Webmaster Salary

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by Sxooter
If you got REALLY good benefits, it might be worth getting your foot in the door at $35.

That could be it; standard executive practice is to have only a nominal salary (for which income tax has to be paid) and then a whacking big expense account and other goodies that don't count as income but together are large enough that they don't need a big salary to comport themselves in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

Maybe you should have asked if the job came with use of the company jet. Or an office with a door. Or at least a desk that's not right next to the water cooler. 🙂

[csn]

Or even a stapler.

[bpat1434]

You see the company switched from the SlimLine stapeler, and I kept the slim line. They won't take my stapeler. And then they moved my desk, and I used to be able to see the squirrels and they were married and now I can't. I swear one day I'm going to burn down this place.

~Brett

[Jason_Batten]

I used to be able to see the squirrels and they were married and now I can't.

Anyone else see these married squirrels? :glare:

[piersk]

I'd be looking to earn aroun £20k-£25k when I finish working for the union next year. I think that works out at about $40k-$50k

Thinking about it, bubblenut started working for audioscrobbler a little while ago... PHP/PgSQL... wonder what he's on. Maybe if I ply him with enough alcohol on saturday then I can find out...

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by Weedpacket
...Or an office with a door.

The only office I've ever had in my entire life that had a real door (and walls and everything) is the one at home 🙂. I feel like Les Nessman.

[piersk]

Originally posted by NetNerd85
Anyone else see these married squirrels? :glare:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0151804/

[pohopo]

Originally posted by bpat1434
You see the company switched from the SlimLine stapeler, and I kept the slim line. They won't take my stapeler. And then they moved my desk, and I used to be able to see the squirrels and they were married and now I can't. I swear one day I'm going to burn down this place.

~Brett

we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?

That movie is a classic.

[Sxooter]

And, here's some RAID. We've had a lot of problems with cockroaches down here, so we'd like you to spray for them.

Back to the semi serious topic, by benefits, I really meant stuff like education etc...

If the company had full medial and dental with a small deductable, and was willing to work around a school schedule and things like that, then it might be worth looking at for $35k for someone looking to break into web development.

But if they're as cheap as I'm guessing they are, there are no benefits, and you'll be expected to work 12 hour days just keep the job.

Sorry, I've still got a bitter taste in my mouth from my previous employer in Denver, mainly because of how they treat my friends that are still there.

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by Sxooter
If the company had full medial and dental with a small deductable, and was willing to work around a school schedule and things like that, then it might be worth looking at for $35k for someone looking to break into web development.

... and it's not just the more tangible benefits, it's the unseen benefits as well. I know we've talked about this topic before numerous times, but it's not always about the money. In this job, would you be autonomous? Would you be allowed to develop and implement your own systems with the minimal of micromanagement? Obviously these are things you can't ask outright, but they are subtle nuances you can perhaps pick up through the interview process. I would much rather work for a great smaller company for minimum wage than sell my soul to a large company that thinks they own me because they pay well. You said yourself that you liked the look of the company; I wouldn't automatically discount them or the opportunity because of salary. Especially at an entry level position.

I now make roughly half of what I did when I worked for a large company and I'm roughly twice as happy now, if not more so. So from my perspective, happiness and contentment with life is inversely proportional to salary. But that's just me 🙂

[edit]IMHO just because a company can't afford to pay a lot doesn't necessarily mean they won't have good benefits... just like a large organization doesn't necessarily mean they will have good benefits. My husband works for the state and they have the crappiest benefits around because of budget issues. Also, a company that pays well may be shooting itself in the foot if it can't sustain the sales to cover it... maybe the company is just being conservative? Who knows? I have a friend that started a business and the first thing she did was to get a big fancy office downtown with very expensive furniture because she thought it would impress her clients. Funny thing was she almost went bankrupt because she couldn't afford the overhead. Things are not always what they seem- just keep that in mind.[/edit]

(Hey, I've got to go, I've got a meeting with the Bobs)

[pohopo]

Yeah, salary means nothing if you hate every minute of your job. A big thing for me is how well I talk with the person that is going to be my manager. If we do not click then it is not good for me or them regardless if I might be technically qualified or not.

Right now I have to say I am pretty happy. Good pay, good boss that completely trusts me, and good benefits.

"Absolutely, the pleasure's all on this side of the table, trust me. "

[vaaaska]

I once had a really cool 12th floor office complete with a door.

.

..

...

However, I wasn't supposed to shut it. Nobody shut their doors. Even the principal/owners office where he routinely had hate festivals on the entire world. Including the daily sessions where he yelled at co-workers in his office.

"Hi, why is your door shut?"

"Hello. I shut my door because it was really loud and I needed to focus."

"But we have a policy..."

"Yes, I know. But with you yelling at other people in the office I just couldn't bare another second of it."

• stunned look...goes away...*

Did I mention that my office was next to his? I lasted two months and was so sick of trying to climb the ladder that I went off on my own. Can't imagine going back to work for somebody else...

Ugh...I'm happy knowing that the other two principals finally left and started their own firm to completely screw him up.

[Sxooter]

Wow. Where I work there are no offices with doors. Even the guy what owns the company has a cubicle in the farm like everybody else. When one of our developers first started, he asked who the "networking guy" was in the corner. Took us about 10 minutes to figure out he was talking about the CEO and owner. hehe.

