9 ms·

It honestly makes me feel a bit queasy when I read posts like this. 22 and 23 year olds making $200k+ a year? For doing what, exactly? Contributing 0.001% of th

It honestly makes me feel a bit queasy when I read posts like this. 22 and 23 year olds making $200k+ a year? For doing what, exactly? Contributing 0.001% of the codebase to an app that sells advertisements? Meanwhile teachers, researchers, nurses etc (of which many also live in SF, by the way) are making pennies and some literally starving to survive. It makes it even worse to see the casualness that people in this thread are talking about $200-300k+ salaries, as if they have no appreciation for the fact that a $300k salary is unheard of even for most people in their 50s, let alone a kid in his early 20s. This is the type of attitude that I fear really makes Silicon Valley outsiders have a good amount of disdain for SVers.

hello_moto 7y ago
What are these fresh grad supposed to do? Getting paid less while the companies printing money? Where should the money goes? Having said that, I do understand your point in this statement: > as if they have no appreciation for the fact that a $300k salary is unheard of even for most people in their 50s, let alone a kid in his early 20s. I noticed an increasing number of fresh-grad that feels entitled for a big salary. Their attitude is off the chart...
- tidepod12 7y ago
  I don't blame the grads themselves (other than the lack of appreciation for what is a large salary), it's more commentary on SV culture (and society as a whole) that so much absurd amount of money is just being thrown around to people in the bay area, meanwhile throughout America our healthcare system is in shambles, teachers have to take second jobs to pay bills, etc... edit: and for the record, I'm one of those "new grads" making a self-admittedly absurd amount of money for what honestly amounts to a relatively meaningless contribution to society. Yea, I take the salary (and try to donate a good bit of it), but it still makes me feel uneasy that I'm being paid this much in the first place.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    If you are any kind of software professional in US (hell, even teacher, researcher or nurse) I assure you that whatever you are currently making looks equally absurdly large for majority of human population.
    - heyoni 7y ago
      I know. It’s like these people forgot about how “regular culture” routinely shits on the rest of the world for profit.
- opportune 7y ago
  If they are able to consistently get job offers and perform well at companies which pay that well, why would they expect any less? Just because they are young they shouldn’t know what the market rate for their labor is? Honesty a lot of this just sounds like sour grapes
  - hello_moto 7y ago
    I don't know your environment but these fresh grads around me their attitude is unlike the attitude of the fresh-grad in my time thanks to these crazy salaries. So while you can say that sounds like "sour grapes", I do have to say that there is an increasing sour grapes among the fresh grads.
    - pb7 7y ago
      It sounds like it bothers you that people know their value in a given market and are capitalizing on it like you could not and maybe still cannot. Sour grapes sounds about right.
      - hello_moto 7y ago
        It's not just "Hey I should be making $X". There are other baggage that comes along with it: Company X pays more than company Y therefore programmer in Company X is better than Company Y. (X=Facebook, Y=Amazon). Or things like "your TC is low, you must be suck".
      - 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
esoterica 7y ago
When companies like Facebook make several million dollars in revenue per employee shouldn’t you be glad that the grunts writing code are getting a respectable share of the profits? Would you rather the engineers get paid 50k/year while Zuckerberg becomes a trillionaire?
InterimNew 7y ago
These salaries don't come from thin air, they're constrained by the market rate at which engineers can be hired and retained. It's unfairly reductive to say that the engineers aren't contributing value since they work in ads. We work in all sorts of fields from the frivolous, like consumer electronics, to the decidedly less so like self-driving. If the discrepancy between engineering salaries and research/teaching/nursing salaries is bothersome then perhaps the blame should be placed on the economic environment that has produced this result, not the twenty-somethings that are accepting great compensation.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  I don't believe you'll find anywhere in my post above that I placed the blame on anyone. Why so defensive?
  - pb7 7y ago
    Are you sure? Because it sure sounds like you disagree that these people deserve to be making large sums of money and then also not be appreciative of it. I would call that placing blame.
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      I mean to put this as civilly as possible, but I don't believe you understand the meaning of blame if you actually think that. Saying that these grads don't deserve that much money (and also observing that they are not appreciative of it) is not casting blame at all.
      - pb7 7y ago
