10 ms·

If average salaries are 80-100k why does everyone keep getting 40-60k offers?

127 points by solarmist 16y ago

Are people's salaries really as high the numbers people are throwing around here? Around 80-100k for an average salary? My experience has been quite different. Is this just in big tech centers like SF, Seattle and NYC? Mainly consultant salaries? The people I know graduating with masters degrees from regional universities are getting 60k offers with undergrads getting 40-50k offers. A little background for myself: I've had a couple jobs. First was a student sys admin at U of MN computer science dept at about $10/hour (I think). Then in the Army where I made around $30k by the time I got out. My next job in the industry was a relatively small company in the Portland area and there I made about $47k when I left and all new grads/entry level people were being offered $40k, no exceptions. The people there that had 5-10 years of experience were only making in the $65k range. And the senior developer/general manager was only making about $100k. When I was offered the job I asked for $55k which I thought was really pushing it for only having some experience developing stuff in the army and in my classes. So, what gives? What's with the Buick sized disconnect between my experiences and what I hear being discussed here on HN? Is there really a 40k difference in salaries just based on location? All in all I consider myself a very good programmer (Honestly I'd guess in the top 80% of programmers, I haven't met one that's better than myself, but I don't consider myself nearly as experienced as a lot of the people here) that's passionate about coding and I've been doing it since I was in middle school, so I really want to be able to value myself accurately, but something just feels off about it. Looking at everything going on I'm thinking of leaving grad school if I can get offers like this? Am I just marketing myself wrong? Any feedback would be appreciated. You can check me out at github.com/solarmist or http://www.linkedin.com/pub/joshua-olson/5/521/88b.

nostrademons 16y ago
Short answer: yes, it's location. Slightly longer answer: It almost always pays to go to the center of your field. You get paid less at a relatively small company in Portland because they get paid less. Firms in Silicon Valley focus on eliminating whole industries; when they succeed at that, they capture basically all the value that the incumbents in that industry had. That gives them large quantities of cash, and since there are so many other companies in the region competing for the same talent pool, a lot of that cash goes to employees. BTW, $80-100K/year is quite low in Silicon Valley. That might be a starting salary at Microsoft for someone fresh out of school.
- chad_oliver 16y ago
  Although the other side of the coin is that Silicon Valley has much higher living costs. Does this make a big difference? Do people in Silicon Valley have significantly higher qualities of life, or is there an argument for staying away from the expensive hubs?
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    It makes a difference, but the added living costs rarely eat up all the additional salary you make. You have to figure them into your financial calculations, but you'll usually end up ahead in terms of the net amount of money you can bank in a given amount of time.
    - jmathai 16y ago
      Concur. I moved to Sunnyvale from Cincinnati, OH. My salary in 2005 (prior to taking a pay cut when co-founding a startup) was $67k. My current salary is $120k. While the cost of living is higher, my net after all is said and done (savings, stock, retirement, etc) is significantly higher.
  - zacharycohn 16y ago
    But then when you move away, you were legitimately making more at your last job. Live in Midwest: Job 1: Make 65,000. Job 2: Make 70,000. Live in the Valley: Job 1: Make 120,000. Move to Midwest. Job 2: Probably keep making 120,000.
  - mattdeboard 16y ago
    I moved from Silicon Valley to Indiana, and went from making over 70k to making 40k. I will tell you that the standard of living is not THAT much higher in silicon valley than the middle-of-nowhere, midwest, where I live now. It is not $35-40k a year more expensive by any stretch of the imagination, all lifestyle considerations (quality of apartment, vehicle, etc.) being equal. It is not a dollar-for-dollar match when you move to Silicon Valley. The pay disparity between living in SV and not living in SV is disproportionate to the cost of living. (In no way do I intend that to sound negative.)
burgerbrain 16y ago
I really doubt 80-100k is an average salary... maybe an average starting salary outside of the valley. I had such offers for places outside of the valley as an undergrad (before I had graduated).
- phlux 16y ago
  Im going to guess you are 27-29. Before I say why I say this, can you please reply with your age? I want to test a theory which I will reveal in full if you dont mind answering..
solarmist 16y ago
Since I STILL seem to be low balling the figure what WOULD be an average salary in the valley? For someone just out of grad school?
- peteforde 16y ago
  90-105k Read this before doing every interview: Game Theory, Salary Negotiation, and Programmers http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=67 http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=67
gte910h 16y ago
Average salaries in SF are 100k. 50-70k is a relatively normal starting salary in "2nd tier" cities like Austin or Atlanta. But look at housing costs, etc. You'll find depending on what you want (big house/short commute/etc) SF may not be the right place.
- davidu 16y ago
  Hi Michael -- That's too broad a statement to make and it's not factually based on anything. Way too many variables, which is why the only real thing we can say is that location plays a huge role. In SF location drives higher salaries due to both cost of living AND huge demand.
  - gte910h 16y ago
    > That's too broad a statement to make and it's not factually based on anything. It's based on a WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703439504576116192416198636.html?mod=rss_Technology http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870343950457611... I've seen this number several other places as well, varing from 96k to 104. I live in Atlanta. I get articles from Georgia Tech about the tech job scene here as well as averages for different majors, etc. If you really really really want me to find an email from Tech, and stick it on the web I will. I get Austin numbers talking to people I know there... I have housing market comparisons for all three cities and Vancouver due to talking to friends in all three areas.
btilly 16y ago
Firstly location. Secondly just out of school should get significantly below average salaries. You don't realize it until you've been out in the working world for a bit. But people learn a lot in their first few years of being in the real world. Thirdly I wonder whether your figures are accurate. My experience is that people's impressions of other people's salaries are often out of sync with reality. In part because companies push people who make more to never let on that they do, so that other people don't push to make more money. (I've had the experience at multiple jobs of being told directly that letting people know my salary is a fireable offense.)
