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Due to anecdotal reasons, going to have to disagree. Last switch was a 39% increase at 11 years in industry. The market is hot. Most of my friends/colleagues ha

Due to anecdotal reasons, going to have to disagree. Last switch was a 39% increase at 11 years in industry. The market is hot. Most of my friends/colleagues have seen a similar increase the last year. Obviously market, location, expertise will vary, etc. YMMV.

FabHK 4y ago
In the real world, people work about 42 years. With 11 years, you've just finished the first quarter. GP spoke about the latter part of one's career.
- thoughtpalette 4y ago
  GP talked about 20+ years, without knowing, they could either be halfway through their career, or nearing the end. Also assuming they started their career immediately instead of at a later time in life. 11 years in the (relatively young) tech industry is quite the tenure at this point, _imo_. My point was that the market is hot. Hot enough for an 11 year "veteran" to still get a 39% increase. Also want to point out I've "hopped" as many jobs in about as many years. Some people coming into the industry get taken advantage of compensation wise for a multitude of reasons just to get their foot in the door. I also strongly believe in skill stagnation at certain companies and hopping is the only way out. Again, none of these arguments really matter as it comes down to individual experiences.
crispyambulance 4y ago
> YMMV. YMMV is right. There's a lot of factors here. It's almost meaningless to take averages without qualifying those against a fairly large number of conditions. Total comp North of 300K for an IC sounds like science fiction to many folks which aren't in Silicon Valley, in certain fields, and in certain companies.
- jcadam 4y ago
  It's not what you make, it's what you keep. That 300K+ in SV comes coupled to an extreme cost of living. :)
  - beamatronic 4y ago
    It also doesn't help when the previous administration specifically targets you with punitive tax policies.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    Good thing there are such things as remote jobs…
    - jcadam 4y ago
      But you're not going to get paid SV salaries working remotely (yes, I work remotely because living in CA is not appealing to me).
      - scarface74 4y ago
        I work for BigTech remotely. My comp may be about 10% lower than the equivalent position on the west coast according to the internal “anonymous” compensation sharing Slack channel.
      - edgyquant 4y ago
        I do and so does my whole team. I live in Seattle but a lot of our guys are in the south making six figure salaries. Not being paid the average salary seems to be fud I’ve heard from anti-remote people.
        acchow 4y ago
        By “in the south making six figure salaries” do you mean $300k on 4 YOE?
        4y ago
- codefreeordie 4y ago
  That's actually so much of why people feel underpaid. Pay varies incredibly widely. The job also varies quite widely, but when you're not in the job, IC sounds a lot like IC. You could be an IC with a total compensation of $80k (and actually getting $80k), you could be an IC with a TC of $300k (and actually getting $300k), and you could be an IC with a TC of $750k (and actually getting something like $200k-250k because your employer is private and your equity is all hypothetical)
  - scarface74 4y ago
    If your employee is private, it is silly to count non liquid statistically meaningless “equity” as part of your compensation. “compensation” is something I can trade for cash once I have earned it and then exchange for good and services.
    - TooKool4This 4y ago
      It’s also incorrect to assume the expected value of the equity is zero. It’s much more useful to model it as E(x)=x*p(x), especially if you have some useful information on estimating p(x) that a person working at a startup might.
      - scarface74 4y ago
        Every startup thinks their company is going to be successful. No matter what the person thinks who is working their, they don’t know when the investors will cut their losses or when the market isn’t hungry for money losing startups and the VCs have to put off going public…like now.
    - lhorie 4y ago
      Paper equity for late stage startups can be traded for cash in secondary markets like EquityZen
      - scarface74 4y ago
        If your company allows it and it will probably be at a discount.
lhorie 4y ago
The thing with countering averages with anecdotes is that neither really paints a holistic picture of the demand pyramid. Back of napkin calculations say around 4% of US developers work at the FAANGMULAs, meaning that some 29 out 30 dev earnings are somewhere lower in the pay scale. But 1 out of 30 isn't an astronomically small number, so you could very well be one of those 300k TC people surrounded by others in that cohort and thinking the market is hot because professionals w/ that experience set are rare and in demand, and at the same time you could go on r/cscareerquestions and see a deluge of new grads complaining they sent out hundreds of resumes and heard nothing back. The thing about pay that the job hoppers apparently don't take into account is that levels aren't static. Looking at my own network over the years, virtually everyone I know has been