4 ms·

What kind of job pay 400k? Even when I worked as C++ guru at BMW and was hired as very senior my before taxes compensation was 40k (year).

michaelt 2y ago
Perhaps they meant to say "studying for a few weeks to solve fun puzzles, after getting a CS degree from Stanford, moving to a city where a basic apartment costs $1 million, and getting 8-10 years FAANG experience, also like half that $400k is stock not cash" But no licensing!
- citizen_friend 2y ago
  None of these things are true of me actually. Skill based interview is an equalizer which overcomes status education. And fine divide the salary by 2 and it’s still better than most “licensed” careers
  - tracker1 2y ago
    Not to mention those of us who are self-taught and don't do as well in formal learning environments. One can be higher functioning, but not learn the same as others. It's harder to work around at times, and I do have to use various coping mechanisms in practice (same as setting lots of alarms for meetings through the day). I don't always do as well in converting literal leet code pre-screenings online though. I'd rather do a take-home type assignment (actually make a solution for X) or a person to person screening, where I can ask followup questions to better understand what I'm solving for in context.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- fnfjfk 2y ago
  Stock in public companies is effectively equivalent to cash, so what’s the difference? Sell on vest and buy index funds or anything you want.
  - redserk 2y ago
    That's assuming the stock price doesn't go down in the time it takes to hit your first (or any meaningful) vesting cliff.
    - humansareok1 2y ago
      To be fair I think most top tier companies vest quarterly so...
      - Paul-Craft 2y ago
        They do, but they don't do refreshers quarterly.
- rockemsockem 2y ago
  You definitely don't need 8-10 years or a degree from a particularly prestigious university to achieve this. Also you can get this pay outside the bay area, still in high cost of living areas, but for that pay it's really not an issue.
flashgordon 2y ago
Jobs in bay area with most tech companies with 5-10 years of experience at mid level gives you this. With zirp gone this may no longer be true but was the case 2 years ago
triceratops 2y ago
Jobs at software companies in the US. Other industries don't pay very much for technical talent. $40k is extremely low for a senior role. Even in places like India or China.
- Terr_ 2y ago
  > Jobs at software companies in the US. A few very rare jobs at software companies in the US. The BLS median for 2024 is way lower, at $110k. (Yet at the same time, still much higher than parent-poster's $40k figure.)
  - triceratops 2y ago
    I assume the BLS median accounts for all software jobs. That would include software jobs at GM (the US equivalent of BMW), banks, insurance companies, and the rest of the economy. Does it control for industry?
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Going back to the phrase "software companies", the closest category-breakdown looks to be "Software Publishers", where the mean average [0] rises a bit to $149k. (I'm going to assume that the relative difference in means is similar to the difference in not-shown medians.) You can see higher values, but I think they look suspiciously like generic labels slapped over large something-opolies such as Google ("Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services", mean $215k) or Uber and Lyft ("Taxi and Limousine Service", mean $187k.) [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#ind https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#ind
arcticbull 2y ago
You can make double or triple that in total compensation at the staff or principal level in the Bay Area. I'm not saying these jobs are easy, or easy to get, but yes, they exist, even in this market. The reality is the biggest drop-off in recruiting is at the very top of the funnel. Your basic phone screen and first technical screen -- before you get to a full panel. Once there you have way more, qualified, applicants than roles. I'm not sure it really matters which person gets the job, and this is one way you can make a fairly arbitrary decision. It's nice because it's within your control to grind some leetcode lol. From the company's perspective it's fair and has limited negative selection risk, and doesn't lead to as many regrettable hires. If you've got 100 great candidates and 1 role, does it really matter which great candidate gets the job, so long as the selection process is relatively fair and uniform? From the company's perspective, probably not. Since there's no feasible way to select the local maxima, the second sort is consistency.
- Thrymr 2y ago
  > You can make double or triple that in total compensation at the staff or principal level in the Bay Area. Sure, it is possible, but that is a small number of roles at a small number of companies, and the vetting process will be more intense. I think the coding interviews we're talking about in this thread are going to be at the junior to mid-level for the most part.
- damontal 2y ago
  You can make millions as a famous actor in Hollywood. So what? That doesn’t describe the average actor’s situation.
  - arcticbull 2y ago
    I think it's a lot easier to get a staff role than being a Hollywood actor. Staff+ comprises around 7-10% of a company's engineering team. A quick Google leads me to believe there's usually about 15-20 A-list actors at any given time and 130,000 members of SAG-AFTRA. I think it's certainly achievable if you put in the time and effort (and of course if you're good at your job) -- the question is do you want to or not. It can be incredibly demanding and may not be intrinsically rewarding to you. It seems folks generally believe "senior" is an achievable level -- they should, it's usually the first "terminal" level at which it's ok to remain for the rest of your career -- then you shouldn't view staff as intrinsically out of reach.
fnfjfk 2y ago
Low level (L4) at big tech can clear $400k if the stock appreciates, otherwise L5 (“senior”, but really just mid level) will easily be there. Higher level ICs can make 7 figures.
krat0sprakhar 2y ago
I think the author is talking about comp data from levels.fyi https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer?countryId=254&country=254 https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer?countryId=254&cou...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
humansareok1 2y ago
How are people still so misinformed about Tech salaries? Are you in the EU? Salaries are lower across the board there for engineers. In the US for Silicon Valley Type large Tech Companies the starting salary for New Graduate SWE's is 150k USD on the low end. For a senior engineer at FAANG it can easily get above 500k USD.
- speeder 2y ago
  I am in Portugal yes.
  - def_not_troll 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - esafak 2y ago
      Americans emigrate to Portugal, you know; don't feel so sorry.
      - humansareok1 2y ago
        Retirees usually
- nsxwolf 2y ago
  Keep in mind that 150k USD can also be a terminal salary at 30 years of experience in most other places in the US. Most jobs are not FAANG or FAANG adjacent.
  - humansareok1 2y ago
    Yes of course this is true but I was responding to this common idea that high salaries, say over 300k, don't actually exist in the US when they do and are very common for Engineers at large SV tech companies.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
wasteduniverse 2y ago
[dead]
nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
> C++ guru at BMW This sounds interesting--what did you work on?

