jbredizzle

I can't tell you what you should have made but unlike a lot of the people who are constantly whining about how they are underpaid because they have a friend at Google making $150,000/year, you actually did the math and can argue for your value. :-)

"I (personally) feel that there's an implicit understanding with my employer, wherein my above and beyond efforts will result in increased compensation."

Your expectations around compensation should be based on explicit not implicit understandings. Making assumptions about how your emploeyer is going to make decisions about your compensation is not only likely to lead to disappointment, it's a poor way to maximize your salary if that's what you're interested in.

"If a company is losing money from employing an engineer at a below-market rate, that means the company likely has a bad business model, not that the engineer is paid more than they're worth."

I need to call BS. Just because your business model can't justify paying engineers two years out of college a $120,000/year salary doesn't mean that you don't have a profitable business. It's okay if your business model isn't as profitable as Google's. Heck, a lot of the companies that are paying market salaries have no meaningful revenue o even a business model. They're investor-subsidized.

"employees should go work in environments that maximize their value."

A lot of people work in "environments that maximize their value" and they're miserable. I have friends who make half of what they could make in SF/SV. You would say that their current employers aren't maximizing their value, but most of them own their own homes, live very comfortably and are home by 5-5:30. I don't know many $120,000/year+ engineers in SF/SV who can say that.

A lot of the high-paying jobs in SF/SV that are compensating employees at their highest theoretical value aren't as glamorous as the people who have caught the grass-is-greener-bug would like to believe they are. A lot of the people in these jobs trade whining about salary to whining about the hours, the lack of interesting work, their crazy/incompetent boss, the fear of funding running out, etc. etc. etc. Pick your poison wisely.

"If they are too busy to make sure I'm not having to question my value, I would rather find another employer that may not have this issue."

Honest question: have you quantified your value to your current employer in dollar terms?

A lot of people I know say they're worth $x because that's what another company might pay them, but I can count on one hand the number of these people who actually did the math on how much revenue/profit their employer derived from their work.

An experienced engineer might be worth $x to one company, but $x*2 to another. A lot of companies that are used as a reference for market rates (Google, Facebook, etc.) have incredible leverage in the sense that their per-employee revenue and/or profit is very high. This isn't just a result of the talent of their people. It's a result of their business models, competitive moats, infrastructure and tooling, etc.

In SF/SV it is entirely possible for an employee to state "I'm not being paid what I'm worth" when, to their current employer, they are actually being paid more than what they're worth. The fact that their value varies from employer to employer is something that I think a lot of employees miss.

Employees who want the biggest bucks should go out and get them, but the idea that companies are undervaluing/underpaying their employees just because they're not paying what Company X, Y and Z pay is one of the worst delusions in SF/SV right now.