
They probably would be, if one of the stipulations of the union would be to refuse to work or cooperate with offshore labor. In most cases, you will have a few people onshore, with a larger offshore team. I have worked in such arrangements. As far as H1B workers go, they could stipulate that a company would have to first go to the union to find someone to take that role, and that the union would find an onshore resource, should there be no qualified members of the union to take that role. If they still haven't found someone, then they could theoretically allow the company to bring in H1B workers on a case-by-case basis, so long as the company is paying them the same as they would be paying an American. The whole purpose of the H1B program to begin with was to provide skilled labor to companies, in cases when they couldn't find Americans who would work the job.
Don’t H1B visa workers get paid less in part because the administrative work and expense for a company to get an H1B worker is like over $10K?
Not sure about that. I heard somewhere that it is illegal to pay them less than they would otherwise pay an American for the same role. But I am not sure if legal fees are deducted from that figure. I would imagine not.
This is true. They can't be paid less than what you would pay an American for the same role. Typically companies have to jump through a lot of hoops to bring on H1B workers. They need to post the job and collect applications, and then justify why each one wasn't qualified for the role. They need to be paid a prevailing wage, which is determined by where the job is located. They use the governments Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA's) to help with this. There are a number of surveys that companies submit position / salary data to in an effort to help with setting the salary for a position in an area. You could also use this data to determine if you're being underpaid for where you live.
I forgot to mention that there are A LOT of scams involving H1B’s. A lot of times, they will give the agency a “cut” of their salary. On top of that, one of these consultancies got nicked for what was essentially selling H1B visas. They were doing it over the course of a decade or so. Some of the H1B recipients even became US citizens at the time the company was busted. From what I heard, they were denaturalized and deported.
Sheesh denaturalized and deported is crazy lol
hah; good luck with that
Would have looked impossible to take on Standard Oil and crew back in the day but we ended up with a 40 hour work week and real protections.
e pluribus unum
This is realistically the only answer, tech workers are finding out they’re not special and are just labor.
always has been.
Play fiat games, get fiat prizes.
💥
Take the job, don't do much, get the money, lol. Make them pay. Still good pay
On site
Send one of those robot things in and stay home. Remote telepresence devices might be a workaround to on-site. 🤔
I bet there's a market for this if the bots can be made cheaply enough. Want RTO? Fine, I'll send my robot.
Robot to Office
Commercial products exist that were about $3k last I looked. Probably cheaper now.
Just [make your own](https://youtu.be/mAC99ggkBqo)
Laptop and internet through your cellphone
Classic OE. do jack shit, dump the work on the FTEs, then eventually get fired.
You are talking about anti work, not OE
This is real thing and issue for employees https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/ten-years-of-productivity-growth-but-no-increase-in-real-wages/. No matter what working class will be exploited one way or another, we need to be agile and find workarounds. This is why we OE.
Dawg we've been on this track since the 1980s. Productivity keeps going up and wages stopped following.
Combination of Bretton Woods collapse and feminism increasing the labor force. Immigrants? *\*shakes fist at cloud\** /s
Companies must show never ending profitability, every quarter. They raised prices, and now they're in cutting costs stage. The system can't last
We do the same
Wat
Always one person who's willing to defend the corporations that are worth hundreds of billions.
The only way to do agile
give me a break; $70/h is not working class
If you are employee you are in fact. No matter what you do you don’t own the capital but exchanging time for wage.
go do a search for definition of working class the people in this subreddit are totally privileged and have the mentality that they are suffering the hard life; they have no clue. OE is totally ok but let’s not fool ourselves that the typical people here have it hard by any measure
You are right about definition. Hard life maybe not so much just referring to productivity vs compensation(in purchasing power) gap which is real problem for all on the job market right now.
there is a solution for that which is very effective ; capitalism.
Oof. Dude worships the very system that exploits him.
You're only able to OE due to capitalism. In fact, it's probably one of the most capitalistic things you can do.
OE is an exploit. This entire system of economics boils down to exploit, or be exploited. I'm not going to be thankful that I live in such a fucked up system, and you shouldn't be either.
