Like in 2020, there have been dozens of posts in 2021.
So many posts cover everything from rewriting the famous Halo video game franchise, my understanding of Truth in our lives and the universe, book reviews, game conversions, game making, new game systems, work, finances, the pandemic, and so, so much more.
I share with you my impressions of the most viewed posts of 2021:
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, this post struck a number of cords. Loudly.
I have had the opportunity and honor to experience many kinds of relationships from many different folks. I have also the privilege of being highly insightful of patterns. These are the things I have found that hold True for whoever, whenever, wherever, forever and ever.
Give this tenth-most-popular post a read – it will improve your current and future relationships (not to mention perhaps blunt a certain amount of pain).
There are so many ways to screw up goals, self-worth, life… Devaluing the benefit of your own labor to others is certainly an all too common thing to do 😦
Read to understand your greatest obstacles to attaining what you are worth: Ignorance of your value, anchoring low, not shutting up, and you.
A breakdown and normalization of my salary in 2021 (sans the flexible nitty-gritty of stocks, benefits, etc.). Since I am a Senior Software Engineer working for mobile games in Las Vegas, Nevada, this post helps normalize industry and position and cost-of-living to be the same (or at least relatable).
Knowledge is Power. Empower yourself with this post.
Being attractive is universal in all things. From aesthetics to gravity, reality demands attractiveness.
This is a more complex topic than for this short blurb – arguably for the blog post too – though it should get you asking questions of yourself. And if you act on your responsibility to be attractive? All the better 🙂
Inspired by a “Death Walk” I take periodically, this post outlines the process.
Time required, subjects to think about, actions to take… Death Walks have defined my life since I started taking them three years ago.
While the Walks often (and likely ought) to bring tears and intense feelings, for me they have been some of the best pieces of clarity of my life. I hope you will find the same ❤
Tools and rationale I have been using for years. Part of a toolbox that has gained others and I hundreds-of-thousands of dollars over the years. How much more to come?
This post from May 2019 blew up like Dune did. As the most grounded real-life analysis of a sci-fi staple, the eyes on this post are well deserved.
Bonus: Most Viewed
With the Dune 2021 movie released this year, one of my first and one of my most nerdy posts takes the cake for most views this year. Lasers + Shields = Boom in Dune was written in 2019, but oh boy, did it turn my stats on their head 😅
Check it out! There’s some cool math there. (Spoiler: Dune explosions ought be huge.)
It is fine if you don’t – they seem to have died out as fast as they blazed on to the Twitter scene.
To say that a lot happened in 2020 would be to understate and understatement. Now the situation in the US is beginning to stabilize (go get your sticks, folks 💉💉) with an accompanying boom in hiring.
But if people are getting hired again, are they getting paid enough?
THP – Take Home Pay (assuming only income taxes without contributions apply) Inf – Inflation (not used for this year, ’21) CoL – normalized to national Cost of Living (compare this)
#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe Senior Software Engineer Base: $123,000 THP: $92,967 CoL: $90,259.22 MZ, owned by AppLovin Las Vegas, NV
Let’s talk about this.
Takeaways
I believe these are high numbers (if interviews with Las Vegas-based businesses are to be believed). This does not include bonuses, stock options, WFH, or other benefits (rough estimate would increase base pay 130% for that value).
The term “Golden Handcuffs” comes to mind, but that’s another post.
What also comes to mind is that companies can afford to pay you much, much more than they currently are.
And why aren’t they?
I’ve written on negotiating your compensation before and have linked articles all throughout this post. The resources are out there to both evaluate what you ought to be earning and how to muster the courage to politely demand more.
Use ’em.
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You ever want to discuss numbers? Let’s talk – 20 minutes is all we’ll need.
In the meantime, go earn your freedom! Don’t work too hard getting that bread. Drink water, take rest. Cheers ~
Hey there! Before going on, know that I’m hardly a professional. Knowing what a professional’s value is, however, is invaluable.
This post is for you that need to double-check if you are being valued; for you looking for work so you know what’s acceptable to ask for and what an employer ought to be offering. For simplicity, I’ll be using my own profession of software development as the example to be used.
