Are juniors salary expectations even realistic?
I myself am a Software dev with more than ten years of exp. I mentored a bunch of folks and was active in lot pf communities. I have been noticing this trend for more than couple of years about how freshers and developers with experience of less than two three years are aggressively looking to switch companies to target 30L or 50L or whatever they are currently looking for. But I feel this is really bad for future in terms of career growth. I am not against looking for the best offer, but I feel people recently don’t have any priority for career growth. I am trying to understand their perspective. I am not jealous of any of these. Heck I prefer that they get more, so that they have to increase my pay to keep up with current trends. It’s just when people ask me for career guidance I don’t want to sound like a jerk to prioritise good work over good pay. Can you guys share your inputs/perspectives?
It's mostly bcz of the peer pressure and frnds who get higher packages and even family or society expectations
I am a 23 cs grad I got placed at 12lpa for data scientist role, although some of my frnds who Actually worked equally hard or even lesser deserving PPL got placed at 20-30 lpa,now they have the ego that i have twice thrice package thank urs even though they don't explicitly say it .So at this point of time ,even i feel that i am equally deserving and just bcz either their interviewers were chill and were extremely lucky that they were just asked a simple binary search problem while all my interviews were dp/graph based or bcz of the gender priority they got. placed at higher packages ,i also nee dto get to that package within 2-3 yrs.or else I'll go for ms
Seeking more money is a good thing. 30-50L isn’t even that much by global standards. Indians need to raise their salary expectations IMO
I agree.
I am not against seeking Money. However money shouldn’t be the target for a fresher IMO. It should be side effect of the learning and growth.
It’s usually the well paying jobs that offer the best growth and learning. Also, in India future employers assess your worth by your current salary so it’s important to get a high paying job as soon as possible
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99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Juniors that run after money don’t understand the value of life. Money, gadgets, entertainment, casual relationships, every dopamine hit is short-lived in this world.
These people are obsessed with too many worldly things. The reason why depression is prevalent these days.
Money is important, but not so much than human values. These people will understand only when they cross the age 40.
I agree with most of your statement.
I also feel most of us are not from wealthy backgrounds. And lot of us had lot of wants/dreams that we couldn’t get/achieve because of our financial situation. And finally many of us are in situations where we can get/do those things.
And many of us also have financial commitments or constraints like loans/debts which always will hold us back.
If a person is not restricted because of financial obligations then I don’t think they should prioritise money over growth.
99bytes
Stealth
a year ago
Correct. Youths coming from middle or lower middle class suddenly start getting access to too many things at a very early age. It has become a sort of perpetual competition which everybody is trying to win. The generation shift is happening from save mindset to growth mindset.
The idea of ‘saving for future’ is changing to ‘investing for future’. The balance is broken.
Makes them take numerous risks. By the time they realize the consequences, it will be too late.
So kinda in the same boat. Got a job with 9 a year back. Seeing my peers from college earning much more is just sometimes frustrating . I am trying to leetcode but it feels like I am not growing even in that. 😞 kya kare
I understand what you mean. We always seek validation. And money seems like a good metric to compare.
However I think that this is not the best direction for a person to take. Money is a way to get things.
I genuinely feel that we should focus on our long term goals and how our current career/phase affects that. If you plan to retire by 30 then definitely make all the jumps and ask insane amounts because that fits your plan.
But don’t do it just because someone else is doing it.
Yes but it does hurt seeing people who were just at the same level in college joining big companies while you stay below. Can’t even blame college when college was good 😅
I wouldn't think much about salary if the pay was actually proportional to the value we deliver. But in most companies it depends on how well you perform at the interview, and how well we manage to showcase our work even if we don't do much.
The interviews are usually very theoretical and far from what we actually do at work. They ask so much about data structures and graph theory and what not but at work it's usually just and if else, for loop, Arrays. So doing well in an interview doesn't necessarily convert to doing good at day to day work.
I have 3 years of experience as a backend java dev. I graduated with a degree in electronics and communication. I could not get a job in my core field, and i always loved coding and logic. So that ended me up with a job in a startup with a salary of 2.4LPA. I took it without thinking too much because it was better than paying someone else to learn coding. After 6 months i asked for a raise because I was contributing more than some seniors - they made it 3.6LPA which is good growth for me, but compared to many of my friends who graduated with CS degrees, it wasn't much, they started off with 8LPA.
I don't mean to brag but i was much better than these guys at solving real world problems and coming up with creative solutions. So naturally I felt like I deserved more.
My immediate seniors were pretty toxic and I used to work 12 hours a day regularly. It was affecting my health so quit and I took a year off from work.
Then the next job I took (with 1YOE and a gap year) gave me a package of 6.8LPA and after 2 years here now, I have a package of 9LPA. Although i love the work this time. No toxic teammates or bosses. I work more than my teammates sometimes but I do it willingly. Sometimes I wish for more sincere teammates.
While my friends when they had a total of 3 YOE switched to jobs with 20+LPA.
So again if I switch now, i expect a minimum of 20LPA.
Just to let you know I am a biotech graduate.
Coding wasn’t my thing. But I loved games and technology.
And I do understand where you’re coming from. However, why do you think you are not able to get raise there that’s proportional to the value you deliver?
And why are you overworking for less pay? Even when you were in a bad team, you still worked hard. Why? Is it because you felt that you were learning stuff? Trying to be better engineer?
Do you regret working late? You also mentioned that you deserve at least 20 lpa? Is it because of your experience and learning over the course of your 3yoe? Do you feel if you had a CS degree you would have had all this learned as a fresher itself and deserved 20lpa then itself?
I am not attacking you. Trying to understand and help you convey my perspective.
I know how it tends to be when we start our career with low pay. I myself started with 3+ lpa. And my financial growth was very slow, but I always felt my expertise was better than most. And somehow I felt I am on my way to where I deserve to be.
I have spoken openly about the salary, with my current manager. He completely agrees but he is tied by the "company policy" he says. I've shown all the contributions I have made consistently throughout our monthly connects and he thinks i deserve to be a lead (who generally has 7+ YOE with 30LPA salaries) but in order to be a lead I need to have that many years of experience. So I think the main driver for getting good raises within the company is actually the pay scale that we start off with. Getting a hike that's more than 30% within the company is almost next to impossible unless you clear an interview elsewhere and the company chooses to retain you. (And like I said before clearing interviews requires a different skill than performing well at everyday work.) My manager told me offline that i should get an offer from outside and he can easily retain me. I plan on working on this after my company gives me a normal hike for this year. That way I get 2 hikes.
I overwork because i enjoy the work I do.. i generally get full control over the tasks that I do extra effort on. So i ensure the output is the best it can be. So yes. Learning and being a better engineer.
I don't think that overworking in itself is the criteria to get a good salary. I think that the overall value that we deliver should be the criteria
I regret working late in my previous company where the seniors did not acknowledge my efforts and contributions. In my current company I get the spotlight that i deserve. The only complaint I have is that my team would rather estimate high than take up more work to fill our capacity
The only reason I think i deserve 20lpa is because the industry gives it to people who deliver less value than I do. Infact 20LPA is just a number I chose because my friends have it.
I would like to have pay based purely on my value. And if that means 0.5LPA with proper justifications and reasonable targets that I have to achieve in order to get 20LPA then I would accept it.
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