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There is an unfortunate distinction between those other professions - STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equi

by toufka 7y ago

There is an unfortunate distinction between those other professions - STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. And that 'moment' is generally delayed in STEM compared to those professions; you start generating your first real paycheck in STEM, with some stability in your career path at your early-mid thirties. Even medicine (which is longer than consulting & law), stability can be reached before that.

fizwhiz 7y ago
> STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. These statements couldn't be further from the truth. You don't need to hang out on HN for long to figure out that FAANG SWEs comfortably make upwards of 400k in their late 20s[1]. Barring FB and perhaps Netflix, most tech companies tend to have fantastic work-life-balance if you prefer to take it easy. L5s at Google make what Partners at McKinsey make. If you normalize by the number of hours worked, SWEs make a hell of a lot more than their peers in consulting (management or the Big4) and about the same as the median cardiologist with maybe 20% of the effort. [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ne7ccUdOWewD4rFDQjjnQEJDgsmgFID/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ne7ccUdOWewD4rFDQjjnQEJDgs...
- thereisnospork 7y ago
  SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 30, then followed by 75-90?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    And SWEs at a handful of large US tech employers are an even tinier slice.
  - fizwhiz 7y ago
    I think your example of a biologist is a bit disingenuous. By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab. If they're inclined to continue working for academia then it's not surprising that they won't break past 6 figures. You could just as easily pick people from different fields that are pursuing a career in academia and find that professors at the top-tier make a fraction of what their students make at top-tier companies. I also think the remark about "stability" was hand wavy. What is it about non-SWE STEM roles that make them so unstable compared to consulting or law?
    - thereisnospork 7y ago
      > By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab followed by 2-4 years at a postdoc, asked for in every job application for a 'biologist II' which has an average salary of ~77k (per indeed). This is for industry, not academia. So how am I am misrepresenting the fact that being a biologist takes over 7+ years of being grossly underpaid relative to a SWE at FAANG to wind up being a little less grossly underpaid than a SWE at FAANG?
      - fizwhiz 7y ago
        Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great deal about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) I do know a couple of friends that work at Genentech who comfortably pull in > 200k so there's that.
        seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        Biology is one of the lower paid STEM disciplines, and the toughest to break into professorships. Most biology majors are just premed anyways.
        thereisnospork 7y ago
        > Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) comp pretty much == salary (plus benefits, like insurance, 4% 401k match, maybe small bonuses). My take is that the low salaries is primarily due to the appeal of the work - kids grow up wanting to be biologists, (chemists, physicists) so there is a labor oversupply. A strong secondary contributor is overhead - a scientist can easily cost 2x salary in overhead for equipment and reagents (very field dependent). To your point it is possible make decent money in big pharma, but they are essentially the FAANG of the bio/chemistry world and still come with 7y postgrad prereqs.
  - thrower123 7y ago
    This is why I have a bit of an aneurysm whenever all of these wildly disparate things are lumped together under the umbrella of "STEM". Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym, but in almost all discussions, doctors and nurses and everything else that would fit under that heading are forked out already. - Edit: derp, it's Math, not medicine, but there's an indication of how brain-rotted I've gotten trying to follow this subject. Each of them is it's own world with it's own context and it's own problems.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
      I thought the M was maths and medicine wasn't in STEM?
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      > Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym I believe the "M" in STEM is Mathematics, not Medicine.
    - oarabbus_ 7y ago
      STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
  - pb7 7y ago
    Doctors are also a tiny slice of medicine. Nurses make a fraction of what doctors make, and other roles like Clinical Laboratory Technologist and Radiology Technician that make healthcare possible make even less. Law exhibits a bimodal distribution in compensation as well. Paralegals make even less than poorly compensated lawyers.
    - CydeWeys 7y ago
      Also, the super well compensated doctors are a small slice of doctors overall. Most doctors end up doing family practice, which isn't super lucrative. Once you factor in the hundreds of thousands in loans, there are many non-doctor career paths that have better outcomes than that.
- toufka 7y ago
  And this is another semantic issue here. The article (and my experience) both deal with the "Science" part of STEM, and specifically in biology/biochemistry, and specifically in academia (professorships at universities in hard-science fields). And defining those boundaries of discussion should be very much a starting point for any of these discussions.
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
  What’s the median salary for STEM engineers versus medical doctors? FANG pays in the p90, but the vast majority of STEM make decent but unsurprising salaries, and that salary requires them to be in a handful of major cities. As opposed to a physician, median salary almost double of a software engineer, and can live and work in much cheaper cities.
- ivalm 7y ago
  SWE at FAANG is only a minor, frankly irrelevant, portion of STEM. Most people in STEM cannot transition to being a FAANG SWE. In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    And of the SWEs at FAANG, the ones making $400k in their 20s are yet another tiny slice. So we are comparing a tiny slice of a tiny slice of STEM professionals.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Surgeons, McKinsey management consultants, partners at big law firms, etc., are all tiny slices of much larger, lower-compensated workforces too. And considering how many tens of thousands of engineers the big tech companies have each, the top slice in our industry isn't that small.
    - ivalm 7y ago
      I mean, it is small relative to "all physicians" in the US (why the focus on surgeons?). Or even relative to "all stem PhDs"
  - saghm 7y ago
    > In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s. Is an assistant professor different from a "full professor" in your usage here? I'm not sure how you define "paying well", but low six figures is significantly above average in the US (which is where I assume you're talking about, but also most likely above average pretty much everywhere else too).
    - ivalm 7y ago
mdorazio 7y ago
This is simply not true. I have friends and colleagues in all these categories and the tech workers on the coasts easily make the most money, especially if you balance for hours worked. The only exceptions are at the partner level, but the number of people who actually make it there is minuscule in comparison to the number of people who easily make it into 300k+ total comp roles in tech.
TuringNYC 7y ago
There is also the tech cycle. When is the last time you heard of a doctor suddenly losing 40% of their salary? Medicine is a licensed field with an artificially constrained supply. So is Law (to a lesser extent). Everything is cool in 1999, not so much in 2002.

