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TIL I'm very glad I don't work for Stack Overflow and feel very bad for the underpaid devs who do. Apparently, with only 5 years experience, my salary has ecli

TIL I'm very glad I don't work for Stack Overflow and feel very bad for the underpaid devs who do. Apparently, with only 5 years experience, my salary has eclipsed a maxed out 25 year veteran of "5" skill. Not to mention my salary is only about half of my total compensation. I don't say this to brag, but to help raise awareness to the underpaid devs out there. You have to stand up for yourself, realize your value and fight with these companies to pay you what you are really worth.

jsmeaton 10y ago
Are you living around SV? Are you also working at one of the top tier companies? From my experience and from some others here the tool is reporting decent salaries. It seems most of those disagreeing are from companies in the valley.
WhitneyLand 10y ago
Do you have to work in the SF or other expensive area, or can you be totally remote like Stack Overflow? I'd be really interested to hear your examples of companies that pay significantly more and allow you live in a low cost/high quality city.
ap22213 10y ago
People in software generally suck at negotiation. And, salary transparency just reduces overall salaries and increases profit for the company. Why? because a software developer will say, 'Wow, I can get paid that much for doing something that I love? Sure!', and they'll take whatever they're given. But, ask yourself, do you think the person in sales does the same thing? The person in finance or marketing? Look, you don't need to be a world-class developer to make $200k / year. You just have to be 1% better than the developer making $190k / year. As a baseline, a typical services / contracting company will bill a senior developer at $190 / hour. The math is straight-forward. This works for product companies, as well. You and your 20-person engineering team build a product that ends up being worth $100M? (completely realistic, btw) Yeah, even at paying $200k / year, the company and investors are making out. It's funny, actually. For all of the software people that I know who are self-described libertarians, when it comes to their salary they are willing to lean socialist.
metaphorm 10y ago
where do you live and where do you work?
- SmellTheGlove 10y ago
  Notice this question has been asked 3x and not answered. 150k remote gets you a lot further than 300k in SV unless you want to live with 10 of your best friends.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    I did notice. People lie about this stuff for their own ego boosting. Which is weird because, you know, its the internet and its anonymous. They're only lying to themselves really.
    - SmellTheGlove 10y ago
      He doesn't even need to be lying. He could have a huge salary offset by a massive cost of living, so we only discuss the first number for appearances. It's sometimes envy-inducing for me to look at what other data-oriented directors make and compare it to my own comp. But I also live in Maine, and somehow, in walking distance to the beach and "only" 90 minutes to Boston. Cost of living matters massively, especially once you have a family, kids and want to own instead of rent. Even if I ditch the coastal part, I'm not sure I even want to look at what a comparable 3 bedroom, 2000 sq ft home would cost anywhere near SF or Silicon Valley. Screw it, I'm gonna look: http://move2siliconvalley.com/tag/real-estate/ http://move2siliconvalley.com/tag/real-estate/ Let's pick Campbell because it's somewhere in the middle, I like Rancid and Lars Frederiksen. $648/sqft, and generally under a quarter acre lot. You got 1.3M I could borrow? That's like 5 of my houses. Roughly $6500 a month (78k a year) factoring in property taxes. Suddenly 300k a year doesn't seem like a whole lot once you pay your taxes and put a roof over your family's head.

jsmeaton 10y ago

Are you living around SV? Are you also working at one of the top tier companies? From my experience and from some others here the tool is reporting decent salaries. It seems most of those disagreeing are from companies in the valley.

WhitneyLand 10y ago

Do you have to work in the SF or other expensive area, or can you be totally remote like Stack Overflow? I'd be really interested to hear your examples of companies that pay significantly more and allow you live in a low cost/high quality city.

ap22213 10y ago

People in software generally suck at negotiation. And, salary transparency just reduces overall salaries and increases profit for the company. Why? because a software developer will say, 'Wow, I can get paid that much for doing something that I love? Sure!', and they'll take whatever they're given. But, ask yourself, do you think the person in sales does the same thing? The person in finance or marketing? Look, you don't need to be a world-class developer to make $200k / year. You just have to be 1% better than the developer making $190k / year. As a baseline, a typical services / contracting company will bill a senior developer at $190 / hour. The math is straight-forward. This works for product companies, as well. You and your 20-person engineering team build a product that ends up being worth $100M? (completely realistic, btw) Yeah, even at paying $200k / year, the company and investors are making out. It's funny, actually. For all of the software people that I know who are self-described libertarians, when it comes to their salary they are willing to lean socialist.

metaphorm 10y ago

where do you live and where do you work?

SmellTheGlove 10y ago
Notice this question has been asked 3x and not answered. 150k remote gets you a lot further than 300k in SV unless you want to live with 10 of your best friends.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  I did notice. People lie about this stuff for their own ego boosting. Which is weird because, you know, its the internet and its anonymous. They're only lying to themselves really.
  - SmellTheGlove 10y ago
    He doesn't even need to be lying. He could have a huge salary offset by a massive cost of living, so we only discuss the first number for appearances. It's sometimes envy-inducing for me to look at what other data-oriented directors make and compare it to my own comp. But I also live in Maine, and somehow, in walking distance to the beach and "only" 90 minutes to Boston. Cost of living matters massively, especially once you have a family, kids and want to own instead of rent. Even if I ditch the coastal part, I'm not sure I even want to look at what a comparable 3 bedroom, 2000 sq ft home would cost anywhere near SF or Silicon Valley. Screw it, I'm gonna look: http://move2siliconvalley.com/tag/real-estate/ http://move2siliconvalley.com/tag/real-estate/ Let's pick Campbell because it's somewhere in the middle, I like Rancid and Lars Frederiksen. $648/sqft, and generally under a quarter acre lot. You got 1.3M I could borrow? That's like 5 of my houses. Roughly $6500 a month (78k a year) factoring in property taxes. Suddenly 300k a year doesn't seem like a whole lot once you pay your taxes and put a roof over your family's head.