8 ms·

I feel like there's two tiers of the software industry: those employable at AmaFaceGoogFlix or a competitor, and everyone else; but the "everyone else" is compl

I feel like there's two tiers of the software industry: those employable at AmaFaceGoogFlix or a competitor, and everyone else; but the "everyone else" is completely unaware that the first tier exists. It's like if minor league baseball had no idea about major league baseball. You even see it on HN. Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". $250k is honestly on the average-lowish end for a senior eng at a major SV company in 2017. Much of the industry is not only unaware of reality but refuses to believe in it. This includes real engineers who do real work at real companies and comment actively on Hacker News. $250k for a senior engineer is just completely outside their reality. On my last job search, my best job offer was about 2x as high as the worst one. The guy who made the worst one--which was about 30-40% below my minimum stated range, depending on how you valued the equity, so he had been stringing me along, but anyway--he started arguing with me about my unrealistic expectations, and wouldn't stop talking until I told him I was going to hang up if he kept trying to talk me down. I know it's considered bad negotiation, but if I can't figure out the salary range of a job opening, I'll name my requirements up front. Over 50% of the time the conversation ends there. I know at least twice people assumed I was over-highballing as part of some misguided negotiating tactic when I actually was a little conservative.

corporateslave3 9y ago
Yeah I see this as well. Some recruiters will name a number less than my current comp, and be completely astounded that I am already making that much.
bit_logic 9y ago
The main reason for this is RSU. The base salary at those companies is not much more than rest of industry. But at senior levels the RSU matches or exceeds the entire base salary. Other companies have a hard time matching this. Startups try but the common wisdom now is to value those at zero. It seems only public traded companies stock is now considered as having value. And only public SV tech companies give these massive RSU to engineers. Other public companies don't do this. And they are not willing to match the RSU amounts with cash. It's possible this situation will only exist as long as this bull market. When the stock market bear comes, will these tech companies continue the massive RSU? And if not will they replace it with cash?
- cynicalkane 9y ago
  There's a point to this if you get a good startup job offer, but probably 95% or more of startup job offers are terrible. "You'll earn 50% below market, but if we make billions, your options will be worth a few hundred K per year once we have a liquidity event." No thanks. For big companies that pay market rates, stock can be valued, and GAAP actually requires it. So they're not saving any money on paper paying you in stock. Your total comp is their total comp. Usually, when you get a good offer including stock, it's from a company with worthwhile stock. Most startup offers aren't worth it even in wildly good scenarios.
  - yahna 9y ago
    But they are totally taking on all the risk and hard work. YOu just have to work insane hours for half of your worth with the risk of getting fired. That's no risk at all compared to being a founder, you should be grateful they gave you that (pre-dilution) 0.015% as employee number 1. After all you get ot build something great!
    - megous 9y ago
      Which is funny, given that much of their risk is probably just to reputation, if they are funded from angels and operate as a LLC, or whatever.
      - gozur88 9y ago
        I always assumed founders put at least some of their own money into the venture. Isn't that the norm? Were I a VC I wouldn't back someone without skin in the game.
- yahna 9y ago
  When you are north of 150k in base that's already considered pretty high for a lot of these other companies. Then you add in stock, bonus, etc... Adds up to a huge package.
- gpvos 9y ago
jensvdh 9y ago
$250k base or $250k INCLUDING stock??
- cynicalkane 9y ago
  The second one, but if you're not thinking about salary in terms of total comp, you're doing it wrong.
  - 5trokerac3 9y ago
    Sure, but $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets. It may be worth more than $1 in the long run, but when you're first handed it, you have to undervalue it, compared to hard cash. I'm a theoretical millionaire several times over, from stock options in startups that suffered the fate of the 99%. You can obviously put more value in the stock of a SV megalith, but even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket.
    - cynicalkane 9y ago
      Stock from a public SV firm is almost as good as cash, and comes with a large amount of lifestyle intangibles.
      - 5trokerac3 9y ago
        If you sell it as soon as you get it then it's good as cash. As for the lifestyle intangibles, does having to live in Los Gatos or Gilroy if you want to raise a family count as a perk?