Note: Having a pen-and-paper handy along with a calculator to figure out the value of your own work while you read may save your time.
Inflation
From 2019 to 2021 (now), inflation has been 2.88%. (This will be important as we’ll be getting some salaries from 2019.)
Because some of the following numbers will be multiplied by hundredths-of-a-percent, there is going to be some inevitable rounding. If the values are off by a few dollars, no sweat – you should be rounding up anyway 😉
With a trusty map of 2019 pay for techies, we can take the national value and inflate it, leaving us an estimated $110,606.29 per year median.
The hypothetical $111K is contradicted by Salary.com’s reported $115,430 per year average. Since this is private company is only a statistically insignificant ~4% different, we’ll ignore Salary.com for now in favor of the official numbers (inflation and BLS).
A few example metros / locales follow. I received two different CoL calculations in my recent research – Best Places in general had higher values while PayScale was more conservative. Naturally, I went with the former (what a shame to be underpaid):
Where
CoL vs National
Est. Min. Salary
Est. +10% Salary
Las Vegas
111.6%
$123,436.62
$135,780.28
Redmond
185.1%
$204,732.24
$225,205.46
Seattle
172.3%
$190,574.63
$209,632.10
Austin
119.3%
$131,953.30
$145,148.63
Washington
152.1%
$168,232.16
$185,055.38
Boston
162.4%
$179,624.61
$197,587.07
New York City
187.2%
$207,054.97
$227,760.47
San Francisco
269.3%
$297,862.73
$327,649.01
San Jose
214.5%
$237,250.49
$260,975.54
CoL Applied to BLS Median Pay
You, sharp reader, will have noticed that the numbers estimated above do not match up quite with the BLS values previously. That is because BLS does not always include bonuses, stock options, the size of the company a person is employed at, or what has been the best few years for software companies ever.
More on that in the next section.
Remember: Always round up to at least the nearest thousand thereabouts. Exact numbers shown here to allow you to make your own decisions on how comfortable you are with rounding.
Also remember that odd numbers (123.45 vs 120) psychologically seem “more official” and “legitimate.” If you can round up while keeping some of this oddness when you go into negotiating your value, it’ll help you greatly!
Expected Salary Range
Not every company has or likes to have the cash on hand to pay huge base salaries. Though cold, hard cash is almost always preferred, you can leave it up to a company to make up the difference in your value.
Base salary is usually less than the CoL and BLS calculations above, yet this does not take away from your value. You can accept this lower pay by expecting the company to exchange cash bonuses, equity, PTO, or other subjective boons.
A cash bonus usually is a lump-sum payment delivered every six-months or a year. Usually about 10% of your base salary, you can negotiate this percentage higher to make up the total value difference. If the bonus is variable, say, based on performance, only calculate for the “you did no more and no less than your job” value.
Equity is some investment in the company. My personal rule aside is to only accept equity at a 2:3 rate, where for every $2 of base pay being forgone, $3 comes in equity. Why? Equity is variable with the market and often delayed in being granted to you. There is no timely guarantee for your work to be properly compensated, nor is the opportunity cost for not having cash-in-pocket slight, so as equity literally costs the company nothing to give you, asking for more is always a safe bet.
PTO (paid time off) is a common benefit working at most companies. PTO comes as paid vacation, sick time (if separate from vacation), and holidays. Each PTO day is 8 hours but the value of the whole day is your daily salary rate, i.e. base salary divided by 250 days. Daily rate multiplied by the number of days is PTO’s value.
Finally, there are other boons that the company can give. Maybe it’s better healthcare, a shorter commute, a better title, work-life separation, etc. Tangible (physical, material) or intangible (time, feeling), only you know what’s more important than cash-in-the-bank. Always keep in mind that any boon you accept in replacement of direct pay is doing the other party a favor.
Glassdoor Et Al.
Every company changes in what they may offer potential new-hires. Glassdoor, Levels.fyi, and other websites have oodles of employee-reported data on pay, among other things.
If you are looking at a company that has a presence on one of these sites, use the site. Compare the ranges of base salary and other payment options to your BLS and CoL numbers. This gives you not only an idea of what other compensation to negotiate for with the company, but also a second set of values that may be higher than BLS + CoL (needless to say, increase any site-found value by at least 10% since site values do not account for CoL increases or inflation).
