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> This is all on top of the fact that engineers are woefully underpaid. I have finance friends that make literal millions in yearly bonuses. This is virtually u

by jfk13 6y ago

> This is all on top of the fact that engineers are woefully underpaid. I have finance friends that make literal millions in yearly bonuses. This is virtually unheard of in software, even though we provide orders of magnitude more value. That doesn't necessarily mean engineers are woefully underpaid. It may just be that your finance friends are obscenely overpaid. Though whether all/most engineers provide "orders of magnitude more value" may be questionable. Some of the highest-paid engineers, AIUI, devote their considerable expertise to optimising ad click rates. "Provide value"? Hmmm. To whom? Not humanity in general, I think.

Grimm1 6y ago
"Provide value"? Hmmm. To whom? Not humanity in general, I think." The organization they're employed at. Which is obvious because we're talking about jobs here; that's what salaries are, in part, based on.
- madsbuch 6y ago
  In that case, finance people with said bonuses indeed make that kind of value. Though I am not quite sure the average finance person makes more than the average software engineer.
  - Grimm1 6y ago
    I didn't claim to agree with the original comment. I didn't even give an opinion. I just clarified where value is being measured.
dvt 6y ago
> Some of the highest-paid engineers, AIUI, devote their considerable expertise to optimising ad click rates. I worked on an ad product with a team of 10 or so data scientists + engineers. I'd wager most of us made between 100k-175k + some tiny bonuses here and there. The product we built was making the company $2.5 million a month. But hey we all got some cool jackets and a pat on the back. Give me a break. Money talks. I don't know why engineers are so shy when it comes to wanting more.
- kickout 6y ago
  Double your teams salary to get the cost to the company including benefits like health insurance (which are very real).
  - wins32767 6y ago
    Depends on where you are. Cost of benefits doesn't really scale with geographical increases. In Boston, my last several startups have used 1.35x salary as the fully loaded cost for engineers.
  - palebluedot 6y ago
    From their numbers, it doesn't matter much. Even if we take the highest number from their range ($175k) and double it, that is $3.5M/year for the 10-person team. That is still an order of magnitude less than $30M/year.
- JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
  It typically costs an employer double what your pay is, once including benefits, matching social security contributions, etc. So your employer had 10 people it was spending 200k-350k a month on, so 2000k-3500k in expenses, for a product that made 2500k a month.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - mperham 6y ago
    200k per year * 10 people is $2m/yr. It was making $2.5m/mo.
  - misiti3780 6y ago
    I dont think its double, its more like 1.6
  - hansvm 6y ago
    That's less true as salaries increase. Some of the increased costs like matching social security contributions or 401k matching are proportional to salary (to the tune of ~8-25% in aggregate depending on a ton of factors), and many of the other large benefits like health care are fixed and consequently take a much lower percentage of a large salary (10% would be a large overestimate for total employer health care costs for the salaries listed). "Double" is a much better (but still probably a bit high unless you're also factoring in HR and other similar overhead) estimate for low-paid white-collar workers. Lots of fields in vast swathes of the country start out around $30k/yr but still have full benefits. A $3k-$15k/yr healthcare benefit on top of the other variable costs can push you close to double.
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Well, we have this myth of meritocracy, but some proffessions are systemically underpaid like teachers - millions of future earnings depend on them, but noone ambitious wants to become a teacher, so our schooling kida sucks
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  It's a supply and demand problem. There are a lot of folks who are willing and able to be teachers for a low amount of pay, but it turns out you can't live off discount engineers or finance people. I assure you, if SV could get away paying $12 an hour to engineers or finance, they would.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    There are a lot of folks who are willing and able to be president for a low amount of pay. Might even do a better job than Trump. The idea was that if teaching was a prestigious profession, we would see large returns on that investment. We have an entire underclass of population that is poorly educated, so maybe we shouldn't be living off 'discount teachers' as we are doing now.
- shuckles 6y ago
  Really great teachers could probably find a way to make huge incomes. I tutored competition math on the side to rich families’ kids for nearly $500/hr.
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    The whole point of my post was that we need the best teachers in the classrooms, not tutoring a few select rich kids.
    - shuckles 6y ago
      Your original claim was that the teaching profession is systematically underpaid but in fact you’re talking about a very specific set of public sector employees whose compensation is more complex than just annual salary.

