Are software engineer that cheap?
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I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
Microsoft pays vendors a fixed rate for each type of position. Occasionally a MS group can pay more if they choose. There is no fixed percentage that a vendor must pay the contractor. Therefore they try to find any barily qualified individual at the lowest rate possible to maximize the spread and their profit. The best bet is to agree to the price and take the interview at MS. If they like you and you get an offer then talk to the MS person that has the open position. Tell them the crappy rate you are being offered and they can put pressure on the vendor.
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I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
Vendor outsourced positions at Microsoft are available to ALL MS approved vendors. Some vendors are better than others (pay a higher percentage of the hourly rate). Among the worst vendors is Volt. You can call up another vendor and ask about the position and have them submit your resume. Try Aditi.
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Microsoft pays vendors a fixed rate for each type of position. Occasionally a MS group can pay more if they choose. There is no fixed percentage that a vendor must pay the contractor. Therefore they try to find any barily qualified individual at the lowest rate possible to maximize the spread and their profit. The best bet is to agree to the price and take the interview at MS. If they like you and you get an offer then talk to the MS person that has the open position. Tell them the crappy rate you are being offered and they can put pressure on the vendor.
schmidtty wrote:
they can put pressure
Good idea. Actually, I think that is his point. He was wondering if this should be allowed. And the answer is no. If when interviewing with MS, they are interested in his skills, but he says he has issues with the rate that is passed on to him, they might consider using variable rates rather than fixed rates. And in the end, the large companies cannot ignore the fact vendors are only trying to maximize their spread by throwing any barely qualified individuals they can grab.
You can't turn lead into gold, unless you've built yourself a nuclear plant.
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Vendor outsourced positions at Microsoft are available to ALL MS approved vendors. Some vendors are better than others (pay a higher percentage of the hourly rate). Among the worst vendors is Volt. You can call up another vendor and ask about the position and have them submit your resume. Try Aditi.
Volt is actually a shinning star if you look at these other indian agencies who pay you nothing, honestly. Volt give you free training (almost free) and I never received an offer from Volt in 20's but from these other indian agencies, i never receive an offer in 30's. For a level 3 position they might offer you 33$ (when the position itself says money should not be a problem :))
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I'm less formal. I just have them kiss my ring.
Software Zen:
delete this;Gary, People around here don't seem to like our Demi-God like expectations ... whatever could be wrong with them? ;)
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL -
I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
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Gary, People around here don't seem to like our Demi-God like expectations ... whatever could be wrong with them? ;)
:..::. Douglas H. Troy ::..
Bad Astronomy |VCF|wxWidgets|WTL"Sire, the peasants are revolting!" "They sure are, they stink on ice."
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
I make $23.50/h (+benifits) as a software engineer in Yakima, WA (East of the mountains)and that is fairly good money compaired to the cost of living here (note 4 person family, sole income). But to surive in Redmond and the cost of living on the coast, I would think the min would be around 60~65/h. Yes I know that Redmond is not costal front, but on the east side of the state, everything on the other side of the mountains is the coast.
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If it came with benefits I'd say it was a reasonable rate for an entry level developer position in most of the country (a few places like Manhattan/San Francisco being exceptions); as it is I have to wonder if they're putting it out so that they can say "we can't get an american to fill the job, give us an H1B visa".
The European Way of War: Blow your own continent up. The American Way of War: Go over and help them.
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Why do you think 65K is high? I don't know about what the correct title is, but anyone who has been coding full time 3-5 years should make about 55-65K, 5-10 years 75-85K and 10 years + should make between 90-125K
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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Why do you think 65K is high? I don't know about what the correct title is, but anyone who has been coding full time 3-5 years should make about 55-65K, 5-10 years 75-85K and 10 years + should make between 90-125K
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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Which is so far out of line with other technical fields it explains why there is so much out sourcing.
Are you joking or serious?
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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I would literally work for free, money does not matter but there is something wrong here. It is like the agency selling H1's rather than interested in quality people. And not appreciating the talent. Of course by that standard i can pay my employee 5$/hr and he/she should not complain. There should be some ethics. That is why i brought it here.