- solarmist 16y ago
  The salaries I mentioned at my old companies and classmates are relatively accurate, I got to see paperwork at my old company and my classmates were pretty excited about their offers.
- sskates 16y ago
  My understanding is that making you not disclose your salary is unenforceable. They can get mad at you, but they don't actually have recourse.
  - btilly 16y ago
    In an "at will" state you can be fired at any time for no reason. I doubt that enforcement would be a problem if they wished to enforce it.
    - wyclif 16y ago
      They'd have to prove you disclosed it. As has been discussed here recently, there are plenty of ways to do that among colleagues while maintaining plausible denial.
      - mkjones 16y ago
        If it's at-will, they can fire you for whatever reason (or no reason). I don't think they have to prove anything, except that you signed an at-will employment agreement.
jonah 16y ago
According to this [1] cost of living calculator if you're making $55k in Portland you'd need $72k in San Jose - to maintain the same standard of living. A 30% increase in cost of living. So, anything more than that you'd actually be earning more in relative terms. [1] http://www.bestplaces.net/col/?salary=55000&city1=54159000&city2=50668000 http://www.bestplaces.net/col/?salary=55000&city1=541590...
djloche 16y ago
The companies you're targeting value the programming work being done / needed at $x/year. If you feel like that is too low, I suggest targeting companies that value your skills at a higher rate. Also, tech companies or companies started by or run by tech people may pay at a higher rate because they know the value of the skills and want to attract and invest in top quality employees.
starpilot 16y ago
Voluntary response bias. The higher earners are more willing to advertise what they make. Also, I've heard that companies prefer to pay what a job (they think) is worth, regardless of location. Just something I've heard.
- sqrt17 16y ago
  Companies pay whatever makes sense to pay from a business sense of view. If there is supply of software developers working for 65k/yr, and they don't know how to get 50% more value out of a 100k/yr developer (either because they're unable to figure out, or not interested, or because their business hinges on something else and doesn't scale with better software), then it does not make any sense for them to pay more. And of course, they will think that whatever they pay is whatever it is worth, because they have no other indicator of fair prices.
rms 16y ago
Bay Area salaries are really that high. However, the standards for hiring are much higher out here. Interviewers out here can really smell your actual ability; BS that would work to get you a job on the East Coast doesn't fly out here. So the salaries are higher, but the standards for hiring are also that much higher. If you are that good at programming, come to the Bay Area and you'll find a job. There are always people hiring...
webwright 16y ago
http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+engineer&l1=San+Francisco%2C+CA&tm=1 http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=software+engineer&l1=San... There's a huge race for talent right now. You've got a peculiar background compared to most startup hires, but if you've got the chops to make it thru an interview, I imagine you'd get snatched up in the Valley (or Seattle) for $100-110k, easy. In the Valley, probably more. I know a great company in Seattle that'd give you a $12k signing bonus, give ME $12k for referring you, and give you an iPad just for making it to the interview process. Disclaimer: No idea if you can ship software, how broad your skills are (web dev front end to backend? Sysadmin chops? iOS?), etc.
- stevenj 16y ago
  Who's the company?
  - webwright 16y ago
    SEOmoz. Great company, great team, amazing growth, great founder.
    - bricestacey 16y ago
      That offer has been on the table awhile. I suspect they're desperate for top talent. I don't mean this in a bad way, but I highly doubt an impromptu conversation in this particular topic will be a winner.
- djb_hackernews 16y ago
  seomoz?
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jrussbowman 16y ago
  Heh, my wife really wants us to move to seattle. I am more of a sysadmin but can get applications built with python.
plinkplonk 16y ago
Anecdote - one of my friends (who is a good, but not mindblowing developer) is drawing a 180k$ in San Fransisco for (essentially) maintaining a CRUD insurance app in Rails. He is being wooed by a social gaming (yeah I know!) company who is offering him 200k. So I'd think 100k would be low in San Fran. Just as a contrast, 100k is a toprange salary for a really good developer in Bangalore. By and large only managers make that kind of money hereabouts. My friend says that he isn't able to get people to join his present company even at those rates and the only people attending interviews are clueless Indian developers who are waiting for their Green Cards[1] but hardly know how to create a table in MySQL. The good people who do join soon leave for better companies or startups. [1] I am Indian myself fwiw. I am not saying all Indian devs are clueless, just that those applying at my friend's company are.
- timcederman 16y ago
  $200k base salary in the Bay Area is Engineering Manager level - VP at a well-funded startup, or Sr Director at a larger company. Not sure what your friend is doing. $75-$100k represents 0-5 year engineer in the vast majority of cases. Most mid-career folks earn between $130-$160k. n.b. There are definitely exceptions. Difficult and specific hires will generally command market rate + 50%.
  - sploink 16y ago
    What does "mid career" mean?
    - to3m 16y ago
      Putting my cynical hat on: 25.
      - timcederman 16y ago
        I'd put mid-career as late-twenties to late-thirties, depending on the person.
  - 16y ago
nazgulnarsil 16y ago
did everyone fail statistics? average doesn't mean anything without knowing standard deviation. if possible just show me the distribution itself.
abossy 16y ago
If you're the best programmer you know, then you're probably not in a competitive enough market to drive prices up for programmers. In a place like Silicon Valley, it's impossible to not meet somebody that's better than you. Either that, or I'm seriously underestimating your programming ability!
- solarmist 16y ago
  Lol, I'm probably just a decent sized fish in a small pond, but I do keep growing, so I've been looking to find myself a bigger pond.