by toufka 7y ago

fizwhiz 7y ago

> STEM fields rarely pay even close to what consulting, law and medicine pay. Peers of equivalent talent in those 3 professions are generally making double to triple (if not more) by the time STEM graduates reach the same moment in their personal lives. These statements couldn't be further from the truth. You don't need to hang out on HN for long to figure out that FAANG SWEs comfortably make upwards of 400k in their late 20s[1]. Barring FB and perhaps Netflix, most tech companies tend to have fantastic work-life-balance if you prefer to take it easy. L5s at Google make what Partners at McKinsey make. If you normalize by the number of hours worked, SWEs make a hell of a lot more than their peers in consulting (management or the Big4) and about the same as the median cardiologist with maybe 20% of the effort. [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ne7ccUdOWewD4rFDQjjnQEJDgsmgFID/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ne7ccUdOWewD4rFDQjjnQEJDgs...

thereisnospork 7y ago
SWE's are a tiny slice of 'STEM' and by far the most profitable. How much do you think the average phd in biology makes? maybe 30k/y till 27, then 45k/y till 30, then followed by 75-90?
- ghaff 7y ago
  And SWEs at a handful of large US tech employers are an even tinier slice.
- fizwhiz 7y ago
  I think your example of a biologist is a bit disingenuous. By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab. If they're inclined to continue working for academia then it's not surprising that they won't break past 6 figures. You could just as easily pick people from different fields that are pursuing a career in academia and find that professors at the top-tier make a fraction of what their students make at top-tier companies. I also think the remark about "stability" was hand wavy. What is it about non-SWE STEM roles that make them so unstable compared to consulting or law?
  - thereisnospork 7y ago
    > By 27 they've probably just wrapped up their PhD and were making a paltry stipend to work in a professor's research lab followed by 2-4 years at a postdoc, asked for in every job application for a 'biologist II' which has an average salary of ~77k (per indeed). This is for industry, not academia. So how am I am misrepresenting the fact that being a biologist takes over 7+ years of being grossly underpaid relative to a SWE at FAANG to wind up being a little less grossly underpaid than a SWE at FAANG?
    - fizwhiz 7y ago
      Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great deal about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) I do know a couple of friends that work at Genentech who comfortably pull in > 200k so there's that.
      - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
        Biology is one of the lower paid STEM disciplines, and the toughest to break into professorships. Most biology majors are just premed anyways.
      - thereisnospork 7y ago
        > Forgive me for I live in a bubble so I don't know a great about why someone would spend that many years in school to land a 77k job. I also don't know much about compensation structure (ex: is comp == salary or are there other components?) comp pretty much == salary (plus benefits, like insurance, 4% 401k match, maybe small bonuses). My take is that the low salaries is primarily due to the appeal of the work - kids grow up wanting to be biologists, (chemists, physicists) so there is a labor oversupply. A strong secondary contributor is overhead - a scientist can easily cost 2x salary in overhead for equipment and reagents (very field dependent). To your point it is possible make decent money in big pharma, but they are essentially the FAANG of the bio/chemistry world and still come with 7y postgrad prereqs.
- thrower123 7y ago
  This is why I have a bit of an aneurysm whenever all of these wildly disparate things are lumped together under the umbrella of "STEM". Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym, but in almost all discussions, doctors and nurses and everything else that would fit under that heading are forked out already. - Edit: derp, it's Math, not medicine, but there's an indication of how brain-rotted I've gotten trying to follow this subject. Each of them is it's own world with it's own context and it's own problems.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 7y ago