IT's loud, but a good loud, people talking politely and excitedly about things they have passion for.

I have two sets of headphones. 🙂

[davidjam]

Thanks everybody for the tips. Yeah, I really liked the company... totally agree with e. about the small company with less pay but high contentment factor. It really isn't worth that much stress.

BUT, the fact is I've ditched that "opportunity", not because of the pay, but because I don't want to live in Denver. What a zoo! Cost of living is just way too high. I guess I got kind of used to sleepytown here, not that I won't look at other cities as long as there's a reasonable commute and not bad prices on out-of-town properties. We looks east now...

Originally posted by Sxooter
...Back to the semi serious topic, by benefits, I really meant stuff like education etc...

If the company had full medial and dental with a small deductable, and was willing to work around a school schedule and things like that, then it might be worth looking at for $35k for someone looking to break into web development..

I totally agree about the education. R&D on the job and other training are extremely important to me. I am just starting out and hungry for learning.

Originally posted by vaska
...However, I wasn't supposed to shut it. Nobody shut their doors. Even the principal/owners office where he routinely had hate festivals on the entire world. Including the daily sessions where he yelled at co-workers in his office.

I currently have a "walkin on egg shells" type for my boss. A week ago he made the big mistake to start yelling at me. That is when I started looking elsewhere. They actually really need me here, so it's his loss not mine. I want to send a message out right now to everybody in the working world DON'T PUT UP WITH ABUSE. ok there, I said it.

Won't quote your whole post here e. but I agree totally.

Here's the site of the place I was looking at: EUCI. I know it will look boring to most people but it really would be perfect for me. 🙂

Finally (sorry for the long post) I have to admit that asking 50 - 55k was inappropriate for my level. I admit it.

...Looking forward to the next opportunity.

[Sxooter]

Originally posted by davidjam

Finally (sorry for the long post) I have to admit that asking 50 - 55k was inappropriate for my level. I admit it.

Not in Denver it wasn't. The cost of living is much higher, and if they're going to do business there, they are the ones who now have to pay a living wage.

[csn]

Chicago's not more expensive than Denver? Denver's not that expensive still, although housing prices have increased quite a bit over the recent years. Housing prices seem quite a bit lower out in Saudi Aurora (east Denver).

[Sxooter]

I'd say they're about even.

I was paying $745 for a one bedroom apartment in denver, and a decent one bedroom here goes for anywhere from $600 to $1000.

The cost of commuting is WAY less in Chicago, because you don't have to drive everywhere. Everything out is about the same, although dining out is cheaper here, near as I can tell.

Since Chicago is closer to the east coast, things that require shipping are generally cheaper, while other things, like real estate, are a bit more. But not much. Denver's gotten REAL expensive in the last decade or so.

Now, if you can live in Saudi Aurora, yeah, it's not too expensive, but I lived there a long time ago, and honestly, it's just too far outta town. I like living near downtown. In Chicago I live 15 miles from the Loop, 30 to 40 minutes by bus/L train and my 3 bedroom 1700 sq ft apartment is only $1100. In Denver, near downtown, in a decent section of town, my apartment would be nearly $2,000 a month.

[Weedpacket]

Originally posted by Elizabeth
I feel like Les Nessman.

Does that mean you'll be beating your chest when you do the morning traffic reports?

[edit]On the subject of

[edit].[Yeah, what she said].[/edit]

One of my earlier jobs was great fun. Didn't have Beer O'clock but LAN traffic was very busy on Friday afternoons; heading out to go go-kart racing; a converted warehouse to operate in, with only a few partitions up as noise baffles - so officechair was inevitable. Didn't pay fantastically well. Then financial trouble hit - the investors started demanding returns, the bank got antsy, custom went very quiet. Too quiet. Some weeks we didn't get paid at all - we just gritted our teeth and tried to ride the rough patch out. After a round of redundancies there were only a dozen of us left. We couldn't continue to afford the warehouse anymore, so we shifted offices (which involved one or raids on the place to recover as much gear as we could ahead of the liquidators) and continued operating out of a closet off a city street for a few more days before waving ye olde white flag and shutting down.

But it was great fun. Just more fun than work, it seems. Heigho.

Another job. Paid well, but a few months in I just had to get as far from the place as possible (I was three thousand kilometres away before I turned around and came back). I had to leave permanently a few months after that and take up a line of work that was entirely unrelated to any form of IT for a while.[/edit]

[justsomeone]

Wow.

Looks like rates are a lot higher in the US than here in the EU. I'm in Ireland, whereI believe that we're at the high end of the scale, but I'm not aware of any webmasters commanding that sort of income.

Tell ya the truth, I don't know that many webmasters anymore. They've all specialised and moved on.

Does anyone know if US companies could be tempted by remote employees? I could be very tempted to work from home for a US company for something like the package which it would appear I might expect...

As of now, I'm earning a little above high end of the rates you've been mentioning, but that's in a stressful role, with 15 people reporting directly to me. I'd be delighted to downshift a little!

[bpat1434]

As far as I know most US companies really like to be able to put a face to a name behind the work. And they like to be able to walk down to your office and yell at you there. I did a few "work from home" jobs with companies, and they screwed me because they couldn't just walk down the hall and tell me they had a problem.

But you never know. Some companies would love to save money, and if that means outsourcing, then they'll do it. Not sure if you'd make the same amount though.

~Brett