Of Salaries & Goals...

[Ujah's Goat]

Hi everyone! I am seeking wisdom from my fellow LG'ers about how to deal with getting raises at work, and for general advice for young professionals (aka: millennials) to help temper expectations for what success should look like in the work place.

A little background about myself: I got a job while still in uni as a non-CPA accountant before graduating in winter '14 from a state school. I realized that finance was not for me and switched to the cloud ops team within the same company, which was a better fit that allowed me to grow by learning new skills. While the could ops job paid decently for someone of my experience, or lack thereof, I couldn't help but want more everything (pay, displayed work values, great manager, good company) and started looking for opportunities in new states. Probably would have went international with the search but have a wife still in college and a son at home.

My search led me to make contact with an international org that has an office in the U.S., which I offered my services to under a consulting company I set up and moved with my family for the new opportunity. I've been at it now for a few months and absolutely love this org and my team, which has complete trust in me and has already allowed me to travel to multiple countries in just a few months! Most importantly, the org had the "soft" things I was looking for in terms of work culture, great management, and an environment that allows employees to truly excel.

Today was a great day for me as I was offered a full-time position with them at a networking event they were hosting for their employees. The offer really came as a surprise because I was not expecting it at all - especially since I am a (relatively) recent college grad trying my hand in a new field - and the initial offer was $10k+ the original contract terms I signed with them plus bonuses. Of course I accepted with no questions asked Quick reflection, accepting has made me almost triple what I was making in accounting and double what I was making in cloud ops in base salary with my first company.

Now here is the only problem. As a self-admitted entitled millennial, I am very critical about most important choices I make. Now, before the offer came out of the blue, I was interested in perhaps taking on more clients in my consulting role and driving up the value of my company by eventually expanding to have a small efficient team across multiple countries. I can't help but feel that the offer I received, while incredible to me, was essentially a buy out, and that I am failing in my first business venture. However, on the other hand, I am absolutely in a better position than I was yesterday and have plans to stay with this org for years to come and fully repay their faith in me.

With that being said, here are my questions to LG:

1) Good or bad, how have you dealt with receiving raises before?
2) What approach(es) have you taken to temper professional expectations you have set for yourself?
3) What have you seen from the younger generation of employees that (a) has been most surprising you and (b) most frustrating?

Please add comments & insights - they will all be appreciated!

sorries for the long post >.<

UG

[tlim]

1) You are worth what you negotiate. Check the 90% percentile of your experience and skill set. If you're above that, be happy about it but also look for equity.

DevOps is a highly sought after skill and not enough people do it. I dove head first into a deployment issue with chef, opsworks, supermarket, knife, etc. Took me f'in forever (or so it seemed) to figure out that it wasn't doable with a standard AMI for Ubuntu 14.0.4 Someone who has done this for a while would have known that.

2) Meh. I'm pretty hardcore and have programmed in more OS'es, languages, etc. than almost everyone I know. Just remember, there will ALWAYS be people who are better, unless your name is Stroustrup, Richie, Sutter, etc. you will meet some amazing people (and some of the crappiest).

3) The most frustrating part about the younger generation is that you guys really like to think something is done when the sunny day scenario has been completed, and Ruby on Rails and ruby has some of the worst "engineers" out there as a community. There are rare exceptions (usually coming from other languages), but damn, not happy camper there. And yes, I'm starting a language war because the ruby language is just that great, especially when there is something close to that and much nicer, in Python.

[unleasHell]

If you have a long working career ahead of you, get as much money up front as you can, then work hard, very hard, prove your worth and make yourself valuable to the company, stay a minimum of three years and learn everything you can.

At the end of three years, look at the company, are they successful? are they taking care of you? Do they make sound decisions? Do you like your boss? If any of these are "no", start looking for a better job, don't let your current employer know, and don't quit until you find a better job..

Repeat with the next employer..

What you don't want is to stay at a job for ten years because you are comfortable when they are NOT giving you raises, oh they will tell you a half dozen stories why they can't (give you a raise) and every one of those reasons is BS!

And if they offer you more money to stay..don't do it as they will lose all respect for you.
_________________
“Always remember... Rumors are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.”

[Ujah's Goat]

Thanks for diving right in with your response tlim

[Ujah's Goat]