Lately I've been seeing a lot of questions about salary on Twitter. One user asked:
"Do you prioritize salary over culture/environment of a company or does culture/environment take precedent over salary? I wish I could have both, but so far, no luck. What’s your preference if you can’t have both?"
https://twitter.com/ParissAthena/status/1113855296357662725
This is a great question, which my answer was:
"I found salary was more important early in my career. Now culture is way more important."
https://twitter.com/webdad3/status/1114001651889627136
My statement is 100% true. When I was younger first starting out, I chased the dollar. I took advantage of the fact that programming was a growing field. I've now had 14 jobs in approximately 20 years. Each one of those jobs usually was an increase in pay (except during the dot com bust).
I could look for a new job and get a salary bump here and there, but now that I'm older I look at how much vacation time I get & how much my 401k match is. My greatest concern now with starting a new job is starting over with the people and having to prove myself all over again... I guess I'm finally adulting!
I realize that no job is perfect, as there will always be struggles with management & people. For me knowing the struggles (people) at my current job is better than learning the struggles at a new one.
This topic got me thinking that, I have had some TERRIBLE jobs, some MEDIOCRE jobs & a few GREAT jobs! The great jobs all had one thing in common & that was chemistry with the people that I worked with. I have 3 such companies where the people made the job feel easy. They are American Specialty Health, Forrest Oil & Rev Gen. Each and every one of those companies that I worked for are a part of me & my story. They are also the bar I hold when comparing to my current job.
My current job & team is pretty good. It might turn into a very good one (possibly the 4th GREAT job), only time will tell. When I was at American Specialty Health it wasn't great until a manager was fired than it became Great Job #1. That was about 6ish months into my tenure there. Forrest Oil & Rev Gen were 6 month contracts, but the chemistry was equally as good (as ASH), but it happened very quickly.
So what's better than pay? Well, pay is pretty damned important, but having fun where your job doesn't feel like a job is more important than pay for me now.
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