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Been in this job for 7 months. Prior to this I was a contractor overseas for several years and before that I was an Officer in the US Air Force. This is my first time working outside of the DoD arena.
I now make $82K a year in Atlanta, GA as an IT Project Manager. I'm a single male, 39, PMP certified, Masters Degree in MIS, ITILv3, 16 years of IT experience (PM, networks, Software Developement), etc. I receive decent benefits, get 15 days vacation a year, and I work from home 90% of the time. The company is great; great boss, awesome coworkers and consultants, best organization I have ever worked for.
The bad part is that I cannot move up with this company. It is small company (less than 100 people) I report directly to the CEO, and it is not organized in a way that I could ever be promoted . The job is not hard and it is usually pretty low stress.
Does $82K sound low to you?
If you want more than $82K, you'll have to relocate, and most likely will be west bound. If you want more than $82K, you'll have to work for a big corporation, as they have the capital to pay higher wages.
Don't rush, put some experience with non-DOD workplace, ear reputation, then start looking if they don't give you a decent rise. HRs don't like grasshoppers if they are not hunted for.
triplegold, most of the people responding to your post have good intentions but they don't have a clue regarding salaries or the impact of working from home. One of the main things I do is salary market research for government contracting proposals. Based solely on your qualifications and years of experience I did a quick work up and you could easily be making over $100,000 (I came up with a range between $102,000 and $105,000). Working from home should have no salary impact especially in the IT field.
One big caveat - as I stated my salary estimate is based solely on your description of your experience and qualifications. The actual job requirements could be much lower which would result in lowering my estimates.
Been in this job for 7 months. Prior to this I was a contractor overseas for several years and before that I was an Officer in the US Air Force. This is my first time working outside of the DoD arena.
I now make $82K a year in Atlanta, GA as an IT Project Manager. I'm a single male, 39, PMP certified, Masters Degree in MIS, ITILv3, 16 years of IT experience (PM, networks, Software Developement), etc. I receive decent benefits, get 15 days vacation a year, and I work from home 90% of the time. The company is great; great boss, awesome coworkers and consultants, best organization I have ever worked for.
The bad part is that I cannot move up with this company. It is small company (less than 100 people) I report directly to the CEO, and it is not organized in a way that I could ever be promoted . The job is not hard and it is usually pretty low stress.
Does $82K sound low to you?
It's low, statistically speaking. But that doesn't really mean much in real life. In the end, the key here is whether a bigger paycheck is worth the risk of losing some of your benefits/perks. And only you can answer that.
I have a close friend with a Bachelors in MIS, and no PMP, and maybe 7 or 8 years experience, and I think he's around 130kish.
He works from home usually a couple days a week and a week a month, however probably 3 weeks of the month he fly's somewhere around the country or occasionally to another country each of those weeks. I know he enjoys his job, but there is more travel.
So, I think as many things, there's a trade off. I feel like with your certs and experience, you could probably be at 100k+ Pretty easily, however don't expect to love your job as much and work from home as much.
Well bear in mind that youre making almost double the average household income in this Country, on an individual salary. So that right there should make you proud of your accomplishments. That being said are you underpaid in comparison to your peers?
I'm going to chime in from what experience I share. I work for a smaller IT cloud based provider in NC. We all come into the office, though the option to work from home is present on such things as snow days, etc. Our highest paid employee doesn't make what you make, but its close. He works extreme hours, some weekends, and it's a high stress job. The salary options may be higher at larger companies but for what you're doing and all the perks associated, I think you'd be hard pressed to find something of similar quality for the same salary. With that said, this business is growing leaps and bounds. We have tripled our profits and client base in the four years I've been here and growing even faster this year. Every person in this office is underpaid for what they do, but we're like a family here and the atmosphere and flexible work environment makes it tolerable.
Maybe the thought process should be to talk to your CEO and discuss growth opportunities. Sell him the idea that HE could be wealthier. Think of ways you could penetrate the market more, or a new market. If he absolutely doesn't want to grow, I PERSONALLY would work there until I deemedi t necessary to leave, take your experience and longevity and turn it into higher compensation... just know you'll work a lot harder elsewhere. My two cents.
The COL of your area is a bit cheaper than here but you would be making at-least 105k+ in this area. But you would have to be in a boring corporate office everyday.
... Working from home should have no salary impact especially in the IT field.
There is truth to the above but this can be a gray area and here is why:
Each person has goals on their "perfect job". There is give and take on what makes 1 person choose a job. Salary range, location, benefits, the company itself, the technology, the team, dress code, 'contract or perm', what kind of experience you will gain -- all kinds of factors come into play.
If working from home is extremely important in what a person wants in a job, a person might choose to accept a lower salary in order get get a job working from home. ***However, this doesn't have to be the case and someone that has in-demand skills or is being recruited and is a known good worker...then they can get market rate for a remote position.
YES - you can get a job making more money AND still work from home. I know this is true because I work 100% remote and I get paid actual market rate for my skills/experience/education. I don't get paid lower because of working remotely. I did at one time (took lower rate than what I usually get and did this BECAUSE it was remote). However, I got lucky with the next gig and landed with a major company and I also negotiated pay rate (which could easily have lost me the opportunity because it was a large rate increase- so was very high risk to negotiate the pay like I did).
Your benefits are what makes it a decent salary. I work contract W2, but get paid almost double what you do (IT security related though) and I don't get vacation, sick, etc. pay and the contract company has essentially a zero match on 401k. I do work from home, but would never have to commute - that would be a 5,000 mile one-way trip. Since you have only been there 7 months, ride it out to at least the year and a half mark before looking for another job, just so that people don't think you are simply trying to job-hop.
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