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This is so misleading. In silicon valley total compensation is touching 400k+/year on an average for experienced professionals. They should've at least consulte

This is so misleading. In silicon valley total compensation is touching 400k+/year on an average for experienced professionals. They should've at least consulted something like levels.fyi before publishing and looking dumb.

kar5pt 6y ago
Do you have a source that says the average experienced engineer in Silicon Valley makes $400k/year?
- lacker 6y ago
  That number is too high. If you restrict to the FAANG companies, though, it is only a small overestimate. See https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ and select Google. There an L5 represents an "experienced" engineer with at least 4-5 years of experience, and total comp is $350k. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are similar.
  - Impossible 6y ago
    Yeah $400K is high L5. Not uncommon, but slightly above average. It's possible that if you average all engineers you'd get something close to $400K, but L3 and L4 salaries would bring that value down. In surveys L5 makes up the majority of the engineering workforce in these companies, and L3\L4 have a bigger representation than L6+, so it's unlikely that the average TC is $400K.
    - lhorie 6y ago
      Probably also worth highlighting that L5 at google is a much wider range than other companies. For example, at Uber, there's two separate promotion tiers (5A and 5B, with the latter being far less common than the former) that more or less overlap w/ Google's L5 range, while at Microsoft, google's L5 range would overlap with a good portion of 3 separate tiers (senior SDE to principal SDE)[0] [0] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google,Microsoft&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google,Microsoft&track=...
  - ska 6y ago
    > If you restrict to the FAANG companies, But then you are talking about a small minority of even SV salaries, and a tiny minority overall. The real issue as noted elsewhere is that the distribution is at least bimodal, and many conversations get derailed by confusion around this fact.
    - ryandrake 6y ago
      Yea, whenever you read these insane compensations, people forget to point out that we're talking about a small outlier of senior engineers at a small outlier of companies, in a handful of cities in the USA. This bimodal distribution of a (relatively) few insane comps bring the average way above the median.
  - kar5pt 6y ago
    Yeah, my point is that's only true for FAANGs. Not the average engineer.
ed25519FUUU 6y ago
The average is probably lower than most people think, while the 80th and 90th percentiles is probably much greater. Remember they also include the H1B body shops. To get an idea of what these places are playing you can look at the open data: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software+Engineer&city=San+Francisco&year=2020 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software+Engineer&cit...
Impossible 6y ago
If you read it as base only, not TC it seems accurate.
aphextron 6y ago
Bay area comp is massively bimodal. FAANG tier folks are certainly making that much, but they are a tiny fraction of the market. Most senior devs at smaller companies and startups are making under $200k.
- closeparen 6y ago
  Companies in the tier of Stripe, Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Robinhood, etc. pay that much at senior levels. Often better than FAANG.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    AFAIK, the difference between the two tiers comes down to public companies that pay equity with real stock vs those who are not public and cannot offer comp in the form of liquid equity.
    - opportune 6y ago
      Several of those companies are not public. They are indeed offering paper money, but if you trust valuations during fundraising rounds (and given how late stage Stripe, Robinhood are) it's a pretty safe bet.
      - CrazyDave 6y ago
        Aren't more volatile valuations also better for the value seeking employees? Let's say in 1 year there's a 50% chance of the valuation going up 3x, and a 50% chance of it going down to 0. You rest and vest if it goes up, or find another company if it fails. The ante would be 1 year's RSU and job searching for a payoff of 3 years worth of RSUs.
        opportune 6y ago
        Yes, from people I know, the asymmetric risk is what draws them to working for startups. Go to one, see if it 10xs quickly, otherwise go to another one. There is also a particular group of people who seek out pre-ipo (meaning a company that is expected to IPO soon) companies, or more generally those that are about to fundraise again. Generally equity offers are given based on valuations at the last fundraising round, so playing this game properly can instantly turn $100k in paper money into $400k. Of course, doing this only makes sense if you expect the new valuation to have some kind of staying power, otherwise you won't realize those gains.
proc0 6y ago
This is crazy, that is only senior managers with a lot of responsibility. Nobody is paying engineer roles that do mostly code contribution that much.