        Okay, let's agree to disagree on the terminology. What exact solution do you propose? Do people stop accepting this money? Do they thank their cashiers extra generously because they make 10x more? What is the actionable step here that would make it all okay in your eyes?
DebtDeflation 7y ago
Are these actually "salaries"? Because I know a few SV types who also include one time signing bonuses, discretionary bonuses, restricted shares, and a host of other stuff that isn't salary in their stated salaries. It makes it hard to conduct comparisons.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  The way that the majority of these numbers work out is that no, they aren't strictly 'salary', but they are given out in a way such that the employee does get $200k-300k (minus taxes) cash in their bank account if they so choose. FAANG companies don't operate or consider compensation based on your salary, it's all done based on total compensation which includes bonuses, RSUs, etc. I see a lot of this "well it's not actually money, it's just $150k worth of stocks" reasoning to hand-wave away the absurdity of the high numbers, but it's silly to me. $300k is 300k, even if you have to submit an extra form once a month to convert the stocks to cash.
  - DebtDeflation 7y ago
    Right, and that's fine (not sure why I'm being downvoted), but why not just say "I make X base salary, Y% target annual bonus, and I got a signing bonus of Z plus RSUs" like everyone in every other industry instead of adding it all up and calling it salary? There's a difference between guaranteed comp and variable comp, just like there's a difference between annual recurring comp and one time comp like a signing bonus.
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      No idea why you're being downvoted. I imagine the reasoning is because at the end of the day, in most discussions, it hardly matters the technical aspect of if the money came from a signing bonus or a stock option. $300k is $300k.
    - esoterica 7y ago
      The title says compensation, not salary. People usually say compensation or TC when referring to the total number. > There's a difference between guaranteed comp and variable comp All comp is variable since you can be fired or laid off at any time.
random314 7y ago
> This is the type of attitude that I fear really makes Silicon Valley outsiders have a good amount of disdain for SVers. If you are experiencing disdain because of this, you need to look inside yourself and see what needs to be fixed in your own thinking. Envy of new grads is not their problem, it is yours. I have seen Americans casually discuss what cars they own and what cars they would like to buy. I have never once chastised them and asked them to think about the homeless and poor kids in Africa before casually discussing cars like an everyday thing. For ref, my family was too poor to own a car growing up.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  >I have seen Americans casually discuss what cars they own and what cars they would like to buy. I have never once chastised them and asked them to think about the homeless and poor kids in Africa before casually discussing cars like an everyday thing. And why do you say that as if it's a good thing? Perhaps its this exact attitude of extravagance and wastefulness (especially when taken to extremes like in SV) that has led us to the exact income disparity issue that so many people (many of which are in SF) decry. Of course I'm not saying it has to be top of your mind all the time, but when we're in a post that is explicitly created for the purpose of discussing how high salaries are in SV, it is disingenuous to try to shut down discussion about how they might be too high.
  - random314 7y ago
    > And why do you say that as if it's a good thing? Perhaps its this exact attitude of extravagance and wastefulness (especially when taken to extremes like in SV) that has led us to the exact income disparity issue So you are recommending Americans should stop buying/discussing cars and SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries because it is "wasteful and extravagant". I am trying to look for some element of logic in your reasoning but I can't find any. Now is a good time to start a discussion on envy.
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      >So you are recommending Americans should stop buying/discussing cars and SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries because it is "wasteful and extravagant". At no point in my comment, or any other comment, have I said, suggested, or implied that anyone should stop buying/discussing cars or that SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries. In fact, the entire point (as stated in my previous comment) is that this is a discussion about high salaries, and I am simply discussing the fact that the salaries are high. Your interpretation of my comments is clearly in bad faith.
scarejunba 7y ago
Nurses do okay. Teachers and researchers don't actually provide that much value. It's a market. The money flows where it provides most value + discounted future value. Just because you have a soft spot for teachers doesn't mean we should command economy the whole thing. This is right. It is fair. EDIT: Can't respond to below, but private school teacher salaries are lower than SF USD salaries (when you include health, pension, housing).
