Seeker - Sr. Linux Admin - Considering move to SLC/Provo

[Tod Hansmann]

On 7/17/2012 11:10 PM, Alan Evans wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 18, 2012 at 1:04 AM, S. Dale Morrey<sdalemorrey at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>> Just an fyi wages here in Utah are competitive with those of 3rd world
>> countries, but working conditions are slightly better.
> Haha, I love it and noted... :)
>
I highly disagree with this sentiment as expressed, and think you should 
note the following clarification:

There are a decent sized set of companies in Utah that believe that tech 
people should work for peanuts.  They find people who will work for 
peanuts (who are often subpar, but not always), and this mistakenly 
reinforces their idea.  Talented people who believe in themselves and 
don't sell themselves short can find companies willing to pay much 
higher wages for that talent.  This differing opinion stuff happens much 
more often in smaller companies and startups in the area.

As an example, I once interviewed with a company here in Orem for a 
position that involved managing their servers and working on a PHP 
application for their Asterisk box.  If this wasn't enough expertise, 
they also wanted someone who could maintain and extend their ASP.NET/C# 
web application.  I noted to them that these are competing expertise 
pools, and that while I could work in both, I was not an "expert" as 
they were constantly using the term.  For this position, they 
immediately offered to pay $35,000 a year.  This was a ridiculous wage 
for my experience level and the position they were offering, and I told 
them as such, and wished them luck.  Last I heard, they had gone through 
3 people that didn't work out within 5 months.  I have a lot more 
stories like this.

Needless to say, I also have stories of companies willing to pay very 
well for the industry to attract actual talent to do interesting things, 
including most of my jobs here in Utah.  You just need to be prepared to 
hold to your guns and not sell yourself short.

Cheers,
-Tod Hansmann