Tip: I always salary search using a Google Chrome Incognito window to do my browsing. Sites like Glassdoor track your usage, preventing further use if you navigate to a different page. Incognito gets around this:
Arrive at a blocked page.
Copy the website URL.
Close all of the Incognito tabs / windows.
Open a new Incognito window.
Paste the copied URL.
Tada! Unblocked. Continue researching your value.
Putting It All Together
You now know what you should be compensated based off of your research into the company, role, BLS, and CoL.
When the talk of money comes up, here is the handy equation to keep on hand:
Total Compensation = Base + Bonus + Equity + PTO
If you have other boons you are looking for, convey to the other party that you are taking these for granted, increasing your base or bonus or equity if the other party wants to take these boons away. Never Split the Difference is an astounding book (read it at least four-to-six times so far) that goes into more depth in how to handle leveraging boons that may not have an impressive dollar value.
Now, that total compensation ought to be a range, something like the fair value you found through research of median or average pay (whichever is higher), and at least 10% more than that. Propose the larger numbers and have the other party justify why they ought to be offering you less, giving a sense of disbelief the entire time (much more in Never Split the Difference).
Barring the most dire circumstances of survival, never, ever accept below the median or average pay for the role in the place you are bidding for. It is anti-social and masochistic and despicably weak. Don’t do it.
On the plus-side, if the other party counters above your expected compensation range, smile! Then let them know that’s a good base-pay starting point. “Now let’s talk about bonuses and equity.” Using the simple trick of adding 10% more to acceptable figures, you enable yourself to maximize your worth to the other party and to yourself.
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Having gotten through this article, how are you doing? Are you making out like Robin Hood, maximizing your value above par? Are you being taken for granted, paid pennies on the dollar?
If you need to be valued more, talk with those that pay you about increasing your compensation 10% if you are being underpaid by 10% or less. However, should the compensation be undervalued by more than 10%, you can still have a conversation with the payor, but it is also time to look at other companies since you have been clearly disrespected and taken for a ride 😐
Enough talk! Check your numbers, go get your value, and be confident that you are in the right (heck, you at least have the United States government backing you up). All the best to your endeavors going forward – cheers!
This is my attempt to boil down characters to the essentials of what needs to be known. A character sheet still needs the four sections “Self, Seem, Story, and Stuff,” but there’s more wiggle room, especially on “Self,” on what a given game IP ought to include.
(Note card-sized sections are pictured for reference.)
My joy of a game system, BITS delivers a faster pace of gameplay, simpler arithmetic, but a thorough set of possible outcomes for any action. Here I talk of the dice, the math, and other factors in resolving conflict in the system.
Back when I could upload podcasts, I outline twelve actions that remove stress and improve decision making. These are points that are recommended by the best performers and thinkers in our society which I have also tried out personally to great success 😁
I’ve come a long way in terms of knowledge and technique for making games (specifically TTRPGs), yet this first system has a special place in my heart ♥
There are a lot of disgusting, dangerous things being said to downplay or misinform about the current global pandemic.
One hit me so hard on social media it took me days to get over the audacity of it. Then I wrote a blog post in response 😉
One thing I’d add to this post: You can’t give someone lung cancer from your lung cancer condition. You can give COVID-19 to another without even knowing you have it. Therefore, this is another point that comparing COVID to other diseases as a means to render mute the concerns (and lives lost) of the pandemic is not just infantile and uninformed, it is dangerous.
I fled Las Vegas to the wilds and eventually the East Coast in May. What’s written retells my journal entries for the trip, including a very eye-opening understanding of poverty in the forgotten, decaying rural sections of America.
I wish I had this guide when I started in the professional sphere.
What’s inside is a step-by-step formula to calculating what you ought to be paid along with surefire ranges you must ask for when negotiating pay.
It’s dangerous to go about with ignorance when it comes to money. Take this insight along for the ride.
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If you’ve missed out on these crowd-pleasers, it’s not too late! I also recommend checking out the other posts – you’ve plenty of content to gleam from.