- ClumsyPilot 7y ago
  The market does not even set a teacher's salary, as most schools are state funded.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  Academic researchers (other than profs) basically have a command-economy salary already: it's hard to get a postdoc that's pretty far off the NIH pay scale.
throwawayjava 7y ago
It is important to understand that those salaries aren't normal. 300k for a new grad is not something I've heard of, that's a tad high even for phds. For an undergrad, that would be something approaching an acquihire. That person is being hired for a specific and rare skill, not as a back bencher. A lot to live up to. Even 200k is very high for new grads. Think "strong student at MIT/Stanford/CMU with proven track record of performing very well during internships, maybe some research publications, and multiple internal stakeholders vouching for them". In other words, perceived as "potential deadly weapon to a competitor and/or a possible founder", not "model employee". That is why they're being paid well. Below 200, keep in mind that 150% of 80 is 120. SF sucks. NYC isn't much better. Teachers are underpaid. Not sure how that's relevant to whether some other group of people is overpaid. It's not zero sum. As for researchers, in CS they do well for themselves. Don't worry. I think you are conflating what is possible with what is normal, and in the process under-estimate the amount of time and effort some people choose to invest into themselves during their 4 years of access to the best and brightest minds in their field. Speaking of, MIT gets disturbingly close to 6 figures all in these days...
- electricslpnsld 7y ago
  > 300k for a new grad is not something I've heard of, that's a tad high even for phds. 300K-ish total comp is a typical starting package at the big tech companies now. 150-160K base salary, 30K bonus target, and 100K stock grant maturing per year gets you to that ballpark.
  - throwawayjava 7y ago
    Well, a lot changed in the couple of years since I've helped students with the process. Good for those kids. FWIW it's still fair to say these aren't normal. Plenty of students from top schools don't get offers from the top cos.
  - mrep 7y ago
    At which company? I work at one of the big companies and undergrads come in at around 150k and phds around 250k. Facebook will give 100k signing bonuses to their top interns but that's a 1 time bonus so it shouldn't be factored into your yearly total compensation.
heyoni 7y ago
Another way of looking at it is: “wealth is being redistributed”. Obviously there’s still disparity but it looks like a new middle class is forming and we want that, no? Also keep in mind that anything less than 200k means you can’t even buy a decent sized house where you work.
ClumsyPilot 7y ago
I always find it funny when people refer to age of employees -> there is this ageist idea that your salary should increase as you get older, and senior positions are reserved for older people. We also say that we believe in meritocracy, that is the most capable person gets the job, and market decides their salary. The two ideas are in conflict. Markets can be cruel, but the ageist idea is mostly prejudice. Surely the problem is that those companies are earning absurd amounts of money while contributing very little to society. They've got billions stashed offshore that they literally don't know where to invest. Even after paying this much to grads.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  I don't think it's that much in conflict. If a 22 year old legitimately brings enough value to the table to justify a $200k salary, then sure, give it to them. But the reason we usually associate salaries getting bigger with age is because older people, on average, do have more experience and are able to bring more value to the table.
  - asciident 7y ago
    There's some truth in what you say. Very few new CS grads are making substantial contributions commiserate to their salaries. They probably do hit that level in a few years so maybe that balances out. But the companies/shareholders seem to be happy paying those salaries, and we might believe that they probably know what they're doing.
  - falco925 7y ago
    What is defined as "valuable" to you? People and companies have different definitions, and as your age into the workforce, how you contribute to your work changes. As a 22 year old dev, "valuable" can be defined as writing code and building products while working 60+ hrs a week, which is what many do in SV. As you age, you write less code and contribute to building products in different ways like architecting the platform and thinking about the business more than the product itself. This is what experience gets you as you age. I think you're saying that the later deserves more compensation and no 22 year old is worth $200k. I don't think that's true. And most of SV doesn't think that's true. SV likes people that can build and make things, and will pay someone handsomely to build a product and iterate.
ardit33 7y ago
Do you feel the same about lawyers and other highly paid jobs? Is being a lawyer any more intellectually challenging that being an engineer.... (honest question, as lawyers at big firms start at around 150k+ as first year associates)
- qub1t 7y ago