  - eyeareque 16y ago
    I made the move to Silicon Valley about four years ago. It was one of the best choices I've made in my life. I wish I would have made the move a long time ago. If you only make around 60k now, don't expect to get a 100% raise once you move over to a tech hub, unless you are an amazing negotiator. Shoot for 85-90 (plus some stocks). Don't waste time at a company that doesn't have a lot of growth potential. Work harder and output more than the rest of your team does. Stay visible, make sure they know the value of your contributions. A few 10% raises/promotions later and you could be up to 120k+ in no time.
corprew 16y ago
I think part of it is Portland -- Anecdotal, but I know a large number of people in the area who are relatively good at dev and used to work for HP or another local company and are now unemployed or underemployed and have a house that's severely underwater. A few Seattle companies I know of have hired portland telecommuters because they've had trouble finding good talent up here. I have no idea how much that is happening outside of my experience.
danek 16y ago
Depends on location + company/role. Other comments point out location is important and I agree. But almost as important is what kind of company you are at--salary at a tech company where you are creating and building new products is different from salary at a cable company where you are maintaining products someone else built. As an engineer, your job is to find ways to improve the business, work your ass off to implement them, and then build the tools so that less skilled people can manage your creations. Keep creating value in this manner and you'll see your salary skyrocket. Though if you are at a company where they would rather have you sit on your ass doing nothing than being a go-getter (as I learned the hard way), get off your ass and look for a better job.
Timothee 16y ago
These "salary" threads of the past week have been a bit depressing to me. Like you, most of the salaries discussed in these threads make me feel like I've been and am still underpaid. And this one is no other. And I live in the Bay Area… my internship was nowhere the $8k mentioned at some point for Google and my first salary was pretty far from the $100k that are floating around here once again. That being said, I actually checked salaries of H1b (I was one too) at my current and previous companies and mine looked decent in comparison. So, I'm not sure if it's matter of me picking the wrong/cheap companies (and being bad at negotiating, but I know that) or that there is some selection bias going on.
- timcederman 16y ago
  Salaries in the Bay Area remind me of sushi restaurants in Tokyo. The vast majority are in a fairly normal band that we can all relate to. Then there are the upper echelon which make a very sudden and alarming jump in price. Much like how Chowhound focuses on the creme de la creme and its commensurate pricing, HN focuses on the top 1-5% of tech jobs.
- iamelgringo 16y ago
  Everybody is hiring. Brush up your resume, go to networking events, and start handing out business cards. You'll have an idea of your fair market value if you're checking the market to see what your time is worth.
prpon 16y ago
I would honestly say you are being short changed if you get 55K. Back in the day (some 10+ years ago), I got 55K with 2 years experience in the midwest. Today, I hear from friends who still live out there that not much has changed, but I would be looking at 70K in salary with 2 years experience. If you can, hold out for better opportunities and please, please, please, don't sell yourself short. A 15K would not make a difference to these companies. It will make a difference to you. I went to silicon valley from mid-west with a 30K jump in salary back in the day. I shared an apartment in the bay area and living costs didn't matter that much. The money did.
callmevlad 16y ago
Total nitpick, but by saying that you are "in the top 80% of programmers" do you really mean you consider yourself in the top 20%? Because if you are in the top 80, there could definitely be a reason why you are drawing such a low salary :)
- solarmist 16y ago
  You got me. I hope I'm in better than the top 80%, but I'm doubting myself now that I wrote that... :P
vinhboy 16y ago
No one has said anything about the language or platform? Please don't make this an argument about what language is better, blah blah blah, but the language you specialize in makes a difference -- at least in terms of salary. From my limited experience, Ruby/Rails pays significantly more than PHP or .NET . I hear Java pays even more... Just sayin... Edit: This is why I love these salary threads. We could have just potentially changed the OP's life (for the better I hope), even if to most people its just an annoying topic that keeps coming up on HN.
purewater 16y ago
$80-100k understates the salaries in Silicon Valley. $100k isn't even a recent college grad salary, it's usually closer to $110k + $40k in other compensation == $150k right out of college. A few years of experience pushes you well over the $200k mark. Heck, interns even get paid $8k/month which is almost $100k/year. Seriously, brush up your resume and apply to the major firms. By the way, I should note that cost of living and taxes are much higher here. Standard rent is >$2k (which is nothing compared to some parts of NYC, I guess...)
- mkjones 16y ago
  Interesting - I'm only a year and a half out of college, and I don't think any of my undergrad CS friends were making a $110k salary right after graduation (more in the 60-90 range). I've always used a rule of thumb that rent is $1k/month/bedroom around Palo Alto, a bit less in Mountain View / Sunnyvale / Redwood City, and a bit more in SF. >$2k/month/bedroom sounds extraordinarily high - where were you seeing that?
  - FireEatre 16y ago
    He's BSing you. Like 90% of the comments on HN.
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    60-90k is what I'd expect to see from something outside the San Fran area as a college grad. I don't have personal experience with starting salaries there, but I would expect them to be much higher due to a higher cost of living.
    - mkjones 16y ago
      From the Stanford CS department for 2009-2010, regarding CS/EE undergrads, size = 140 students: > Salary offers ranged from $65,000 to $95,000. The average salary offer was $79,333. The median salary offer was $ 80,000. Granted (heh), this doesn't include stock options.
- allenc 16y ago
fleitz 16y ago
The average salary is pretty accurate, what I think you may fail to realize is that the industry will pay a premium for experience. I've been coding professionally for 10 years. 80-100k is normal for that much experience in Vancouver, I'm sure it's even more in SF/NYC
geuis 16y ago
Putting aside location for a moment, its because averages are averages. Just because a number is in the middle means that's what most people earn. Suppose the top 10% make 200k and the bottom 60% make 50k. That is not an even distribution curve, yet if you do an average its higher than 50k because its offset by the top 10%.
pyre 16y ago
There are companies in Portland that are hiring at larger salaries than what you're seeing. You just have to shop around. I would suggest getting in to the local tech scene there (user groups, etc). There's also all of the conferences that go on. Also, don't be afraid to look for remote work.
beaker 16y ago
Ok so your very first job (out of the Army) was paying you 47K? Is that correct? So beyond that single company, do you have any other criteria for the title of your post "why does everyone else keep gettin' 40-60k offers?" I expect that if you change companies and create value your salary will increase.