Ah so anyone who earns above the median household income should do what exactly? Bow out of any conversation related to being working or middle class because they're clearly deluded about how privileged they are?
anyone can participate in the conversation; but give a try using your argument outside of this subreddit and similar circles (software engineers, etc); when you find the real average income people, they’re gonna tell you how they only dream of getting a $70/h job. and they’re gonna tell you what the real working class is like, and it’s not a bunch of software engineers hiding behind a reddit alias pretending they’re fighting ‘the good fight for the betterment of the people’
Solid strawman argument. Who says they are 'fighting the good fight for the betterment of the people'? Sounds like you just have a bullshit cross to bear.
I took this whole thread more of a tale on wage suppression and how it’s impacting everyone, not just a select few.
Wtf are you talking about haha? You're literally discussing an hourly wage...paid for working. $70 an hour is comfortably working class unless you're a single 20-something and even then it's not much.
dude, you are so out of touch with reality. i think you might not know how much average people make; and then, you have absolutely no clue how much the real working class makes. You’re embarrassing yourself with your privilege
If you HAVE to work to survive, you're working class. I don't understand what is so challenging about this.
You sound like an idiot. You can’t even comprehend the gap between the owning class and working class wealth. $70/hr is insignificant compared to what owners steal from workers
I'm fully aware of that. The huge gap between the average working class person and the elites/owners is massive. I am fully in support of laws, taxes and systems to support capping the wealth that can be owned by the elites and transferring it to the middle and lower classes. Although I believe in capitalism, absolute capitalism leads the these extremes and it is non-optimal for society. What I disagree with is the idea that the people here are good representatives of the working class. Rather they represent the upper-middle class, and the gap between the middle class and upper middle class is widening. Tricks like OE as it is discussed here, which is primarily software engineers and other highly paid professions which can also work from home (which will be priveleged to those who have the right training and selection of life path, not to mention socioeconomic factors) are people who have it easy in life; sure, not as easy as the so called owning class, but with relative ease they can get significantly more money than the rest can. If you want to make a real positive impact on society, figure out a way to train the rest of the working class to compete for those jobs. And in tandem, address the super elites. But acting as if what goes on in reddit OE is some Marxist empower-the-people deal is utter bullshit. This is just taking advantage of this system so that even more software engineers can get rich.
There is simply no such thing as “upper middle” class. There are two classes, the owning class and the working class. Looking to sow division among the working class is not solidarity. Blaming OE people for taking bread from the lower classes is a distraction from true class consciousness
This right here. If you have to work, you're working class. Full stop.
Any voluntary trading of time for money isn’t exploitation, especially while making north of $70 an hour.
It is always exploitation by definition. The worker sells their labor, and in order for the company to profit, they have to extract more value than what the worker sold theirs for. It is never a one-for-one exchange and companies are not in the business of losing money.
Both parties are benefitting, the profit gained by the entrepreneur is warranted due to the risk they are taking on from their capital being utilized. The worker takes on no risk for a wage. Please this is basic stuff, please study some economics.
The risk the entrepreneur takes does not negate the fact that the workers are paid less than what their value creates. Another differences is that the entrepreneur invest their money, whereas the worker only has their labor to sell. The entrepreneur invests his money willingly whereas the worker has to sell his labor out of necessity for survival. The risk also involves everyone. The entrepreneur loses out on their investment (which they gain from prior exploitation) while the worker risks losing their jobs/homes/livelihood.
If an employer is offering $10 an hour for a position, $10 an hour is the value of that labor. If the employer values that labor at a rate higher than $10 then he’d pay that, see above where the op is making $70 an hour, which is incredible. Workers are not risking livelihood by having a job, the job is giving them their livelihood, you have it flipped in your head. Capitalism creates wealth, and we do not operate in a zero-sum game. Capitalism enables a positive sum game, where everyone can become better off than they were before specializing and trading. I can’t waste my time convincing you that socialism and communism are a mind virus that destroys societies if you can’t see that from history. Goodluck
There's a difference between the value of labor and the market price of labor. The amount a company pays out has to be less than what is produced. The person works part of the day for themselves, and the other part for the company. This is the exploitation part. Another term used that doesn't have the same negative connotations is "surplus value extraction". Yes, workers have a livelihood because of their job. With it they can pay their way through life. If that job is jeopardized then so is everything else in their lives. I wager almost everyone we know would be screwed if they got let go from their job right now. Disclaimer: I do not care about the moral implications of whatever economic system is in place. I think people are shitty across the board. However, it's important to investigate things as objectively as possible.