  It’s not more intellectually challenging but it’s a hell of a lot more work. You need to get accepted into a top-5 law school, study like crazy for three years and rack up a couple hundred grand in debt, then you need to grind out 70+ hour weeks as an associate. I have friends who work at top 5 law firms, and friends at fb and google, and the lawyers are working WAY harder. For less money too. But I guess the one upside is that if you make partner, your peak earning potential is higher. Tech jobs are probably the best combination of pay/lifestyle balance at the moment.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
zerr 7y ago
20s year olds are burning out 80h per week until their health allows and until they are replaced by another batch of 20s after ~10 years. Meanwhile, teachers and researchers enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle for the rest of their lifes. In fact, there are lots of candidates fighting for such relaxed permanent positions in academia, which is ruled by nepotism and protectionism, unfortunately.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  I get your point, but teachers hardly "enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle". Professorships at universities may be different, but elementary/middle/high school teachers often work long, long hours, suffer from burnout, make low money (low as in ~$30-40k/year), and more recently, there is a trend that a lot of them are ending up in therapy to cope with the teaching conditions.
  - froindt 7y ago
    The path to tenure is publish or perish. I don't know specific hour commitments, but at an R1 university, you're looking at 4-7 years of long hours with a risk that you won't get tenure. And unless you bring in BIG money or work in a super HCOL area, you probably won't ever make 200k/year.
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      4-7 for the PhD alone, plus a few more years as a postdoc, plus the run-up to tenure (another 4-5 years). None of these are particularly stable or relaxing.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  > researchers enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle A few faculty with tenured, hard-money jobs might be able to kick back and relax, but those positions are the unicorns of academia. Everyone else is scrapping to bring in money, just so they can keep their jobs. A lot of places, especially medical schools, expect faculty to cover most of their salary from external grants (~15% of which get funded). I would bet a lot more grad students are burning the midnight oil than FAANG engineers too.
thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
i don't know what part of the country you live in, but this 200k to 300k is barely scraping by with a middle class living in the bay area, especially if you just moved here. CA and the bay area's high cost of living means most people here with less than 200k/year are going to be really poor unless they bought a house over 20 years ago. Your not going to be able to attract talent to move to the bay area with sub 200K salaries. And since, Google and facebook have money to burn, they'd rather pay those high salaries than move to a more cost effective area.
- tidepod12 7y ago
  I see this comment a lot, but it's just not true. If $300k was "barely scraping by", then it would be impossible for people making less than $100k to even live at all in the bay area, and yet the average income in SF is indeed $75k. In other parts of this thread, an SFer mentions that with a salary of $300k, he saves $100,000 a year after paying for his 'expensive hobbies' without even trying . Another commenter says they have ~$13,000 per month in disposable income (after rent in a nice apartment, utilities, and food). Thats certainly not "scraping by" to me.
  - thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
    It's different if you already live here. If you already live here probably you have some arrangement: maybe you're in a rent protected home (75% of SF is like that), or maybe you live with 5 other roommates or maybe live with parents, etc. It's different, if you're moving to here from another area you're not going to be able to get one of those rent protected rentals.
    - tidepod12 7y ago
      I just went shopping online for apartments in SF. If I were to move there now, a 1 BR in a very nice luxury tower in Nob Hill will run me about $3,700/mo. And let's throw in, say, $200/mo for utilities and expenses? And let's give a very generous $1000/mo for food expenses? According to a tax calculator, a $200k salary in SF is about $130k/year take home, or about $11k/month. After rent and expenses, that's still $5,100 in disposable take-home pay every month. That's not scraping by.
TrackerFF 7y ago
But you have to remember one thing: These types of (junior) salaries are largely confined to very few places on earth, which is also reflected by the cost of living in those areas. Basically, if you want to continue earning at those levels, without sacrificing your life to work, you're locked to living in a few select places. In SF, you need to earn almost $180k to afford a mortgage.
winrid 7y ago
I mean, when I was 22-23 I was writing/leading whole products, some that make tens of millions of dollars now. I was making less than 130k when I was doing that, just to give a range. If these guys are contributing 0.1% maybe I was underpaid ;)