    - umanwizard 9y ago
      > $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets Er, why not? Only difference is I have to pay a $5 trading fee on Schwab to turn stock into cash. So I guess $10,000 in stock is worth $9,995 in liquid assets. > even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Only if you hold the stock. Which nothing forces you to do. I can (and do) sell all of my tech company stock on the day it vests and buy other assets instead. I think you must have the wrong mental model of how RSUs work. Nothing forces you to hold the stock once it vests. It's yours, you can sell it and do whatever you want with the money. Usually when people at a public company say "I make X", X is the sum of base salary, cash bonus, and the value of RSUs that vest in a year.
Balgair 9y ago
It really reminds me of a power law distribution : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law Some are very well paid/employable/competent, but the vast majority are not. Many people think the job search should be like a normal/Gaussian distribution, most people rambling about the mean. But it's not that for the searcher nor the employer; the employees you want are to be paid on a power law, and the jobs you want are as a common as a power law. Curiously, this works for populations of cities, star luminosity, start-up success, and many other things.
flachsechs 9y ago
> I know it's considered bad negotiation it's not. the more assertive you are with your compensation requirements, the more likely you are to get paid what you want. i don't know where this crazy idea of "don't tell anyone what you want to be paid" came from, it sounds like some real amateur hour nonsense that will get you passed up in favor of someone who is more straight forward with the entire process. imagine trying to buy a product or service, but nobody will tell you how much it costs, but instead tries to subtly hint that you should name your price.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  > imagine trying to buy a product or service, but nobody will tell you how much it costs, but instead tries to subtly hint that you should name your price There are tons of products that don't have a listed prices, just a "call our sales representatives". Heck, the job listings don't list salary expectations, even when they're cold calling you.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - flachsechs 9y ago
    "call our sales representatives" means they'll tell you if you call. i'm guessing you never call, because you don't actually want to talk to anyone, which is exactly what they're trying to do: filter you out.
    - drewmol 9y ago
      It can mean: "you want to know the price? Well, that depends... How much is it worth to you?" Among plenty of other things
      - r00fus 9y ago
        Value-based pricing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing Best way to increase margins when the perceived "worth" is variable and it's a seller's market. Not so optimal in a market where you as a seller are in a buyers market.
orthoganol 9y ago
That tier distinction is way too fluid in my experience to claim it as a real thing; a large (not small) number of people I know who've worked at or work at Google easily belong in the 'minor leagues', but it's just an over the top confidence even arrogance, often combined with a lot of years of sticking with tech, that got them their job. Seriously, a lot of mediocre developers if you add a bunch of years (or a post grad degree), maybe a month of leetcode if they haven't already, and double their ego can a get a job there. (New hires get assigned to the uncompetitive, boring projects at Google, so there's that negative compensation too). Btw talking about total comp and not base salary is highly misleading. Yeah sure, by that standard with recent valuations I'm making >250k at a post Series A startup.
- yahna 9y ago
  Yeah well, that's what happens when you base your interview around algorithm trivia.
- xyzzyz 9y ago
  It is only misleading when you are talking about startups that give non-liquid equity. The difference between you and me is that I can sell my stock literally the moment it vests at pretty predictable price, while you can only use valuation to price it, are probably affected by liquidation preferences, and don't have buyers lined up for your stock.
0xBABAD00C 9y ago
I'm in the first camp, and there are people who think we are ridiculously underpaid. "If you're so good, how come you haven't hit seven figures?" is something I've heard a couple of times already. So there is a tier above us too. Go figure...
- wheelerwj 9y ago
  I've heard of several engineers at the bigger companies who make 7 figures, but basically they are not only engineers working on active projects but are also putting their names on patents.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jcadam 9y ago