stretchwithme 16y ago
There are many, many variables. Too many to consider. If you really want to know how you stack up with devs in SV, come out here for a hackathon or SF Startup Weekend. Decide for yourself who's smarter and ask them what they think is a fair offer for your skills. If you've figured out they're smart, they will probably already have an idea.
jasonkester 16y ago
Simple. You keep getting emails from recruiters advertising $50k/year Senior Developer positions for the same reason that you get 200 resumes from completely unqualified people for every position you advertise. Good positions fill quickly, just like good developers find jobs quickly. What's left is bad developers and bad jobs. So what you're seeing is not hundreds of employers who don't know what the market rate is. It's dozens of employers who refuse to believe the market rate is where it is, and therefore continue advertising for the same position over and over. There will always be that $50k Senior Dev position available in Hillsboro because they're never going to fill it.
mjw 16y ago
Not that this helps, but: always worth asking whether an 'average' is a mean (likely to be skewed higher by a heavy tail of high salaries in certain industries, certain areas etc), or a median.
rorrr 16y ago
If you're making $47K in IT in USA, you're doing something very wrong. If you actually have skills, you could be making $70K. Salary depends on 1) Previous salary 2) New title/rank 3) The industry (and how well it's doing) 4) Years of experience 5) Previous salary 6) Negotiation skills 7) Education 8) How well you interview 9) Skills (if the interviewer cares) 10) Your age and gender (sad but true) 11) References 12) How hot the market is (if there's a lack of developers in your area of expertise, you can get some crazy raises every year by switching jobs) > All in all I consider myself a very good programmer (Honestly I'd guess in the top 80% of programmers, I haven't met one that's better than myself, but I don't consider myself nearly as experienced as a lot of the people here) There are many horrible developers out there. Being the top 20% is really not a big deal. If you want to make real money, try to be the top 1%.
- DanI-S 16y ago
  It sounds like you rate previous salary as a pretty important factor. It seems like an odd measure. How exactly does it factor in, and what reason do recruiters have to trust what candidates say?
  - josh33 16y ago
    I interview quite a bit (hire about 2 people per month to my department) and I always ask where their compensation is currently at (or if they are unemployed, where it was at). This is one of the more important questions I ask because it is usually obvious when someone is lying and it helps me understand how this person's previous employer valued them. As an employer, I want to know they were an asset. Yes, someone could lie. People lie all of the time. One of my jobs is to feel that out. I screen for integrity. I look for any hint of lying, even if they are joking. You can always tell someone with integrity from someone without it. And we want to work with people of integrity.
    - nevinera 16y ago
      I've only been asked that question in an interview twice, and in both I asked why that would matter. I walked both times (away from a decent offer in one case). What's being tested is not 'how did your previous employer value you?', it's 'how good at negotiating were you when you started your last job?' Additionally, the value of less numerical benefits gets substantially ignored in such calculations - I worked for two years at a job that paid 40k, but the flexibility, atmosphere, and environment were worth the 30k drop to me. There's no normal way to explain that in an interview without it sounding like an excuse. Next time somebody asks that question, I'm going to tell them '15k and a few thousand bananas'.
DiabloD3 16y ago
Maybe I missed it, but is 80-100k the average or the median? Because you have people like CEOs of major companies making million dollar salaries, and that will have an effect skewing the numbers.
- ionfish 16y ago
  The median is an average. You probably meant to ask whether 80-100k was the mean or the median.
  - DiabloD3 16y ago
    This is why you don't post on HN before the third cup of coffee.
cshirky 16y ago
I don't know the figures you are looking at, but an average salary isn't the same as the median salary. It's like that old joke: "Bill Gates walks into a bar and makes everyone a millionaire, on average." One programmer getting a $500K salary and 10 getting $50K leaves a $90K average. Now if you are just using the words average and median as substitutes and are seeing figures talking about $80K _median_ salaries, then the "location/experience" are likely to be the explanation, but if you really are hearing about average salaries, you have to factor in that, in systems with the characteristic imbalance of wages, something like 85% of programmers will get below-average salaries.
- Tycho 16y ago
  But technically the mean salary isn't the same as the average salary either. In fact they are both 'averages.' (sorry, nitpicking. Your point stil stands)
antirez 16y ago
I wonder what is the net income of 100k after you pay taxes. As a guy living in Europe I don't have a clue about how it works in US, for instance if in UE the company is spending 100k euro for you, you end with 45k in your pockets (there are differences between countries but more or less those are the numbers). And this is unrelated to the amount of money you spend. If you buy a car the amount of taxes you pay does not change, you can use your 45k to buy what you want or to take them in your bank account (that's lame IMHO people spending should be advantaged). So what you can do with 45k year? Well this is 3750 euro per month, it's enough to pay for a decent house, to pay your bills, to go for vacation a few times per year. If you have sons better your wife to work as well, otherwise life it is still feasible but with restrictions. What you can do with $100k in US and how much of this are spent in taxes? Edit: btw a difference is that in UE you don't have to think too much about putting money in the bank in order to retire, the government will provide you with a post-work salary that is proportional to your past income (at least this is how it works in Italy, France, Germany, ...). Also medical stuff are mostly free.
- pilib 16y ago
  I'm from Europe too. There are some specifics, but you can look at Wikipedia and find calculators online that explain what is deducted from gross income. You have social security, medicare, state and federal income tax. You should take into account that some parts of the US are more expensive than others, and that state income tax is not the same for every state. Also, 401k (pension plans) and some other types of savings, investments are deductible from the taxes. It all depends on who you live with, do you have children, etc.