hello_moto 7y ago

What are these fresh grad supposed to do? Getting paid less while the companies printing money? Where should the money goes? Having said that, I do understand your point in this statement: > as if they have no appreciation for the fact that a $300k salary is unheard of even for most people in their 50s, let alone a kid in his early 20s. I noticed an increasing number of fresh-grad that feels entitled for a big salary. Their attitude is off the chart...

tidepod12 7y ago
I don't blame the grads themselves (other than the lack of appreciation for what is a large salary), it's more commentary on SV culture (and society as a whole) that so much absurd amount of money is just being thrown around to people in the bay area, meanwhile throughout America our healthcare system is in shambles, teachers have to take second jobs to pay bills, etc... edit: and for the record, I'm one of those "new grads" making a self-admittedly absurd amount of money for what honestly amounts to a relatively meaningless contribution to society. Yea, I take the salary (and try to donate a good bit of it), but it still makes me feel uneasy that I'm being paid this much in the first place.
- balfirevic 7y ago
  If you are any kind of software professional in US (hell, even teacher, researcher or nurse) I assure you that whatever you are currently making looks equally absurdly large for majority of human population.
  - heyoni 7y ago
    I know. It’s like these people forgot about how “regular culture” routinely shits on the rest of the world for profit.
opportune 7y ago
If they are able to consistently get job offers and perform well at companies which pay that well, why would they expect any less? Just because they are young they shouldn’t know what the market rate for their labor is? Honesty a lot of this just sounds like sour grapes
- hello_moto 7y ago
  I don't know your environment but these fresh grads around me their attitude is unlike the attitude of the fresh-grad in my time thanks to these crazy salaries. So while you can say that sounds like "sour grapes", I do have to say that there is an increasing sour grapes among the fresh grads.
  - pb7 7y ago
    It sounds like it bothers you that people know their value in a given market and are capitalizing on it like you could not and maybe still cannot. Sour grapes sounds about right.
    - hello_moto 7y ago
      It's not just "Hey I should be making $X". There are other baggage that comes along with it: Company X pays more than company Y therefore programmer in Company X is better than Company Y. (X=Facebook, Y=Amazon). Or things like "your TC is low, you must be suck".
    - 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

esoterica 7y ago

When companies like Facebook make several million dollars in revenue per employee shouldn’t you be glad that the grunts writing code are getting a respectable share of the profits? Would you rather the engineers get paid 50k/year while Zuckerberg becomes a trillionaire?

InterimNew 7y ago

These salaries don't come from thin air, they're constrained by the market rate at which engineers can be hired and retained. It's unfairly reductive to say that the engineers aren't contributing value since they work in ads. We work in all sorts of fields from the frivolous, like consumer electronics, to the decidedly less so like self-driving. If the discrepancy between engineering salaries and research/teaching/nursing salaries is bothersome then perhaps the blame should be placed on the economic environment that has produced this result, not the twenty-somethings that are accepting great compensation.

tidepod12 7y ago
I don't believe you'll find anywhere in my post above that I placed the blame on anyone. Why so defensive?
- pb7 7y ago
  Are you sure? Because it sure sounds like you disagree that these people deserve to be making large sums of money and then also not be appreciative of it. I would call that placing blame.
  - tidepod12 7y ago
    I mean to put this as civilly as possible, but I don't believe you understand the meaning of blame if you actually think that. Saying that these grads don't deserve that much money (and also observing that they are not appreciative of it) is not casting blame at all.
    - pb7 7y ago
      Okay, let's agree to disagree on the terminology. What exact solution do you propose? Do people stop accepting this money? Do they thank their cashiers extra generously because they make 10x more? What is the actionable step here that would make it all okay in your eyes?