I still don't believe the $250k figure :) I make exactly half of that here in Florida (a fairly low cost area) as a senior dev and my salary has definitely plateaued (and I haven't had a raise in a few years). I know I make more than most of my peers and local recruiters scoff when I tell them my current pay (I had to talk my current employer up about $30k just to match my salary at my previous employer to get me to switch -- and they only did so because they were quite obviously desperate).
- jedberg 9y ago
  H1B data is public. You can see exactly how much they are offering H1Bs, which most people assume to be lowballing. The median for Google is $127K, but that includes junior engineers. Sort by salary to see the senior roles. And then remember that this is just base salary. Usually, the RSUs are almost equal to the salary when granted, and sometimes double in value over the four years they vest. http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE&job=SOFTWARE+ENGINEER&city=MOUNTAIN+VIEW&year=2017 http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE&job=SOFTWARE+ENGINEE...
  - sjg007 9y ago
    This is a good data set to calibrate in larger orgs or an industry. You should be within a std deviation I would say for your role. Software engineers are lucky in that we can work across industries.
- wwalser 9y ago
  Do you mean that you actually don't believe it? As in, "I think that's a false statement"? Or do you mean that you're jokingly in "a state of disbelief", as in… surprised or taken aback? I have friends in low cost areas that make around what you're describing. They don't continue doing that because of willful disbelief, they understand that they could move and make 2.5x their current income. They just like the lifestyle. Which, totally makes sense to me. It's an amazing lifestyle.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    Perhaps somewhere in between. While $250k sounds high for a pure code-slinger, I'm willing to believe a few companies (Google, Microsoft, et. al.) choose to pay a small number of their top devs that kind of money. On the other hand, competition for dev jobs in general is so fierce (as in the supply of great devs outstrips the demand by a large margin) that I can't imagine it would be difficult to fill those same positions at a significantly lower salary (or total comp, whatever -- I've never held a job that pays equity or bonuses in any non-trivial amount).
ppeetteerr 9y ago
Perhaps it's the major league baseball that doesn't believe in the minor league baseball ;)
ep103 9y ago
Who are the competitors to AmaFaceGoogFlix? I'm based out of nyc, and the common logic here is that dev salaries start maxing out in the 150-170 range. If you go to a hedge fund, you can get more, maybe pop 200. But for more than that? You have to go to AmaFaceGoogFlix.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
  If you're working for finance total comp (if not base salary) is definitely going to rival the biggest tech players. From what I've seen 150-170 base is the minimum for senior devs then you talking bonuses or stock for at least another 25-50%. If you're working for a hedgefund you're talking bonuses of X00% so it almost doesn't make sense to compare base salaries. The startup story, at least in nyc, is pretty different. Best I can tell few of those players are willing to even try to compete on a base salary (or total comp) with any of the larger players. This is a relatively small sample size, ymmv etc.
ryandrake 9y ago
> Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". That's the thing. On one side, you have people who at least have a bit of publicly available data to point to (although sure, one could point out flaws in salary.com and glassdoor.com). On the other side, you have random people saying "Bro, you're totally wrong, lots of people make $400k." Even if I didn't have a dog in this race, I know which side I'd believe.
- gozur88 9y ago
  I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe. And these are people with highly specialized skillsets in addition to their software development skills - pattern recognition, for instance. You're not going to get a job like that because you know Python really well. Asking a software developer "Why aren't you making $400k?" is a lot like asking a random mid-level manager why he isn't the CEO of a Fortune 100 company.
  - lj3 9y ago
    > I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe. This is the thing that annoys me the most about these conversations. Some people take a few outliers and use them as proof that the rest of the bell curve is [ bad at negotiating | incompetent | lazy ]. Drives me nuts. I can name several multimillionaire business owners. Nobody's going around saying your bootstrapped one man startup should be raking in multiple millions of dollars a year or there's something wrong with you.
    - ryandrake 9y ago
      These "HN salary" threads would be a lot less annoying if those guys would just admit "Yea, $300K or $400K is super rare, for outlier folks out outlier companies who have outlier skills," rather than the usual "Lots of people make that! Just negotiate better, bro!!" bluster.
nogbit 9y ago
And then there is a third that those in AmaFaceGoogFlix are completely unaware that the tier above them pwned them long ago, governments.

