Re:Must-Reads When Recruiting Programmers
by blindhippo on Friday April 05, 2013 @04:31PM
(#5500874)
I struggle with this - I know exactly the difference between being in the industry vs doing local start-ups. Start-ups are more fun and I can usually forgive the pay inequity (it's about 20-30k per year less in normalized salary).
If I could put up with the O&G corporate environment I'd be all over it - but I do prefer natural light in my work environment and an interesting problem domain over a flourescent lit grey cubicle on the 12th floor of some sky scraper and another well analysis application.
Re:Must-Reads When Recruiting Programmers
by avenger123 on Friday April 05, 2013 @04:57PM
(#5500996)
Agreed with your sentiments.
It's much better to work on contract with the oil and gas firms. In this way you will definitely be in the 100K-180K range (at a minimum). It also offset's the domain issue a bit as you can move around.
Usually the start-ups are working on product that relates to oil and gas anyways.
How do you find these startups?
Re:Must-Reads When Recruiting Programmers
by blindhippo on Friday April 05, 2013 @10:05PM
(#5502316)
I largely find them through networking connections - I know a bunch of people in the "start up" community and subscribe to a few networking mailing lists.
Digital Alberta and Pints & Pixels are both good sources for information.
Companies that are outside the industry really do have a hard time matching compensation.
It's a funny situation in a way. The average person within the industry doesn't know how good they have it if they have worked their whole career in oil and gas.
Generally people that are outside the industry have a sense of how good it is but don't really know.
Why fight the machine? You should get on the oil and gas ride and do the "fun" stuff on the side.