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>> *Starting* salary?
>
> Yes! I just did a search on monster for "graduate software" and nearly
> every result had a salary range somewhere between 20 and 30K as a
> *starting* salary. The same is true of "graduate engineer". Heck, two
> of my best friends from University (both did computer science) got a job
> with this company writing software for internet routers and their
> starting salary was 30K. My starting salary was closer to 20K than 30K,
> but that was 7 years ago, I know now they are offering new graduates
> closer to 30K.
Writing software for Internet routers sounds like pretty specialist
stuff. (It's basically writing security-critical software for an
embedded platform.) I'd be surprised if somebody with no qualifications
other than a degree could actually get a job like that. Especially if it
was just an average degree, not a spectacular one.
> According to prospects.ac.uk the average graduate starting salary ranges
> from 20 to 25k depending on who you ask. I would imagine that having a
> computer science degree would put you above the average.
Hmm. This is completely at variance with my experience, so something's
wrong somewhere. Not sure where exactly...
>>> I'd say 30k was easily achievable and you wouldn't be expected to be
>>> in charge of anyone.
>>
>> Really? I find that quite surprising.
>
> How come? Even if you started on 20K, a 50% pay increase over 7 years is
> not surprising.
Er... OK, I may have got my maths wrong here, but if we assume that you
get pay increases as large as 0.5% every single year, that still works
out to only about 3.55% over 7 years. Which is nowhere even close to 50%.
>> Hell, my sister is an accountant and she doesn't earn nearly that much.
>
> If she is working for a reputable accountancy firm, has done the
> qualifications and has more than 7 years experience (IIRC she is older
> than you?) then that seems pretty poor pay to me.
She's younger. She hasn't been in accounting for 7 years, and doesn't
have her qualification *yet*. (She gets her final exam results this
month IIRC.)
>> Hmm, thinking about it... I vaguely "know" our CEO. He must surely be
>> on a bit more than 50K.
>
> Probably a big "bit" more.
Yes, that was a typically British understatement. I realise that might
not come across in NNTP. ;-)
>> I guess most managers just don't make a habit of telling everybody how
>> much more money they earn than you do...
>
> You can easily estimate it though, by looking at similar jobs at other
> companies, how your internal pay structure works etc. For example I
> know that my manager must be earning more than a "lead engineer", which
> must be earning more than I do. I know roughly what % increase you get
> for promotion, so my manager must be on about 60-70K. I can also then
> guess that the director of my department is on about 80-90K, and the MD
> probably 110-130K. This ties in well with job adverts I've seen for
> similar positions in other companies, and from talking with other people.
Damn, you really have your finger on the pulse, don't you? :-)
I guess as you say, the problem is that I only know people with quite
low incomes. It seems incongruous to me that somebody without a PhD in
astrophysics [or simply an enterprising genius] could actually earn
decent money.
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> "Key skills and experiences required for this role are:
>
> Unix, Windows, Linux, Red Hat, Solaris, OS environments. [...]"
>
> Newsflash: Linux *is* Unix. Red Hat *is* Linux. And ALL of the above
> *are* "OS environments". Learn basic English! :-P
They might have meant OS/2 variants. According to wikipedia
OS/2 is in use in various cash machines and ticket machines.
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Tim Attwood wrote:
>> Unix, Windows, Linux, Red Hat, Solaris, OS environments. [...]"
>
> They might have meant OS/2 variants.
OK. But they didn't *say* that, did they? Which would still qualify this
as badly written. ;-)
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> Writing software for Internet routers sounds like pretty specialist stuff.
> (It's basically writing security-critical software for an embedded
> platform.) I'd be surprised if somebody with no qualifications other than
> a degree could actually get a job like that.
They were only taking graduates, so obviously they were going to give
training, they weren't expecting you to walk in on Monday and start
programming routers. The same way as my employer wasn't expecting me to
walk in on my first day and design an LCD. Hint, if it has "graduate" in
the job title it probably means they aren't assuming anything more than a
typical university course.
>> How come? Even if you started on 20K, a 50% pay increase over 7 years is
>> not surprising.
>
> Er... OK, I may have got my maths wrong here, but if we assume that you
> get pay increases as large as 0.5% every single year,
I assumed you'd get about about a 4% raise per year and maybe a single
10-20% raise for a promotion during those 7 years.
If you're only getting 0.5% per year (last year or two can be excepted for
obvious reasons) then that is really bad, inflation is usually 2-3% so
you're actually getting a pay *cut* each year. Never heard of that unless
your company is in big trouble or doesn't want you any more.
> She's younger. She hasn't been in accounting for 7 years, and doesn't have
> her qualification *yet*. (She gets her final exam results this month
> IIRC.)
By the time she's passed her qualifications and got 7 years experience I
would expect her to be over 30K. Then you'll know someone :-)
> I guess as you say, the problem is that I only know people with quite low
> incomes. It seems incongruous to me that somebody without a PhD in
> astrophysics [or simply an enterprising genius] could actually earn decent
> money.
