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I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shoc

I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Even the salary figures themselves look low and are probably heavily skewed by an overrepresentation of underpaying startups. My base salary ~4 years ago was in the 90th percentile according to this. It’s unlikely I was among the 10% highest paid Bay Area engineers at that time. Don’t settle for a mediocre salary in an area with absurdly high cost of living. Don’t be satisfied with these averages. Funded startups will pay more if they need to.

ringaroundthetx 9y ago
Yes, your analysis is correct. This is why the transparency is important. Check out www.h1bdata.info for what h1b holders are getting paid. The US Department of Labor forces this disclosure and is pretty up to date. Your tiny startup's cheap workers are probably in there too and you can deduce exactly who they are even though the names aren't in the disclosures.
- cairo140 9y ago
  H-1B applications often exclude expected value of bonus and RSUs (mine does) and can understate comp at bigtech by ~60k (entry level) to ~150k (mid level) to ~300k+ (senior+).
  - klipt 9y ago
    Yeah the salary listed on the Labor Condition Application is a minimum the company must meet or exceed. When I was on H1-B it was lower than my actual salary.
  - grad_ml 9y ago
    Always.
vonmoltke 9y ago
> RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Is this really true for more than the top subset? For instance, are there really a significant number of engineers at Oracle or Cisco getting that much non-salary compensation?
- bgentry 9y ago
  I haven’t heard about how those two companies pay. It’s definitely a common occurrence at Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, & Salesforce. Bonuses are often structured as a % of your base salary based upon your rank. More senior engineers will get an extra 10-25% each year essentially automatically. This is separate from RSUs, which vary a lot more widely. Their value is especially dependent upon company stock performance.
  - Domenic_S 9y ago
    Add eBay and Paypal.
  - vonmoltke 9y ago
    Those are in the top subset I was referring to. Most engineers working for established companies are not working for that subset. I'm not aware of Oracle, Cisco, or similar-tier companies giving stock grants to engineers. Cash bonuses are a different animal. I agree with your range (at least if you exclude defense contractors). Those alone are well short of doubling compensation, though.
    - lostboys67 9y ago
      Many FTSE 100 companies in the UK do have share save schemes available to all employees
  - onion2k 9y ago
    More senior engineers will get an extra 10-25% each year essentially automatically. The reason part of your salary is a bonus rather than the base is so that it can be withheld if necessary, eg in a bad year. Believing that bonus is an automatic extra 10% will, one day, leave you 10% short of your expectations.
whataretensors 9y ago
Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.
- JonFish85 9y ago
  "Don't settle for common stock" Unless you're a C-level employee, you're not going to have the choice. And even then you're probably still not going to have a choice except in very rare cases (e.g. Uber's new CEO might have some decent protections). If you're "just" an employee, you're going to get laughed at if you demand anything besides common stock.
  - regulation_d 9y ago
    Honestly, I'd be surprised if any employees, C-level or not, get preferred stock. Unless you're putting skin in the game, you're probably stuck with common stock.
    - vkou 9y ago
      Working for below market rates is putting skin in the game.
      - angersock 9y ago
        "B-but but but muh founder status!" </s> It's a scam.
      - csallen 9y ago
        The reality of the situation is that it's not about what you do, but about how hard it is to find someone else to do what you do. If it's easy to find programmers who will work for below-market rates, but hard to find investors who will contribute millions of dollars, then you can expect programmers to have much less negotiating power.
SmellTheGlove 9y ago
> I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. I agree with your overall message, but base salary itself is very important. That's what puts a roof over your family's head and food on the table. Bonuses and RSUs might accelerate retirement, but I wouldn't put them into the overall household budget.
- bgentry 9y ago
  Completely agree! Even a substantial portion of your base salary should go into savings & retirement rather than being spent. Easier said than done in the Bay Area without 2 good salaries, especially for those with kids.
- pm24601 9y ago
  I would go even further. Too often devs overvalue RSUs / options, etc. Such things are great - but even at Apple, the return on RSUs is going to level off or become less reliable. RSU / options are lottery tickets not a reliable income stream.
  - bgentry 9y ago
    RSUs and options are very different. RSUs are shares that the company gives to you, and for a public company you can sell them almost immediately to convert them to real cash. Their value fluctuates as does the company’s stock, but it is still real income. The rational thing to do is usually to sell all or most of the shares as soon as they vest and not to gamble on future returns. Options at startups are basically worth nothing, unless/until the company becomes a breakout success. Even then you generally can’t sell them unless there is an IPO or you do a second market deal. These really are a lot like a lottery ticket. I won’t get into all the ways options can be worthless even if the company does well enough to IPO, and you actually managed to exercise / keep the shares you vested. Also, some later stage non-public startups issue RSUs instead of options. These too are closer to a lottery ticket.
- 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
turtles 9y ago
Had been thinking of moving to CA, but might as well stay in Sydney by the sounds of it.
- mceoin 9y ago
