Do i expect salary to drop transitioning from contract to fte?

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

I was in college when you started at Tek.

FPS: I knew the O'Leary family, not sure if George was a founder. After they returned from Ireland we were chatting about future developments and he commented on animation, what ultimately became the likes of DreamWorks.

The founder of FPS was Norm Winningstad who was an engineer at Tek. He also founded several other companies in the Silicon Forest around Portland.

Here is a little bio for him that I found.

"Norman (Norm) Winningstad (November 5, 1925 – November 24, 2010) was an American engineer and businessman in the state of Oregon. A native of California, he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II before working at what is now Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. After moving north to Oregon, he started working for Tektronix before starting several companies in what became the Silicon Forest in the Portland metropolitan area. He founded or helped to found Floating Point Systems, Lattice Semiconductor, and Thrustmaster. Winningstad and his wife were also noted philanthropists in the Portland area, with a theater at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts named in his wife Dolores’ honor."

[Nell Plotts]

I thought you were talking about the founder of FPS, my mistake.

Norm selected the Beaverton Tek site based on an employee vote. Tek had an interesting culture, one of the few places in the mid 60s-70s with closet PhDs. Several employees omitted advanced degrees from their resumes because they wanted to control their project assignments and to be recognized for their achievements in the workplace, not in school.

[k374]

$150/hr?? wow! is all I can say...I do not know anyone in the Java application space that makes that kind of money. Tops is about $80-85/hr for a Senior Java Architect with 10-15 years experience and $70/hr for Senior Software Engineers, but now the rates have gone even lower in Los Angeles so about $65/hr... I am certainly in the wrong area LOL

You my friend, are doing VERY well for yourself...

[k374]

Originally Posted by roadwarrior101

Yes, I would actually think that your hourly rate equivalent should be at least 1.5 times your salary, maybe closer to 1.75-2 times (your fully loaded cost).

Impossible to negotiate that.

Here in Los Angeles the median wage for a FTE, Sr. Software Engineer specializing in Enterprise Java, with 10-15 years experience is about $120,000/yr plus bonuses (maybe 10%) and benefits (401k match etc.). This is the top end of the scale based on offers I have seen.

Now, if you say 1.75 times $120,000 base salary that is $210,000/yr, say 2000 hours in a year, that's $105/hr.

That is a virtually IMPOSSIBLE rate to obtain in this economic climate. Even Senior Architects don't make that and I have several friends who are software Architects for Fortune 500 firms and they all are at $80-85/hr. Even during the boom years over $100 for a Sr. Software Engineer was pushing it. Now the average rate is around $65/hr. on W2 or around $70/hr on 1099 or corp to corp.

[Nell Plotts]

Keep in mind that the cost of living and the expectations are very very high in the SV.

Back in the day I ball-parked contract work as compared to FT employee status (with health insurance, vacations and the like) as 2:1.

[JohnSoCal]

Originally Posted by Nell Plotts

I thought you were talking about the founder of FPS, my mistake.

Norm selected the Beaverton Tek site based on an employee vote. Tek had an interesting culture, one of the few places in the mid 60s-70s with closet PhDs. Several employees omitted advanced degrees from their resumes because they wanted to control their project assignments and to be recognized for their achievements in the workplace, not in school.

I was talking about FPS. Read the bio closely and you will see. Norm was an engineer at Tek. He was not a founder. The founder of Tek was C. Howard Vollum.

Tek was certainly different than other companies. Imagine a company of 6,000 ( when I worked there ) that did not have company ID badges. It had a very extensive profit sharing program, etc.