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250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass w
by jarjoura 11y ago
250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work.
There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big companies and you will be a small fish. So I think this article is spreading a myth that there is guaranteed piles of money to be made by working at Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.
- rdtsc 11y agoYeah I saw that and thought, ok maybe if you are on of the known or maintain a popular open source package, a conference speaker. But 250k in year 5 is not a number that rings true. Or, maybe I am doing something wrong here and am underpaid...
- tptacek 11y ago200k for sr in the valley is not weird. Remember: it's not year 5 of your career. It's year 5 of your tenure at one company. It's a little unusual for people to stay longer than 4 years at most companies.
- balls187 11y agoWhat companies are paying 5 year senior enigneers $200k base salary in the Valley???
- didip 11y agoI can come up with a few on top of my head: Netflix, Apple, Google
- balls187 11y agoDo you have sources for this information? Is 200k median salary, or an outlier for the top senior engineer there?
- tptacek 11y agoThe top senior engineer at Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn is not making $200k. More than 10 years ago, my in-the-door offer as one member of a team of 5-6 senior developers at an east coast tech firm was higher than $200k.
- balls187 11y ago> The top senior engineer at Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn is not making $200k. Fair point. The Top engineer at each of those companies is making more than $200k. Edited for clarity.
- dsacco 11y agoWhat he meant is that they are making far more than $200k, which makes his next sentence illustrative as an example.
- balls187 11y agoI understood what he was saying, and I concurred to his statement: that top engineers at Google et al, are making more than $200k
- infinite8s 11y agoNot only are they making more than 200k, they are making WAY more than 200k.
- mbesto 11y agoSource: http://data.jobsintech.io/companies/netflix-inc/2015 http://data.jobsintech.io/companies/netflix-inc/2015 http://data.jobsintech.io/companies/google-inc/2015?utf8=%E2%9C%93&refine%5Bjob_title%5D=&refine%5Bcity%5D=&refine%5Bstate%5D=CA&commit=Refine http://data.jobsintech.io/companies/google-inc/2015?utf8=%E2...
- rdl 11y agoI don't think anyone makes $200k base at Netflix after 5 years as a serious SWE. "Starts with a 3" is what I've heard pretty consistently.
- thenewwazoo 11y agoFacebook, Salesforce, LinkedIn. And that's just what I have either direct or first-hand knowledge of.
- tptacek 11y agoThe best approximation of an answer to that question I can find is "virtually every large non-startup tech company in the valley that isn't Cisco".
- balls187 11y agoIf that's the case, shouldn't there be evidence (other than anecdotal comments via HN) to support that? Not that it's so far fetched that big Valley firms are paying over $200k base salary, but if it was so prevalent, I'd expect to see more concrete evidence to support that.
- smm2000 11y agoLiterally, ask any friend working as SWE in any of those companies - they will confirm numbers. You are pretty much guaranteed to make that money in 5 years if you get promoted with average velocity.
- grahamannett 11y agoI'm not saying you are wrong, but wouldn't this: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-San-Francisco-Salaries-EI_IE9079.0,6_IL.7,20_IM759.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-San-Francisco-Salari... be more indicative than asking a person first hand what they make? I don't think saying 'personally confront friends/workers at said companies about salaries' is anymore reliable than anonymously submitted.
- patio11 11y agoAppAmaGooFaceSoft and every company which is isomorphic to them. Tens of thousands of people have this pay package.
- Bahamut 11y agoI don't think Amazon compensates that much - I interviewed with them this past summer, and they tried to lowball me. I gave a firm number that I would not go below after giving some numbers I have turned down in the past, and the process stalled indefinitely. I have also heard stories about Apple lowballing friends as well, to the point startups were giving higher compensation. The others, I have heard stories about or could believe.
- crucifiction 11y agoYou were probably down leveled based on the interview. The comp will max out lower (and therefore the offer won't be able to budge significantly higher) than you may achieve somewhere that did not downlevel you.
- Bahamut 11y agoI don't think so - I am pretty certain I aced both technical phone screens, answered the questions fast, and explained everything clearly with a high level understanding of everything asked (including all the nuances) while remaining calm & jovial the whole way. The technical screens were some of the easiest interviews I've ever had. I should note that I didn't get to the in-person interview, and that was because salary negotiations start beforehand. I did my research afterwards, and everything I found seemed to point towards cheapness.
