I'm looking for Rails work now and I've been offered substantially low salaries compared to what I make now. I was thinking maybe I need to adjust my expectations but your post makes me think twice. Thanks!
I will repeat the parent's sentiment - do NOT accept a lower salary. I was nearly caught in this trap a year ago, trying to get out of my current job that's not exactly fulfilling. I was given an offer that would have forced me to take a 13-18% pay cut and nearly had my vacation time slashed in half. I politely declined. I stuck it out for a little more than a year and just got offered a position that's going to pay 55% over what I'm getting now. Keep plugging away and keep looking..
Edit: Not sure about the vacation thing with the new role, but this is on a 6-month contract. I'll assume long vacations are out in the mean time, but it'll pay well enough that I'll be living ok for a little bit if I don't go full-time after.
On the flip side, I know people that took pay cuts to work for Google and never regretted it. Culture, work environment, and coworkers are worth something, and it's up to you to figure out how much they're worth to you and decide accordingly.
I don't totally agree with this. If you shift from big company to startup, you'll almost certainly have to take a pay cut, but usually you're doing this in exchange for seniority and equity. I wouldn't agree with a blanket statement that you should never take a lower-salary job.
Yeah, this is a tough one. I recently took a (7%) pay cut to join a new company, but my situation was a bit different. I had quit the previous company outright without anything new lined up, and I was being paid a bit above-market (their attempt to retain me despite the fact that I was unhappy). I'm sure I could have eventually found a company willing to match or beat my last salary, but I would have had to pass on several interesting opportunities to do so. So you can't just make the blanket statement that taking a pay cut is bad for any reason.
Very good point; I hadn't thought of this angle because the parent hadn't mentioned anything about going to a startup. In my situation, this other company was anything but a startup, rather, it it was a well-established but still very niche company that I dealt with. No seniority, no equity, no raise.
