A look at the numbers behind remote work and increased vacation time not being the solution to a work-life-balance.
YouTube comments:
“If you want to make real $ there is no such thing as work life balance.”
Engineer salary in United States
The average salary for a engineer is $57,342 per year in the United States. 8k salaries reported, updated at December 25, 2022
Don’t Underestimate Generalists
The traditional path to success has emphasized excelling in a single discipline or field rather than being a generalist. But writer David Epstein is challenging that wisdom, contending that it’s sometimes better to be a jack of all trades.
Author David Epstein: “I think most people have absorbed at least the gist of the Tiger Woods story. His father gave him a putter when he was six months old. He was physically precocious and dragged it around everywhere in his circular baby walker, started imitating a swing at 10 months. By 2 years old, he was on national TV showing off his swing in front of Bob Hope. By 3, his father started to media train him. Fast forward to 21, he’s the best golfer in the world. He’s very focused on golf — large amounts of deliberate practice where it’s like technical training.
Roger Federer, on the other hand, played a dozen different sports from skiing and skateboarding, rugby, badminton, basketball, soccer, all sorts of things. He delayed specializing. His mother was a tennis coach and refused to coach him because he wouldn’t return balls normally. When his coaches tried to kick him up a level, he declined because he just wanted to talk about pro wrestling with his friends.
When he first got good enough to warrant an interview from the local paper and they asked what would he buy with his first check if he ever became a pro, [they thought] he said a Mercedes. His mother was appalled and asked if she could hear the interview recording. She did, and Roger had actually said “mair CDs” in Swiss-German, which just means he wanted more CDs, not a Mercedes, so she was OK with that.
He kept playing badminton, basketball and soccer years after his peers were focusing only on tennis, and obviously he turned out OK. So, which one of these is the norm? If you look at the science instead of just individual stories, which is a norm?
It turns out it is the Roger pattern. All around the world, sports scientists track the development of athletes and found they have a so-called sampling period, where they gain these broad general skills to scaffold later learning. They learn about their interests. They learn about their abilities. They systematically delay specializing until later than their peers, who plateau at lower levels.”
‘Shark Tank’: how to ask for a promotion
Shark Tank stars Barbara Corcoran and Robert Herjavec break down the best, and worst, times to ask for a promotion.
America’s Overwork Obsession
Work hard, make money, send your kids to college, retire to Florida. it sounds nice in theory, but the reality of work in America is dramatically different from the American Dream we’ve all been taught to believe in.
YouTube comments:
“You aren’t paid by how hard you work, you’re paid by how hard you are to replace.”
“I used to work for a company in Montreal (Québec) that had an important partnership with NY and, you guys, you are INTENSE. This American girl spent three weeks at our office, and she proudly said she would stay in the office until 2 a.m. just to get the project/ do a certain transfer on time instead of waiting the next morning like a regular person (or just tell the client that we were humans beings getting good night sleep at 2 a.m., and postpone the thing.). For her it was perfectly normal, and she looked at us as if we were lazy for going out for beers after work and getting a life. All my American contacts were like that, to different levels, but from our perspective they were always “difficult” to work with because they did not have limits or boundaries with work…I was regularly receiving emails at insane hours from people working in the same time zone as I was, and one girl was impressed that we were NOT doing 12-hour days. In a way it was sad.”
“I’m American now living in the UK. I had the American work mentality when I moved here and everyone thought I was crazy. I felt so guilty taking any of my 25 paid vacations days a year. I would log into my work email whilst on vacation and got told off for it. I got pregnant and only took 6 months of my 9 months paid maternity leave. I eventually calmed down my workaholic tendencies and honestly I feel more balanced. I enjoy my time with my son and husband. We can plan vacations abroad 2-3 times a year and I’m able to shut off as soon as I leave work. Don’t even get me started on healthcare.”
Why Most Google Employees Quit After 1.1 Years
YouTube comments:
“I’m surprised that Google have such aggressive deadlines, considering them not having any noticeable new products the past few years, in addition to the closure of many of their products.”
“I disagree with this. My experience at Google was awesome. It was like working on a cruise ship and in my two years I can only remember having to stay late 2-3 times. I only left because once you work at Google other tech companies want you really bad and will pay more to get you.”
“As a current Software Engineer @ Google that started on 02/28/2022, I can see why Googlers quit! It’s hard to past the yearly perk review as a rookie, Junior SWE and if you don’t show steady progression within your role, you will continue to barely pass your yearly perk or even fail! The 5 reasons you mention on here are factual but I would add not passing the yearly perk review or getting a “meet expectations”, then you will most likely quit, because you will feel the pressure to perform at a much higher level. This takes a tole on your mental and emotional health big time! No amount of money is worth your mental and emotional health and feel like you’re going crazy!”
2022 Engineering Salary Statistics
What is an engineering degree worth? Year after year, engineering jobs are paid the highest average starting salary. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) engineers have a median annual wage of $100,640and the engineering field projects to have employment growth of 6 percent from 2020 to 2030—nearly 146,000 new jobs over the next decade.
Bet your bottom dollar
Is salary important to workers? Bet your bottom dollar it is.
“Employees will go where the money is. And where they’re treated respectfully and valued. But, mostly, it’s the money.”
When we asked those respondents to choose from a list of top reasons why they’re open to new opportunities, nearly two-thirds (63.4%) selected “I need to make more money”.
That’s more than double the next-most popular reason, which is “I need a fresh challenge” (24.6%).
Work flexibility (20.8%), meaningfulness in work (19.3%) and career advancement (also 19.3%) are other leading factors prompting the drive to explore new job opportunities. Still, those numbers pale in comparison to compensation.
6 Unspoken Rules of Promotions
Employee turnover is expensive for companies. In fact, turnover costs businesses more than the average promotion. According to research, replacing an employee who quits costs, on average, 21% of their annual pay.
Furthermore, research has shown that staying in a particular role for too long makes it more likely that employees will leave their company. With these points in mind and against the backdrop of a job seeker-first job market, it may be the perfect time to ask for a promotion.
Thinking about the next step in your career path can seem easy: put a plan together, talk to your boss, and voila, you’ve got a promotion. But unfortunately, the game isn’t played that way.
Who Benefits When Salary Info Is Public?
This month, laws went into effect in California and Washington State that required companies to post salary ranges on job listings. Like similar rules in New York City and Colorado, lawmakers passed them on the premise that pay transparency helped reduce wage gaps.
There’s little debate among researchers that this is the case. “It is totally 100 percent true across all the studies I’ve seen, with very few exceptions,” Zoe Cullen, an economist at Harvard Business School, said. Pay transparency laws are “very good” at reducing wage disparities, she added.
But that’s not the end of the story. As companies embrace pay transparency — either because the law forces them to, or because their employees are becoming more comfortable disclosing their salaries anyway — both employers and workers have noticed ripple effects. It’s changing how bosses set salaries. And it has the potential to make life a little less lucrative for star performers.