5 ms·

Don’t shame people for making more money than others. The idea of this is we all see what we make. The outliers are making what we should all make.

scarface74 8y ago
It's not about shaming people. HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. It's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low.
- xapata 8y ago
  On the positive side, if we all feel like our salaries are low, we'll collectively ask for more money. Don't be jealous, but do ask for a raise.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Outside of Silicon Valley/NYC/DC, no one is going to pay your "full stack web developer", 200K. Full stack developers are a dime a dozen and you can outsource your typical CRUD Software As A Service app overseas or "rural source" it to Middle America.
    - C1sc0cat 8y ago
      Really capable of working at all 7 OSI layers :-) many "full stack" developers don't know that databases have a CLI.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        That’s true. I’ve interviewed “full stack developers” who when you asked them to write a query they started writing C# Linq statements as if they were using Entity Framework. It only takes one of two steps above the average “full stack developer” to be the one eyed king.
    - xapata 8y ago
      Maybe not $200k, but you can at least ask for more. Also, I'd be a little careful about out-sourcing and rural-sourcing. I've found that many high-quality remote workers charge Bay Area rates regardless of where they live. If they're not, well, that may signal a lack of quality. You can get a bit of a discount, or find a more specialized person than you might otherwise. To those of you in low-cost-of-living areas: Consider raising your rates to signal your quality. You're worth it.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        But that’s kind of the point. If all you’re doing is working on yet another software as a service CRUD app, you don’t need a team of A players. You just need halfway competent developers and one of two architect level positions to steer them.
- sidlls 8y ago
  I'm not FAANG, but I am in SV, and my salary is currently around $200k/year (give or take). That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average, maybe. Most software development (where software is the product, or a critical component of the product) is a high margin endeavor. These companies can (and should) pay their development staff more.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average These are the "average" salaries across the industry in different metro areas: https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV? Anyone making at least $110K can buy that house with an FHA loan with 3.5% down. What a company is going to pay is based on the supply and demand.
    - friedman23 8y ago
      >As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV? Nobody actually plans on retiring in SF. When I'm done working here for 10 or 15 years I'll have enough to move and own a mansion in whatever town you live in and retire. After 2 years of working I already have $170k in savings.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Speaking in general, not about me in particular... I'm going to give up 15 years of my life -- the time that most people spend getting married, having 2.5 kids, etc. to live in SV -- when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US? Especially if you are a two parent household, the general MO is that the second smaller income can go straight to savings. It's quite easy for a dual income earning household to make 200K if one is software developer and the other just makes an average income for a college grad of $60K-$70K,
- tathougies 8y ago
  > it's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low. Part of a free market is realizing that, if others are earning more money for the same work, there is a good chance that you are undercharging your employer for your services.
  - lbotos 8y ago
    Do you agree that this stance ignores the idea of local economies factoring into why dollars are not valued the same everywhere? Most companies I've known charge what they would consider "base rate" + some kind of Cost of Living multiplier. See Buffer's example: https://buffer.com/salary/staff-engineer-web/average https://buffer.com/salary/staff-engineer-web/average
    - tathougies 8y ago
      No? Salaries ought to be compared in real values. This is econ 101. The author made no claim his figures were in real terms. He gave the nominal amounts and that is quite clear in the post. It's up to the astute reader to convert them into real values based on the purchasing power of the nominal amount provided in their locale. Your claim was that > HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. There are two ways to interpret this claim. Way 1 is to assume that you are talking about West Coast 'FAANG' employees being outliers in the sense their nominal salaries are outliers. Way 2 is to assume you claim that West Coast employees are outliers in the purchasing power sense. If I assume way 1, then your claim that 'it's easy for people to feel their salaries are low' doesn't make sense, because salaries would be compared in real terms. Moreover, the SV employees wouldn't really be outliers. They'd be perfectly average. If I assume the latter, which is that the salaries are outliers in real terms, then what I said stands: if someone else is making more money for the same job, you're probably being underpaid.

