At the end of a job interview, the head of human resources asks the young engineer fresh out of MIT, "What starting salary were you looking for?"

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profprimer@reddit

Move to Europe. Get everything but the Porsche.

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Chillzzz@reddit

Not a Porsche, but a leased Audi or Mercedes, with fuel, maintenance, and car washes covered by the company if your job involves travel.

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clancy688@reddit

Or work at Porsche and get even that.

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Franarky@reddit

Maybe a US thing but what's the difference between vacation and paid holiday?

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popeculture@reddit

Vacation is your earned flexible leave that you take when you wish.

Paid holidays are national or religious days off for the company: July 4th, President’s Day or Thanksgiving or Christmas Day.

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Chillzzz@reddit

So, apart from the salary, the average conditions would be slightly worse than the typical conditions for a technical specialist in Germany, for example.

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Which a lot of companies let you bank and effectively use as PTO. At my company the primary difference is that holidays don't roll over into a new year, and also most people take the holidays off on the day of the holiday so the office is super empty if you do bank it.

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PremiumUsername69420@reddit

Floating holidays, and they’re the best!

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Princess_Moon_Butt@reddit

I'd almost always bank the holidays when that was an option. Our office was the same, practically a ghost town, so it's not like anyone really expected to get anything done. But then you got a free day off to use later in the year as well.

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icecream_specialist@reddit

I'm super productive those days too because I can just focus and get things done. Also my previous job wouldn't give us some of the holidays like president's day or MLK and instead shut down for Christmas to New Year's week instead which I actually liked so I do the same thing now with banked holidays.

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Motion_Means4501@reddit

And it is all equal to the same value if the applicant just priced himself out of a job.

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tesla3by3@reddit

It’s changing in the US.

The traditional method was paid holidays(Christmas, Independence Day, New Years, etc). Then depending on the company, you’d get paid vacation, typically 2-6 weeks, though in some industries paid vacation is rare. Some places also offered “personal days’ or ‘incidental days”, 1-3 days that could be taken throughout the year.

Companies are now moving to combining all of this into “Paid Time Off”, where you get a set number of days off per year, to be taken as needed. Usually the actual holidays like Christmas etc are separate from that, as the whole company closes down.

Then some places are offering “unlimited PTO”. Sounds good for the worker in theory, but a lot of the time the worker ends up taking less time off than they otherwise would

And to emphasize, the policies vary widely by industry, and type of job.

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

"Unlimited PTO" seems like an obvious scam, there has to be a limit. It just can change and you might not even know what it is until you exceed it.

Natural that it would lead to taking less PTO as a precaution.

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tesla3by3@reddit

It’s not a scam. It is unlimited, but the employer still has the right to fire you for abusing it, just like any policy.

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starkiller_bass@reddit

So it’s limited, they just don’t tell you what the limit is.

Also in many cases it’s “unlimited but time off must be approved by your supervisor” and your supervisor just can’t spare you right now with this project where it is right now…

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VicisSubsisto@reddit

I maintain that such a policy is functionally the same as what I described.

My employer can fire me for taking too much time off, too... But I have an exact, trackable number which tells me exactly where it becomes too much.

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tesla3by3@reddit

So then how is an unlimited PTO policy a scam? Have you actually ever worked at a place with unlimited PTO? Like any policy, it works if managed correctly.

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latinforliar@reddit

If expected outputs are not adjusted for the PTO, then in most professional positions, unlimited PTO is pointless. If your job is to "get the job done", then you have to do that, regardless of the amount of time you have "off."

From a legal perspective, PTO is also considered an earned benefits in several laws in the United States, so that means it may have to be paid out in the event of termination, may need to be cashed out if the employee is asked to work additional time, and may have additional legal protections. Generally unlimited PTO does not fall into this category, because it is not specifically accrued by the employee, so it not considered a cash-equivalent benefit.

Overall, it is a very wishy-washy way of offering something "better", but it doesn't have the same infrastructure as other more established methods. I personally prefer a defined PTO benefit.

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tesla3by3@reddit

Most US states don’t require paying out unused PTO.

