[geeks] job hunt...

[Shannon]

Hey guys,

I was headed for a nice Navy job, but the budget axe fell upon my
position. They asked me if I would wait until the issue cleared, and
while I said yes, the truth is I badly want out of my contract work. The
next fiscal reporting period is not until June, and there is no
guarantee the situation will improve.

The job there is stable once you get in and the pay was $95K/year with
good benefits and vacation.

Still... waiting for an unknown is risky. In the meantime I've taken a
part time contract job with a former employer. It pays $90K/year but I
have no interest in continuing contract work.

I took a part time and temporary contracting gig with a former boss who
has given me work in the past during downtime, so I am making good money
but really want out as soon as I can manage. I just took it originally
to try and wait out the Navy's budget issues.

So a local shipyard (this is eastern VA) interviewed me, and the team
said they wanted me to join them and sent me to the HR office to look
over benefits and talk to them. Seems like a good group of guys, about
300 servers running Solaris, AIX, and Linux and a supercomputer cluster.
I would be in the OS group. This company splits systems into OS,
storage, and hardware teams but each group also maintains some of their
own of each.

The HR recruiter asked what I wanted so I just said $95K, same as the
other job. This area's cost of living is lower so I thought it was a
good start. He said they would generate an offer based on that and
current pay rates for the position and level.

I got a formal offer for $72K/year, which seems pretty low to me.

Is that considered good pay now? I've been working for myself for years
now and its possible I'm out of touch, but its pretty easy for me to
find part time work at 90K/year.

The HR guy called and asked what I thought and I was honest and said the
pay rate was pretty low, below what my research says is the average. He
said he was sorry, the team would really like to have me on board, but
he can't offer more. They already gave me $4K/year more than others in
the same position, or so he said.

He went on to say that the company checks for promotion after only 6
months and my next pay level would be $20K/year more.

I've been burned a lot in the past with promises, so I freely admit to a
decided lack of trust on my part.

I would be pretty happy if they come through, pretty unhappy if they did
not. It would also leave me with little choice but to quit to get a pay
raise.

Is this just how things are now or should I walk away?

This is for Norfolk, VA area. My guess is that the benefits package is
worth another 12% or so with 4% IRA on 8% employee contribution, and 7%
pay rate into registered savings account vested in 3 years + medical and
so on.

Base pay is not everything, but I don't want to sell myself too cheap
either.

And yea... Virginia is a right to work state and I can freely leave...
but one of my major goals is to find something and stay there. I hate
contracting and moving, and want to end it soon as possible.

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