DebtDeflation 7y ago

Are these actually "salaries"? Because I know a few SV types who also include one time signing bonuses, discretionary bonuses, restricted shares, and a host of other stuff that isn't salary in their stated salaries. It makes it hard to conduct comparisons.

tidepod12 7y ago
The way that the majority of these numbers work out is that no, they aren't strictly 'salary', but they are given out in a way such that the employee does get $200k-300k (minus taxes) cash in their bank account if they so choose. FAANG companies don't operate or consider compensation based on your salary, it's all done based on total compensation which includes bonuses, RSUs, etc. I see a lot of this "well it's not actually money, it's just $150k worth of stocks" reasoning to hand-wave away the absurdity of the high numbers, but it's silly to me. $300k is 300k, even if you have to submit an extra form once a month to convert the stocks to cash.
- DebtDeflation 7y ago
  Right, and that's fine (not sure why I'm being downvoted), but why not just say "I make X base salary, Y% target annual bonus, and I got a signing bonus of Z plus RSUs" like everyone in every other industry instead of adding it all up and calling it salary? There's a difference between guaranteed comp and variable comp, just like there's a difference between annual recurring comp and one time comp like a signing bonus.
  - tidepod12 7y ago
    No idea why you're being downvoted. I imagine the reasoning is because at the end of the day, in most discussions, it hardly matters the technical aspect of if the money came from a signing bonus or a stock option. $300k is $300k.
  - esoterica 7y ago
    The title says compensation, not salary. People usually say compensation or TC when referring to the total number. > There's a difference between guaranteed comp and variable comp All comp is variable since you can be fired or laid off at any time.

random314 7y ago

> This is the type of attitude that I fear really makes Silicon Valley outsiders have a good amount of disdain for SVers. If you are experiencing disdain because of this, you need to look inside yourself and see what needs to be fixed in your own thinking. Envy of new grads is not their problem, it is yours. I have seen Americans casually discuss what cars they own and what cars they would like to buy. I have never once chastised them and asked them to think about the homeless and poor kids in Africa before casually discussing cars like an everyday thing. For ref, my family was too poor to own a car growing up.

tidepod12 7y ago
>I have seen Americans casually discuss what cars they own and what cars they would like to buy. I have never once chastised them and asked them to think about the homeless and poor kids in Africa before casually discussing cars like an everyday thing. And why do you say that as if it's a good thing? Perhaps its this exact attitude of extravagance and wastefulness (especially when taken to extremes like in SV) that has led us to the exact income disparity issue that so many people (many of which are in SF) decry. Of course I'm not saying it has to be top of your mind all the time, but when we're in a post that is explicitly created for the purpose of discussing how high salaries are in SV, it is disingenuous to try to shut down discussion about how they might be too high.
- random314 7y ago
  > And why do you say that as if it's a good thing? Perhaps its this exact attitude of extravagance and wastefulness (especially when taken to extremes like in SV) that has led us to the exact income disparity issue So you are recommending Americans should stop buying/discussing cars and SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries because it is "wasteful and extravagant". I am trying to look for some element of logic in your reasoning but I can't find any. Now is a good time to start a discussion on envy.
  - tidepod12 7y ago
    >So you are recommending Americans should stop buying/discussing cars and SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries because it is "wasteful and extravagant". At no point in my comment, or any other comment, have I said, suggested, or implied that anyone should stop buying/discussing cars or that SV new grads should stop accepting/discussing high salaries. In fact, the entire point (as stated in my previous comment) is that this is a discussion about high salaries, and I am simply discussing the fact that the salaries are high. Your interpretation of my comments is clearly in bad faith.

scarejunba 7y ago

Nurses do okay. Teachers and researchers don't actually provide that much value. It's a market. The money flows where it provides most value + discounted future value. Just because you have a soft spot for teachers doesn't mean we should command economy the whole thing. This is right. It is fair. EDIT: Can't respond to below, but private school teacher salaries are lower than SF USD salaries (when you include health, pension, housing).