corporateslave3 9y ago

Yeah I see this as well. Some recruiters will name a number less than my current comp, and be completely astounded that I am already making that much.

bit_logic 9y ago

The main reason for this is RSU. The base salary at those companies is not much more than rest of industry. But at senior levels the RSU matches or exceeds the entire base salary. Other companies have a hard time matching this. Startups try but the common wisdom now is to value those at zero. It seems only public traded companies stock is now considered as having value. And only public SV tech companies give these massive RSU to engineers. Other public companies don't do this. And they are not willing to match the RSU amounts with cash. It's possible this situation will only exist as long as this bull market. When the stock market bear comes, will these tech companies continue the massive RSU? And if not will they replace it with cash?

cynicalkane 9y ago
There's a point to this if you get a good startup job offer, but probably 95% or more of startup job offers are terrible. "You'll earn 50% below market, but if we make billions, your options will be worth a few hundred K per year once we have a liquidity event." No thanks. For big companies that pay market rates, stock can be valued, and GAAP actually requires it. So they're not saving any money on paper paying you in stock. Your total comp is their total comp. Usually, when you get a good offer including stock, it's from a company with worthwhile stock. Most startup offers aren't worth it even in wildly good scenarios.
- yahna 9y ago
  But they are totally taking on all the risk and hard work. YOu just have to work insane hours for half of your worth with the risk of getting fired. That's no risk at all compared to being a founder, you should be grateful they gave you that (pre-dilution) 0.015% as employee number 1. After all you get ot build something great!
  - megous 9y ago
    Which is funny, given that much of their risk is probably just to reputation, if they are funded from angels and operate as a LLC, or whatever.
    - gozur88 9y ago
      I always assumed founders put at least some of their own money into the venture. Isn't that the norm? Were I a VC I wouldn't back someone without skin in the game.
yahna 9y ago
When you are north of 150k in base that's already considered pretty high for a lot of these other companies. Then you add in stock, bonus, etc... Adds up to a huge package.
gpvos 9y ago

jensvdh 9y ago

$250k base or $250k INCLUDING stock??

cynicalkane 9y ago
The second one, but if you're not thinking about salary in terms of total comp, you're doing it wrong.
- 5trokerac3 9y ago
  Sure, but $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets. It may be worth more than $1 in the long run, but when you're first handed it, you have to undervalue it, compared to hard cash. I'm a theoretical millionaire several times over, from stock options in startups that suffered the fate of the 99%. You can obviously put more value in the stock of a SV megalith, but even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket.
  - cynicalkane 9y ago
    Stock from a public SV firm is almost as good as cash, and comes with a large amount of lifestyle intangibles.
    - 5trokerac3 9y ago
      If you sell it as soon as you get it then it's good as cash. As for the lifestyle intangibles, does having to live in Los Gatos or Gilroy if you want to raise a family count as a perk?
  - umanwizard 9y ago
    > $1 of stock isn't worth $1 of liquid assets Er, why not? Only difference is I have to pay a $5 trading fee on Schwab to turn stock into cash. So I guess $10,000 in stock is worth $9,995 in liquid assets. > even then, you're putting a lot of eggs in one basket. Only if you hold the stock. Which nothing forces you to do. I can (and do) sell all of my tech company stock on the day it vests and buy other assets instead. I think you must have the wrong mental model of how RSUs work. Nothing forces you to hold the stock once it vests. It's yours, you can sell it and do whatever you want with the money. Usually when people at a public company say "I make X", X is the sum of base salary, cash bonus, and the value of RSUs that vest in a year.