And some employers put restrictions on PTO carryover, to avoid accruing that liability. And some will only accrue leave by quarter, it let you take it early. so if you have 20 days, you get 5 days per quarter worked. You can take days early, but you may have to pay back if you terminate before they are officially earned.

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latinforliar@reddit

Hence why I said may, could, and generally. You asked why some people think it is a “scam” - I told you. Whether or not it is best for you individually depends on a lot of factors. It’s as if employer benefits are not one size fits all. One of reasons it’d be great to decouple a lot of benefits from employment (not PTO, obviously, but healthcare, life insurance, etc.).

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tesla3by3@reddit

Okay, why do you keep repeating the same thing I said using different words and claiming it’s different?

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adaniel65@reddit

Exactly. I agree.

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GGLSpidermonkey@reddit

stats basically show it makes people take less vacation in unlimited PTO so it does seem like employers offer it as a 'scam', or more accurately as a sleezy way to have employees work more. Also it doesn't roll over/need to be paid out.

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tesla3by3@reddit

Correct, it does make employees take less time off, in general, as I said in my very first comment.

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tafinucane@reddit

My employer switched to unlimited PTO. Aside from employees taking fewer vacations overall, it's better for the owners because all our unused vacation hours count as a debt on their books. They still owe us for unused hours when we leave the company, but we won't be accruing any more.

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Obi_Jon_Kenobi@reddit

I think I've heard of a related way of unlimited PTO being a scam where you can take the days off you want, but there's an expectation of having your phone or computer on you so that you can respond to emails or whatever else.

Like you have the day off, but are you really off if you're still expected to be plugged in? Works ok for some gigs, or depending what you need the day off for (if you have it off for a flight, but are able to access Wi-Fi working might not disrupt your trip, but when you make it to your destination and you're sitting at the beach needing to be available for work would absolutely disrupt your trip)

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Pipofamom@reddit

In the U.S. we use the word holiday for nationally-recognized days that often have religious or historical significance. Holiday is not synonymous with vacation.

I learned that Brits say holiday in place of vacation when I read Bridget Jones's Diary

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lonnie123@reddit

Others have answered but I don’t think they really got to the core of your question. In the UK “Holiday” basically means what vacation does here in the US. You all “go on holiday”, we “go on vacation”

In the states a “holiday” is a specific day to celebrate a specific thing. Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, Independence Day… those are Holidays, and as it’s generally practiced to have them off, if you work on those days some places play you 1.5x your wage.

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Motion_Means4501@reddit

.... which is why I thought the joke was going to end there. If told we aren't hiring you based on your extravagant requests, then an unemployed engineer would be smart enough to decipher no difference between paid holidays or vacations.

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jcasper@reddit

Vacation time is just you not working (“I’m off to Hawaii!”), holiday is the whole company (or section of the company) taking the day off (Christmas Day).

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D43m0n1981@reddit

Only certain calendar holidays require a company give you the day off. Usually not all holidays. Some places give you the other holidays paid off as well. This is on top of vacation that can be take any time

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Weshtonio@reddit

This joke works with anything but "an engineer from MIT".

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Gbhoomba@reddit

Also the amount is a little dated . The TC is much higher for engineering graduates from good colleges like MiT or equivalents

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gsfgf@reddit

With that benefits package, $125k is probably accurate. Must be a European company.

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Liv1ng-the-Blues@reddit

Yeah, and the income tax is 40%/

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lost_send_berries@reddit

Five weeks is also the legal minimum so...

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6ft9man@reddit

While you would expect so, many companies here believe otherwise.

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Independent_Bite4682@reddit

You need to be 19 years of age with 20 years of experience, and we will offer entry level pay.

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OrvilleJClutchpopper@reddit

Don't forget, you also need 10 years programming experience in a computer language that was only developed 3 years ago.

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uber_neutrino@reddit

The median income at Meta was almost $400k for the last year we have data for...

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MrJim63@reddit

Is that for all staff or specific programming disciplines?

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uber_neutrino@reddit

Everyone from what I understand.

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spellsongrisen@reddit

Those companies don't have engineers from MIT, and they have a culture that wouldn't benefit from such talent.