  - antirez 16y ago
    Thanks for the information, one of the most interesting thing for me is if in most states in US you can deduct taxes if you buy normal things, like a car, a computer, and so forth. In Italy everybody cites the US as example of how taxes should be payed (at least about the general model: everybody pays but less, if you don't pay: huge troubles). One if this dogma about the US system is that you can deduce everything you spend more or less.
michaelochurch 16y ago
Three changes: 1. Inflation. Laggard companies haven't kept up, but leading companies are pushing forward. As for the laggards, they probably set their developer salaries back in 1995 when $45k, out of college, was decent for a software engineer. They never revised that number, instead suffering a very gradual (and probably imperceptible, from a day-to-day perspective) decline in the people they could get. 2. Correction. Talent has been underpriced for a long time, except in finance, where the hours and work sucked. For a long time, rising tech companies could low-ball their offers and say, "Yes, but we're a fun company, and if we get big, you'll get rich." At this point, that strategy doesn't work as well, because new startups have filled that niche (risky, low pay, might make you very rich). Google and Amazon are still great companies, but they're not likely to triple their stock value in the next 3 years. What's also happening is that the US is becoming less of a destination country for foreign talent, due to post-2001 immigration hassles and our health care situation, which scares the hell out of people. This change is good and bad, but it does improve salaries. 3. Location + industry. Engineer-driven companies, which are very selective and desirable places to work, but treat engineers very well, are offering $90-110k in New York, Boston and the Valley, and $70-90k in the Midwest. On the other hand, programmers at oil and health insurance companies are not making that much; they're still in the $45-60k range, because programmers are second- and third-class citizens in those companies. For example, a friend of mine works in fashion as a programmer (entry-level/novice) and makes about $28k. If she did the same work in a real software shop, she'd make $70k easily.
- josh33 16y ago
  Industry is important. Pick an industry that actually has money to pay for software. Not all industries are equal.
joseph4521 16y ago
Here is Luxembourg, the minimum salary for qualified people (at least 2 years of study or experience) is 1900€+ per month with nearly no tax. For the same level of health insurance and retirement plan, one would to win approx 65k$ in USA. Don't forget I'm talking about the minimum legal salary, with that salary you can still consider yourself poor. Middle class people wins at least twice as much. Are people in USA so poor that 80-100k$ seems like eldorado?
- cpeterso 16y ago
  Regarding US average salaries, Wikipedia says: * The average personal income is about $40K. * The average household income is about $50K. * About 20% of households make over $100K. * But only about 6% of individuals have personal incomes over $100K. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_S...
jhft 16y ago
I find all these salary threads humorous for another reason: all the bragging about 100-200k salaries. Try joining finance where that's mot even a bad year.
tytso 16y ago
Hi Joshua, I examined the repositories you have on github, looked at your linked-in registry, and then followed a link to your blog at http://solarmist.blogspot.com http://solarmist.blogspot.com There wasn't a lot to go on, but the main thing which I noticed was I didn't see any evidence of great depth in your skills. You have breadth pretty well covered. Your Linked-in page shows C, C++, Java, Perl, JavaScript, Python, SQL, Scheme, Lisp. But then when I looked at your github page, I saw a SICP repository, where you had been recently working on the exercises from SICP. Great! I commend you on that! But I only saw exercises from the first 3 exercises in Chapter 1, dated from about two weeks ago. Maybe you do know Scheme really well --- it could be that you simply haven't uploaded them, or I couldn't find it while Googling you. But the impression I got of the seven projects which you uploaded to Github, was that you're a bit of a dilettante. You've started a lot of projects, enough to upload them to github or fork them so you would have your own repo on github.... but then I didn't see a whole lot of sustained effort by you. Your resume also shows that at different jobs you've had to use many different languages and technologies. This is not unusual, but what you need to do is to find a way to make yourself become a top-notch expert in one or two areas. Breadth is good, and you'll get some points for that. But if you go and compete to get a job at companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, who want to accept only the very best, you'll need one or two areas where you are quite deep in your expertise. Fortunately, that's not _that_ hard. While there's a lot of Malcolm Gladwell's work that I don't really agree with, his claim from his book Outliers that 10,000 hours (5 years of full-time sustained effort) is what it takes to become an expert in a field sounds right to me. Focus is key. Ten years of experience, if it's a few years doing PL/SQL, a few years doing Javascript, a few years doing ML, and a few years doing Java, isn't as impressive as ten years working in a single area, where people are asking you to present at conferences and people recognize you as a leader in a particular area. This may be obvious, but someone who has done the latter will easily be getting far, far more than $100k, trust me. :-) Something that I would suggest is that even if you have a pretty low interest in changing employers, try to get in some interviews. As long as you would be at least open to accepting a job offer, it's fair game to try getting an interview at companies like Intel, Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. Most of them will ask you to code on a whiteboard. Getting good at that is a skill like any other. So practice is good. Based on the questions that they ask you, it might also help to calibrate yourself about how good you really are. The other thing I'd suggest is that you try examining what languages and technologies these companies are most interested in, and then use that as a filter to the languages and technologies which really interest you. For example, it looks like you are at least half-way decent at being a Java programmer. OK, that's pretty marketable. But maybe your research will show that a number of companies want both C++ and Machine Learning. If that's what you find, then you better check --- and be ruthlessly honest with yourself --- how good your C++ chops really are. And if you are going to using github as your portfolio, maybe you should have some demonstration code of significant C++ and ML projects that you have worked on. (And I don't mean forking a ML code base and then making a few changes; if you're not going to start from scratch, you should have at least created a significant module or plug-in from scratch, and then make sure it's clear what is yours and what you grabbed from elsewhere.)
pragmatic 16y ago
Two things worked for me. 1. Switch Jobs 2. Ask for at least $10K more money each time. 1: Companies are aren't going to just give you money. They don't have much incentive to do that. Most people take their 3% cost of living increase (plus bonus and a few % if you are lucky). Most of my contemporaries agree. You have to switch jobs. 2: If you don't ask for it, you aren't going to get it. HR depts have more flexibility on hiring than raises. So coming in, make sure you get the salary/bonus/vacation/etc you want right off the bat.