promoted or otherwise landed more senior roles, to varying degrees on both sides. You may also have noticed a significant increase of "staff engineers" in the past few years, whereas the role was basically unknown some 10 years ago. Many companies also have been quietly giving out retainer bonuses/raises to slow down attrition. Since I started my career, I've had multiple significant compensation increases, some from raises, some from promos, one from a team move, and some from changing jobs. Increasing your experience/expertise over time can have a huge impact. Going from no-name companies to household names can have a huge impact. Relocating can have a huge impact. Negotiations (even internal ones) can have a huge impact. There isn't a one-glove-fits-all when it comes to an individual's opportunities for comp growth. On the other hand, stagnation is very much real. There are plenty of people that do nothing in terms of career progressions, negotiations, etc and just wait for year-end bonuses to fall into their laps. It'd naive to be surprised these folks aren't keeping up pay-wise.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  > The thing with countering averages with anecdotes is that neither really paints a holistic picture of the demand pyramid. Back of napkin calculations say around 4% of US developers work at the FAANGMULAs, meaning that some 29 out 30 dev earnings are somewhere lower in the pay scale. Not only FAANGABCDEF, but "Staff+, with specialized skills, at FAANGABCDEF, in a small number of specific metro areas". If 1 software engineer can be found who makes $700K for every 29 software engineers at other companies/metros/levels who make $100K, Hacker News Commenters will tell you that "Software engineers make $700K". Important to point out there are a lot of other things in play that make it more complex.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
It's more accurate to say that job-hopping has diminishing returns. Get a single +39% increase is one thing. Getting a +39% increase every single time you change jobs isn't going to happen. If that was possible, you could change jobs every year for a decade and be earning 27X what you started with. If you started at $100K, that would put you at $2.7 million year after 10 iterations. That's why whenever someone insists that job hopping is an easy way to get huge pay increases, it's probably more a sign that they're early in their career and/or that they haven't been keeping up with compensation negotiations. For people at the sharp end of the compensation scale, job-hopping stops becoming an easy option for compensation increases.
- munk-a 4y ago
  I'd still be very cautious about dissuading people from job hopping. My advice is always "Keep interviewing for new positions at regular intervals until you're bordering on retirement." A lot of people a lot of people are making less money than they could be due to being complacent about reaffirming their own value. America, and most of the modern world, runs a labour market and to properly value a good in a market you need real sales data - I think it's a solidly good idea to interview regularly, be prepared to job hop... but make a sane evaluation about the decision before committing to leaving or joining a particular job. Most employers over-advertise their business because... well... advertising works - so the grass might not be greener on the other side. But if you have an offer for 120k and are currently making 80k from an employer that values you you can discuss that with your employer to seek a salary equalization.
  - SauciestGNU 4y ago
    I agree with always interviewing. I had not been until recently and when I tested the market I found that my current compensation is less than half of the current market rate. I'm kicking myself for leaving basically half a retirement on the table for the last 6 years, and I'm disgruntled in my current position now to boot!
- jacurtis 4y ago
  Yes, job hopping is incredibly lucrative and beneficial early in your career. You can work at companies for 12-18 months, jump to another company and get a 40-50% increase between your first 1-3 jobs. That is far faster than sticking around at a single company for even 5 years. This decreases over your mid-career. You can still get good job bumps of 15% - 25% in your mid years by job hopping. But later in your career you will get rewarded by loyalty and sticking around. Those massive salaries that everyone brags about generally (not always, but usually) come from internal promotion or from poaching. Those careers require you to be part of specialized teams with high-value business-specific knowledge. Those job roles are not given to engineers who job-hop. Simply put, in your late career, if you are only staying at companies for 12-18 months, then you are not getting deep enough into your specialty to be worth the insane salaries. So long term loyalty becomes much greater rewarded. This is another reason why I recommend people stay away from FAANG early in your career and move to those jobs later. Early on, you should job hop through smaller companies where you aren't as enticed to stick around and you can more easily get promotions. Then settle down later in your career at the large companies who want and reward loyalty with insane compensation packages.