Whoever told you that your wages are a form of "appreciation" needs to go back to Econ 101. A wage represents what you agree to sell your services for to your employer. It is a simple economic transaction. You give them something, and they pay you. The price is set by a couple of factors. One is the average market price for a person who performs this, or a similar job. The other is perceived value. An employer might offer more than the typical market rate to somebody that they think brings more to the table than just what is being asked for. Or they might offer less to somebody who doesn't quite fit the requirements, but shows some potential to grow into the job. Employers don't employ people to "appreciate" them with a paycheck. Employers employ people because they hope it furthers whatever business they are in, and they hope that they can make a profit on the investment they make in employing someone. It comes down to this: nobody owes you a job at any rate. $22/hour is all you could command under those particular circumstances, unless you successfully negotiate a higher rate. If you don't like the rate and consider it insulting, walk away politely. If you think there might be room for negotiation, then negotiate. But don't work under the misapprehension that your wages are anything other than what the employer judges your monetary worth is to their organization, because they're not. If you are ever fortunate enough to employ someone, you will realize just how foolish you are being, and you will eat the words you have written about how by an employer's standard people should be happy to work for $5/hour. Incidentally, young man, I *have* worked for $5 an hour, and at the time I was damn glad to get it. But I fearlessly predict that you will never employ anyone. Your attitude is completely wrong, and you would fail in any business venture unless you change it. And if you would work for free, congratulations. You've found a wonderful hobby. If you're lucky enough to turn it into compensation, you're ahead of the game. You don't know what the agency is selling to anyone, unless you work for the agency or have some type of connection to somebody there who does, so stop making that accusation. It's BS. --Geoff
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I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
It better than $0/hr in this economy...take it and keep looking for something better.
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It better than $0/hr in this economy...take it and keep looking for something better.
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"Sire, the peasants are revolting!" "They sure are, they stink on ice."
Software Zen:
delete this; -
I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
Er, that's utter crap. Don't take it. I live about 45 minutes away from the Redmond campus and work about 20 minutes closer at a completely different engineering-centric company. $22/hr is laughable. Look at salary.com and fill in your appropriate data for the area -- according to those statistics, I'm currently underpaid by almost $10K salary (and HAVE benefits mind you - not the greatest, but they're sufficient since I'm no hypochondriac), and I'm only 1 year out of college with a Bachelor's in Computing and Software Systems from University of Washington (effectively a Software Engineering degree with a different name). Even in my underpaid status, not including that I have a full two years less experience than you and the company I work for is only about 50 people, I *still* make more than what that recruiter was offering you, plus benefits. Let's not even get into the tax hassles involved in being a private contractor -- you're responsible for SO much more (no employer contributions, and they generally contribute 50% IIRC) that the $22/hr is really probably more like $15-$17/hr. That's intern pay, so unless you're looking for an internship or haven't learned anything since you were an intern, tell them to shove it. However, I'm looking at your post again, and it's been my observation that positions in test are really mundane jobs and require no real innovation or creativity (I could be entirely wrong; I've never worked in a formal testing department and I'm basing my observation purely on job descriptions). They just need a monkey who can type and debug code (no offense to any test engineers with actual engineering skills). My guess is that if it was in a different department, the money would substantially increase. Yikes. I didn't realize I was so passionate about this...
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I just received a call from redmond based recruiter (client microsoft). It was 'software design engineer in test 1' position, with 6 month to 1 year of experience. After asking all the question about my experience, they say the maximum they can offer is 22$/hr with no benifits. Should an engineer be paid that low? Does it look alllright? I know microsoft reputation is not great but but i think it is the agency who is making big here. What do you ppl think? Any such experience. I have been offered such salary ranges before by this company and it seems it is ok.
These are tough times, you may need take what you can get. If its for MS and you work reasonably hard and effectively then the contract will probably be extended. Getting a few months experience at MS at the start of a career is better than sitting on your butt waiting for something more lucrative, and it won't harm your future employment prospects either. The ecommuny is apparently undergoing a sprouts lead recovery, so in a few months you might be able to get a job at a state owned bank and take home a fortune in stock options and bonuses to make up for the paltry amount you'll make at MS :laugh:
Multi famam, conscientiam pauci verentur.(Pliny)
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Todd Smith wrote:
Only a real engineer could get the mars rover to actually hit its target.
Only a good engineer could get the mars rover to actually soft-land on its target.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
See this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_engineer[^] It says Texas regulates the use of the term "Software Engineer". And even more, Texas bans anyone from writing real-time code without an engineering license. Well quite nice since they have all this staff working on space related products.
You can't turn lead into gold, unless you've built yourself a nuclear plant.
I even hear that Texas requires a licence to be an Architect, including software.