scarface74 8y ago

It's not about shaming people. HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. It's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low.

xapata 8y ago
On the positive side, if we all feel like our salaries are low, we'll collectively ask for more money. Don't be jealous, but do ask for a raise.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Outside of Silicon Valley/NYC/DC, no one is going to pay your "full stack web developer", 200K. Full stack developers are a dime a dozen and you can outsource your typical CRUD Software As A Service app overseas or "rural source" it to Middle America.
  - C1sc0cat 8y ago
    Really capable of working at all 7 OSI layers :-) many "full stack" developers don't know that databases have a CLI.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      That’s true. I’ve interviewed “full stack developers” who when you asked them to write a query they started writing C# Linq statements as if they were using Entity Framework. It only takes one of two steps above the average “full stack developer” to be the one eyed king.
  - xapata 8y ago
    Maybe not $200k, but you can at least ask for more. Also, I'd be a little careful about out-sourcing and rural-sourcing. I've found that many high-quality remote workers charge Bay Area rates regardless of where they live. If they're not, well, that may signal a lack of quality. You can get a bit of a discount, or find a more specialized person than you might otherwise. To those of you in low-cost-of-living areas: Consider raising your rates to signal your quality. You're worth it.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      But that’s kind of the point. If all you’re doing is working on yet another software as a service CRUD app, you don’t need a team of A players. You just need halfway competent developers and one of two architect level positions to steer them.
sidlls 8y ago
I'm not FAANG, but I am in SV, and my salary is currently around $200k/year (give or take). That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average, maybe. Most software development (where software is the product, or a critical component of the product) is a high margin endeavor. These companies can (and should) pay their development staff more.
- scarface74 8y ago
  That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average These are the "average" salaries across the industry in different metro areas: https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys https://www.matrixres.com/salary-surveys As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV? Anyone making at least $110K can buy that house with an FHA loan with 3.5% down. What a company is going to pay is based on the supply and demand.
  - friedman23 8y ago
    >As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV? Nobody actually plans on retiring in SF. When I'm done working here for 10 or 15 years I'll have enough to move and own a mansion in whatever town you live in and retire. After 2 years of working I already have $170k in savings.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Speaking in general, not about me in particular... I'm going to give up 15 years of my life -- the time that most people spend getting married, having 2.5 kids, etc. to live in SV -- when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US? Especially if you are a two parent household, the general MO is that the second smaller income can go straight to savings. It's quite easy for a dual income earning household to make 200K if one is software developer and the other just makes an average income for a college grad of $60K-$70K,
tathougies 8y ago
> it's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low. Part of a free market is realizing that, if others are earning more money for the same work, there is a good chance that you are undercharging your employer for your services.
- lbotos 8y ago
  Do you agree that this stance ignores the idea of local economies factoring into why dollars are not valued the same everywhere? Most companies I've known charge what they would consider "base rate" + some kind of Cost of Living multiplier. See Buffer's example: https://buffer.com/salary/staff-engineer-web/average https://buffer.com/salary/staff-engineer-web/average
  - tathougies 8y ago
    No? Salaries ought to be compared in real values. This is econ 101. The author made no claim his figures were in real terms. He gave the nominal amounts and that is quite clear in the post. It's up to the astute reader to convert them into real values based on the purchasing power of the nominal amount provided in their locale. Your claim was that > HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. There are two ways to interpret this claim. Way 1 is to assume that you are talking about West Coast 'FAANG' employees being outliers in the sense their nominal salaries are outliers. Way 2 is to assume you claim that West Coast employees are outliers in the purchasing power sense. If I assume way 1, then your claim that 'it's easy for people to feel their salaries are low' doesn't make sense, because salaries would be compared in real terms. Moreover, the SV employees wouldn't really be outliers. They'd be perfectly average. If I assume the latter, which is that the salaries are outliers in real terms, then what I said stands: if someone else is making more money for the same job, you're probably being underpaid.