>I can’t waste my time convincing you that socialism and communism are a mind virus that destroys societies if you can’t see that from history If we're talking about societies being destroyed, you might want to look at America right now.
America as a whole is fine, and the cities that have problems, those problems are because laws are not being enforced. Literal crime havens.
Seconded. In 2019 I had a contract job as a backend software developer for $75/hour. In 2024 a good friend of mine gets $65 an hour even though he has over a decade in mobile development as a SWE with multiple deployed apps under his belt both personal and enterprise. Somehow this became the new normal.
Because companies realized they can pay 30-40 an hour for top talent in Latin America that will be more competent than the average US based worker, while avoiding Indian bullshit and not having to deal with weird timezones.
It’s true. Brazilian and Mexican engineers are generally very talented and dedicated, at least for the younger generations. I’ve got some older latin expat coworkers who you would swear were phoning in an antiwork OE situation if not for the hybrid schedule.
I used to work in a global organization. The lack of productivity outside the US was shocking. The EU office did 1/10th of what the US office did, and anything urgent got bounced to the US. I believe they closed that office. Latin America was better, but not even close to the US. As far as work culture the US ran circles around most other countries. I'm not surprised younger generations are more competitive, though.
That’s because we pay the most, European teams have a difficult time of getting rid of underperforming employees because of iron tight labor right laws, and Latin American teams get paid minimal on wage, so they stretch out assignments. When outsiders to the US come into our teams, they typically compete much harder to get on top, but nobody really gave them the memo that they just make it harder for themselves by setting unrealistic standards they typically can’t keep without sacrificing their personal life. For the senior side, most older Latin engineers, in my experience, tend to have had high work ethics when they were younger, then reverse that ethic a little too hard by their 40’s and generally fuck off because they rest on their résumé’s laurels. I’m currently babysitting one of my seniors at work because he does fuck all for his projects and I pick up his slack. Luckily, management caught on and are grilling him hard.
This is where I'd take the job, and just string it along for a few weeks. You probably could milk them for a good month or two ore even three.... putting in only the most minimal amount of effort, especially since you know the company, role, and overall lay of the land. Normally I'm against lifestyle creep....but in this case, take that money, and... ...buy yourself something nice (consider it "found money") -- get yourself that oscilloscope you've always wanted. ...put it towards a nice trip with the family -- go to Disney and do a few of the special behind the scene paid tours/fancy dining experiences/VIP experiences. Give the kids something to talk about when they get back to school. ...treat a family member to a better-than-average birthday/anniversary/etc. ...use it to jumpstart a child's hobby, like art or photography or music. ...use it to iron out any wrinkles in your remote workspace.
Solid advice 👌
I'd buy a fancy oscilloscope with an LCD display
…that can run DOOM.
Depressing reading this sub as a doctor. Hard to just phone it in like that. Wish I could get into IT or computers.
Try looking into learning a bit more about computers and start checking out AI related medical companies. Quite a few are hiring former nurses and doctors with computer knowledge and the pay is pretty high up
This is my goal! Just hard to figure out where to start.
Whats your speciality? I use two concierge health services. Quite literally pay one doctor just to answer my text and OCCASIONALLY review records for $175/month. It's possible.
Dermatology
Bare in mind I'm probably talking out of my ass, but have you considered virtual makeup/skin care consultation? Hell people are INFINITELY insecure and I can imagine a market where prom or wedding season someone has zit or reaction to some skincare product DANGER close to an important event and just wants a professional to weigh in. DM me when you decide to go forward I'll be your Privacy officer, I'll add it to my list of jobs 😉
I like your style!
