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A quarter million dollars is what a typical new grad offer looks like nowadays
by yunyu 5y ago
A quarter million dollars is what a typical new grad offer looks like nowadays
- corpdronejuly 5y agoIt's not typical. It is possible though.
- anamexis 5y agoWhere typical = atypical
- ska 5y ago> a typical new grad offer That's mare than stretching "typical"
- gambiting 5y agoI love how HN sometimes behaves as if the entire world is one or two small corners of the US.
- selestify 5y agoIf you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do — it is indeed a pretty typical offer Love how I’m downvoted for pointing out a fact. I mean, for fuck’s sake, look at levels.fyi. And look at how many people FAANG and FAANG-adjacent startups hire every year. It’s really not that rare. But hey, stay in denial.
- marcellus23 5y ago> If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do Since when does "typical" mean "graduated from a top 10 school"? That's why you're being downvoted.
- selestify 5y agoBecause those schools collectively admit tens of thousands of students every year. It’s not that rare.
- imwillofficial 5y agoI thought it was over a million?
- marcellus23 5y agoMaybe it would be helpful if you gave your definition of "typical"?
- selestify 5y agoGood point. I mean “typical” as in, entirely expected within a nontrivial portion of the population. Where absolutely nobody would be surprised that you’re making this much. Is it typical for the general population to make a million a year? No, but it is entirely typical for investment bankers and quants at hedge funds. To say that is atypical of the average worker in America — well, of course, but that isn’t a very meaningful statement when you’re specifically discussing people in investment firms. And that’s what this article is about — the subset of the population for which this is entirely normal and expected.
- alan-hn 5y agoIn what fields?
- selestify 5y agoComputer science, obviously.
- tragictrash 5y agoIt might not be rare to you but you have to realize that there are 6+ billion people on this planet. It's fucking rare.
- selestify 5y agoNo duh, but a city of a million people is a pretty fucking big city. It’s not that rare.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoOn a planetary scale, I wouldn't actually consider that 'pretty fucking big'. For comparison (metro areas, figures from Wikipedia): San Francisco: 4.7 million Berlin: 6.1 million London: 14.3 million NYC: 20.1 million Shenzhen: 23.3 million Tokyo: 37.5 million
- tragictrash 5y agoI never realized how big Tokyo is. Wow.
- Tijdreiziger 5y agoIn fairness, it was a bit unfair to include that one, as Tokyo is the biggest city in the world! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities#List https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities#List
- lovich 5y agoYou realize rarity is referencing the relative percentage of an event or item and not the absolute number right? If you have 1 million people in the numerator, but 100 million in the denominator, then the rate is pretty rare
- robbyking 5y agoWhat percentage of US workers work in FAANG and FAANG-adjacent companies?
- gambiting 5y ago>>If you graduate from any top 10 school in the US — which plenty of people do Yes, and globally that's still nothing. You are talking about the elite of the elite, chosen ones among the chosen ones. In other 1st world countries, and even in majority of USA no, recent graduates are not paid quarter of a million dollars. There's a select, very exclusive, very limited group of people who do. But like others have pointed out already - that's not "typical" by any definition of the word.
- selestify 5y agoIt’s definitely not atypical when you’re talking about over a million people combined. That’s a pretty big population.
- gambiting 5y agoMilion people graduate from those top 10 universities every year? How big are those universities????
- hungryforcodes 5y agoExactly. Even if we take MIT which seems to graduate AT MOST 10,000 students each year -- times 10 (10x)-- it's only 100,000 graduates. The 1 million comes from where?
- gambiting 5y agoThey did reply earlier that they meant all people in US but later deleted the comment.
- hungryforcodes 5y agoAh, yeah I didn't see that :)
- selestify 5y ago
- iancmceachern 5y agoYeah but this is less than 1/10 of 1% of the number of people that graduate every year. By the same logic you could say that everyone has trust funds, because most of the people in this small slice have them. Just because something applies to the top 0.1% of the US doesn't mean it applies to the rest of the 99.9%. This is the problem with wealth and opportunity disparity in this country. The haves think that the have nots are in that position due to choice. It's not a choice to be born into poverty.