kar5pt 6y ago

Do you have a source that says the average experienced engineer in Silicon Valley makes $400k/year?

lacker 6y ago
That number is too high. If you restrict to the FAANG companies, though, it is only a small overestimate. See https://www.levels.fyi/ https://www.levels.fyi/ and select Google. There an L5 represents an "experienced" engineer with at least 4-5 years of experience, and total comp is $350k. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are similar.
- Impossible 6y ago
  Yeah $400K is high L5. Not uncommon, but slightly above average. It's possible that if you average all engineers you'd get something close to $400K, but L3 and L4 salaries would bring that value down. In surveys L5 makes up the majority of the engineering workforce in these companies, and L3\L4 have a bigger representation than L6+, so it's unlikely that the average TC is $400K.
  - lhorie 6y ago
    Probably also worth highlighting that L5 at google is a much wider range than other companies. For example, at Uber, there's two separate promotion tiers (5A and 5B, with the latter being far less common than the former) that more or less overlap w/ Google's L5 range, while at Microsoft, google's L5 range would overlap with a good portion of 3 separate tiers (senior SDE to principal SDE)[0] [0] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google,Microsoft&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google,Microsoft&track=...
- ska 6y ago
  > If you restrict to the FAANG companies, But then you are talking about a small minority of even SV salaries, and a tiny minority overall. The real issue as noted elsewhere is that the distribution is at least bimodal, and many conversations get derailed by confusion around this fact.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Yea, whenever you read these insane compensations, people forget to point out that we're talking about a small outlier of senior engineers at a small outlier of companies, in a handful of cities in the USA. This bimodal distribution of a (relatively) few insane comps bring the average way above the median.
- kar5pt 6y ago
  Yeah, my point is that's only true for FAANGs. Not the average engineer.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago

The average is probably lower than most people think, while the 80th and 90th percentiles is probably much greater. Remember they also include the H1B body shops. To get an idea of what these places are playing you can look at the open data: https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software+Engineer&city=San+Francisco&year=2020 https://h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Software+Engineer&cit...

Impossible 6y ago

If you read it as base only, not TC it seems accurate.

aphextron 6y ago

Bay area comp is massively bimodal. FAANG tier folks are certainly making that much, but they are a tiny fraction of the market. Most senior devs at smaller companies and startups are making under $200k.

closeparen 6y ago
Companies in the tier of Stripe, Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Robinhood, etc. pay that much at senior levels. Often better than FAANG.
- lhorie 6y ago
  AFAIK, the difference between the two tiers comes down to public companies that pay equity with real stock vs those who are not public and cannot offer comp in the form of liquid equity.
  - opportune 6y ago
    Several of those companies are not public. They are indeed offering paper money, but if you trust valuations during fundraising rounds (and given how late stage Stripe, Robinhood are) it's a pretty safe bet.
    - CrazyDave 6y ago
      Aren't more volatile valuations also better for the value seeking employees? Let's say in 1 year there's a 50% chance of the valuation going up 3x, and a 50% chance of it going down to 0. You rest and vest if it goes up, or find another company if it fails. The ante would be 1 year's RSU and job searching for a payoff of 3 years worth of RSUs.
      - opportune 6y ago
        Yes, from people I know, the asymmetric risk is what draws them to working for startups. Go to one, see if it 10xs quickly, otherwise go to another one. There is also a particular group of people who seek out pre-ipo (meaning a company that is expected to IPO soon) companies, or more generally those that are about to fundraise again. Generally equity offers are given based on valuations at the last fundraising round, so playing this game properly can instantly turn $100k in paper money into $400k. Of course, doing this only makes sense if you expect the new valuation to have some kind of staying power, otherwise you won't realize those gains.

proc0 6y ago

This is crazy, that is only senior managers with a lot of responsibility. Nobody is paying engineer roles that do mostly code contribution that much.