    I thought the M was maths and medicine wasn't in STEM?
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    > Notably, we keep medicine in the acronym I believe the "M" in STEM is Mathematics, not Medicine.
  - oarabbus_ 7y ago
    STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.
- pb7 7y ago
  Doctors are also a tiny slice of medicine. Nurses make a fraction of what doctors make, and other roles like Clinical Laboratory Technologist and Radiology Technician that make healthcare possible make even less. Law exhibits a bimodal distribution in compensation as well. Paralegals make even less than poorly compensated lawyers.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    Also, the super well compensated doctors are a small slice of doctors overall. Most doctors end up doing family practice, which isn't super lucrative. Once you factor in the hundreds of thousands in loans, there are many non-doctor career paths that have better outcomes than that.
toufka 7y ago
And this is another semantic issue here. The article (and my experience) both deal with the "Science" part of STEM, and specifically in biology/biochemistry, and specifically in academia (professorships at universities in hard-science fields). And defining those boundaries of discussion should be very much a starting point for any of these discussions.
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
What’s the median salary for STEM engineers versus medical doctors? FANG pays in the p90, but the vast majority of STEM make decent but unsurprising salaries, and that salary requires them to be in a handful of major cities. As opposed to a physician, median salary almost double of a software engineer, and can live and work in much cheaper cities.
ivalm 7y ago
SWE at FAANG is only a minor, frankly irrelevant, portion of STEM. Most people in STEM cannot transition to being a FAANG SWE. In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  And of the SWEs at FAANG, the ones making $400k in their 20s are yet another tiny slice. So we are comparing a tiny slice of a tiny slice of STEM professionals.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  Surgeons, McKinsey management consultants, partners at big law firms, etc., are all tiny slices of much larger, lower-compensated workforces too. And considering how many tens of thousands of engineers the big tech companies have each, the top slice in our industry isn't that small.
  - ivalm 7y ago
    I mean, it is small relative to "all physicians" in the US (why the focus on surgeons?). Or even relative to "all stem PhDs"
- saghm 7y ago
  > In fact, the OP article of this thread is about progression in an academic career, which doesn't pay well unless you become a full professor at a research uni. First time you break low 6 figures in this career is when you become assistant prof in early/mid 30s. Is an assistant professor different from a "full professor" in your usage here? I'm not sure how you define "paying well", but low six figures is significantly above average in the US (which is where I assume you're talking about, but also most likely above average pretty much everywhere else too).
  - ivalm 7y ago

mdorazio 7y ago

This is simply not true. I have friends and colleagues in all these categories and the tech workers on the coasts easily make the most money, especially if you balance for hours worked. The only exceptions are at the partner level, but the number of people who actually make it there is minuscule in comparison to the number of people who easily make it into 300k+ total comp roles in tech.

TuringNYC 7y ago

There is also the tech cycle. When is the last time you heard of a doctor suddenly losing 40% of their salary? Medicine is a licensed field with an artificially constrained supply. So is Law (to a lesser extent). Everything is cool in 1999, not so much in 2002.