  Perhaps, but you might learn more in CA; bigger market, moves faster, more experienced co-workers, stronger culture of entrepreneurship, generally bigger thinkers. Worst case scenario is that after earning USD for 2 years on an E3 visa, you return home more experienced than your peers with "Silicon Valley Startup Experience" in your resume, if that is something that appeals to you. Stronger startup ecosystem on the small scale, bigger problem sets on the large scale. Don't get me wrong, the startup and tech scene in Sydney has grown into a solid network over the last 5 years, but you have to weigh that against the certain knowledge the Bay Area accounts for 40% of U.S. venture funding and even that pales in comparison to the tech giants who are either based or have sizable offices here. In terms of lifestyle, Sydney will always win. I suspect this is why there is such a strong loop back home after Aussies spending some time here.
firstplacelast 9y ago
Software engineers are shooting themselves in the foot. When you live in a society built around greed, it is imperative that you push to collect as much of the value you create. Unions can be extremely helpful. SWE would be the perfect people to build new custom solutions for unions to get around many of the negative externalities caused by unions. However, people don't want to unionize while they still have leverage. When software engineers are finally ready to unionize, they're going to have way less leverage and get much worse deals.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  I'd be more interested in a guild or craft association than a union. I don't find collective bargaining, closed shops, standardized pay schedules, and some other features of unions to be compelling.
  - meddlepal 9y ago
    Agree. I'd much rather we organize the same way lawyers with their Bar Associations operate.
    - wils1245 9y ago
      Kind of an ironic example, lawyers have terrible working conditions. Pay is great, but the partner system of advancement is dehumanizing, and encourages cutthroat behavior and insane working hours.
      - voidfunc 9y ago
        I'm not looking to model the law firm model. That's a different system and much closer to a Consulting/Professional Services outfit. The bar is an accreditation and verification system as well as a means for upholding ethical standards across the membership.
      - favorited 9y ago
        Even lawyer pay isn't as great as it may appear. See: "Lawyer Salaries Are Weird" http://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-curve/ http://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-cu...
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
> I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. Are you kidding me? I go and check salaries on Glassdoor and find out that about $85k/year is still the standard here in Boston for junior and mid-level engineers. And you're telling me that a median of $134k/year in the Bay Area is low?
- skj 9y ago
  Yes. In NYC too.
- logicfiction 9y ago
  I think there is a growing dichotomy of companies. The ecosystem I'm exposed to, 6 figures for mid-level seems normal. I'd only imagine the very early stage startups would fall outside that. This is in Boston proper and Cambridge. I do think median ranges start to fall outside the main metro area as you get to the 128 belt though.
- skgoa 9y ago
  Yes. Salaries in the SF bay area and NYC are ridiculous. Unfortunately cost of living expenses in those areas are ridiculous as well, which makes it far less worth it to move there for the average person than one would think.
shmerl 9y ago
They don't look low to me.
oppositelock 9y ago
Only use these statistics as a guideline, and negotiate the hell out of your compensation, even at a startup. You would be shocked at how much leeway companies have in compensation if they need your skill set. I've worked at preeminent silicon valley companies, middle of the road ones, and startups (been doing this way too long I guess). I've managed to sign for almost 50% over their initial offer a couple of times. The hardest place to negotiate turned out to be the mid-size companies which aren't floating in money like Google, or aren't pissing away money like a startup. When they ask, "how much are you currently making", just politely say that you would rather not go down that route, and please make me an offer you feel is fair for my skill set, and start from there. Hiring managers and departments do this a lot, and know all the numbers, and you, who change jobs infrequently don't have up to date info. What's shocking is how fast silicon valley salaries are increasing. When I started this software engineering gig in the mid 1990's, a great offer for a fresh grad out of school was $45,000. Inflation adjusted, that's around $75,000 today. When my small company hires today, I get the special joy of making counter-offers against Facebook and Google, these two companies are simply nuts. Recently lost a fresh grad from a first tier CS school to an offer of $150k annual with $100k starting bonus from Facebook, not to mention RSU. Effectively $350k for the first year for a student with a bachelor of science. It's nuts. This guy was really good, but more realistic offers only lack that starting bonus.
- mceoin 9y ago
  It is now illegal for employers to ask about past salary: [first article I googled] https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/salary-history-law-california/ https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/salary-history-la...
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Well, as of Jan 1st it will be, anyway.
  - perl4ever 9y ago
    I'm not sure how laws like that help if an employer has access to information about past salary so they don't have to ask. There is an Equifax service that keeps track of past jobs to some extent. It isn't necessarily accurate or complete, but it exists - https://www.theworknumber.com/ https://www.theworknumber.com/
eccbits 9y ago
Obviously there is motivation for Triplebyte, as any recruiting agency, to pick data that is lower. This encourages engineers to accept offers from TB clients vs others. (Similarly, promoting higher figures to companies/clients encourages higher offers & higher close rates.
mathattack 9y ago
The numbers seem reasonable. They don't include bonus and equity, and they are averages. Google/Fbook/Uber aren't "average" in their comp.
heedlessly2 9y ago
I don't think anyone outside the BayBubble thinks the devs are underpaid

