5 ms·

lol I'm a senior developer, been in the industry since I graduated with a BS in 2010. I'm in NYC. My salary is currently $82k. I'm not doing anything wrong here

by njn 7y ago

lol I'm a senior developer, been in the industry since I graduated with a BS in 2010. I'm in NYC. My salary is currently $82k. I'm not doing anything wrong here - the numbers in the article are way exaggerated.

glass_of_water 7y ago
These numbers aren't exaggerated at all. If you're making $82k in NYC with almost 10 years of experience, you got massively lowballed by your current company. Have you interviewed around lately?
bluedevilzn 7y ago
I have no idea how you live with that salary in NYC. Maybe go to a bar and meet some people in tech/finance, they'd paint you a better picture of reality.
- sys_64738 7y ago
  You’d need to live in central Jersey to be able to afford. I doubt you could live on the upper east side for that unless you were living with a partner making 300k$.
- akavi 7y ago
  Post tax, that's ~5 k$/mo, which is (by choice) roughly my monthly spending as a single/no kids 28-year-old in NYC. It's not a bad lifestyle at all. I personally would feel uncomfortable spending that much if I wasn't also able to save on top of it, but if you disregard that, it's 100% doable
  - njn 7y ago
    Yeah, in general I find people to be excessive with their spending. $5k a month sounds like an insane waste to me. I'm pretty thrifty. I feel like tech workers are living in a different world than me. My direct deposit income is something like $2400 every two weeks. That's after my IRA investments, monthly health insurance cost, metro card cost through my job, etc. I work at Columbia University, by the way. I live in a rent stabilized 1br apartment in west Harlem: $1500/mo rent. After that I have no major expenses other than food, and I shop at local grocery stores and cook at home a lot. I make my own bread, because I like to, not because I have to. I always feel like I have more than enough money. I put around $800 a month into savings and investments. I'm even able to travel frequently to Europe, Latin America, and to see my parents in Seattle. I agree with Bradley Kuhn on this one: in general, tech workers are wayyy overpaid.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      Many people aspire to provide for a family. Considering tech companies earn fantastic profit per employee, the employees are not overpaid at all.
    - yowlingcat 7y ago
      You are being paid well under market by a very wide margin. Check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ for supporting data. It's possible you believe that tech workers are overpaid rather than believing you are underpaid because of psychological factors, such as the cognitive dissonance of having to face the unfortunate reality that you've been leaving money on the table for at least 7 years, and you've probably left over half a million dollars on the table due to your inability to properly understand and measure market compensation. That's unfortunate, but it probably makes sense for you to face that if you don't want to miss out on another few million over the course of your career due to a fear of revising your thinking and admitting you were wrong. Your call.
      - njn 7y ago
        I wouldn't work at any of those companies as long as I have the choice not to: they all make money off of proprietary software.
        yowlingcat 7y ago
        You have made a choice to not work at companies that make money off of proprietary software, then you exclude the vast majority of the market of commercial software engineering, but that also means you have no idea of or don't care market rates are. So, you really shouldn't comment on that unless you figure that out, and it's a little disingenuous to do so this way.
        pb7 7y ago
        You are paying $100,000s for that choice. Your choice does not mean everyone else is overpaid.
    - driverdan 7y ago
aceon48 7y ago
No they aren't. These are Bay Area L3/L4 junior type hire offers
- ska 7y ago
  ... and only at very specific companies.
jsendros 7y ago
The numbers look right to me. Try applying to FAANG!
- Shebanator 7y ago
  If anything, the bay area numbers seem on the low side to me.
Glyptodon 7y ago
I'm in your boat more or less as a non-coastal worker. That said, non-coastal SMC ranges are more like $75 - 110k, your pay is pretty weird for NYC.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
whorleater 7y ago
You're definitely doing something wrong if you're a senior dev with 82k in NY
yowlingcat 7y ago
This comment was disingenuous, and you should tell the truth. You say further on the thread that you work at the company you work at because it allows you to work on free software, even though you could work elsewhere. This would prevent you from participating in 99% of software engineering labor market in NYC, and your experience is not in anyway indicative of the market as a whole.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm familiar with the guidelines. What makes this a personal attack? The person I was responding to very much derailed a conversation with a disagreement that wasn't really in good faith. Is it a personal attack to point out when someone is an orthodox ideological fundamentalist trying to inflict their views on others? Should you just flag and move on and not respond and follow the maxim "don't feed the trolls" ?
sys_64738 7y ago
Are you sure it’s only $82k? That number sounds 20 years out of date. You should be earning three times that in Manhattan.
southphillyman 7y ago
You are getting taken advantage of. Start looking at other companies and DO NOT disclose your current salary during negotiation. Your salary could double and you still might be a bargain in NYC.
- njn 7y ago
  Why not disclose my current salary? I absolutely would if anyone asked. I wouldn't leave my job over another for a pay raise because I like my job, everything I work on is free software, and I can work as slowly as I want. When I've worked at start-ups in the industry (I've worked in Palo Alto, SF, Seattle, and other places in NYC), it was like, working crazy hours, constant stress and drama, dealing with annoying requirements, and basically working on stuff I don't care about, like mobile apps, vying for popularity, etc. If a startup wants to pay me to work on these Astronomy simulations I've made, I'd be interested: https://github.com/ccnmtl/astro-simulations https://github.com/ccnmtl/astro-simulations (this is what I've done over the past year at Columbia).
  - southphillyman 7y ago
    Oh this situation is more understandable. I suggested not disclosing your pay because it's not required, actually in NYC I think it's illegal to ask now. But it's common for companies to anchor the offer on your current pay, most people I know who were underpaid fell victim to that. If you are comfortable earning what you earn because of the work you do I get it. I looked into working for research universities in the past like UPenn because I'd be working in say cancer research, etc. I get it.
driverdan 7y ago
If you're happy that's great but you need to recognize you're very, very underpaid for NYC. Your opportunity cost is $50-100,000 a year.