FabHK 4y ago

In the real world, people work about 42 years. With 11 years, you've just finished the first quarter. GP spoke about the latter part of one's career.

thoughtpalette 4y ago
GP talked about 20+ years, without knowing, they could either be halfway through their career, or nearing the end. Also assuming they started their career immediately instead of at a later time in life. 11 years in the (relatively young) tech industry is quite the tenure at this point, _imo_. My point was that the market is hot. Hot enough for an 11 year "veteran" to still get a 39% increase. Also want to point out I've "hopped" as many jobs in about as many years. Some people coming into the industry get taken advantage of compensation wise for a multitude of reasons just to get their foot in the door. I also strongly believe in skill stagnation at certain companies and hopping is the only way out. Again, none of these arguments really matter as it comes down to individual experiences.

crispyambulance 4y ago

> YMMV. YMMV is right. There's a lot of factors here. It's almost meaningless to take averages without qualifying those against a fairly large number of conditions. Total comp North of 300K for an IC sounds like science fiction to many folks which aren't in Silicon Valley, in certain fields, and in certain companies.

jcadam 4y ago
It's not what you make, it's what you keep. That 300K+ in SV comes coupled to an extreme cost of living. :)
- beamatronic 4y ago
  It also doesn't help when the previous administration specifically targets you with punitive tax policies.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Good thing there are such things as remote jobs…
  - jcadam 4y ago
    But you're not going to get paid SV salaries working remotely (yes, I work remotely because living in CA is not appealing to me).
    - scarface74 4y ago
      I work for BigTech remotely. My comp may be about 10% lower than the equivalent position on the west coast according to the internal “anonymous” compensation sharing Slack channel.
    - edgyquant 4y ago
      I do and so does my whole team. I live in Seattle but a lot of our guys are in the south making six figure salaries. Not being paid the average salary seems to be fud I’ve heard from anti-remote people.
      - acchow 4y ago
        By “in the south making six figure salaries” do you mean $300k on 4 YOE?
        4y ago
codefreeordie 4y ago
That's actually so much of why people feel underpaid. Pay varies incredibly widely. The job also varies quite widely, but when you're not in the job, IC sounds a lot like IC. You could be an IC with a total compensation of $80k (and actually getting $80k), you could be an IC with a TC of $300k (and actually getting $300k), and you could be an IC with a TC of $750k (and actually getting something like $200k-250k because your employer is private and your equity is all hypothetical)
- scarface74 4y ago
  If your employee is private, it is silly to count non liquid statistically meaningless “equity” as part of your compensation. “compensation” is something I can trade for cash once I have earned it and then exchange for good and services.
  - TooKool4This 4y ago
    It’s also incorrect to assume the expected value of the equity is zero. It’s much more useful to model it as E(x)=x*p(x), especially if you have some useful information on estimating p(x) that a person working at a startup might.
    - scarface74 4y ago
      Every startup thinks their company is going to be successful. No matter what the person thinks who is working their, they don’t know when the investors will cut their losses or when the market isn’t hungry for money losing startups and the VCs have to put off going public…like now.
  - lhorie 4y ago
    Paper equity for late stage startups can be traded for cash in secondary markets like EquityZen
    - scarface74 4y ago
      If your company allows it and it will probably be at a discount.