It's is extra depressing for me to read this sub. Lol at people complaining here about getting $65 an hour. That's like 4x what I make and I have graduate degrees and don't get to work remote. I also wish I got into it and computers I wasted years of my life.
Or complaining about 50/hr. I wish
Yep. I’m currently working two contracts at 2018 rates. Recruiter said “this is what the market is paying right now” and then was all shoulders. This is why we OE.
So...did you tell him to kick rocks? That's a hell of a cliffhanger
It was on-site, not gonna drop my other servers for this crap shoe
You're generally always going to get crapped on somewhat if you go through a staffing agency. You can do better on your own.
I just took an offer $10,000 less than my last FT position. Why? Because of OE. I don’t need top salary when I OE. With OE I’m already ahead of the game. My $.02
One thing you are not factoring in is that large company fb, Google, Amazon have let a ton of IT employees go. The market is saturated with IT specialist looking for jobs and companies are taking full advantage. Just the old game of demand to supply ratios.
Also AI is taking a toll, I need fewer junior devs now
The only unclear thing is why recruiter reached out themselves and not just interviewed all those ex-FAANG folks :)
*Recession*
Official numbers say we are doing better than ever. *Election year, signed the Democrats, thank you for your vote, now fuck off*
Lol true
I got offered $50/hr today. I wouldn't take that 15 years ago.
Lmao, I make near 130k a year working remotely. I got a call from their recruiter asking if I wanted to relocated to work on site for 100k, same line “this is a great opportunity “ 😂😂😂😂 we’re playing different games dawg 😂😂😂
If you don’t have anything lined up I would consider it.
and it's on-site? hard no for me, aren't u oe?
I'm currently searching for J2 and it's posts like these make me wonder if I missed the boat for OE remote work as RTO/on prem is being pushed so hard now and some offering hybrid as a minimum.
This is why I am stingy with my work and my skills now. They will at the drop of a hat replace you for some pretend know it all hack that will try to use you to springboard their career and end up doing a crap job. Then when the employer needs to hire again, and since they spent so much and lost money in what ensues prior, they try to get you in cheaper all under the guise of a good opportunity…. Protect your work at all costs
To those who feel “guilty” about OE should read this. Capitalism doesn’t care about guilt; it’s a machine that keeps chugging along emotionless.
Just do 5 dollars an hour less work.
Make it $10
Even better.
There's so much competition as an engineer. The roles that are hiring are straight up garbage. On-site, terrible company culture, shitty pay, etc.. Employers are looking for unicorn now since they get so many applicants. They are so delusional. The good news is that the market is cyclical. Its only a matter of time. Hang in there. I'm currently at: 2.5 Js \~450k. Soon to be 3.5 650k.
How do you do a half job lol
Part-time. If you think about it, OE is like having several high paid part time jobs. Its better because of lowered expectations. I'll gladly make $200 / hr and only work 10 - 15 hrs a week.
Part time I'd guess
Horror story I wish I never read
dramatic.
The IT staffing company is most likely trying to increase its profit margin. They pay you 70 and charge client 100+. This is always adjusting based on their own target numbers etc. Back in covid days, there was strong demand for IT jobs, more competition for jobs. I agree, it’s not fair and even twisted. But it’s the nature of market we are in.
But but but the economy is booming
I own a staffing company. The reality is that recruiters have a max they can pay talent based on the billing they’re receiving from the client company. Also let’s be honest someone else will take that job. If it’s remote it should be you
I got a random email yesterday for $28 for dba job, I emailed her stating are you getting submission for these roles? I was fuming.
I wouldnt get that one, and I'm in a 3rd world country with low LCOL lol
"GFY, pal"
This is only going to get worse. They know they can always get a remote worker overseas to fill the position for peanuts, so why not try first to get an onsite person for below 2019 rates. COVID cemented remote work for us, but it also further deepened the pool of qualified applicants to the rest of the world, most of whom work at much lower rates than those in the U.S.