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ortolon@reddit

Yes. Thanks to a certain rotund performance artist, "MIT" gets thrown around a lot these days. I honestly wonder if people even know what it stands for.

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gdj1980@reddit

Bit it takes an MIT level of intelligence to be an expert at ballroom.

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blatherskyte69@reddit

My Itchy Taint

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ortolon@reddit

Lol....

Yes. College is like that.

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holidayspell@reddit

Also, that vacation duration & paid public holidays is close to standard in plenty of non-US countries.

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MIT_Engineer@reddit

No joke, my first job out of college was about a quarter-mil a year.

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adaniel65@reddit

You are obviously highly skilled in your profession.

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MIT_Engineer@reddit

I am, this is true, but my first job was telling rich emiratis that they are just super at being businessmen, so I'm not sure my skills had much to do with it.

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adaniel65@reddit

Excellent persuasive skills! 🤣

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skipperseven@reddit

I think the joke still works as is, but the butt of the joke is now the potential employer, not the graduate.

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EmptyAirEmptyHead@reddit

It all comes around. So many engineers are being canned these days. Power is certainly back int he company's hands.

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svachalek@reddit

Seriously. Business student out of Cal State, haha! Engineer out of MIT, why is the recruiter so rude?

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cvr24@reddit

Being rude is a job requirement

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DkMomberg@reddit

You might even say it's rudeimentary for the job.

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streetcar-cin@reddit

It worked when the joke was new

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Draaly@reddit

Yah. 125k is fairly reasonable for an MIT grad in most engineering fields tbh. Maybe a bit aggressive for some of them, but nothing I would call put of the question. I'm an SrD of Engineering and have been hiring new grads at those rates since before covid

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TiogaJoe@reddit

A couple decades ago I hired an engineering graduate from Brown University for a technician job I had open. He needed a quick job, and I needed a tech now. Definitely overqualified, he did keep interviewing and a couple months out landed a "real" engineering job. We both knew this would happen so he was okay with telling me about the new job. He said the HR person, when offering the job, asked how much he was looking for as salary. He replied, "$55,000"
The HR person said, "Would you accept $65,000?"
He would.

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thenasch@reddit

I don't think that would be shooting for the moon these days.

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PrinceOfLeon@reddit

I don't think this joke originally took place any time remotely close to these days.

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lukin187250@reddit

If we just find the original year we can just run it through an inflation calculator and boom we'll be all set.

If this joke is from 2000 it would be around 247k today.

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ScaryRun619@reddit

Let’s round it to $250k.

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HFY_HFY_HFY@reddit

I know fresh outta MIT folks making $400k-$500k at finance/algo trading firms

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4orust@reddit

I don't know. The "odd" amount might be more effective.

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Cenobyte_Nom-nom-nom@reddit

Let's round to eat the rich. And I don't mean the $250k a year folks, that's barely doing well nowadays in many places.

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kmactane@reddit

Then the poster needs to update with an amount that would be absurd in 2026.

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July_is_cool@reddit

Are you talking about January 2026, before the AI firings, or now?

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RecalcitrantHuman@reddit

$350,000 and 12 dozen eggs

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feraxks@reddit

That's just gross.

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flarefenris@reddit

So, 15 dozen eggs total?

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gonzal2020@reddit

Toss in a tank of gas and you got a deal.

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flarefenris@reddit

Damn, are you TRYING to bankrupt the company?

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InfinityLoo@reddit

The dollar amount is about right, but I bought a dozen eggs for $1.53 yesterday so that part is outdated.

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Friendly-Pressure-62@reddit

THAT IS ABSURD!!!!…oh, well done

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thenasch@reddit

Agreed.

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pryoslice@reddit

Just the Porsche part, I think.

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ComfortableEven5095@reddit

Depends on the type of engineering degree. Mechanical, yes absolutely. Software Engineer at FAANG, no.

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Draaly@reddit

Eh, even in manufacturing (a terribly paid field), 125k for an MIT grad isn't out of the question

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Surefirefrog@reddit

I'm a controls engineer in manufacturing and exceeded that salary years ago, and my degree is from a local university, not even close to MIT.