Balgair 9y ago

It really reminds me of a power law distribution : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law Some are very well paid/employable/competent, but the vast majority are not. Many people think the job search should be like a normal/Gaussian distribution, most people rambling about the mean. But it's not that for the searcher nor the employer; the employees you want are to be paid on a power law, and the jobs you want are as a common as a power law. Curiously, this works for populations of cities, star luminosity, start-up success, and many other things.

flachsechs 9y ago

> I know it's considered bad negotiation it's not. the more assertive you are with your compensation requirements, the more likely you are to get paid what you want. i don't know where this crazy idea of "don't tell anyone what you want to be paid" came from, it sounds like some real amateur hour nonsense that will get you passed up in favor of someone who is more straight forward with the entire process. imagine trying to buy a product or service, but nobody will tell you how much it costs, but instead tries to subtly hint that you should name your price.

humanrebar 9y ago
> imagine trying to buy a product or service, but nobody will tell you how much it costs, but instead tries to subtly hint that you should name your price There are tons of products that don't have a listed prices, just a "call our sales representatives". Heck, the job listings don't list salary expectations, even when they're cold calling you.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- flachsechs 9y ago
  "call our sales representatives" means they'll tell you if you call. i'm guessing you never call, because you don't actually want to talk to anyone, which is exactly what they're trying to do: filter you out.
  - drewmol 9y ago
    It can mean: "you want to know the price? Well, that depends... How much is it worth to you?" Among plenty of other things
    - r00fus 9y ago
      Value-based pricing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value-based_pricing Best way to increase margins when the perceived "worth" is variable and it's a seller's market. Not so optimal in a market where you as a seller are in a buyers market.

orthoganol 9y ago

That tier distinction is way too fluid in my experience to claim it as a real thing; a large (not small) number of people I know who've worked at or work at Google easily belong in the 'minor leagues', but it's just an over the top confidence even arrogance, often combined with a lot of years of sticking with tech, that got them their job. Seriously, a lot of mediocre developers if you add a bunch of years (or a post grad degree), maybe a month of leetcode if they haven't already, and double their ego can a get a job there. (New hires get assigned to the uncompetitive, boring projects at Google, so there's that negative compensation too). Btw talking about total comp and not base salary is highly misleading. Yeah sure, by that standard with recent valuations I'm making >250k at a post Series A startup.

yahna 9y ago
Yeah well, that's what happens when you base your interview around algorithm trivia.
xyzzyz 9y ago
It is only misleading when you are talking about startups that give non-liquid equity. The difference between you and me is that I can sell my stock literally the moment it vests at pretty predictable price, while you can only use valuation to price it, are probably affected by liquidation preferences, and don't have buyers lined up for your stock.

0xBABAD00C 9y ago

I'm in the first camp, and there are people who think we are ridiculously underpaid. "If you're so good, how come you haven't hit seven figures?" is something I've heard a couple of times already. So there is a tier above us too. Go figure...

wheelerwj 9y ago
I've heard of several engineers at the bigger companies who make 7 figures, but basically they are not only engineers working on active projects but are also putting their names on patents.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

jcadam 9y ago

I still don't believe the $250k figure :) I make exactly half of that here in Florida (a fairly low cost area) as a senior dev and my salary has definitely plateaued (and I haven't had a raise in a few years). I know I make more than most of my peers and local recruiters scoff when I tell them my current pay (I had to talk my current employer up about $30k just to match my salary at my previous employer to get me to switch -- and they only did so because they were quite obviously desperate).