switch 16y ago
HN ate up my first comment so here's a shorter one (relatively). 1) Becoming a Top 5% coder will end up being a much better thing to focus on than how much money you can earn by leaving grad school. 2) I got a 48% pay increase once. An article at Quintessential Careers - you never name a price/desired salary and never disclose your past salary. There are a TON of little things like this that programmers just don't realize. Most companies are losers - they would rather pay you $50K for $100K of work and have you miserable than pay you $100K and have you happy and contribute $1 million worth of work. You have to get them to pay you a lot. 3) Do you really want to leave grad school for an offer like this? Is it the money - because if you like grad school but would leave for a job that you don't like just for money then it would be a colossal failure. 4) Eastern Wa and Portland. Waste of your life if you're a developer. Ideal - Silicon Valley, NYC. Very Good - Seattle, Austin, Boston, perhaps places like Colorado etc. Portland people are cool and girls are amazing. However, if you want to be the best you have to go where the best are. 5) Your post about 'Let down by School' etc. Get out of that thinking - You are responsible 100%. You were let down only by yourself. 6) You have to figure out what markets out of the ones you like are hot. iPhone and Android App developers are charging $100 per hour or more. So 470 hours (10 weeks) for what you are saying average salary ($47K). It's going to become even more. I'm not even talking about the best. This is top 15% of mobile app developers. 7) Why exactly do you care whether you make $50K a year or $100K?
- solarmist 16y ago
  Thanks for your thoughtful comments. 1.) It's not just the money, or even mainly the money (I lived quite happily on my $45k). I want a place where I can become a Top 5% coder and I don't see that happening in Eastern Washington. 3.) I do enjoy grad school, but I'm at a mediocre school and I've learned that I enjoy coding much more than research. 4.) I'm in Eastern WA temporarily due to personal reasons, my next stop is either Seattle or the Valley. 5.) That post was more in response to what I hear from other people, trying to encourage them to get out of that thinking. If that's how I came across I'd better look it over again though. I'm quite happy with where I'm at and I do try to take responsibility for my actions. 7.)Main reason I can think of is companies that value software pay those kind of salaries vs. companies looking for code zombies. I've been in a shop nearly like that and I don't want to repeat it.
MrFlibble 16y ago
As the one who will be hiring our first employees (and as a non-technical founder) I am curious what people think about and expect from a brand new start up with low level ($600k +/-) funding for year one. We cannot offer huge salaries but will offer milestone increases over the first few years to arrive at higher levels. We're talking around $70k to start, increasing up to $90k at the end of the first year and continuing to increase as we grow. Options are naturally part of the deal as well. Also, we're considering using a location that would offer our team a live/work option in a new complex close to the beach (in So. Cal) rather than just traditional commercial space. Would having free housing in a pretty sweet new pad be an incentive to take a bit less cash? It saves the company a bit of money that first year and saves the team in cost of living expenses at the same time. Anyone care to share their opinions/advice/experiences?
cpeterso 16y ago
glassdoor.com has anonymous salary reports from many companies. In my experience, they seem to be pretty accurate. Of course, the reports become even more accurate when more people participate. So please sign up! :)
salemh 16y ago
Recruiters take (placed 8 Sr Dev's (mostly Java, as well as "lost" 4 or so offers of the same ilk), IT Admins, etc). For Software Developers, the average was 80-100k in lower cost of living area's. In higher, 90-120k. "Senior" meaning 4-15 years. The four year folks were deemed "above average" in their technical fly-out interviews (with other programmers). Edit: the average length of experience was 5-7 years (a "sweet spot" for technical hiring managers). I never worked on 50-70k Software developer positions. These were top-3 finance firms (NYC and SLC) as well as 4/5 top e-Retailler firms as well as a few local funded startups. I was never able to pull a Googler or FaceBooker :) Netflix as an individual contributor made $160k or so, the highest I saw as pulling candidates from competing top 3 eCommerce / finance firms. Note, in the finance firms, "Architect" or "Leads" were on a much higher magnitude (120-180k base, bonuses were sometimes 20%-200%).
GrandMasterBirt 16y ago
Ok: a) Shitty jobs will offer shitty salaries b) Employers who have shitty employees will feel a senior is worth 50k. Why? Because their "seniors" are juniors at best and are doing the recruiting. c) Location. If they are the only game in town then guess what. The offers are obviously not from tech companies. d) 100k is a mid-level position (at least in nyc). All depends on how well you do on the interview or how much you can show off of your work.
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throwaway9944 16y ago
You will not get rich as an employee for anybody, not even a start-up. Look at today's average $30m exit for YC start-ups .. that's awesome for Paul, the first VC, and the founders. The employees will all get paid less than if they had just taken the job at Google, Facebook, or Zynga. The real money isn't in tech, it's in finance.