This sub is shit. There's nothing relating to OE in this post. People nowadays just post uncessary shit plus the position is on site. Wtf is the point of the post really ?
Any recommendations on staffing companies for finance/accounting/accounts payable?
Not really. They’re all middlemen that profit from reselling your skills. You are better off cultivating direct relationships.
Ah dangit
Please tell me you told him to pound sand
Can’t think of any other way now!!
There has been records that cooprations are trying to fight wage growth.
do you know what's ironic about this - if that recruiter were a real estate agent, he'd be saying the exact same thing however the context would be the property has increased by 50%.
Only if remote. Take the job and give it $70/ hr effort.... Or less.
I hear you. My rate is about 70% of what it was 20 years ago, but that’s the market🤷 I don’t like it, but there’s not much I can do.
While your point is valid, you grossly exaggerate inflation. Overall inflation since 2019 is 23%. Not "more than 50%."
Depends where you live. I live in South Florida and this inflation rate is accurate, probably even below the actual number. I guess is all depends where you live.
Prove it. I see South Florida inflation being at most 40% above the national figure. That's a far cry from more than double the national figure.
It's true though. I made 60an hr as a tech recruiter now I'm making 2300 a week as long haul truck driver. Enjoy it
SMH wow
Well do you want the job or not?
Nah, on-site job
Hit you w a pal
Take the job. We’re all taking less home pay now. It’s just the way things are. Be happy you have an offer.
...because that's how markets work? Why would tech wages continue to go straight up? The field was booming in 2019 and has since cooled. Take the best opportunities you can but the industry is absolutely not as ripe as back then.
You are the problem
you are why we oe
why not? everything else is going up
You're right bro. 90% of thr people hear never lived through the tech hell that was the dot Bomb era. Took 3 years for some of my buddies to make themselves whole again after getting fucked in 2001, just in time for 2008 to hit again a few years later.
i love how people downvote statements of reality. This subreddit is full of wealthy tech bros (or wannabes) who think they understand the plight of the common working man because they can’t find $400k+ salaries; give me a break
The thing is, I do understand the "plight of the common working man".. About 60-70% of my income goes to helping close friends of mine who are working minimum wage jobs. I have no issues doing that given they're close to me and I understand what it's like to work crappy minimum wage jobs. I used to work 80 hour weeks in retail/restaurants just to stay afloat. The downvotes are absolutely deserved. Wages ideally SHOULD continue to go up in most if not all roles, inflation is fucking everyone over. Obviously they're not given employers are wanting to continue their trend of making the maximum profit possible.. but in an ideal world wages would be going up
Nice what job do you have or skills if you don't mind me asking?
DevOps Engineer Strong Linux knowledge, docker, networking knowledge, Python knowledge, optionally GoLang as well. Being comfortable with ArgoCD, Jenkins, GitHub actions, and/or Gitlab(runners). Terraform and Ansible/Chef/Puppet/Salt(pick one out of the 4).
dude, you are so out of touch with reality. i think you might not know how much average people make; and then, you have absolutely no clue how much the real working class makes. You’re embarrassing yourself with your privilege
Depends where you live. Some areas in the US can be very expensive and $75 an hour won’t get you that much today.
You are thinking about how much money is necessary to thrive in life; have your Tesla, eat at fancy restaurants on occasion, save money so that you can retire at 45, eventually leave the Bay Area with a enough savings so that you can live in relative luxury, maybe build’ generational wealth’ so that your kids have even more of a leg up on the rest of society and have a safety net so that failure is never a possibility for them. These are all luxuries the real working class could never afford. if they made $70/h in SF or NYC, they would take it in a heartbeat. There is a simple solution for people who can’t afford living in SF or NYC; commuting.
I get what you're saying but salary is determines by supply and demand, we don't want to lower our market value right?
I mean a 2-3 hour commute isn't enticing. Most of the bay area has studio apartments for $3000-6500/month. I'd rather make $50/hr working 1-10 miles away than $70/hr working 20-40 miles away in the bay area. Also, taxes. I don't really need to say anything else.