by jfk13 6y ago

Grimm1 6y ago

"Provide value"? Hmmm. To whom? Not humanity in general, I think." The organization they're employed at. Which is obvious because we're talking about jobs here; that's what salaries are, in part, based on.

madsbuch 6y ago
In that case, finance people with said bonuses indeed make that kind of value. Though I am not quite sure the average finance person makes more than the average software engineer.
- Grimm1 6y ago
  I didn't claim to agree with the original comment. I didn't even give an opinion. I just clarified where value is being measured.

dvt 6y ago

> Some of the highest-paid engineers, AIUI, devote their considerable expertise to optimising ad click rates. I worked on an ad product with a team of 10 or so data scientists + engineers. I'd wager most of us made between 100k-175k + some tiny bonuses here and there. The product we built was making the company $2.5 million a month. But hey we all got some cool jackets and a pat on the back. Give me a break. Money talks. I don't know why engineers are so shy when it comes to wanting more.

kickout 6y ago
Double your teams salary to get the cost to the company including benefits like health insurance (which are very real).
- wins32767 6y ago
  Depends on where you are. Cost of benefits doesn't really scale with geographical increases. In Boston, my last several startups have used 1.35x salary as the fully loaded cost for engineers.
- palebluedot 6y ago
  From their numbers, it doesn't matter much. Even if we take the highest number from their range ($175k) and double it, that is $3.5M/year for the 10-person team. That is still an order of magnitude less than $30M/year.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
It typically costs an employer double what your pay is, once including benefits, matching social security contributions, etc. So your employer had 10 people it was spending 200k-350k a month on, so 2000k-3500k in expenses, for a product that made 2500k a month.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- mperham 6y ago
  200k per year * 10 people is $2m/yr. It was making $2.5m/mo.
- misiti3780 6y ago
  I dont think its double, its more like 1.6
- hansvm 6y ago
  That's less true as salaries increase. Some of the increased costs like matching social security contributions or 401k matching are proportional to salary (to the tune of ~8-25% in aggregate depending on a ton of factors), and many of the other large benefits like health care are fixed and consequently take a much lower percentage of a large salary (10% would be a large overestimate for total employer health care costs for the salaries listed). "Double" is a much better (but still probably a bit high unless you're also factoring in HR and other similar overhead) estimate for low-paid white-collar workers. Lots of fields in vast swathes of the country start out around $30k/yr but still have full benefits. A $3k-$15k/yr healthcare benefit on top of the other variable costs can push you close to double.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Well, we have this myth of meritocracy, but some proffessions are systemically underpaid like teachers - millions of future earnings depend on them, but noone ambitious wants to become a teacher, so our schooling kida sucks

vorpalhex 6y ago
It's a supply and demand problem. There are a lot of folks who are willing and able to be teachers for a low amount of pay, but it turns out you can't live off discount engineers or finance people. I assure you, if SV could get away paying $12 an hour to engineers or finance, they would.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  There are a lot of folks who are willing and able to be president for a low amount of pay. Might even do a better job than Trump. The idea was that if teaching was a prestigious profession, we would see large returns on that investment. We have an entire underclass of population that is poorly educated, so maybe we shouldn't be living off 'discount teachers' as we are doing now.
shuckles 6y ago
Really great teachers could probably find a way to make huge incomes. I tutored competition math on the side to rich families’ kids for nearly $500/hr.
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  The whole point of my post was that we need the best teachers in the classrooms, not tutoring a few select rich kids.
  - shuckles 6y ago
    Your original claim was that the teaching profession is systematically underpaid but in fact you’re talking about a very specific set of public sector employees whose compensation is more complex than just annual salary.