lhorie 4y ago

The thing with countering averages with anecdotes is that neither really paints a holistic picture of the demand pyramid. Back of napkin calculations say around 4% of US developers work at the FAANGMULAs, meaning that some 29 out 30 dev earnings are somewhere lower in the pay scale. But 1 out of 30 isn't an astronomically small number, so you could very well be one of those 300k TC people surrounded by others in that cohort and thinking the market is hot because professionals w/ that experience set are rare and in demand, and at the same time you could go on r/cscareerquestions and see a deluge of new grads complaining they sent out hundreds of resumes and heard nothing back. The thing about pay that the job hoppers apparently don't take into account is that levels aren't static. Looking at my own network over the years, virtually everyone I know has been promoted or otherwise landed more senior roles, to varying degrees on both sides. You may also have noticed a significant increase of "staff engineers" in the past few years, whereas the role was basically unknown some 10 years ago. Many companies also have been quietly giving out retainer bonuses/raises to slow down attrition. Since I started my career, I've had multiple significant compensation increases, some from raises, some from promos, one from a team move, and some from changing jobs. Increasing your experience/expertise over time can have a huge impact. Going from no-name companies to household names can have a huge impact. Relocating can have a huge impact. Negotiations (even internal ones) can have a huge impact. There isn't a one-glove-fits-all when it comes to an individual's opportunities for comp growth. On the other hand, stagnation is very much real. There are plenty of people that do nothing in terms of career progressions, negotiations, etc and just wait for year-end bonuses to fall into their laps. It'd naive to be surprised these folks aren't keeping up pay-wise.

ryandrake 4y ago
> The thing with countering averages with anecdotes is that neither really paints a holistic picture of the demand pyramid. Back of napkin calculations say around 4% of US developers work at the FAANGMULAs, meaning that some 29 out 30 dev earnings are somewhere lower in the pay scale. Not only FAANGABCDEF, but "Staff+, with specialized skills, at FAANGABCDEF, in a small number of specific metro areas". If 1 software engineer can be found who makes $700K for every 29 software engineers at other companies/metros/levels who make $100K, Hacker News Commenters will tell you that "Software engineers make $700K". Important to point out there are a lot of other things in play that make it more complex.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

It's more accurate to say that job-hopping has diminishing returns. Get a single +39% increase is one thing. Getting a +39% increase every single time you change jobs isn't going to happen. If that was possible, you could change jobs every year for a decade and be earning 27X what you started with. If you started at $100K, that would put you at $2.7 million year after 10 iterations. That's why whenever someone insists that job hopping is an easy way to get huge pay increases, it's probably more a sign that they're early in their career and/or that they haven't been keeping up with compensation negotiations. For people at the sharp end of the compensation scale, job-hopping stops becoming an easy option for compensation increases.

munk-a 4y ago
I'd still be very cautious about dissuading people from job hopping. My advice is always "Keep interviewing for new positions at regular intervals until you're bordering on retirement." A lot of people a lot of people are making less money than they could be due to being complacent about reaffirming their own value. America, and most of the modern world, runs a labour market and to properly value a good in a market you need real sales data - I think it's a solidly good idea to interview regularly, be prepared to job hop... but make a sane evaluation about the decision before committing to leaving or joining a particular job. Most employers over-advertise their business because... well... advertising works - so the grass might not be greener on the other side. But if you have an offer for 120k and are currently making 80k from an employer that values you you can discuss that with your employer to seek a salary equalization.
- SauciestGNU 4y ago
  I agree with always interviewing. I had not been until recently and when I tested the market I found that my current compensation is less than half of the current market rate. I'm kicking myself for leaving basically half a retirement on the table for the last 6 years, and I'm disgruntled in my current position now to boot!
jacurtis 4y ago
Yes, job hopping is incredibly lucrative and beneficial early in your career. You can work at companies for 12-18 months, jump to another company and get a 40-50% increase between your first 1-3 jobs. That is far faster than sticking around at a single company for even 5 years. This decreases over your mid-career. You can still get good job bumps of 15% - 25% in your mid years by job hopping. But later in your career you will get rewarded by loyalty and sticking around. Those massive salaries that everyone brags about generally (not always, but usually) come from internal promotion or from poaching. Those careers require you to be part of specialized teams with high-value business-specific knowledge. Those job roles are not given to engineers who job-hop. Simply put, in your late career, if you are only staying at companies for 12-18 months, then you are not getting deep enough into your specialty to be worth the insane salaries. So long term loyalty becomes much greater rewarded. This is another reason why I recommend people stay away from FAANG early in your career and move to those jobs later. Early on, you should job hop through smaller companies where you aren't as enticed to stick around and you can more easily get promotions. Then settle down later in your career at the large companies who want and reward loyalty with insane compensation packages.