ringaroundthetx 9y ago

Yes, your analysis is correct. This is why the transparency is important. Check out www.h1bdata.info for what h1b holders are getting paid. The US Department of Labor forces this disclosure and is pretty up to date. Your tiny startup's cheap workers are probably in there too and you can deduce exactly who they are even though the names aren't in the disclosures.

cairo140 9y ago
H-1B applications often exclude expected value of bonus and RSUs (mine does) and can understate comp at bigtech by ~60k (entry level) to ~150k (mid level) to ~300k+ (senior+).
- klipt 9y ago
  Yeah the salary listed on the Labor Condition Application is a minimum the company must meet or exceed. When I was on H1-B it was lower than my actual salary.
- grad_ml 9y ago
  Always.

vonmoltke 9y ago

> RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Is this really true for more than the top subset? For instance, are there really a significant number of engineers at Oracle or Cisco getting that much non-salary compensation?

bgentry 9y ago
I haven’t heard about how those two companies pay. It’s definitely a common occurrence at Google, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, & Salesforce. Bonuses are often structured as a % of your base salary based upon your rank. More senior engineers will get an extra 10-25% each year essentially automatically. This is separate from RSUs, which vary a lot more widely. Their value is especially dependent upon company stock performance.
- Domenic_S 9y ago
  Add eBay and Paypal.
- vonmoltke 9y ago
  Those are in the top subset I was referring to. Most engineers working for established companies are not working for that subset. I'm not aware of Oracle, Cisco, or similar-tier companies giving stock grants to engineers. Cash bonuses are a different animal. I agree with your range (at least if you exclude defense contractors). Those alone are well short of doubling compensation, though.
  - lostboys67 9y ago
    Many FTSE 100 companies in the UK do have share save schemes available to all employees
- onion2k 9y ago
  More senior engineers will get an extra 10-25% each year essentially automatically. The reason part of your salary is a bonus rather than the base is so that it can be withheld if necessary, eg in a bad year. Believing that bonus is an automatic extra 10% will, one day, leave you 10% short of your expectations.

whataretensors 9y ago

Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.