"$200k base salary in the Bay Area is Engineering Manager level - VP at a well-funded startup, or Sr Director at a larger company. Not sure what your friend is doing." First I think it is 180k gross salary, not really "base". Second, as I said, all I know is that he is working on some kind of CRUD Rails Insurance App that makes its company millions of dollars. He is just a competent Rails dev. No genius of any kind or any extraordinary skills like, say Linus Torvalds. Maybe he is being paid a premium because he is the only capable dev in the company. Maybe he just got lucky. He has a dozen years or so of experience. I really don't know any details hence the "anecdote" prefix. If it helps, I knew middle managers at Intuit were drawing well above 200k US$ at nowhere near "Senior Director" level. My immediate boss in India was drawing around that much. And his boss about 300k. Another "dotted line"/ matrix org( heh!) immediate superior was getting >250k as well. This guy was a "Chief Architect" and not manager at all. (well in Intuit all these positions are very political and not really about tech at all, still) And he had a 3-4 layers above him before he reached the boardroom players at Intuit. I don't consider GlassDoor to be authoritative but here is a report for a position (plain jane "architect") that would be one level below my "Chief Architect" boss. http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Intuit-Software-Architect-Mountain-View-Salaries-EJI_IE2293.0,6_KO7,25_IL.26,39_IC1147431.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Intuit-Software-Architect-Mo... Seems to bear out my thesis that these kind of salaries aren't all that rare. To repeat, I am not saying GlassDoor estimates are accurate, just that in this case, it bears out my personal experience. Another anecdote: My title at Intuit (India) had an additional (and empty) "Senior Program Manager" tacked onto "Architect" and I was getting > 100k in India. (In Intuit, when I was there, Indian salaries were roughly half US salaries for the same position.) They still find it very hard to hire senior technical people. Go figure. My personal hypothesis on such things is that salaries follow perceived (vs actual) value add. I had nothing to do at Intuit except attend endless meetings about meetings and write the occasional email. I quit in 6 months.(It helped that I really didn't need the money and I could make an equivalent amount but actually working for it (which I am doing now touch wood)). My former division at Intuit has delivered nothing (except PowerPoint) in the last couple of years but everyone who is still there keeps drawing their salaries. Some even got raises. So, yes. Intuit is a cash flush/high paying company, but I still wouldn't really blink at someone getting 200 k in San Fransisco, without being anything like a VP, but hey I don't live there. What do I know? I am glad to concede to people "on the ground". PS : I also have friends, who are really good developers working on very cutting edge projects in Google (Mountain View) who don't make anything near 250 k. They are very fulfilled by their work and don't seem to care. So it seems to be all over the place. But there certainly are very normal devs getting >200k in SV. (and of course many more at WallStreet companies but that is probably a separate discussion).

statictype 16y ago

as a contrast, 100k is a toprange salary for a really good developer in Bangalore. Isn't USD100k a ridiculously large salary in Bangalore for any job that has 'Developer' in the title. I'm actually completely blown that a person at a software company in Bangalore could be making that much.

plinkplonk 16y ago
No it is not ridiculously large. It is large, hence the word "top range". There are people making that kind of money but yeah some of them don't have "developer" in their titles and are probably called "Architects"[0] or similar[1]. We are talking of really good people who, for whatever reason (often family etc) do not want to work in the USA etc. Salaries in Bangalore are heavily dependent on "years of experience". The way the HR folks calculate expected salary is something like 2-2.5 lakhs Indian rupees(about 4-5k US $ depending on the exchange rate) * number of years of experience. So with about 12 years of experience[1] you should be getting about 48-60k$ if you are still coding and are at least somewhat good at your job. This is the average* though and falls precipitously as you move towards the bodyshopping end of the bell curve. (You can still make this kind of money as a manager though, even at the most cheapskate bodyshopper) The really good folks get better salaries than that. The interesting thing about Bangalore is that the range of salaries is wide. You have barely literate "coding bodies" (who the "outsourcers" encounter) drawing puny salaries and also very senior devs who can pick and choose where and what they work on and get close to US salaries(and often have spent a few years in the USA before heading home for good). So yes 100k is high but not ridiculously so, (If by "ridiculous" you mean someone getting such a salary is some kind of absolute rarity, and an object of wonder when spotted). Otoh I've never heard of any kind of dev/tech person getting say 200k $ or more, though I know people in the US who do. (they are pretty rare too) "I'm actually completely blown that a person at a software company in Bangalore could be making that much." You really should talk to some senior devs in Google's (say) Bangalore office ;-). Twenty years from when outsourcing took off,things have changed, even in Bangalore although that change is still unevenly distributed. Not every dev in India is grubbing for the crumbs from the outsourcer's table any more. That said, this is just my viewpoint based on what I see. Consume with appropriate dosages of salt. Even better talk to some world class Indian devs who chose to stay on in or come back to India and find out for yourself. [0] Of course some "architects" are just people who got old and never got promoted, just is in the USA. [1] Title Inflation is a real problem due to differing social expectations etc which is a subject that would take pages to explain. [2]there is heavy pressure to move into management (see [1]) and it is only the really committed devs who stay coding for 10 years +. Which makes their supply all that much rarer for when you really need them.
- statictype 16y ago
  Interesting. I have been living in Chennai for some time and had no idea salaries in Bangalore could get that high for people choosing to stay on development and not move into management. So I guess what you're saying is since it's a less popular career track, companies that want that kind of experience pay well to get it
  - plinkplonk 16y ago
    "companies that want that kind of experience pay well to get it" is a very concise way to put it. Yes that was exactly what I was trying to say. I guess I am also saying that if you are really good (which is rare by definition) you'll find (these days) that there are more companies (than there used to be) who are looking.
  - popsci 16y ago
    As a dev at msft in Hyderabad, I know that salaries around 100k (gross, not base) are quite possible for senior devs with over a decade of experience. However, we need some perspective here. There are 2.5 million people working in the IT-BPO industry in India. Of those a mere 100k work in product companies (domestic or MNC captives). My rough estimate is that about 1-2k of this 100k are developers making 100k USD. Outside of product companies (2.5 million - 100k), in the IT service companies, about one in every 300-400 guys makes $100k - and that guy is almost always a senior management guy. Also, while a few make $100k, $50k is common for people with over a decade of good experience - but do remember that there are relatively very few folks (<5-10% of the industry) in India with over a decade of experience.
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earl 16y ago
Let me echo what tytso said. I work / have worked / have gotten job offers for a bunch of companies you've heard of and I would never consider < $100K+ unless for a pre round A. At places I've interviewed and at places I've hired I think there is an expectation that there is at least one language that you know really really well. If it's java, I expect you not only to know the syntax backwards and forwards but to have used at least one of {groovy, jruby, jython, scala, clojure}, to be able to discuss design patterns, failure modes of the gc, how to detect them and how to work around them, to know things like how to minimize memory usage, to have opinions on how the jvm team did generics and possible alternatives, to have used at least one common editor and know keyboard shortcuts by heart, to know how to use associated tools like ant, jar, ivy, maven, sbt, etc. So my recommendation is you need to have at least one tech stack -- and I'd avoid .net, but some companies do use it -- where you're an expert and you're the person in your company that people come ask questions of.