- crucifiction 11y agoHaving worked there, I am not sure I believe you. An SDE interview is a single phone screen before onsite. Salary is also not negotiated before an onsite + offer in hand. I was a hiring manager and often matched or exceeded competing offers from MSFT/GOOG, so our pay was not significantly different. The only difference is that Amazon base pay maxes out lower (at about 160k) and therefore RSUs make up a larger portion of salary for higher level positions.
- alexandercrohde 11y agoI hate to be put in this position, but I have to call BS. This entire thread is highly biased towards people who make more: people who make more want to chime in, people who make less are more embarrassed / discouraged from chiming in. I'm a natural (coding since 3rd grade), out of college for 6 years, and I've only known 1 engineer in my career who made over 200k. Now if by BigCo you mean Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, then I don't know them, so I can't comment. But if by BigCo you mean IBM, Cisco, Intel, etc then I can guarantee you that I don't know a single person making 250k, and glassdoor generally corroborates (if you google STAFF (> senior) software engineer in SF for IBM your average is 132 base in SF)
- thedufer 11y agoWhere do you live? These numbers are fairly local to SF/NYC/Seattle, with other large cities trailing a bit and smaller cities farther behind. That said, in those cities they are far from absurd. I started out similar to you (coding since elementary school) and now live in NYC ~3.5 years out of college. Off the top of my head, I could name half a dozen developers making seven figures, and at least 100 making over $200k.
- alexandercrohde 11y agoI live in San Francisco, and have for about 4 years. I'm shocked you know the salaries of 100 other developers. Care to share some of the companies that are paying this much to developers 3.5 years out of college? I'd love to corroborate on glassdoor.
- thedufer 11y agoI don't know exact salaries of that many people, but I know payscales at a couple high-paying companies and people who work there, so I put 2 and 2 together. I wouldn't count people who are borderline since there's a bit of estimating involved. I would slightly less confidently put the same group of people at $250k or more. I recently turned down an offer from Google for $270k total comp, so they're definitely one of the high-paying companies. I know Facebook pays similarly well, but have no interest in working there. Being in NYC, though, the highest paying are mostly in finance. I've found Glassdoor to run very low for higher-paying positions, though. Their numbers are all salary as far as I can tell, while a large portion of compensation is in RSUs and bonuses (40%-90% at compensation levels of $250k and up).
- S4M 11y agoThen there is a selection bias: only those who manage to make it to the 200k level stay long enough, the others (the large majority) understand after a few years that their present company is not gonna promote them to that level and try to find greener pastures.
- tptacek 11y agoI mean, there is totally a selection bias, but we're talking about companies that have lots of 5+ year people there making that salary.
- dsacco 11y agoAre you a senior engineer? Are you at a large company in a metropolitan area? Is your salary less than $250k? If you answered yes to all three, yes, you are probably underpaid. That doesn't mean you're doing something wrong if you love your job, but know that you could earn more.
- humanrebar 11y ago> Are you at a large company in a metropolitan area? ...on the West Coast or Northeast, sure. It's my understanding that $250k is a little high for other cities, unfortunately. Hopefully the corporate culture there catches up. Otherwise, a lot of engineers are getting used to living off of some sort of bubble.
- r0m4n0 11y agoI'm sorry but... if you were a senior software engineer in Sacramento (a metropolitan city) and asked for 200k at intel, hp, oracle, apple, etc., someone would quietly hang up the phone hahaha. A laughable amount is even closer to 150k if it wasn't a tech giant ie. Sutter, Blue Shield, Proctor & Gamble, PG&E, Franklin Templeton, etc. Lead, architect, principal... they may not hang up but I would expect a double take and a "let's be realistic."
- spydum 11y agoAgreed, doesn't take much looking on sites like glassdoor to confirm.. Most salary bands for principal roles are 120-150k w/ 15-20k bonus and occasionally same in stock.
- mahyarm 11y agoWhen Sacramento is a 2 hour drive away, why don't you move to Fremont and work in SF, Mountain View or San Jose?