by njn 7y ago

glass_of_water 7y ago

These numbers aren't exaggerated at all. If you're making $82k in NYC with almost 10 years of experience, you got massively lowballed by your current company. Have you interviewed around lately?

bluedevilzn 7y ago

I have no idea how you live with that salary in NYC. Maybe go to a bar and meet some people in tech/finance, they'd paint you a better picture of reality.

sys_64738 7y ago
You’d need to live in central Jersey to be able to afford. I doubt you could live on the upper east side for that unless you were living with a partner making 300k$.
akavi 7y ago
Post tax, that's ~5 k$/mo, which is (by choice) roughly my monthly spending as a single/no kids 28-year-old in NYC. It's not a bad lifestyle at all. I personally would feel uncomfortable spending that much if I wasn't also able to save on top of it, but if you disregard that, it's 100% doable
- njn 7y ago
  Yeah, in general I find people to be excessive with their spending. $5k a month sounds like an insane waste to me. I'm pretty thrifty. I feel like tech workers are living in a different world than me. My direct deposit income is something like $2400 every two weeks. That's after my IRA investments, monthly health insurance cost, metro card cost through my job, etc. I work at Columbia University, by the way. I live in a rent stabilized 1br apartment in west Harlem: $1500/mo rent. After that I have no major expenses other than food, and I shop at local grocery stores and cook at home a lot. I make my own bread, because I like to, not because I have to. I always feel like I have more than enough money. I put around $800 a month into savings and investments. I'm even able to travel frequently to Europe, Latin America, and to see my parents in Seattle. I agree with Bradley Kuhn on this one: in general, tech workers are wayyy overpaid.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    Many people aspire to provide for a family. Considering tech companies earn fantastic profit per employee, the employees are not overpaid at all.
  - yowlingcat 7y ago
    You are being paid well under market by a very wide margin. Check out https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ for supporting data. It's possible you believe that tech workers are overpaid rather than believing you are underpaid because of psychological factors, such as the cognitive dissonance of having to face the unfortunate reality that you've been leaving money on the table for at least 7 years, and you've probably left over half a million dollars on the table due to your inability to properly understand and measure market compensation. That's unfortunate, but it probably makes sense for you to face that if you don't want to miss out on another few million over the course of your career due to a fear of revising your thinking and admitting you were wrong. Your call.
    - njn 7y ago
      I wouldn't work at any of those companies as long as I have the choice not to: they all make money off of proprietary software.
      - yowlingcat 7y ago
        You have made a choice to not work at companies that make money off of proprietary software, then you exclude the vast majority of the market of commercial software engineering, but that also means you have no idea of or don't care market rates are. So, you really shouldn't comment on that unless you figure that out, and it's a little disingenuous to do so this way.
      - pb7 7y ago
        You are paying $100,000s for that choice. Your choice does not mean everyone else is overpaid.
  - driverdan 7y ago

