6 ms·
150k sounds way low for the Bay Area you can get that in other much less expensive metro areas.
by pmorici 9y ago
150k sounds way low for the Bay Area you can get that in other much less expensive metro areas.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- bayarea123 9y agoDoes it? Are you including vested stock at a large company? The proportion of talent in the Bay Area is the same - from my experience interviewing people - in other tech hubs. Edit: made less jerky
- pmorici 9y agoNot including stock. Just thinking back to last time I solicited job offers I live in a US metro area with a cost of living about 1/3rd less than SF according to Wolfram Alpha's data and got offers that ranged between 120k and 220k. Anecdotally most of the senior level engineers I know in my area are making between 150 and 200k. Adjusted for cost of living an employer in SF would need to pay something like 200 - 300k to just match their current salaries. Maybe the stock portion of a salary would make up for that difference but I don't see how they are competitive in the wider market if they are paying 150k for senior engineers.
- overcast 9y agoNo way on this earth, $150,000 is anywhere near normal in the Bay Area, let alone in other less expensive metros. Most people are absolutely not making that much money writing code. People have serious tunnel vision on HN.
- ryandrake 9y agoI'm tired of posting and re-posting the links, but according to Glassdoor and Salary.com, median software engineer salary in the bay area is around ~110K. You can criticize the online source but at least it's a data point besides "I totally know a guy working at BigCorp who makes $200K" EDIT: Friends, this is what happens when you post before coffee. As ams6110 points out I'm in violent agreement with the person I'm rebutting. Should have stayed in bed.
- ams6110 9y agoI think you're agreeing with GP? He's saying people are not making that much.
- overcast 9y agoRight, so at the very least half are making less than $110,000 which is $40,000 less than the "everyone is making $150,000" in all major cities. There are a small percentage making a ton of money, and most making normal sub six figure salaries.
- user5994461 9y agoGlassdoor is heavily skewed to new graduates and the salaries are rarely updated after promotions.
- BoorishBears 9y agoI think at some point it comes down to skill of talent too. Most locales also have companies that know that the best talent can go to the Bay Area and make $150,000 and much more, so they offer salaries that are way above normal for the area, but competitive to Bay Area salaries. But if you’re not on that side of the talent scale (or not perceived as being on that side of it), your salary ends up being in line with your locales average salary across multiple industries for “mid level job requiring a bachelors degree”
- overcast 9y agoSure, but every single person going to the Bay Area isn't the "best talent", that's just not even realistic. So yes, talent demands big bucks, but it's still a bell curve, and that peak is below $150,000
- BoorishBears 9y agoI’m not implying everyone is the best talent and making 150k, quite the opposite. But I definitely don’t agreee the peak is below 150k...
- overcast 9y agoI mean ryandrake above just stated glassdoor and salary.com showing $110,000 as the medium. So below $150k.
- BoorishBears 9y agoMedian being 111,000 doesn’t say anything about the peak...
- BoorishBears 9y agoPeople are downvoting without looking at the graph themselves. The graph is not a bell curve and is skewed, it's median isn't at the peak of the graph.
- carlivar 9y agoMay want to browse the countless compensation discussions in the app Blind. Lots of Bay Area offer info there. Note that salary is a misnomer. The term now is "total compensation" which has a significant RSU portion.
- sjg007 9y agoThe words "total compensation" should just be banned from these discussions. It conflates a principle measure (base salary) with intangibles such as RSUs (a future value) and benefits. Without comparing specific companies it is impossible to say which is better (unless there is an extreme variance).
- wan23 9y agoRSUs for public companies are effectively cash, as you can generally sell them immediately at the time when they vest. The value isn't fixed, but if the company is doing well that's a benefit to employees.
- sjg007 9y agoYes and no.. my point still stands. I would also exclude "bonus" in these comparisons because they are too variable as well.
- OkGoDoIt 9y agoBut in reality the bonus and RSU's are a very significant portion of compensation. I know several people in their late 20's in SF with salaries around $150k but after adding RSU's and annual bonus and other oddities like recurring "signing bonuses" they pull in between $200k and $250k per year before taxes. Even if it's slightly variable it is still a big difference from the base salary. As an example of why this matters, my base salary is $20k more than a certain friend of mine but my employer doesn't do RSU's and has relatively low bonuses, so in the end my friend makes around $50k per year more than me, which equates to a significant lifestyle difference.
- compumike 9y ago(Disclosure: I work for Triplebyte and helped publish our salary dataset recently.) $150K is below the median base salary offer we see for senior software engineers. See https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-salary https://triplebyte.com/software-engineer-salary -- with a few notes: * This is base salary only. Total compensation is significantly higher once you include factors like equity compensation, bonuses, benefits. * This does vary a lot with stage of company. Earlier-stage startups use more equity and less salary. We work with companies from pre-series A to public megacorp. * This is for senior engineers. Less experienced engineers do typically earn less. * We're fairly selective in the engineers we work with, but it's based on the abilities you demonstrate in our multiple-choice quiz and technical interview, rather than your credentials.
- overcast 9y agoThanks for the response, like you said, you're very selective, and this is for only senior roles. Of course everyone is not a senior, the vast majority I suspect.
- compumike 9y agoYou're welcome. I can't share the numbers, but I believe most software engineers are eventually operating at the senior engineer level within under a decade of professional engineering experience.
- Veelox 9y agoSenior in this context often means >5 years. So if you are 30 you typically count as senior. I believe ~50% of my >10k coworkers are senior or above.
- bradknowles 9y agoSo, if you hit Senior at 5 years, what’s after that? What about the guy with 25+ years of experience?
- 9y ago
- mattnewton 9y agoI don’t think that number is far off for total comp, even if it is too high for median base salary.
- pmorici 9y agoI guess that explains why tech companies always complain about having a tough time recruiting talent then. Relative to other locals their salaries aren't competitive.
- blubb-fish 9y agohttps://stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary/results?l=San+Francisco%2c+CA%2c+United+States&ed=2&ex=5&ff=1&dr%5B0%5D=FullStackDeveloper&tl%5B0%5D=java https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary/results?l=San+Francisc... According to SO salary estimator the median salary of a 5y experience Java dev with a masters degree is $108k in SF. Same profile in Hamburg yields €38k and in Paris €42k on average.