JonFish85 9y ago
"Don't settle for common stock" Unless you're a C-level employee, you're not going to have the choice. And even then you're probably still not going to have a choice except in very rare cases (e.g. Uber's new CEO might have some decent protections). If you're "just" an employee, you're going to get laughed at if you demand anything besides common stock.
- regulation_d 9y ago
  Honestly, I'd be surprised if any employees, C-level or not, get preferred stock. Unless you're putting skin in the game, you're probably stuck with common stock.
  - vkou 9y ago
    Working for below market rates is putting skin in the game.
    - angersock 9y ago
      "B-but but but muh founder status!" </s> It's a scam.
    - csallen 9y ago
      The reality of the situation is that it's not about what you do, but about how hard it is to find someone else to do what you do. If it's easy to find programmers who will work for below-market rates, but hard to find investors who will contribute millions of dollars, then you can expect programmers to have much less negotiating power.

SmellTheGlove 9y ago

> I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. I agree with your overall message, but base salary itself is very important. That's what puts a roof over your family's head and food on the table. Bonuses and RSUs might accelerate retirement, but I wouldn't put them into the overall household budget.

bgentry 9y ago
Completely agree! Even a substantial portion of your base salary should go into savings & retirement rather than being spent. Easier said than done in the Bay Area without 2 good salaries, especially for those with kids.
pm24601 9y ago
I would go even further. Too often devs overvalue RSUs / options, etc. Such things are great - but even at Apple, the return on RSUs is going to level off or become less reliable. RSU / options are lottery tickets not a reliable income stream.
- bgentry 9y ago
  RSUs and options are very different. RSUs are shares that the company gives to you, and for a public company you can sell them almost immediately to convert them to real cash. Their value fluctuates as does the company’s stock, but it is still real income. The rational thing to do is usually to sell all or most of the shares as soon as they vest and not to gamble on future returns. Options at startups are basically worth nothing, unless/until the company becomes a breakout success. Even then you generally can’t sell them unless there is an IPO or you do a second market deal. These really are a lot like a lottery ticket. I won’t get into all the ways options can be worthless even if the company does well enough to IPO, and you actually managed to exercise / keep the shares you vested. Also, some later stage non-public startups issue RSUs instead of options. These too are closer to a lottery ticket.
9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

turtles 9y ago

Had been thinking of moving to CA, but might as well stay in Sydney by the sounds of it.

mceoin 9y ago
Perhaps, but you might learn more in CA; bigger market, moves faster, more experienced co-workers, stronger culture of entrepreneurship, generally bigger thinkers. Worst case scenario is that after earning USD for 2 years on an E3 visa, you return home more experienced than your peers with "Silicon Valley Startup Experience" in your resume, if that is something that appeals to you. Stronger startup ecosystem on the small scale, bigger problem sets on the large scale. Don't get me wrong, the startup and tech scene in Sydney has grown into a solid network over the last 5 years, but you have to weigh that against the certain knowledge the Bay Area accounts for 40% of U.S. venture funding and even that pales in comparison to the tech giants who are either based or have sizable offices here. In terms of lifestyle, Sydney will always win. I suspect this is why there is such a strong loop back home after Aussies spending some time here.

firstplacelast 9y ago

Software engineers are shooting themselves in the foot. When you live in a society built around greed, it is imperative that you push to collect as much of the value you create. Unions can be extremely helpful. SWE would be the perfect people to build new custom solutions for unions to get around many of the negative externalities caused by unions. However, people don't want to unionize while they still have leverage. When software engineers are finally ready to unionize, they're going to have way less leverage and get much worse deals.