aceon48 7y ago

No they aren't. These are Bay Area L3/L4 junior type hire offers

ska 7y ago
... and only at very specific companies.

jsendros 7y ago

The numbers look right to me. Try applying to FAANG!

Shebanator 7y ago
If anything, the bay area numbers seem on the low side to me.

Glyptodon 7y ago

I'm in your boat more or less as a non-coastal worker. That said, non-coastal SMC ranges are more like $75 - 110k, your pay is pretty weird for NYC.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

whorleater 7y ago

You're definitely doing something wrong if you're a senior dev with 82k in NY

yowlingcat 7y ago

This comment was disingenuous, and you should tell the truth. You say further on the thread that you work at the company you work at because it allows you to work on free software, even though you could work elsewhere. This would prevent you from participating in 99% of software engineering labor market in NYC, and your experience is not in anyway indicative of the market as a whole.

dang 7y ago
Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- yowlingcat 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm familiar with the guidelines. What makes this a personal attack? The person I was responding to very much derailed a conversation with a disagreement that wasn't really in good faith. Is it a personal attack to point out when someone is an orthodox ideological fundamentalist trying to inflict their views on others? Should you just flag and move on and not respond and follow the maxim "don't feed the trolls" ?

sys_64738 7y ago

Are you sure it’s only $82k? That number sounds 20 years out of date. You should be earning three times that in Manhattan.

southphillyman 7y ago

You are getting taken advantage of. Start looking at other companies and DO NOT disclose your current salary during negotiation. Your salary could double and you still might be a bargain in NYC.

njn 7y ago
Why not disclose my current salary? I absolutely would if anyone asked. I wouldn't leave my job over another for a pay raise because I like my job, everything I work on is free software, and I can work as slowly as I want. When I've worked at start-ups in the industry (I've worked in Palo Alto, SF, Seattle, and other places in NYC), it was like, working crazy hours, constant stress and drama, dealing with annoying requirements, and basically working on stuff I don't care about, like mobile apps, vying for popularity, etc. If a startup wants to pay me to work on these Astronomy simulations I've made, I'd be interested: https://github.com/ccnmtl/astro-simulations https://github.com/ccnmtl/astro-simulations (this is what I've done over the past year at Columbia).
- southphillyman 7y ago
  Oh this situation is more understandable. I suggested not disclosing your pay because it's not required, actually in NYC I think it's illegal to ask now. But it's common for companies to anchor the offer on your current pay, most people I know who were underpaid fell victim to that. If you are comfortable earning what you earn because of the work you do I get it. I looked into working for research universities in the past like UPenn because I'd be working in say cancer research, etc. I get it.

driverdan 7y ago

If you're happy that's great but you need to recognize you're very, very underpaid for NYC. Your opportunity cost is $50-100,000 a year.