The Inaugural Slick Deals Career Thoughts and Compensation Thread

Sorry to break it to you, but as someone who spent 9 years at a Big4 and have tons of friends still there and in industry, tax accountants don't make $200k in industry or without making partner. In industry, you probably cap out at $120-$140k unless you are the head tax person for a large multinational firm or something.

Are you going to accept the offer or bargain for a better salary in your current position?

Gender: Male
Age: 27
Location: NYC suburbs
Occupation: Embedded software engineer
Education: MS in EE, BS in CompE
2010 Compensation: low 6 figures + maybe a bonus (finger crossed). Also want to mention that my salary may seem high, but where I live the cost of living is very high, so I don't make THAT much. For example, my brother makes maybe a third of what I make and he had two houses before I had 1 because he lives in a different state with lower cost of living.
Future Salary Projection: 3-5% a year and 10-15% on promotions. Probably max out at the $200k range at around age 50 or so from what I can tell from colleagues. I'll also retire with about 1-2 million in my 401k (again based on colleagues).
Environment: typical engineering environment. Everyone is smart and does their job, so there is no one hovering over you. I don't clock in or out. Lunches/breaks at my discretion. I work from home whenever I don't feel like coming in. Only negative aspect comes into play at the end of a project. Engineers love to perfect things, so they spend too much of their time doing more than they are tasked with, so at the end of the project, its always a time crunch to get everything else done on time.
Would I recommend this career to others? I would if you like good pay and calm work environment. I also think this career is pretty recession proof, but I could be wrong. My only complaint is that the work can be boring at times. I don't like doing tedious tasks like documentation and I don't like doing the same thing over and over again. Luckily I have worked in a lot of different projects, but I do have colleagues who have worked on the same project for 30+ years. Another bad thing is that you can get too comfortable in this type of work. I'm a career/goal oriented person, but I find myself lagging a bit. For instance, I always planned on getting a phd growing up and now I see no point to it. Also, I've been meaning to develop a website/cell phone app to make me filthy rich and I can't make myself put the time into it.
If not this, then what? Good question! Probably an accountant or day trader. Maybe start my own business? Something with a lot of math would come easy. A college professor also seems plausible.

Would you mind if I shot you a PM? I'm located in the NYC area and am currently in school for a BS in computer science....just had some questions on where to start with life, lol.

Gender: Male

Age: 23

Location: Washington DC

Occupation: IT Consultant at a gov't contractor

Education: BBA - Computer Information Systems

2010 Compensation: $75,000 Base Pay

Future Salary Projection: I'm not entirely sure on this one, I've only been in the job market for two years and after 1 year at my first job, I left to take this one and got a 25% raise. I can't expect a 25% raise every year, but I would expect 5-6% a year until my next promotion.

Benefits: Full medical, dental and vision. 401k entry once a year as a part of profit sharing. Fully paying for my Top Secret clearance. 18 days paid time off a year.


What's the job like?
IT Consultant is an extremely broad term, so I'll break it down to what I do. I was hired as a Web Services developer with experience in Service Oriented Architecture. As I await my clearance I am on a temporary project as an Extract, Transform and Load Developer.

Day to day at both jobs, I am attending status meetings with my company, meeting with client for requirements, making presentations to the client with prototypes and writing documentation discussing and explaining what I am doing. That is about 60% of my time.

The other 40% is what I like doing. Writing and troubleshooting code, testing my processes and trying to fit them together. Taking a legacy application and creating a service to let it talk to another legacy app within the organization that could be written in an entirely different language.

Would you recommend the career to others?

I have a few recomendations;
1) The IT World: It is not for everyone. You have to enjoy logical problem solving and you absolutely can not be a person who gets easily frustrated. A lot of trial and error goes in to what I do, and also a lot of research. It is impossible to know everything, and a lot of the time, more work is being thrown on to you, while you are still trying to understand the original scope. Also you have to be ok with some monotany. After I've done all the interesting and new part of a project, I then have to go back and put in the mindless error protections.

2) The Consulting World: I was not a consultant until I took this job and it has been a fairly large culture shift. You always have to remember what your contract says. I'm constantly being asked to look into this, or try to develop this; which normally would be fine. But since my contract calls for me to develop one thing, is this specific way, with these specific deliverables; that is what I must do. Anything else is a contact ammendment. Also little things like time and expense reporting become a much bigger deal or even what to do when the client has off, but you don't.

As a whole, I can't complain. I didn't think I'd be making 75k/yr 18 months out of college. Now if I could only save some of that...

If you don't mind me asking, are you getting the full salary until you are cleared? I am looking at jobs in that area for when I get out in May. (also in DC area)

No problem. Yes I get paid that full amount right now. It is kind of up in the air about how much I will be paid once I am cleared.

I know I can go elsewhere and be compensated for already having a clearance (in addition to another raise for my extra experience).

But within my company, it seems to be a mixed bag. I won't be compensated right away, but from what I've heard, the next time I get a raise (we get them once a year) it will be a bit bigger then normal to show I am now cleared.

Hope that helps.

No problem. Yes I get paid that full amount right now. It is kind of up in the air about how much I will be paid once I am cleared.

I know I can go elsewhere and be compensated for already having a clearance (in addition to another raise for my extra experience).

But within my company, it seems to be a mixed bag. I won't be compensated right away, but from what I've heard, the next time I get a raise (we get them once a year) it will be a bit bigger then normal to show I am now cleared.

Hope that helps.

I am negotiating a deal w/ my current employer. I will post here when finalized.

Deal is done. Moved to a neighboring county.

132K salary + 12K annual retirement + state benefits + 40K (tax free) annual loan repayment