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Able-Watercress5450@reddit

I would think any graduate of a STEM school would get close to that first starting salary. S.D. School of Mines would probably get close.

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Draaly@reddit

It's extremely location dependent. In the south that would be a senior level salary. Near a major metro area it will be a lot more common

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Surefirefrog@reddit

No idea, I'm in food manufacturing in the Midwest and 130k is the breakpoint for senior level roles, entry level is probably closer to 100k now.

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Draaly@reddit

Yup. I passed that 2 years out of state college on manufacturing

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lonnie123@reddit

When this joke was written I don’t think software engineer at FAANG existed

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TalkInMalarkey@reddit

SpaceX or Tesla can pay that much for new grad.

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selemenesmilesuponme@reddit

For 996 work

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mtnbkrt22@reddit

As an engineer graduating in 2015 we were told $80k/yr could be a possibility if we had a year or two of internships.

So $125k would be high, but my school wasn't MIT. I didn't even bother trying to get in even though I kinda had a connection.

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thenasch@reddit

It's also not 2015 any more.

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PreMixYZ@reddit

We had EEs out of San Jose state applying for manufacturing jobs and were expecting $200+

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VexImmortalis@reddit

$200 a year seems a little low, I pay the dude who mows my lawn like $75 a week in the summer.

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PreMixYZ@reddit

Obviously I meant K. Let me edit that for you.

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VexImmortalis@reddit

now you've ruined the joke. Think about my upvotes!

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PoisonedPotato69@reddit

A friend of mine graduated from a state college 40 years ago with a degree in Electrical Engineering and was offered $75K entry level position, so yeah, need to up that number for this joke to work.

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Alejo_Ad_9033@reddit

Yeah, the bar for “ambitious” definitely feels a lot lower than it used to.

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AccomplishedWish3033@reddit

Agreed. If any hiring manager was this disrespectful after a reasonable request, that’s a bullet dodged and I’d be walking out after being annoyed I wasted my time on this.

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islndrob70@reddit

Good old number 73

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DrunkyMcStumbles@reddit

My company pays junior engineers more than that. And our benefits package isn't so far from that

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Popular-Beach-4843@reddit

125k is not considered astronomical anymore

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BIT-NETRaptor@reddit

I think you’d be dumb to accept an offer below 125k as an MIT engineer today, this joke sounds 10-20 years out of date.

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PeacefulDays@reddit

op hasnt interviewed for an engineering job in 20 years.

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ZeusTKP@reddit

Is this a joke from 1926?

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dgkimpton@reddit

I'm sure the only answer to "what starting salary do you want" is "as much as you'll give me".

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adaniel65@reddit

I usually respond with "I'll consider your best offer". This way if they offer more than I expected it's good for me and they will think twice about making a lowball offer.

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enigma9o7@reddit

The moon is a lot closer than I imagined....

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AxelNotRose@reddit

5 weeks vacation.

In the US, the employer is joking.

In Europe, the candidate thinks the employer is joking.

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NoobensMcarthur@reddit

My company has the best vacation I’ve ever been offered in my life. We’re quite a bit above anyone else in the state. To get to 5 weeks off per year I’d need to be here for 15 years… executives don’t even get 5 weeks off until they’ve been here for 5.

American vacation is an absolute joke.

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uber_neutrino@reddit

This is the exact same salary I asked for back in the day and got lol. 26 years ago!

Oh and we also got all the rest of the benefits and stock and bonuses.

I guess this shows how rough 2026 is.

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x_segrity@reddit

inflation means 125k is easy for an MIT grad

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-lousyd@reddit

To which the interviewee says, "If you didn't want my answer why'd you ask for it, dick?" At least that's what I have wanted to say at times.

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CatLeader420@reddit

Can someone explain pls?

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quietflowsthedodder@reddit

You're an engineer, right?

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WasThatInappropriate@reddit

'What would you say to European employment basics?'

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TheMusicArchivist@reddit

That was my thought. I was wondering why Americans thought that was outright impossible and therefore funny

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Nannyphone7@reddit

125,000 per year isn't shooting for the moon for an Engineer.