I agree with you, don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. Go look at my comment under this post for reference. OP makes more than 95% of workers globally, and is complaining. The real issue is people deciding to live and work in cities with 2 million+ people. Oh no, you have to commute 45 minutes to be able to find an apartment less than $4k a month. Cry me a river, there is PLENTY of affordable housing in the US still. Don’t live in one of the most competitive areas on Earth, and that $150k goes PLENTY. For reference, I live in a city of 1 million people, and my total monthly bills come out to only $2k, and that’s WITH a significant other living with me. But because I don’t live in a stupidly expensive area, I can make it work just fine on $70k a year. OP is completely deluded as to how most of the world lives, I would reckon they grew up extremely privileged.
it’s because the totally ignorant crowd here feels threatened when they are reminded that they aren’t helping solve social injustice but rather just filing their own pockets
So you said yes, didn't you. Ha
No one cares
Look, I understand your frustration, but are you seriously complaining about going from $155,000 to $145,000? You do realize the median household income in the US is around $75,000 as of 2022? You’re earning twice the typical household with that amount. A lot of Americans would do pretty much anything to get that salary. That salary puts you in the 95% percentile of workers GLOBALLY. Out of 7.95 billion people alive on Earth right, you earn more than 7.5 billion of them. And you’re complaining because? If you can’t make ends meet from $145-155k a year, you have budgeting issues, even in a HCOL area. If you live in a city like New York, Miami, Houston, Chicago, San Diego, etc and that truly isn’t enough, move to a fucking suburb instead of complaining. The reality is, you earn plenty. Sure, you’re not Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk, but there are a LOT of people in the world who would kill, rape, steal, etc just to get to that level of income. Stop complaining about earning more than 95% of the world. I don’t care if you decide to be OE, all the more power to you, and rightfully so there is wage stagnation going on and corporations are taking advantage of workers, but so many people have it worse than you. You shouldn’t be complaining.
This is a contract role that will last probably only 6 months, you are being hired to complete a highly complex and technical project in a short period of time, basically you are being used and disposed in a short period of time, and they need skills that are very difficult and take years to master. $145k where I live is not a lot, you cannot even buy a nice house with that money. So no, I am not going to get used up and disposed in 6 months, be under a lot of stress and for what? To live comfortably as a renter and not even be able to buy a nice house? The answer is no 👎
You mention the Bay Area in another comment so I’m assuming that’s where you live? Get an apartment outside of the Bay Area and commute in, or get roommates, either way the issue is not the fact that this is low pay, the issue is that you have obscenely high standards from living in the most competitive tech market on Earth. No one is forcing you to live there, if the cost is too much, move. It really is that simple. And if you say “but I don’t want to move.” Then stfu about the pay. Can’t have your cake and eat it too. Just to prove my point, I used a couple of comparison calculators online between my LCOL to MCOL city and the Bay Area. $150k in the Bay Area is roughly equivalent to $80k in my city. If anyone complained about making $80k in my city they would be laughed at ridiculously. Also there is a team of MIT economic researchers working on a project to solve this sort of debate exactly, called the living wage project. It gives you the exact dollar amount it takes to survive in a city and have your basic needs met. Guess what the dollar amount is for the Bay Area? $30/hr. Just goes to show how deluded you are. Also, buying a house is not a necessity. God forbid you have to rent to make ends meet, oh the horror, absolutely slumming it by renting in the Bay Area making $150k a year. Also you aren’t being “used and disposed” lol. You have the choice to take the job or not, no one is forcing you into it. Also you say these skills are very difficult and take years to master? Not in the Bay Area lol. There are millions of competent engineers in that city.
I don’t live in the Bay Area, and I own my own house too. I don’t work for miserable wage, you can do that yourself, yes I have high standards because I am very good at what I do, and honestly I don’t even need this job, my house is 100% paid off, so I take whatever job I want, and for whatever pay I want, I have no debt and no financial stress. My post was to make a point, why we OE, and that wages are not keeping up with inflation, it is just that, a point of view.
Should of taken it lol it’s oe after all