- selestify 5y agoIt’s not a choice to apply yourself and get into a good school? I mean seriously, given how hot the US software market is, there’s no excuse. And FWIW, I come from a poor immigrant background. My family was on welfare. I got free lunch at school. The American dream come true. Sorry that not everyone can hack it in life.
- gambiting 5y agoAh yes, after all a lottery winner will advise everyone around them to play lottery - clearly it works, they are the best example. Once again, you are refusing to acknowledge that the word "typical" is not appropriate here. Even in your example it's not typical for American people to achieve that American dream, as America is absolutely awful on the social mobility scale. Edit: also it's really classy you are just deleting your replies to my comments instead of actually engaging in a discussion. Your choice I suppose.
- selestify 5y ago
- t-writescode 5y agoBlue collar workers are some of the hardest working people I know. Some of them make as much as 40k per year. Yes, I said "as much". You really, really need to check yourself. You have no idea how good you have it.
- pavlov 5y agoWhen a large part of the compensation is stock, it's worth remembering that share prices can go down too. Meta/FB is down 35% since September. Many public mid-cap software unicorns are down 50%. Smaller companies that IPO'd last year are often down even more than that. If you joined one of these companies last fall and got a $150k base salary + $400k stock grant that vests over four years, your total compensation was $250k when hired, but is now down to $200k after the stock has lost 50%. Of course the stock price may go up again. (But it also may not, as anyone who lived through 1999-2001 remembers.)
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- imwillofficial 5y agoIt is objectively rare by every use of the word. Your doubling down is embarrassing.
- belter 5y agoThose salaries are only possible, because most of it is stock compensation, highly inflated due to the biggest stock market bubble of the last 30 years. As of next week, as soon as the Fed starts raising rates, the stock market will crater. These compensation values will then become what companies are really willing to pay. Not much different from other parts of the world. If you factor in the risk of bankruptcy in the US due to unexpected medical bills and that you have to be on the 0.1% of Developer pools in the US, does not make it so amazing.
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- raisedbyninjas 5y agoGP said quarter mil was typical of new grads (unqualified), not typical of elite new grads. A glance at BLS data shows that's multiples of the median wage in software.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoIt is highly likely that the former vice president of a startup is actually from one of those two small corners of the US (given that these also seem to be hot startup scenes), so it isn't a weird assumption for senior roles (not new grad ones). It isn't mentioned if she is a SWE or not, however, which would make a huge difference.
- gambiting 5y agoI don't know, I think saying that it's "typical" to be paid 250k as a graduate is pretty damn weird.
- amelius 5y agoPerhaps the thinking is: if you keep saying it, it may become true.
- seanmcdirmid 5y agoYes, but unfortunately it is sounding less and less ridiculous as inflation picks up.
- renewiltord 5y agoRead the domain name. The entire world is these corners in the US.
- conanbatt 5y agoIt's almost as if HN was made by and for one of the small corners of the US.
- 908B64B197 5y agoThat small corner has an outsized influence on software worldwide. Most high-impact developers and companies are there.
- digisign 5y agoInflation and housing scarcity are real. This story is probably 3-10 years old.
- notyourday 5y agoIncorrect. The tax code makes this kind of an offer an exception rather than a rule. There's a reason why Amazon just now upped the top $ into 300k range. That's also a reason why most of astronomical cash salaries are done as B2B via pass through entities. The vast majority of people talking about those salaries just heard of a few people that make that money and extrapolated to the rest.
- hourislate 5y agoPost W2 or it's not true.
- selestify 5y agolevels.fyi bro. You get to L4/E4 within a year or two, which is for all practical purposes basically “new grad”
- lovich 5y ago2 years in is explicitly not new grad. New grads are new grads.
- selestify 5y agoSure, if you want to get specifically technical about it. The overall gist of what the OP was talking about is still true. At most, you could say they’re slightly exaggerating, and should reword to “It’s not at all unusual for new college grads to make $250k a year.”
- lovich 5y agoI don’t think it’s overly specific. New grads out of college are a mostly unknown value that is measured using proxies like GPA and pedigree. After 2 years of employment you’ve shown what value you can bring or have been removed from the employer.