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0 pointssydneyburner7y ago0 comments

Burner account :) All amounts in AUD and all jobs based in Sydney and I am yet another white male.

  1999 $27,000 Tech Support at an ISP 40 hour week.
  1999 $29,000 Tech Support at a different ISP 32 hour week (graveyard shift) then Linux Engineer. $20k Stock that I never took because dot.com :( 
  2000 $30,000 House Gamer at a net cafe (Oh god I miss those days). 40 hours a week graveyard shift.
  2001-2 Unemployed, occasional work still at the $30k mark.
  2003 $30,000 Tech Support at a hosting company, 40 hour week.
  2005 $95,000 Tech Support at a global storage giant with 3% pay rises year on year until I left. 40 hour week, 1 weekend a month.
  2009 $110,000 Team Lead at a small IT Managed Service Provider, 40-60 hours a week. Outages all the time.
  2010 $115,000 Senior Backup Engineer at global MSP, 60 hour week with lots of weekend work and 2am calls.
  2011 $120,000 Consultant at a small company, 5% pay rises every year. Didn't know how good it was until I let.
  2014 $140,000 plus $45k commission Sales Engineer at a US based Startup. Varied hours lots of travel. Usually 40 hours a week. $40k USD stock options vested over 5 years, when I left I elected to not take them because of Australia's dumb tax laws that were changed a year later. Also the startup didn't look like it was going to IPO anytime soon (and still hasn't).
  2016 $900/d ($240k/y) consultant (This was Melbourne based so I was paying $500/w in travel costs). 40 hours a week.
  2016 $165,000 Software architect at a global MSP 40-50 hour weeks.
  2017 $180,000 Director at a big Consulting firm. 60+ hours every single week.
  2018 $210,000 Director at a smaller firm that treats people a lot better. 40 hour week with lots of flexibility.

In total an 11.4% year on year increase since I left high school. Sometimes dumb luck, sometimes backwards to get a job that meant less travel or less shit environments. I am not the worlds best negotiator, I tend to ask high and if they push back I retreat quickly, so it only works when I'm up against someone worse.

Yes I've had jobs fall through because the number I asked was way higher than they were prepared to pay and they didn't see any point negotiating.

I don't change jobs for money. The only time I've ever done that was the move in 2005 because they almost tripled my salary overnight. I change jobs because I get bored and want a new challenge. I stayed in the 2005 job for 4 years not because of the pay, but because the sheer number of products and platforms available meant I was always challenged and learning.

I have a family situation that requires me to keep earning lots of money for a few more years as I support others. Once that passes I intend to cut back to 3 days per week work and complete a PHD or similar.

0 comments

jonathankoren7y ago

Please tell me about this job of "House Gamer". Like what were your duties?

sydneyburnerOP7y ago

So we charged hourly rates of say $3 to play games, or $20 for all night until 6am. My job was to get people to stay. If someone comes in and plays a few rounds of counter-strike we make $3-6, but if I convince them to play Starcraft, Baldurs Gate or Rainbow Six they'd stay all night. I would encourage people to join me in games like R6 and we'd spend bloody hours on the game. I was also good enough at CS, HL etc that if we played a tournament I could "just win" and again get people to stay and try again. I miss the muscle reflexes of 19 year old me.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointssydneyburner7y ago0 comments

Burner account :) All amounts in AUD and all jobs based in Sydney and I am yet another white male.

  1999 $27,000 Tech Support at an ISP 40 hour week.
  1999 $29,000 Tech Support at a different ISP 32 hour week (graveyard shift) then Linux Engineer. $20k Stock that I never took because dot.com :( 
  2000 $30,000 House Gamer at a net cafe (Oh god I miss those days). 40 hours a week graveyard shift.
  2001-2 Unemployed, occasional work still at the $30k mark.
  2003 $30,000 Tech Support at a hosting company, 40 hour week.
  2005 $95,000 Tech Support at a global storage giant with 3% pay rises year on year until I left. 40 hour week, 1 weekend a month.
  2009 $110,000 Team Lead at a small IT Managed Service Provider, 40-60 hours a week. Outages all the time.
  2010 $115,000 Senior Backup Engineer at global MSP, 60 hour week with lots of weekend work and 2am calls.
  2011 $120,000 Consultant at a small company, 5% pay rises every year. Didn't know how good it was until I let.
  2014 $140,000 plus $45k commission Sales Engineer at a US based Startup. Varied hours lots of travel. Usually 40 hours a week. $40k USD stock options vested over 5 years, when I left I elected to not take them because of Australia's dumb tax laws that were changed a year later. Also the startup didn't look like it was going to IPO anytime soon (and still hasn't).
  2016 $900/d ($240k/y) consultant (This was Melbourne based so I was paying $500/w in travel costs). 40 hours a week.
  2016 $165,000 Software architect at a global MSP 40-50 hour weeks.
  2017 $180,000 Director at a big Consulting firm. 60+ hours every single week.
  2018 $210,000 Director at a smaller firm that treats people a lot better. 40 hour week with lots of flexibility.

Yes I've had jobs fall through because the number I asked was way higher than they were prepared to pay and they didn't see any point negotiating.