[drblastoff]

I’m constantly torn by the natural inclination to climb the ladder and enjoy the financial rewards, but I have little interest in the day-to-day tasks of my staff engineer coworkers (mostly sitting in meetings and writing emails, very rarely writing code because that’s considered beneath their pay grade and they’d likely be chastised for it at my company). If I had a family to provide for, I think it would be a much easier decision to take the money.

[pc86]

This assumes that working 40.0 hours a week of $x/yr is going to be worse for your family than working 60.0 hours a week for 15% or 20% more. If you're already making $175k/yr in Omaha it's very unlikely that making $205k/yr but missing dinners and school functions and not being able to chaperone class trips is going to give you such a huge quality of life increase that it's worth it.

[drblastoff]

This assumes the staff engineers work more hours (not my experience)

[jayd16]

> writing code because that’s considered beneath their pay grade and they’d likely be chastised for it at my company)

Make certain the planning people have no idea what the project actually looks like. Recipe for success, no doubt.

Sarcasm asside, I do understand not assigning coding tasks to someone who doesn't have the bandwidth but to be chastised for pitching in seems non-ideal.

[lotsofpulp]

> If I had a family to provide for, I think it would be a much easier decision to take the money.

On the contrary, I find that the first or second line of managers above ICs is almost always insufficiently compensated to offset the extra hours/stress/bullshit.

[sokoloff]

On the other hand, early in my career as an IC, I was already working as many hours as I possibly could (out of interest/passion and driven by myself rather than a boss or PM). As I transitioned into management, there weren't any more hours possible (though I was already well over 40/week).

Fully agree on the incremental amount of excess bullshit, though. :)