What has been your favorite post? Which articles would you recommend I read? Let me know! Cheers to your 2020 wrap-up ~
Jimmy here, with a short one (or at least, I’ll think it to be short) since I’ve more to figure out on this topic…
But! Maybe you’ll get some answers to investment questions on your mind or be able to answer some of the following 🙂
Definitions
When I say “investment”, I mean a stock or similar I’m going to hold for at least 5-to-10 years at least (my retirement horizon).
When I say “unicorn”, I mean what Warren Buffet does: Buy low when the business is quite expected to last long-term (ie decades). That ‘should’ be a rarity in this Bull Market.
What’s a “Bull Market”? It’s a time of elation and high emotion and high prices before a lot of sadness when the prices eventually go back down 😢 Simply, it’s a period of time in the stock market where prices for businesses go through the roof, whether or not the business is good at making money or has the capital to back up the asked-for price. In that, the price-per-earnings (P/E) ratio is typically high.
And lastly, “P/E” is an indicator on how much a company is being sold for vs. how much money it’s actually bringing in. 20 P/E is the rule of thumb for ‘fair price’ when the underlying company is expected to last a long time. 30 P/E is definitely considered high, while 40 or more is astronomical. 10 or less might be considered a steal, especially if the company has the long-term sustainability to flex profitability in the years to come.
Signs of Unicorns 🦄
So what do I look for that is an “investment” “unicorn” in a “Bull Market” (or any market)? A few things:
A low P/E.
For me, I have been foolish (we’ll look at that later here), buying company stock that did not have low P/E of at least sub-20. However, they’ve continued to grow in the longest Bull Market run in the last +120 years.
A dividend.
Having a dividend means the company will pay me periodically for owning it regardless of the stock price. To me, that sounds like passive income 💲
Brand.
Is the name recognizable? Does the company do something very well? Do people talk about it in positive terms and use it on the regular?
Longevity.
This one’s a little tricky. Is the company earning money in a stable way for more than 5 or 10 years, is it expanded well into the market making it hard for newcomers, and does it have to reinvent product rarely?
To me, a unicorn has <10 P/E (a “-” or no P/E means the company has negative earnings), a dividend, is a popular brand, and has lasted and will last into the future. If so, I’m ready to dump 10% of my cash reserves into it pronto! (Another tip from Warren Buffet.)
Buying into Activision, Sony, Microsoft, I was buying into companies that made or financed video games because that’s the world I knew 🤷♂️ The only other thing I kept in mind was to buy when the companies where going down more than 10%. But really, I had no idea 😶
In the last year or so, I bought into more things. More Microsoft, more Delta, more Exxon, more Google, more Tesla, etc. Some have gone up, some down. But I tended to buy willy-nilly just because the company seemed like it would be around forever (except for Tesla, which I thought was way too low a year ago when I saw Tesla cars parked in lines outside my office).
So how did all that perform?
Unicorns Jump
Let me show you how certain things have performed – we’ll forgo looking at individual stocks but at funds or markets as a whole (all from Vanguard, and investment leader [seriously, go read up on them]).
For the following references, I’ll post the 5 and 1 year gains (or losses!) as of July 15th 2020. I’ll also include the current P/E ratios if available.
It means I was dumb 5 years ago. As is the common suggestion, put currency into ETFs. (Seriously, do it.) With a heavy leaning to the US, we see the S&P and Total Market Vanguard funds even outperforming the S&P 500 itself. Growth companies have been ridiculous over the last half decade. My investments compare their measly 30% gains with the 50% realized elsewhere.
However, I haven’t done too bad in the last year. While the world has entered a pandemic, I’ve maintained well-above-standard earnings.
Now, I could let this outcome go to my head. “Why yes, I am that smart and can game the system! I gambled on Microsoft and Tesla, why not do the same again?”
Yeesh – May cooler heads prevail…
Unicorns Don’t Exist
I’ve had a good run, yet I’ve proven I perform worse than the market in the long-ish-term.
Now, as P/E ratios of major stock holdings race past 30, past 40, when a rocket-launching electric-car battery company is off the S&P but more valuable than any other business on it, when we near a massive US election in November, when we’re in the middle of a pandemic with millions out of work and hundreds of thousands dead… I am getting cold feet.
