I'm sure FB and Google offer more but they're not most tech companies! London is also more expensive than Cambridge (I doubt you'll buy a house a short distanc

I'm sure FB and Google offer more but they're not most tech companies! London is also more expensive than Cambridge (I doubt you'll buy a house a short distance from the office in London on a mid-level engineers salary at Google/Facebook, you can happily do that in Cambridge at ARM). I'd also note hard-tech stuff just seems to attract less money than web/social (see how the recent linked-in acquisition by MS wasn't for much less cash than the Softbank ARM deal). I'm not saying ARM is super generous with their compensation compare to other tech giants, but you get a pretty reasonable deal, and it's a nice place work with interesting things to work on. (I work at ARM)