5 ms·

I'd love to be able to hire developers for $92K/year in SF, but these numbers are completely off base for average salary. Even offering $160-200K (plus options

I'd love to be able to hire developers for $92K/year in SF, but these numbers are completely off base for average salary. Even offering $160-200K (plus options), I probably lose half my recruiting battles to big companies offering total compensation in the range of $450-800K/year. Who do you think is making housing so unaffordable? It's the tens of thousands of software developers earning $200K-800K/year! Of course, there is an above-average number of super-rich entrepreneurs in SF, but that's still only a tiny fraction of the population compared to developers. Moreover, the city makes it virtually impossible to combine apartments or houses into mega-mansions, so even the super rich don't consume that many housing units per-capita in SF.

IndianAstronaut 11y ago
Why not build up? You don't have to even go too high. Just take existing housing or strip malls and add a floor. So many strip malls in the valley and peninsula that could be repurposed to have a dual purpose shops and condos/apts on top. Just one or two floors added would mean tens of thousands of new housing units.
- hackerweb 11y ago
  Ultimately, supply is the only solution. But there are very tricky political issues involved. See, e.g., http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/
deleted 11y ago
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mtbcoder 11y ago
A similar thing happened in DC. Defense contractor bubble rapidly expanded in the '00s, housing prices shot up drastically.
eitally 11y ago
What % of developers are you seeing get 450-800k/yr offers? That's really high even for the obvious options, unless you've got 10+ years direct experience or are being hired into senior manager++ management positions.
ryandrake 11y ago
This is the most ridiculous and exaggerated comment I've read here for quite a while. The median salary for a software engineer in SF is $103K [1][2]. If you are offering $160-200K, you are not losing out on half your candidates due to salary. And $450-800K is ridiculous--probably 5-6 standard deviations into the salary tail. If you are seriously offering 200K for a software engineering position and having trouble, please look up my LinkedIn profile (shouldn't be hard, check the username) and hit me up. These "salary" threads that pop up on HN every so often are so silly. A: Software Engineers make like $120K on average! B: Naahh, I heard they make more like $150K. C: I know someone at Google that makes $200K. Software Engineers are clearly rolling in the money! D: Oh yea? I can't find decent candidates and I'm offering $220K plus a BMW! E: I think $250K is kind of the baseline nowadays... Come on, people listen to yourselves. 1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en... 2: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary/a5e48575/San-Francisco-CA http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...
- deleted 11y ago
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  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Then, congratulations for being a significant outlier! But a handful of outliers does not say anything about what's normal. My suspicion is that the $103K figure is itself quite high, since Glassdoor and Payscale base their numbers on self-reporting and surveys. My guess is that people with lower salaries tend to not want to self-report that fact, whereas people with high salaries have no problem doing so.
    - steven2012 11y ago
      Oh okay. You're one of those people that Google a few links and then claim domain expertise. Never mind then. You're right the average salary for programmers in Silicon Valley is below $100k.
- 11y ago

IndianAstronaut 11y ago

Why not build up? You don't have to even go too high. Just take existing housing or strip malls and add a floor. So many strip malls in the valley and peninsula that could be repurposed to have a dual purpose shops and condos/apts on top. Just one or two floors added would mean tens of thousands of new housing units.

hackerweb 11y ago
Ultimately, supply is the only solution. But there are very tricky political issues involved. See, e.g., http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/14/sf-housing/

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mtbcoder 11y ago

A similar thing happened in DC. Defense contractor bubble rapidly expanded in the '00s, housing prices shot up drastically.

eitally 11y ago

What % of developers are you seeing get 450-800k/yr offers? That's really high even for the obvious options, unless you've got 10+ years direct experience or are being hired into senior manager++ management positions.

ryandrake 11y ago

This is the most ridiculous and exaggerated comment I've read here for quite a while. The median salary for a software engineer in SF is $103K [1][2]. If you are offering $160-200K, you are not losing out on half your candidates due to salary. And $450-800K is ridiculous--probably 5-6 standard deviations into the salary tail. If you are seriously offering 200K for a software engineering position and having trouble, please look up my LinkedIn profile (shouldn't be hard, check the username) and hit me up. These "salary" threads that pop up on HN every so often are so silly. A: Software Engineers make like $120K on average! B: Naahh, I heard they make more like $150K. C: I know someone at Google that makes $200K. Software Engineers are clearly rolling in the money! D: Oh yea? I can't find decent candidates and I'm offering $220K plus a BMW! E: I think $250K is kind of the baseline nowadays... Come on, people listen to yourselves. 1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-engineer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,13_IM759_KO14,31.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en... 2: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Salary/a5e48575/San-Francisco-CA http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...

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- ryandrake 11y ago
  Then, congratulations for being a significant outlier! But a handful of outliers does not say anything about what's normal. My suspicion is that the $103K figure is itself quite high, since Glassdoor and Payscale base their numbers on self-reporting and surveys. My guess is that people with lower salaries tend to not want to self-report that fact, whereas people with high salaries have no problem doing so.
  - steven2012 11y ago
    Oh okay. You're one of those people that Google a few links and then claim domain expertise. Never mind then. You're right the average salary for programmers in Silicon Valley is below $100k.
11y ago