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pork_fried_christ@reddit

Me: “squirting isn’t real, right? Like, that’s just pee, isn’t it?”

Interviewer: “I um… I’m meant do you have any questions about the job…

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dschoni@reddit

"The present data based on ultrasonographic bladder monitoring and biochemical analyses indicate that squirting is essentially the involuntary emission of urine during sexual activity, although a marginal contribution of prostatic secretions to the emitted fluid often exists."

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25545022/

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tankpuss@reddit

The legal minimum paid holiday in the UK is four weeks. 38 days where I am. And the medical is free at the point of use too. The joke here is the American way of life.

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Rocketsready@reddit

We have a crowd of literalists

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aipac125@reddit

This joke is so old, that number is standard for today.

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Tcloud@reddit

It’s like the *Pulp Fiction* 5 dollar milkshake. Was an obscene amount when the movie showed, now you’d be lucky to buy one for that low of a price.

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lostinspaz@reddit

my son just graduated with an EE degree. from a state college.

his starting salary is $110k

this joke is out of date by about ten years

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hew3@reddit

Elementary Education?

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exilfoodie@reddit

lol, that’s pretty much my Dutch contract as an engineer. Pension contribution is 23% and no company car but I get 30 days off, so 6 weeks.

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paintsbynumberz@reddit

I thought he’d say, “run for congress”

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Economy_Particular_6@reddit

I did quit a job because I refused to define the word “Woke” the way the manager wanted. Anyone who thought the way he did is likely a racist.

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CBrinson@reddit

This is actually lower than the starting salary an MIT engineer gets on average.

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xAmorphous@reddit

Is this joke from 1972?

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backwardgalaxy@reddit

Can't even tell a joke these days without people replying "the numbers are wrong or outdated". The internet has made contrarions out of everyone. Y'all just looking for prompts to insert your own tidbits as if anyone cares. It's a joke. You got it. Laugh or don't. We don't need you to edit the joke before publication. This isn't going to Barnes and Noble.

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ErdnaseErdnase@reddit

It’s contrarians, not contrarions.. ( Oh well, never mind…)

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backwardgalaxy@reddit

See, a jerk would say something like "my phone autocorrect screwed up", but I understood the joke. And I laughed.

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Weak_Blackberry_9308@reddit

Shoot, this joke is a few weeks too late. AI took all those jobs.

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ErdnaseErdnase@reddit

AI isn’t that smart. It has, however, taken over HR. Which says a lot about HR.

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Forsaken_Ant7459@reddit

When was this joke first crafted, 1985?

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itsjakerobb@reddit

To update this joke for 2026, you need to 5x that salary. And also put unlimited vacation in the counteroffer.

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Notabot1305@reddit

How can you tell it’s an American joke? Because, apart from the Porsche, this isn’t much better than standard package. Oh… but all ours holidays are paid, not just 14 out of the 7 weeks.

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daynewolf036@reddit

In the joke they're all paid. Paid holidays are company holidays on set days, vacation is whenever you want.

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Notabot1305@reddit

So like Christmas and Easter and other government mandated days off?

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LiverPickle@reddit

No. There are zero “mandated” holidays in the US. No employer is required to close down for any holiday. There are zero days that you cannot find an open bar, restaurant, or gas station.

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ThePhysicistIsIn@reddit

Even places with mandated holidays have some businesses opened on those days

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thenasch@reddit

Hey fun thing about the US, there are zero government mandated days off for private employers! So it is perfectly legal to require an employee to work 365 days a year (though you would be paying a lot of overtime).

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daynewolf036@reddit

Yes, but there are normally only like 6 that are mandated.

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pjtrpjt@reddit

Yeah, I need an interpreter.

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cjl1983@reddit

125k for an MIT engineer? The ‘joke’ is actually that the salary the graduate suggested was too low.

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dhgaut@reddit

My dad did not get paid $125K but he made enough to support a family of 7 and had 5 weeks vacation, paid holidays, full medical and a pension. It was a union. Ronald Reagan broke the unions.

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rockhead3006@reddit

According to today's salaries, this is a bit under. "The overall average starting salary for an MIT undergraduate is $126,438".

So the interview candidate could have asked for more.

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