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400k is market rate for top-quality bay area engineers, depending on specialty [0]. You don't see job ads for those folks, because hackers like that don't read

400k is market rate for top-quality bay area engineers, depending on specialty [0]. You don't see job ads for those folks, because hackers like that don't read them. [0] And even for lower-paying specialties (like UI/UX), 400k isn't even 2x market rate.

Bahamut 10y ago
Can verify - I turned down an opportunity for lead frontend work a year ago for $350k-400k (a lot of compensation in stock/bonuses, so it was variable), and that wasn't even at a big tech company. (For the curious, I opted for tremendous work-life balance instead)
- chris11 10y ago
  Where are you currently in your career? I'm kind of curious, because I never hear of compensation packages normally going up that high. So I'm wondering what skills companies are looking for at that price.
  - Bahamut 10y ago
    At that point, I was 2 1/2 years in - that was a year ago. That was a rarity I think, although there are numerous stories of Netflix paying $300k+ now.
  - chris_va 10y ago
    400k isn't unusual about 6 years in.
tensor 10y ago
At these rates it doesn't make any sense for any company to hire in the bay area. There are amazing engineers elsewhere in the US and in the world who have much more reasonable salary expectations and also live in places with much more reasonable living expenses. Bay area engineers like to pretend that there are no people of their calibre elsewhere in the world, but that is just flat out wrong.
- p4wnc6 10y ago
  Not really. Developers who are good enough to command that wage in the Bay Area, but who live elsewhere, also know how good they are. They might be willing to take a slight pay cut from what the lives-in-Bay-Area person would be paid, but whatever the pay cut is, it will not be proportional to cost of living. E.g. if I could earn 400k living in SF, but you offer to pay me 200K living in Lincoln, Nebraska, I'll turn you down. Not because that's not a good wage for the area, but because it communicates to me, as a potential employee, that you are trying to effectively extract rents on my productivity. You know that I'd be worth at least 400K to your business, but you want to slurp up an extra 200K off the top of that by paying someone who resides elsewhere. As an employee, this says you don't value me according to what I can add, but instead are looking to minimize my share in what I produce, and will use geography as a convenient excuse for it. Beyond a certain level of salary, salary stops varying too much by cost of living or geography. If I make well over 200K per year in a major city, I'm going to expect someone else to pay me 200K/yr at least no matter where I live. I wouldn't even try to get other job offers to negotiate you on it -- I'll just simply believe you're not meritorcratic and flat out reject your offer and view your company skeptically from then on. Low-balling an exceptional engineer over geography is dysfunctional in the same way as working really hard to hire a senior, experienced engineer and then telling them "2 weeks vacation is the standard for all new hires.." or something. It's just a big red flag.
  - S4M 10y ago
    You have to bear in mind that the dollars productivity of a programmer (how much money that programmer brings) doesn't only depend of his/her skills, but also of the company he's working. A programmer can bring tens of millions a year if he works in HFT in a hedge fund, much less otherwise. Companies in the Bay area have access to more funding, and are (I assume) willing to pay good programmers the high salaries you mention to be able to bring quicker their products to market. A standard company isn't in that situation and paying 400k for a top programmer, as good as he may be, isn't probably just worth it (at least if that programmer is an individual contributor).
    - 10y ago

Bahamut 10y ago

Can verify - I turned down an opportunity for lead frontend work a year ago for $350k-400k (a lot of compensation in stock/bonuses, so it was variable), and that wasn't even at a big tech company. (For the curious, I opted for tremendous work-life balance instead)

chris11 10y ago
Where are you currently in your career? I'm kind of curious, because I never hear of compensation packages normally going up that high. So I'm wondering what skills companies are looking for at that price.
- Bahamut 10y ago
  At that point, I was 2 1/2 years in - that was a year ago. That was a rarity I think, although there are numerous stories of Netflix paying $300k+ now.
- chris_va 10y ago
  400k isn't unusual about 6 years in.

tensor 10y ago

At these rates it doesn't make any sense for any company to hire in the bay area. There are amazing engineers elsewhere in the US and in the world who have much more reasonable salary expectations and also live in places with much more reasonable living expenses. Bay area engineers like to pretend that there are no people of their calibre elsewhere in the world, but that is just flat out wrong.

p4wnc6 10y ago
Not really. Developers who are good enough to command that wage in the Bay Area, but who live elsewhere, also know how good they are. They might be willing to take a slight pay cut from what the lives-in-Bay-Area person would be paid, but whatever the pay cut is, it will not be proportional to cost of living. E.g. if I could earn 400k living in SF, but you offer to pay me 200K living in Lincoln, Nebraska, I'll turn you down. Not because that's not a good wage for the area, but because it communicates to me, as a potential employee, that you are trying to effectively extract rents on my productivity. You know that I'd be worth at least 400K to your business, but you want to slurp up an extra 200K off the top of that by paying someone who resides elsewhere. As an employee, this says you don't value me according to what I can add, but instead are looking to minimize my share in what I produce, and will use geography as a convenient excuse for it. Beyond a certain level of salary, salary stops varying too much by cost of living or geography. If I make well over 200K per year in a major city, I'm going to expect someone else to pay me 200K/yr at least no matter where I live. I wouldn't even try to get other job offers to negotiate you on it -- I'll just simply believe you're not meritorcratic and flat out reject your offer and view your company skeptically from then on. Low-balling an exceptional engineer over geography is dysfunctional in the same way as working really hard to hire a senior, experienced engineer and then telling them "2 weeks vacation is the standard for all new hires.." or something. It's just a big red flag.
- S4M 10y ago
  You have to bear in mind that the dollars productivity of a programmer (how much money that programmer brings) doesn't only depend of his/her skills, but also of the company he's working. A programmer can bring tens of millions a year if he works in HFT in a hedge fund, much less otherwise. Companies in the Bay area have access to more funding, and are (I assume) willing to pay good programmers the high salaries you mention to be able to bring quicker their products to market. A standard company isn't in that situation and paying 400k for a top programmer, as good as he may be, isn't probably just worth it (at least if that programmer is an individual contributor).
  - 10y ago