non-exempt software engineering position

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I’m an embedded software engineer with about 4 years of experience. I’m currently looking for my next s://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/role">role and received a job offer. Unfortunately, neither the recruiter nor HR had a correct job s://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/description">description so I can’t verify exactly what the job entails are. The job offer is for a software engineering s://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/role">role that is non-exempt and pays hourly 45 s://forum.tuteehub.com/tag/dollars">dollars per hour, which means it will pay overtime. I’ve never heard of a full time engineering job which has an hourly rate. Is this common practice? Also, what kind of “software engineering” work can I expect to receive if the job is non-exempt? (isn’t the definition of a exempt software job one where you have to use reasoning skills, in others words, it’s a job where you design and write code)?

manpreet 2 years ago

The software industry in the US is an odd animal. One of the quirks I've run into at nearly every job I've had is that even if I'm "exempt" and "salaried", I still am forced to record my hourly activity. Some places would like you to be able to record to the nearest 1/10 of an hour. On my current job I'm officially on a 40 hour week but "strongly encouraged" to work 44+ hours. Some jobs pay you overtime even if you are exempt, others don't.

If you are non-exempt, that does sound more like a contracting job than employee. In practice, it might not make a difference. A lot of companies bring in contractors as a probation period before they hire them or because they don't want to deal with HR in-house. But it's good advice to double check on that.

Sometimes it varies depending on state or industry. Department of Defense contracts operate very differently than a gaming company.