humanrebar 9y ago
I'd be more interested in a guild or craft association than a union. I don't find collective bargaining, closed shops, standardized pay schedules, and some other features of unions to be compelling.
- meddlepal 9y ago
  Agree. I'd much rather we organize the same way lawyers with their Bar Associations operate.
  - wils1245 9y ago
    Kind of an ironic example, lawyers have terrible working conditions. Pay is great, but the partner system of advancement is dehumanizing, and encourages cutthroat behavior and insane working hours.
    - voidfunc 9y ago
      I'm not looking to model the law firm model. That's a different system and much closer to a Consulting/Professional Services outfit. The bar is an accreditation and verification system as well as a means for upholding ethical standards across the membership.
    - favorited 9y ago
      Even lawyer pay isn't as great as it may appear. See: "Lawyer Salaries Are Weird" http://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-curve/ http://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-cu...

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

> I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. Are you kidding me? I go and check salaries on Glassdoor and find out that about $85k/year is still the standard here in Boston for junior and mid-level engineers. And you're telling me that a median of $134k/year in the Bay Area is low?

skj 9y ago
Yes. In NYC too.
logicfiction 9y ago
I think there is a growing dichotomy of companies. The ecosystem I'm exposed to, 6 figures for mid-level seems normal. I'd only imagine the very early stage startups would fall outside that. This is in Boston proper and Cambridge. I do think median ranges start to fall outside the main metro area as you get to the 128 belt though.
skgoa 9y ago
Yes. Salaries in the SF bay area and NYC are ridiculous. Unfortunately cost of living expenses in those areas are ridiculous as well, which makes it far less worth it to move there for the average person than one would think.

shmerl 9y ago

They don't look low to me.

oppositelock 9y ago

Only use these statistics as a guideline, and negotiate the hell out of your compensation, even at a startup. You would be shocked at how much leeway companies have in compensation if they need your skill set. I've worked at preeminent silicon valley companies, middle of the road ones, and startups (been doing this way too long I guess). I've managed to sign for almost 50% over their initial offer a couple of times. The hardest place to negotiate turned out to be the mid-size companies which aren't floating in money like Google, or aren't pissing away money like a startup. When they ask, "how much are you currently making", just politely say that you would rather not go down that route, and please make me an offer you feel is fair for my skill set, and start from there. Hiring managers and departments do this a lot, and know all the numbers, and you, who change jobs infrequently don't have up to date info. What's shocking is how fast silicon valley salaries are increasing. When I started this software engineering gig in the mid 1990's, a great offer for a fresh grad out of school was $45,000. Inflation adjusted, that's around $75,000 today. When my small company hires today, I get the special joy of making counter-offers against Facebook and Google, these two companies are simply nuts. Recently lost a fresh grad from a first tier CS school to an offer of $150k annual with $100k starting bonus from Facebook, not to mention RSU. Effectively $350k for the first year for a student with a bachelor of science. It's nuts. This guy was really good, but more realistic offers only lack that starting bonus.

mceoin 9y ago
It is now illegal for employers to ask about past salary: [first article I googled] https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/salary-history-law-california/ https://www.thepennyhoarder.com/make-money/salary-history-la...
- kelnos 9y ago
  Well, as of Jan 1st it will be, anyway.
- perl4ever 9y ago
  I'm not sure how laws like that help if an employer has access to information about past salary so they don't have to ask. There is an Equifax service that keeps track of past jobs to some extent. It isn't necessarily accurate or complete, but it exists - https://www.theworknumber.com/ https://www.theworknumber.com/

eccbits 9y ago

Obviously there is motivation for Triplebyte, as any recruiting agency, to pick data that is lower. This encourages engineers to accept offers from TB clients vs others. (Similarly, promoting higher figures to companies/clients encourages higher offers & higher close rates.

mathattack 9y ago

The numbers seem reasonable. They don't include bonus and equity, and they are averages. Google/Fbook/Uber aren't "average" in their comp.

heedlessly2 9y ago

I don't think anyone outside the BayBubble thinks the devs are underpaid