I don't think you need to have a PhD in anything to earn decent money, or be
amazingly clever.
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>> Writing software for Internet routers sounds like pretty specialist
>> stuff. (It's basically writing security-critical software for an
>> embedded platform.) I'd be surprised if somebody with no
>> qualifications other than a degree could actually get a job like that.
>
> They were only taking graduates, so obviously they were going to give
> training, they weren't expecting you to walk in on Monday and start
> programming routers. The same way as my employer wasn't expecting me to
> walk in on my first day and design an LCD. Hint, if it has "graduate"
> in the job title it probably means they aren't assuming anything more
> than a typical university course.
Hmm, I hadn't tried doing any searches for graduate positions recently.
Maybe I should try that, if only for completeness. Dr Pepper.
I'd bet even a graduate position would require a strong understanding of
C though (and probably lab experience of writing firmware and flashing
it onto microcontroller boards or similar). And at any rate, I don't
suppose there are too many people hiring for this sort of thing. (In
other words, they can pick the best of the best of the best, and if that
isn't you, you needn't even apply.)
>>> How come? Even if you started on 20K, a 50% pay increase over 7 years
>>> is not surprising.
>>
>> Er... OK, I may have got my maths wrong here, but if we assume that
>> you get pay increases as large as 0.5% every single year,
>
> I assumed you'd get about about a 4% raise per year and maybe a single
> 10-20% raise for a promotion during those 7 years.
20% seems like a really rather large riase. (Unless you, like,
single-handedly revolutionised an entire department or something.) Then
again, having never received or met anybody who received a promotion, I
guess I wouldn't know.
> If you're only getting 0.5% per year (last year or two can be excepted
> for obvious reasons) then that is really bad, inflation is usually 2-3%
> so you're actually getting a pay *cut* each year. Never heard of that
> unless your company is in big trouble or doesn't want you any more.
I don't think there's ever been a raise here of an entire percent. Most
years there's no raise at all, but sometimes we get 0.25% or something.
And when we do, everybody complains [which always seemed odd to me].
They say what you said "this is a pay cut". Personally, I would have
thought *not* getting a raise would be worse... but what do I know?
Currently my employer loses around four million USD per year. You may
remember there was recently some talk of the company globally handing
out a 4% pay cut "temporarily". There used to be a time when the UK
division was the only profitable site, but AFAIK now all sites are
running at a loss of some size or other.
But hey, we've hardly had a single order on our books (i.e., the UK) for
about a year and a half now. It costs money to pay people to stand
around doing nothing. Seems like there's more activity happening in the
lab recently though. I don't know if this is a trend or a fluctuation.
My plan, of course, is to not stick around to find out. ;-)
>> She's younger. She hasn't been in accounting for 7 years, and doesn't
>> have her qualification *yet*. (She gets her final exam results this
>> month IIRC.)
>
> By the time she's passed her qualifications and got 7 years experience I
> would expect her to be over 30K. Then you'll know someone :-)
Heh, well, I guess we'll see.
Of course, she lives in Guildford, where the cost of living is
apparently very much higher, so she'll probably still be fairly "poor".
>> I guess as you say, the problem is that I only know people with quite
>> low incomes. It seems incongruous to me that somebody without a PhD in
>> astrophysics [or simply an enterprising genius] could actually earn
>> decent money.
>
> I don't think you need to have a PhD in anything to earn decent money,
> or be amazingly clever.
Right. Well then I guess it's just that everybody I've met happens to be
fairly poor then.
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Plan C:
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/jobs/uk/
http://www.nokia.com/A41199604
http://www-05.ibm.com/employment/uk/
http://h10055.www1.hp.com/jobsathp/content/home/home.asp?area=GB&Lang=ENen
...
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Invisible wrote:
>
A 1st degree is a Bachelor's whatever the class of it (2.1, 2.2, Richard
etc) which is not the same as a First (ie a First Class degree)
You have a 1st degree and should therefore be earning in the 20K+ range.
John
--
Cogito sum,|| wbu### [at] tznvy pbz (rot'ed) || GPG Key Fingerprint:
ergo sum, || These opinions are mine alone, || 0D9BCF4CF1B71CA2F5F7
cogito || others can find their own || BFBBCBC34EDEAEFCE453
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On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:16:42 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Linux *is* Unix
No, it isn't. Linux is at best a derivative of Minix. It's UNIX-like,
perhaps, but it's not Unix.
Jim
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On Sat, 30 Jan 2010 14:16:42 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> and all with salaries of £30,000 or higher [so, presumably beyond my
> experience level].
Don't let that be an inhibitor. Let the prospective employer decide if
you have the right amount of experience. Don't pre-filter - apply for
jobs you're interested in and let them decide if you're qualified.
Jim
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>> Linux *is* Unix
>
> No, it isn't. Linux is at best a derivative of Minix. It's UNIX-like,
> perhaps, but it's not Unix.
Care to explain that one?
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