- infinite8s 11y agoThis whole conversation is about pay at tech companies, where developers are the primary revenue generator, as opposed to other industries where developers are generally considered a cost center.
- mcguire 11y agoYou and me, both, brother. I'm not sure why your comment is grey; it's spot on, although it's not likely a sentiment that HN folks are fond of. On the other hand, your second paragraph is exactly true in my case. But still...
- thedufer 11y agoI recently got an offer from Google for 270k total comp (<4 years experience, nyc). I would expect tenure to be worth a sizable amount over that, and it's my understanding that nyc is very similar to silicon valley.
- huangwei_chang 11y agoIt guess it also depends on what level one is when joining the company. I guess this article is for people with an undergraduate degree in CS?
- mcguire 11y ago...from Stanford or a similar school.
- joycey 11y agoIf you're saying this to suggest that students from Stanford or similar schools are able to attain better offers, then sure. If you're saying this to suggest that companies give students from Stanford vs students from "worse" schools better offers, that's not true.
- logical42 11y agoI think people are actually really out of touch with bigco pay scales. 250k is pretty easily achievable in a bigco. At Facebook you'll hit 250k+ in total comp at level 5, at LinkedIn you'll hit 250k+ in total comp at Staff level. If you also factor in stacking allotments of RSUs, your pay can easily exceed 300k at these levels given a few years of tenure.
- sbilstein 11y agoI can corroborate this. 250k is very, very attainable.
- eecks 11y agoJust in the states? What about in Europe? FB, Google and others have headquarters in Dublin. I don't think they pay anything like that, do they?
- loopbit 11y agoI live in Dublin, don't work for Google but I have many friends that do (as well as in London and Zurich). No, they don't pay anything close to that. Actually, AFAIK, in Dublin the salary that Google pays for developers is on the low side of the scale (they offset that, in part, with all the benefits like free food and the rest).
- eecks 11y agoThat's what I thought. I'm in Dublin too but not in google/fb/etc
- LoSboccacc 11y agoDublin is in a weird situation. Loads of immigrant here. I lived there couple years and worked in one of those big corps. Salaries do go quite up a while but statistics on the corporate ladder are stacked firmly against immigrants, the higher you go the less chance you have to find non local people. With soft career ceiling and continuous influx of people salaries are driven down. You can still make a fine living, but nothing compared to the colleagues on the other side of the ocean.
- arborday 11y agoI think the median after 5 years is closer to ~225k. (source I've worked at Google 5 years after joining right out of school).
- dsacco 11y agoThis doesn't undermine the author's point. As another commenter said, people are really underestimating the likelihood of earning a $250k salary at a large company. It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area. The author's core point is that you are much more likely to become a senior engineer at a large company (and thus earn ~$250k in salary) than you are to hit the jackpot at a startup. If you were to take the set of people who achieve senior tier (or comparable) at large tech companies and the set of people who earn at least $250k as a lump sum payout for working at a successful startup, you'd find that the former group is vastly larger than the latter. If you were to do the same exercise and replace the second group with folks who actually got "rich" (for any reasonable definition) working for a startup, you'd find that it would not even be visible as a pixel next to the former group. Statistically, you are simply better off trying to hit senior at large tech company if you want to optimize your career for wealth. This is so doable within five years that at large companies like Google and Microsoft you are expected to hit senior level, and if you don't it begins to reflect badly on your record. More explicitly, "senior" is the last level that everyone is expected to hit, and at which you are "allowed" to not seek further promotions.
- Cyberdog 11y ago> It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area. If, if, if, if. Just by numbers, most devs don't meet these criteria. And even in the periods of time which I personally have, I still was not making anywhere near this kind of money. These numbers are inflated and out of reach to the vast majority of developers in the workplace today, full stop.
- dsacco 11y agoYes, there are if's involved. It is not certain that you will achieve senior tier at a large company in a metropolitan area. But you are also not certain to earn anything from your startup equity. I will reiterate - you are more likely to reach $250k working at a large company than you are to earn it (in salary or lump sum) at a startup. This has been corroborated by numerous individual's experience in this thread, including my own. I personally interact with companies that pay this on a weekly basis.
