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Comment by prawks | Hacker News Reader

A lot of jobs out there give 2 weeks PTO to entry-level employees. It's mainly "blue collar" (for lack of a better term) jobs like trades (I suspect due to many being smaller family-owned "Father & Sons" businesses), or jobs with very low barrier to entry for applicants (no degree requirements/past experience, for example).

A large portion of my extended family works in retail where 2 weeks is pretty standard for entry-level positions. It's tenure-based all the way.

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2 weeks is considered pretty standard for professionals in most of the U.S. I think. Many of the professionals I know have that agreement, and some of the companies I used to work at offered that for the starting point. You could negotiate higher if you came in with a lot of experience and your hiring manager wanted you badly enough to justify the extra expense.

I would say that 2 weeks is standard for most companies for entry level positions. But worse than that, 2 weeks is standard for anyone beginning at about 50% of companies I talk to.

We'll get through an entire interview process where they know I have 15+ years of expertise and team lead level of what they are looking for, yet they still offer 2 weeks vacation.

Fortunately, I've found this to be the most easily negotiated point of the offer as it doesn't actually cost against anyone's budget. I'd put it at around 20% of companies total that absolutely can't be flexible and offer more than two weeks for a new employee at the senior level.

It's not just blue collar. Right after college I was offered a job as a software engineer with five days PTO to start.

I declined.

Those kind of offers I prefer the company just goes under rather than find a soul willing to accept that.

They were actually a great company. I interned with them during college, learned a ton. They just had some very old-fashioned policies which I suspect were due to the CEO/founder (and most of the higher-ups) being from a military background.

In the U.S., military members get 30 days a year of paid leave, though weekends count as 'on duty' even if you would not normally work. Of course this can always be overruled by your commander - you can get stuck in a situation (i.e., deployed in Afghanistan) where you can't use your leave, you just get paid for it.

Good on you for declining, I hope you expressed that as your reason why. Employers need to understand that is pathetic.

There was actually some back and forth on the matter. Eventually they offered 10 days but at that point I had other offers and wound up with one that started at three weeks vacation.

Of course, that job sucked for a variety of other reasons which led to me leaving after six months. "Oh, we hired you as a programmer? Babysit this Excel spreadsheet for me."

I don't deny that there are probably plenty of places that offer 2 weeks to start. But I took the context to be professional software positions. But even assuming that context, it would appear from the comments that even 2 weeks can be too much to expect. May it's a geographical function as well. I don't know that you could hire anyone to write code in the Seattle area without giving at least three weeks.

Dang, I work in software and get a week every year--not including Year 1.

Are you sure that you work in software and not cotton plantation in 18th century? Have you thought about coming over to Europe? I have 52 days off

Ah, I wish. I'm not in a financial position to relocate to even a better US city right now. In time, perhaps.

Some employers offer relocation assistance. So, if you find a position that you think you'd be a better fit for or would enjoy more, but it's far away from where you live now, you may want to ask about that.

And for multinational corporations (eg Google or a bank) that's the norm for white collar employees moving internationally.

Is that a salaried corporate job, or something else?

36 hour week in a public institution, 28 days holidays, 2 extra days a month cause I work 40 hours a week. I know, it's cheating ;)

What an excellent reason for a 35 hour week...

10 days vacation and ten days sick time is pretty standard in the USA. Usually, the 10 days vacation has to be accrued.

Color me surprised. I was under the impression most software shops had extremely liberal time off.

Do you mind if I ask what kind of software/position? That sounds like a gulag.

Sure, although I don't wanna derail the discussion too much with my silly situation. I work at a Delphi 5 (!) shop in the Midwest. I spent about a year trying to get interviews in my strong field (C#/.NET, no degree though). I wound up here because it's the first and only place I could even get in the door. Not the most elegant position but I couldn't go on much longer working clothing retail.

How many years professional experience do you have?

Less than half of one--this is my first dev gig. I'm basically 'unproven' so I understand why it was slim pickings for me.

I'm hoping building some experience here will give me a better chance in the future, although I'm a bit worried that working with such an old tech stack might not work in my favor.

If you want to move to Portland, my company is hiring. We're converting some old Delphi legacy systems into .NET. And I promise you we offer more PTO than that. Shoot me a message on my LinkedIn (link is in profile) or gmail (same as HN handle)

Thanks. So---do not worry about your performance at the company at all. Work the lowest amount of hours you can get away with for a few months, and spend all your time upgrading your skills and hunting for better jobs.

Seriously, people will pay for you to move to one of the coasts, higher cost of living but better salary and ludicrously better time off, if you'd like help finding a place let me know - noah@noahpryor.com. Obviously there are tons of reasons for you to want to stay there, but if it's just financial/cash flow issues, companies will help with those.

(I'm a dev, not a recruiter, no financial interest in this).

I have a friend who recently got a job as a software developer and has two weeks of PTO.

10 days plus ~10-15 days of holidays is pretty standard in the US software world.

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