“No, Jimmy! Listen to Buffet! Buy stock for life! Don’t try to time the market!”
OK, fine. That’s a good point. Buy for life if buying stock. Act as an investor, not a speculator.
Then what do I do?
Well, even Buffet and his former mentor Benjamin Graham call out gross P/E ratios. When a business is overvalued to a silly extent (30-40+), it’s fine to sell if that money can go to a better leveraged investment.
There are a few companies that fit that bill in my portfolio (*cough* Tesla *cough*). Where the money (and any more I venture to stick into the market) can go to Vanguard funds. They consistently do well, have dividends, and some aren’t too icky with their P/E ratios.
If I do want to gamble (ie individual company stock), use another rule of thumb: no more than 10% of total cash in individuals. That, and have a defined exit strategy if I start to “make it big” or realize “I’ve made a mistake”. It’s like taking a little money to the casino and serves the same purpose of having fun 🙃
Your Unicorns?
I’ve covered that I’ve gotten lucky in the short-term, but have under performed in the long-term looking for my unicorns. In conclusion, I can say for me and most others seeking to invest, unicorns are very rare and far between, much like investors Graham and Buffet.
Going forward, I’ll put the time of searching for unicorns into rebalancing my portfolio into a Vanguard diversified ETF spread 👍
Have you found a unicorn before? Do you have one now? Why do you think you’re one? 🤔 Keep me posted – I’d like to hear your investment lessons if they’ve worked out for awhile 😉
Think it’s about time I contributed to #TechPaidMe / #GameDevPaidMe. Why? Why not? Transparency in worker pay gives power to the worker. Gives power to you.
My history has been thoroughly and chronically underpaid for the value brought. After reading Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference, I’ll never do such things again. After reading this post, maybe you won’t be underpaid either. Sound good?
I’ll save you some time by crunching the numbers with 2020’s income tax for take home pay (THP), then inflation (Inf; doesn’t count Roth 401K and IRA contributions), then normalized cost of living (CoL; to a US national 100%) so you can get some decently useful.
The Data
(Skipping pre-2013 dev work as I was preoccupied with other things at the same time.)
That means in 2020 dollars, adjusted for cost of living nationally, I took home about $54K. Let’s continue…
2014-2015
#TechPaidMe #HealthcarePaidMe Technical Services Problem Solver (customer support + custom dev) Base: $69,000 (I think? I actually can’t remember. I just know it was under folks hired some 3-6 months after!)
THP: $51,757
Inf: $55,988.32
CoL: $50,079
Epic Systems
Verona, WI (Outside Madison)
2015-2016
#GameDevPaidMe SDET II Tools Developer Base: $66,000
THP: $48,387
Inf: $51,690.73
CoL: $40,926.94
Microsoft
Tigard, OR (Outside Portland)
2016-2018
#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe Software Tools Developer Base: $75,000 (not including bonus up to 15%)
THP: $59,588
Inf: $60,842.61
CoL: $54,518.47
Aristocrat Technologies
Las Vegas, NV
At this time, I read Never Split the Difference among other books and Reddit posts. Continuous learning evidently pays dividends:
2018-2020
#TechPaidMe #GameDevPaidMe Senior Software Engineer Base: $104,500 (not including bonus; had a raise for a few months before a promotion with a final raise here)
THP: $80,179
Inf: $-
CoL: $71,844.98
Aristocrat Technologies
Las Vegas, NV
Despite all of the lower-than-expected pay, despite coming late to the FIRE Movement, I am well on my way to financial independence. No debt, minimal other expenses, and investment performance is set to CoastFIRE me in less than 10 years, FatFIRE in less than 15. If we suffer a crash in the markets, independence will happen sooner with savings on hand that were meant for buying property 2 weeks before COVID-19 locked the US down. #BulletDodged
If you feel comfortable in sharing, what have been your numbers in tech and game dev? I used to be very sensitive over letting others know what I earn, so I understand if all you get is a reference point for your future salary negotiations 😉
Before we go, checkout these resources that have been such boons to me:
Jimmy Chattin 