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Dot-Com Work Culture Making a Comeback?
jeebus writes "This week a Deloitte study has shown that high on the agenda of CEOs around the world is the shortage of tech talent. Is a shortage of talented geeks in the market seeing a return of the dot-com culture with foosball tables, beanbags, and inflated salaries used to entice talented workers? Welcome to Web 2.0 work culture, the future of yesterday. 'Global recruitment companies were telling prospecting employees that they were no longer going to be employed just because they were a technical guru. They were going to have to learn to dress, communicate, and adapt all the traditional corporate ideals that IT has been exempt from during the dot-com boom. Fast forward to Web 2.0 and while workplaces aren't as cheesy with their decor as they were were in the late '90s, and developers aren't getting paid $100K for being HTML and JavaScript jockeys, geeks just aren't chuffed with corporate culture.'"
It's going to come up, so let me save you all some time:
From The English to American Dictionary
I have no stats, only an anecdote from the midwest, where I made $40K a year teaching the TCP/IP stack in a community college for the 2-year networking students (I was the token Unix/OSS guy in an MS oriented program; there was also a token Novell guy who made about $20k more). Evening continuing education classes in HTML/Web use brought another $20K a year. People with the same skillset were making slightly more in private industry. I was later replaced at a cheaper rate by one of my best students. I am now back on the private side, making less, but with greater responsibility and opportunities.
I won't be feeling guilty about "inflated" salaries anytime soon. Productivity and profits have been soaring while compensation is stagnant for years now. There's still plenty of caterwauling from bosses about worker shortages and jobs people won't take (...for what we want to pay, of course), but I've realized that's just normal and not indicative of anything in particular. Bosses will always want lower wages.
I've been working in IT since just after the bubble burst (I graduated in CompSci mid-2003 and joined a corporate graduate scheme at a time when you were grateful for any IT job at all) and to be honest the corporations can keep their bean-bags, I'd just like my salary to be brought in line with those who survived the crash and are still on incredibly inflated salaries.
Here in London, a web expert (read: someone who knows a bit of HTML/CSS/Javascript and has been working in IT since around 2000) can easily be on £60k-£70k, which equates to $120k-$140k, as a result of being in the right place at the right time during the last boom. Someone just starting out in the profession with the same skills would have been lucky to get £25k after a couple of years experience until recently. The recent Web 2.0 boom and a shortage of people with the right skills means that the salary gap is now closing, which is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
Fortunately, there are excellent non iron shirts nowadays. They are no longer your grandfather's nylon shirts, but high quality 100% cotton shirts. In particular, I can recommend Brooks Brothers (a bit more expensive but quite affordable from outlets) and Lands' End. (No links. I'm not that much of a shill...)
My best estimate is that I make 20%-30% more now than what I would have made, had I not dressed reasonably well. And really, with non iron shirts it's actually comfortable and time saving.
you really have to look far and wide to find these strange hybrids
I am one of said strange hybrids, and am seemingly doomed to a life of consulting and air travel. Not really the corner office I've dreamed of.
Saw it once upon a time at bash.org.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I've been doing web programming for about 8 years -- and it gives me a certain perspective; it may be "easy" to learn HTML and JS, but it takes a LOT LONGER to do it well and deal with browser rendering inconsistencies, JS engine differences, and so on. I work with people who don't test in multiple browsers, don't use JS try/catch, put SCRIPT tags after the closing BODY tag, put INPUTs between a pair of TRs, and so on. Seriously, wtf!?
/rant off
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
My manager^3 said my proposed changes sounded OK. I rewrote large chunks of the contract as per what I'd stated and sent it back to him to approve.
Funnily enough, I haven't heard anything since. Possibly someone still thinks that if they hold out long enough, I'll see the light and accept an 8% pay cut, appropriation of all my IP, and mandatory unlimited unpaid overtime.
In the meantime, I'm getting paid by the hour and already have other offers on the table.