ClumsyPilot 7y ago
The market does not even set a teacher's salary, as most schools are state funded.
mattkrause 7y ago
Academic researchers (other than profs) basically have a command-economy salary already: it's hard to get a postdoc that's pretty far off the NIH pay scale.

throwawayjava 7y ago

It is important to understand that those salaries aren't normal. 300k for a new grad is not something I've heard of, that's a tad high even for phds. For an undergrad, that would be something approaching an acquihire. That person is being hired for a specific and rare skill, not as a back bencher. A lot to live up to. Even 200k is very high for new grads. Think "strong student at MIT/Stanford/CMU with proven track record of performing very well during internships, maybe some research publications, and multiple internal stakeholders vouching for them". In other words, perceived as "potential deadly weapon to a competitor and/or a possible founder", not "model employee". That is why they're being paid well. Below 200, keep in mind that 150% of 80 is 120. SF sucks. NYC isn't much better. Teachers are underpaid. Not sure how that's relevant to whether some other group of people is overpaid. It's not zero sum. As for researchers, in CS they do well for themselves. Don't worry. I think you are conflating what is possible with what is normal, and in the process under-estimate the amount of time and effort some people choose to invest into themselves during their 4 years of access to the best and brightest minds in their field. Speaking of, MIT gets disturbingly close to 6 figures all in these days...

electricslpnsld 7y ago
> 300k for a new grad is not something I've heard of, that's a tad high even for phds. 300K-ish total comp is a typical starting package at the big tech companies now. 150-160K base salary, 30K bonus target, and 100K stock grant maturing per year gets you to that ballpark.
- throwawayjava 7y ago
  Well, a lot changed in the couple of years since I've helped students with the process. Good for those kids. FWIW it's still fair to say these aren't normal. Plenty of students from top schools don't get offers from the top cos.
- mrep 7y ago
  At which company? I work at one of the big companies and undergrads come in at around 150k and phds around 250k. Facebook will give 100k signing bonuses to their top interns but that's a 1 time bonus so it shouldn't be factored into your yearly total compensation.

heyoni 7y ago

Another way of looking at it is: “wealth is being redistributed”. Obviously there’s still disparity but it looks like a new middle class is forming and we want that, no? Also keep in mind that anything less than 200k means you can’t even buy a decent sized house where you work.

ClumsyPilot 7y ago

I always find it funny when people refer to age of employees -> there is this ageist idea that your salary should increase as you get older, and senior positions are reserved for older people. We also say that we believe in meritocracy, that is the most capable person gets the job, and market decides their salary. The two ideas are in conflict. Markets can be cruel, but the ageist idea is mostly prejudice. Surely the problem is that those companies are earning absurd amounts of money while contributing very little to society. They've got billions stashed offshore that they literally don't know where to invest. Even after paying this much to grads.

tidepod12 7y ago
I don't think it's that much in conflict. If a 22 year old legitimately brings enough value to the table to justify a $200k salary, then sure, give it to them. But the reason we usually associate salaries getting bigger with age is because older people, on average, do have more experience and are able to bring more value to the table.
- asciident 7y ago
  There's some truth in what you say. Very few new CS grads are making substantial contributions commiserate to their salaries. They probably do hit that level in a few years so maybe that balances out. But the companies/shareholders seem to be happy paying those salaries, and we might believe that they probably know what they're doing.
- falco925 7y ago
  What is defined as "valuable" to you? People and companies have different definitions, and as your age into the workforce, how you contribute to your work changes. As a 22 year old dev, "valuable" can be defined as writing code and building products while working 60+ hrs a week, which is what many do in SV. As you age, you write less code and contribute to building products in different ways like architecting the platform and thinking about the business more than the product itself. This is what experience gets you as you age. I think you're saying that the later deserves more compensation and no 22 year old is worth $200k. I don't think that's true. And most of SV doesn't think that's true. SV likes people that can build and make things, and will pay someone handsomely to build a product and iterate.