jedberg 9y ago
H1B data is public. You can see exactly how much they are offering H1Bs, which most people assume to be lowballing. The median for Google is $127K, but that includes junior engineers. Sort by salary to see the senior roles. And then remember that this is just base salary. Usually, the RSUs are almost equal to the salary when granted, and sometimes double in value over the four years they vest. http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE&job=SOFTWARE+ENGINEER&city=MOUNTAIN+VIEW&year=2017 http://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=GOOGLE&job=SOFTWARE+ENGINEE...
- sjg007 9y ago
  This is a good data set to calibrate in larger orgs or an industry. You should be within a std deviation I would say for your role. Software engineers are lucky in that we can work across industries.
wwalser 9y ago
Do you mean that you actually don't believe it? As in, "I think that's a false statement"? Or do you mean that you're jokingly in "a state of disbelief", as in… surprised or taken aback? I have friends in low cost areas that make around what you're describing. They don't continue doing that because of willful disbelief, they understand that they could move and make 2.5x their current income. They just like the lifestyle. Which, totally makes sense to me. It's an amazing lifestyle.
- jcadam 9y ago
  Perhaps somewhere in between. While $250k sounds high for a pure code-slinger, I'm willing to believe a few companies (Google, Microsoft, et. al.) choose to pay a small number of their top devs that kind of money. On the other hand, competition for dev jobs in general is so fierce (as in the supply of great devs outstrips the demand by a large margin) that I can't imagine it would be difficult to fill those same positions at a significantly lower salary (or total comp, whatever -- I've never held a job that pays equity or bonuses in any non-trivial amount).

ppeetteerr 9y ago

Perhaps it's the major league baseball that doesn't believe in the minor league baseball ;)

ep103 9y ago

Who are the competitors to AmaFaceGoogFlix? I'm based out of nyc, and the common logic here is that dev salaries start maxing out in the 150-170 range. If you go to a hedge fund, you can get more, maybe pop 200. But for more than that? You have to go to AmaFaceGoogFlix.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lordCarbonFiber 9y ago
If you're working for finance total comp (if not base salary) is definitely going to rival the biggest tech players. From what I've seen 150-170 base is the minimum for senior devs then you talking bonuses or stock for at least another 25-50%. If you're working for a hedgefund you're talking bonuses of X00% so it almost doesn't make sense to compare base salaries. The startup story, at least in nyc, is pretty different. Best I can tell few of those players are willing to even try to compete on a base salary (or total comp) with any of the larger players. This is a relatively small sample size, ymmv etc.

ryandrake 9y ago

> Someone will come along and talk about how a senior dev at Google can expect $250k a year. You'll get two categories of replies: "I don't believe this at all, Glassdoor proves you are wrong, nobody I know makes that, blah blah" and "bro that is totally normal". That's the thing. On one side, you have people who at least have a bit of publicly available data to point to (although sure, one could point out flaws in salary.com and glassdoor.com). On the other side, you have random people saying "Bro, you're totally wrong, lots of people make $400k." Even if I didn't have a dog in this race, I know which side I'd believe.

gozur88 9y ago
I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe. And these are people with highly specialized skillsets in addition to their software development skills - pattern recognition, for instance. You're not going to get a job like that because you know Python really well. Asking a software developer "Why aren't you making $400k?" is a lot like asking a random mid-level manager why he isn't the CEO of a Fortune 100 company.
- lj3 9y ago
  > I know people who are making mid six figures working for Google-tier companies. But I don't think there are very many of those kinds of people - hundreds, maybe. This is the thing that annoys me the most about these conversations. Some people take a few outliers and use them as proof that the rest of the bell curve is [ bad at negotiating | incompetent | lazy ]. Drives me nuts. I can name several multimillionaire business owners. Nobody's going around saying your bootstrapped one man startup should be raking in multiple millions of dollars a year or there's something wrong with you.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    These "HN salary" threads would be a lot less annoying if those guys would just admit "Yea, $300K or $400K is super rare, for outlier folks out outlier companies who have outlier skills," rather than the usual "Lots of people make that! Just negotiate better, bro!!" bluster.

nogbit 9y ago

And then there is a third that those in AmaFaceGoogFlix are completely unaware that the tier above them pwned them long ago, governments.