- googthrowaway8 11y agoThis is not true, although I thought it was before joining Google from a startup. I'm now two years in (after joining at entry level) and my compensation is ~220k. 250k for senior is pretty conservative, if the Googlers I've talked to at that level are representative (and we don't work in the Bay Area).
- to3m 11y agoThis is your take home pay? So after taxes?
- googthrowaway8 11y agoOops, that is not at all what I meant by take home - my bad. I meant total comp; this is very much before taxes.
- fredkbloggs 11y agoThe rule of thumb if you work in California is that you'll take home half, assuming all your income is base + bonus + RSUs and not exotics like ISOs or deferred comp plans. The rest goes to the cost of non-cash compensation, various governments, and your tax-deferred retirement savings. It's usually slightly more than half, depending on the exact numbers, whether you're buying medical plans for a family, how much you save in a retirement plan, etc., but that's the safe first-order approximation if you're budgeting. So someone starting at BigCo in California should expect to take home 100-125k a year for the first few years. That said, I would caution new entrants to the workforce about three things: - Tax rates are likely to go up, and certainly will not be going down. It would not be shocking if you were taking home 10% less in a few years solely because of higher taxes. You can also expect your cost of living to grow much more quickly than the tax bracket boundaries will rise. - Your RSUs are likely to be worth less than you're expecting, because market prices will decline in a bust (a major bust is all but certain at some point in your upcoming 4-year vesting period). - In a bust, you will likely get a smaller bonus or none at all (even if the company is still making money), and are unlikely to get a raise, even a nominal cost of living adjustment. These conditions can last for several years, so even if you keep your job (hardly a given), your total compensation will likely be much less than you expected when you were hired. A few companies may be doing well enough that you will be exempt, but don't count on it. All of these things need to be factored in when evaluating compensation. It's not as simple as adding X + Y + Z and assuming that all changes over the next 5 years will be either neutral or positive. That's not how life is.
- balls187 11y ago$250k Total comp. That's salary, bonus, equity, and benefits.
- sokoloff 11y agoWhen I use total comp, I exclude non-cash benefits, and I think that's the normal use of the phrase. Health care, vision, dental, long-term disability, etc are all excluded.
- bigcothrowa 11y agoI would include 401(k) or HSA matching under benefits (cash equivalent).
- sokoloff 11y agoAgreed. I'd not consider those "non-cash benefits". In the neighborhood of $250K, 401K and HSA match are just a few percent of comp generally.
- hiddencost 11y agoI got a $150k starting offer from one of those companies. A friend got raised to $200k after two years at one of them. Another started at $170k with a masters in stats. Admittedly this is all anecdotal. But these numbers don't strike me as crazy. My brother got a starting salary of $80k at a startup that went on to IPO in the single digit billions (he joined after the series A). After he sold his options, he earned an average of $130k / yr at that company.
- mkagenius 11y ago> average of $130k / yr at that company. Its more about the kind of experience or skills you want to gain. Money comparison in my opinion can't be head to head, some make millions while some make 0 at startups.
- mrshoe 11y agoThat this is currently the top comment reinforces the author's hypothesis that many software engineers underestimate how much they could make at a large company. > 250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yes, really. > Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Nope, not true. > So I think this article is spreading a myth that there is guaranteed piles of money to be made by working at Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. Have you worked at Google, Facebook, or Apple for 5 years? If you do, and you're a decent programmer (not a rock star, but a solid contributor), you'll find there are guaranteed piles of money to be made.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- lcr94 11y agoThis style of reply is not constructive. How can we know with certainty whether or not you have a reasonable shot at making 250k/year after five years of working at Apple, Amazon, Google, or Microsoft? Provide an anecdote, links to articles, etc.
- cbr 11y agoAnecdote: I've been at one of those companies for three years, and made about $250k this year.
- chris11 11y agoI'm currently still in school, and I personally don't know anyone who is making $250k/year five years into their career. But I have seen new grad offers that make that number seem reasonable. One of my friends is a really smart developer who got several offers from places competitive with those companies. I don't think they really had much full-time work experience. The first year total comp in one of their offers was around $200k. A 25% compensation increase over five years seems reasonable to me. Edit: It does kind of depend on how you value stock/RSUs in your compensation package. Most of the offers they got were from public companies that were well run. So I personally would not be extremely worried about the stock losing most of its value before I was able to sell.