ardit33 7y ago

Do you feel the same about lawyers and other highly paid jobs? Is being a lawyer any more intellectually challenging that being an engineer.... (honest question, as lawyers at big firms start at around 150k+ as first year associates)

qub1t 7y ago
It’s not more intellectually challenging but it’s a hell of a lot more work. You need to get accepted into a top-5 law school, study like crazy for three years and rack up a couple hundred grand in debt, then you need to grind out 70+ hour weeks as an associate. I have friends who work at top 5 law firms, and friends at fb and google, and the lawyers are working WAY harder. For less money too. But I guess the one upside is that if you make partner, your peak earning potential is higher. Tech jobs are probably the best combination of pay/lifestyle balance at the moment.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

zerr 7y ago

20s year olds are burning out 80h per week until their health allows and until they are replaced by another batch of 20s after ~10 years. Meanwhile, teachers and researchers enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle for the rest of their lifes. In fact, there are lots of candidates fighting for such relaxed permanent positions in academia, which is ruled by nepotism and protectionism, unfortunately.

tidepod12 7y ago
I get your point, but teachers hardly "enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle". Professorships at universities may be different, but elementary/middle/high school teachers often work long, long hours, suffer from burnout, make low money (low as in ~$30-40k/year), and more recently, there is a trend that a lot of them are ending up in therapy to cope with the teaching conditions.
- froindt 7y ago
  The path to tenure is publish or perish. I don't know specific hour commitments, but at an R1 university, you're looking at 4-7 years of long hours with a risk that you won't get tenure. And unless you bring in BIG money or work in a super HCOL area, you probably won't ever make 200k/year.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    4-7 for the PhD alone, plus a few more years as a postdoc, plus the run-up to tenure (another 4-5 years). None of these are particularly stable or relaxing.
mattkrause 7y ago
> researchers enjoy their relaxed and stable lifestyle A few faculty with tenured, hard-money jobs might be able to kick back and relax, but those positions are the unicorns of academia. Everyone else is scrapping to bring in money, just so they can keep their jobs. A lot of places, especially medical schools, expect faculty to cover most of their salary from external grants (~15% of which get funded). I would bet a lot more grad students are burning the midnight oil than FAANG engineers too.

thorwasdfasdf 7y ago

i don't know what part of the country you live in, but this 200k to 300k is barely scraping by with a middle class living in the bay area, especially if you just moved here. CA and the bay area's high cost of living means most people here with less than 200k/year are going to be really poor unless they bought a house over 20 years ago. Your not going to be able to attract talent to move to the bay area with sub 200K salaries. And since, Google and facebook have money to burn, they'd rather pay those high salaries than move to a more cost effective area.

tidepod12 7y ago
I see this comment a lot, but it's just not true. If $300k was "barely scraping by", then it would be impossible for people making less than $100k to even live at all in the bay area, and yet the average income in SF is indeed $75k. In other parts of this thread, an SFer mentions that with a salary of $300k, he saves $100,000 a year after paying for his 'expensive hobbies' without even trying . Another commenter says they have ~$13,000 per month in disposable income (after rent in a nice apartment, utilities, and food). Thats certainly not "scraping by" to me.
- thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  It's different if you already live here. If you already live here probably you have some arrangement: maybe you're in a rent protected home (75% of SF is like that), or maybe you live with 5 other roommates or maybe live with parents, etc. It's different, if you're moving to here from another area you're not going to be able to get one of those rent protected rentals.
  - tidepod12 7y ago
    I just went shopping online for apartments in SF. If I were to move there now, a 1 BR in a very nice luxury tower in Nob Hill will run me about $3,700/mo. And let's throw in, say, $200/mo for utilities and expenses? And let's give a very generous $1000/mo for food expenses? According to a tax calculator, a $200k salary in SF is about $130k/year take home, or about $11k/month. After rent and expenses, that's still $5,100 in disposable take-home pay every month. That's not scraping by.

TrackerFF 7y ago

But you have to remember one thing: These types of (junior) salaries are largely confined to very few places on earth, which is also reflected by the cost of living in those areas. Basically, if you want to continue earning at those levels, without sacrificing your life to work, you're locked to living in a few select places. In SF, you need to earn almost $180k to afford a mortgage.

winrid 7y ago

I mean, when I was 22-23 I was writing/leading whole products, some that make tens of millions of dollars now. I was making less than 130k when I was doing that, just to give a range. If these guys are contributing 0.1% maybe I was underpaid ;)