4 ms·

Does Mozilla pay their software developers an industry-standard TC?

by cnasc 5y ago

pc86 5y ago
It looks like Mozilla's average SDE salary is about $120k, so yes. The national median software developer salary is something like $110k. The middle 50% range is like $85-150k, so if you're making above 150k TC you're already in the top 1/4 of developers, who are already very high up in general. I say this because people on HN love to pretend that "industry-standard" means $250k+ for new grads and $400k for experienced ICs when that's just not true. FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%.
- cnasc 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s unreasonable to compare the take-home-pay of a Google engineer working on Chrome to that of a Mozilla engineer working on Firefox. That’s a good peer comparison to make. It is definitely unreasonable to compare a Mozilla engineer’s pay to an average brought down by body-shop CRUD operations. They’re really not the same industry.
- sendilkumarn 5y ago
  That definitely feels a bit low. Is this considering only US or worldwide?
  - flyingfences 5y ago
    Outside of SV/NYC, that's not low at all.
  - pc86 5y ago
    It's the US median salary. If you're outside of SV and NYC, as a new grad you're looking at $60-70k, with no bonus and no stock (because outside of tech 99% of companies don't give their employees stock until they're at the director/VP level).
- justapassenger 5y ago
  > FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%. Mozilla is going against FAANG products like Chrome. Compared to the competition their salaries are tiny.
- sciurus 5y ago
  > It looks like Mozilla's average SDE salary is about $120k, so yes. I'm not sure where you're getting that number, but it's much too low. The figures at https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng... better match what I saw when I worked at Mozilla. You can compare compensation at equivalent levels for Mozilla and peer companies at https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Mozilla,Microsoft,Apple,Google&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Mozilla,Microsoft,Apple,Goog... . You'll see that Mozilla pays well, but significantly less than them.
- comp_throw7 5y ago
  > FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%. FAANG & companies that pay similarly employ something like 8-10% of the engineers in the country, so this is an enormous overexaggeration. We can quibble about whether it's reasonable to represent that as "industry standard" or not, but it's not such a drastic outlier that it becomes unreasonable to use it as a point of reference when discussing things that might be reasonable to aim for (or expect, in certain contexts).

Does Mozilla pay their software developers an industry-standard TC?

by cnasc 5y ago

Does Mozilla pay their software developers an industry-standard TC?

pc86 5y ago

It looks like Mozilla's average SDE salary is about $120k, so yes. The national median software developer salary is something like $110k. The middle 50% range is like $85-150k, so if you're making above 150k TC you're already in the top 1/4 of developers, who are already very high up in general. I say this because people on HN love to pretend that "industry-standard" means $250k+ for new grads and $400k for experienced ICs when that's just not true. FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%.

cnasc 5y ago
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to compare the take-home-pay of a Google engineer working on Chrome to that of a Mozilla engineer working on Firefox. That’s a good peer comparison to make. It is definitely unreasonable to compare a Mozilla engineer’s pay to an average brought down by body-shop CRUD operations. They’re really not the same industry.
sendilkumarn 5y ago
That definitely feels a bit low. Is this considering only US or worldwide?
- flyingfences 5y ago
  Outside of SV/NYC, that's not low at all.
- pc86 5y ago
  It's the US median salary. If you're outside of SV and NYC, as a new grad you're looking at $60-70k, with no bonus and no stock (because outside of tech 99% of companies don't give their employees stock until they're at the director/VP level).
justapassenger 5y ago
> FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%. Mozilla is going against FAANG products like Chrome. Compared to the competition their salaries are tiny.
sciurus 5y ago
> It looks like Mozilla's average SDE salary is about $120k, so yes. I'm not sure where you're getting that number, but it's much too low. The figures at https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Engineer/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Mozilla/salaries/Software-Eng... better match what I saw when I worked at Mozilla. You can compare compensation at equivalent levels for Mozilla and peer companies at https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Mozilla,Microsoft,Apple,Google&track=Software%20Engineer https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Mozilla,Microsoft,Apple,Goog... . You'll see that Mozilla pays well, but significantly less than them.
comp_throw7 5y ago
> FAANG-level salaries (which can absolutely be 300, 400, 500k TC) are the 1% of the 1%. FAANG & companies that pay similarly employ something like 8-10% of the engineers in the country, so this is an enormous overexaggeration. We can quibble about whether it's reasonable to represent that as "industry standard" or not, but it's not such a drastic outlier that it becomes unreasonable to use it as a point of reference when discussing things that might be reasonable to aim for (or expect, in certain contexts).