- guelo 11y agoThis comment is like a parody of someone that didn't read the article.
- gnarbarian 11y agoI'm a senior programmer at a smallish company (30 programmers around 150 people total) where I've been for 5 years and I make 60k. Funny part is I bill out at 140 per hour and am 95% billable.
- sudhirj 11y agoService companies are always a bit of a problem. Your value is effectively capped by your hourly rate minus overheads. And that's in the highest levels. At all the lower levels you're paying the salaries of the higher ups and non billable folks.
- aantix 11y agoWhy are you still there?
- gnarbarian 11y agoNot many software jobs in Alaska. I am against moving as well.
- myanondev 11y agogo remote!
- HelloMcFly 11y agoI think this community is frankly out of touch on compensation expectations for the bulk of the population, but you are definitely underpaid and should find another job elsewhere.
- Futurebot 11y agoI knew about a lot of the numbers in this thread, but reading them here blows me away anyway. Mine went like this (all numbers inflation adjusted for 2015, and are base salary. Location is NYC): Company 1 (~25 employees, entertainment industry. No benefits. No stock.) 1997-2000 $30,757.56 (entry level) 2001-2002 $98,944.97 (junior) 2003 $128,986.96 (senior) Company 2 (post dot-com crash brought salaries way down, ~150 employees, software company. Ok benefits. No stock.) 2003-2005 $66,838.10 (mid-level) 2006 $77,699.29 (senior) Company 3 (non-tech startup, 5 full-time employees. OK benefits. Small amount of stock.) 2007 $114,465.95 (senior) 2008-2012 $77,529.03 (senior, pay cut after investments were cut) Company 4 (~120 employees, ad firm. Goodish benefits. No stock.) 2013 $100,000 (mid-level) 2014 $110,000 (senior) Not only do company sizes, upward trajectories, educational background, company industry, etc. impact earnings, but where you are in relation to business cycles and booms/busts really matter.
- umanwizard 11y agoI worked at a big corporation and changed jobs after 2 years. Day one at the new big corporation I was making ~$200k (that's total compensation; so bonus, salary, and stock that will vest this year). I think $250 is very doable.
- krschultz 11y agoIt's $250k if you count the equity. The base salary in cash is not that amount, but if you include options/RSUs, and the company continues to do well, those numbers make sense. If you do the math as base+equity you will often find startups that are giving out even better offers. I've seen $300k+ if you consider dollars in RSUs the same thing as dollars in cash. Unfortunately the math really is base+(equity*chance_it_pays_out). With that math, you are much more likely to come out ahead at Google, FB, Microsoft, etc.
- Bahamut 11y agoStartups will give better offers at the lower levels - however, as someone gets more experience, the big companies will go far and away above in total compensation typically. Even companies like Uber, Airbnb, etc. aren't paying as well (although they do pay well)...and that doesn't even go into the riskiness of startup work.
- Spooky23 11y agoGoogle, Facebook, Apple, etc aren't the only game. You can easily make $250k with the right knowledge in all sorts of places. I worked with a guy in a .gov billing $250/HR, with about $100 going to the upstream contract holder. He was an ITIL/process expert.
- myanondev 11y agoI did an AMA on Reddit a few months ago. I worked for a well-known Sillicon Valley company for about a year and made around $200K/year and that's with about 5 years of programming professionally under my belt. Just wanted to give you a heads up. I went back to startup work and my salary got immediately cut down to $125K.
- habosa 11y agoI don't know about 250k, but there is a lot of money to be made at a big company. I am not a 'SWE' at Google so these are not my numbers, but I know it's pretty normal for people to see this out of college: ~110k salary ~60 shares of GOOG per year (so right now about 45k) ~15% bonus (so 15k, conservative) That right there adds up to 170k and that's entry level. Get a promotion or two (could be a 20% increase if you're lucky) plus the general year-to-year raises to keep up with the market and you're looking at 250k being possible before you're 30. Now of course this can't be everyone. But it's a lot of people, and anyone who is going to be competent enough to keep a startup afloat is probably good enough to rise a rank or two at Google/Apple/Facebook/etc.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]