- tytso 16y ago
  Earl's on target here. If you spend five years obsessively learning the ins and outs of a particular language or technology, getting to know its strengths and weaknesses, and ideally at the end of that five year tenure, started contributing to advancing the state of the art of that language or technology, you'll likely be in the top 10% or more of that area. I assumed that anyone who spent five years in an area would inevitably get to that point, but upon further reflection, it takes five years plus a passion for excellence and not being satisfied with "good enough". And that's something else companies look for --- they want 'A' players that are always looking to see how they can improve themselves, their environment, and help improve the people around them. The good news is that in my experience there are many people who have come out of the military do have that ethos. So although I don't know you (Joshua) beyond looking at your electronic presence, I think you have a pretty good shot at becoming a world class expert. I definitely would encourage you to go for it!
- deanproxy 16y ago
  I agree with some of what you said here, and maybe i have misunderstood what you're trying to convey, but allow me this little rant here... Some of it seems excessive. I've been developing in C and Java for 11 years now. I make a tad under $100k and live in Atlanta, Ga. I have yet to need to know or discuss failure modes of the GC by heart, how to detect them and work around them by heart, how the JVM team did generics and possible alternatives, nor to know keyboard shortcuts by heart. I have however come across these things in my career and had to takle them. Guess what I did? Googled. Then I got back to writing code, what my job soley exists for. It seems absurd that any company would require these things. If I was interviewed at a company asking me to talk about these things in the interview, I would walk out simply because I would feel it was completely irrelevant to how good of a software engineer I am. I really hate being interviewed by people who are more interested in asking obscure questions that just want to prove how smart they are (when we all know they probably just looked up that question/answer before the interview), rather than talk to me about coding and problem solving. Things like memory use, basic algorithms, what design patterns are, collections, code quality, software development life cycle, unit testing, general coding problems, maybe some things about hibernate (if you use it), basic database knowledge, their favorite language and why and let's not forget overall personality and how they will fit into your team are far more important areas to cover. Not some obscure questions that will be used maybe once in your lifetime or on extremely rare occasions at the new job that can also be looked up on google when you need an answer for that rare occasion. I even shutter when I think about design patterns being discussed because they're so over used and bad developers focus way too much on putting well known ones into their code base even when it may not be called for and just create so much more bloat for no good reason other than to feel like they're smart. An understanding of design patterns is great, but forcing people to describe any of them but the well known basics is just dumb. The interviews my team gives exist around these things and I can honestly say we have yet to hire someone that didn't know their stuff very well and fit into the team nicely from the start. I have only been without a job for a max of 3 months when I was laid off once and I have job hopped a lot, especially in my early career (which, there is a dirty secret there... That's how you make more money when you're staring off!). I have walked out in the middle of interviews before when it was clear that the person was asking obscure questions just to feel superior. I don't want to work with people like that... Interviewers need to focus more on asking questions that software engineers face on a daily basis and less on odd and obscure things that can easily be researched in a short amount of time online when and if the problem ever presents itself. I apologize if I got off topic or missed your point entirely. I was just having a conversation with someone about this very thing and it seemed relevant based on what I read.
  - earl 16y ago
    Well, obviously not everybody knows everything and if you're a great candidate but you've never had gc issues with the jvm, any good interviewer will shrug and move on. Also, and I hope this was obvious, but my comments were directed at experienced engineers and new grads are graded differently. But knowing basic data structures? That's doesn't make a good candidate, that's a low bar of a prerequisite. And if you haven't put the effort in to learn at least one editor -- and I don't care of it's vim, emacs, eclipse, visual studio, intellij, etc -- really well, I'll give you a thumbs down. I'd expect someone to know how to use bash and the unix toolchain as well -- the ability to use the shell + command line tools will save you lots of time, and I'd be pretty pissed if I saw a coworker blow a day writing in java what would take 5 minutes in {bash, command line utils, ruby, perl, awk}. I expect particularly people whose strongest languages are java or c++ to know about design patterns. Saying you hate them and giving a good reason (I agree) is fine. But you ought to know what some of the common ones are. Similarly for generics -- most good java engineers have probably wondered at some point why eg if AA is a subclass of A, why ArrayList<AA> is not a subclass of ArrayList<A>. There are lots of different designs for generics, with different strengths and limitations, and I would be surprised if a great candidate hadn't been exposed to more than one design and spent some thought or an afternoon reading language blogs. Etc etc for gc. tl;dr -- knowing basic data structures doesn't impress me; if you don't, we'll just end the interview early and have a discussion with our internal recruiters into how the fuck such a bad candidate got brought in. And my description above is what it takes if you want me to go over to the vp of engineering or cto and say do whatever it takes to hire this person.
  - nl 16y ago
    I have yet to need to know or discuss failure modes of the GC by heart, how to detect them and work around them by heart Knowing - and having experience of - the failure modes of your platform is one of those things that is invaluable. Knowledge of GC issues in the JVM is something that indicates (a) you've worked on applications that tax the JVM, and (b) you are the person who people turn to when the shit hits the fan. Sure, Googling will help here, but you need to have a pretty good understanding of the problem space in order to understand what to Google for. For example, how do you get from "the application is slow" to a query for "sizing the New Generation in the JVM garbage collector" unless you already know when to suspect GC issues, how to use jvmstat etc etc?
solarmist 16y ago
Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it. All of my projects on GitHub are new projects that I've started recently (within the last few weeks) as an effort to actually have something presentable, so everything on there is a work in progress. And many of them are assignments for coursework which is why there's so many languages in use. SICP is my current side project, but having four main projects to work on eats up a large portion of my time unfortunately.