michaelt 2y ago

Perhaps they meant to say "studying for a few weeks to solve fun puzzles, after getting a CS degree from Stanford, moving to a city where a basic apartment costs $1 million, and getting 8-10 years FAANG experience, also like half that $400k is stock not cash" But no licensing!

citizen_friend 2y ago
None of these things are true of me actually. Skill based interview is an equalizer which overcomes status education. And fine divide the salary by 2 and it’s still better than most “licensed” careers
- tracker1 2y ago
  Not to mention those of us who are self-taught and don't do as well in formal learning environments. One can be higher functioning, but not learn the same as others. It's harder to work around at times, and I do have to use various coping mechanisms in practice (same as setting lots of alarms for meetings through the day). I don't always do as well in converting literal leet code pre-screenings online though. I'd rather do a take-home type assignment (actually make a solution for X) or a person to person screening, where I can ask followup questions to better understand what I'm solving for in context.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
fnfjfk 2y ago
Stock in public companies is effectively equivalent to cash, so what’s the difference? Sell on vest and buy index funds or anything you want.
- redserk 2y ago
  That's assuming the stock price doesn't go down in the time it takes to hit your first (or any meaningful) vesting cliff.
  - humansareok1 2y ago
    To be fair I think most top tier companies vest quarterly so...
    - Paul-Craft 2y ago
      They do, but they don't do refreshers quarterly.
rockemsockem 2y ago
You definitely don't need 8-10 years or a degree from a particularly prestigious university to achieve this. Also you can get this pay outside the bay area, still in high cost of living areas, but for that pay it's really not an issue.

flashgordon 2y ago

Jobs in bay area with most tech companies with 5-10 years of experience at mid level gives you this. With zirp gone this may no longer be true but was the case 2 years ago

triceratops 2y ago

Jobs at software companies in the US. Other industries don't pay very much for technical talent. $40k is extremely low for a senior role. Even in places like India or China.

Terr_ 2y ago
> Jobs at software companies in the US. A few very rare jobs at software companies in the US. The BLS median for 2024 is way lower, at $110k. (Yet at the same time, still much higher than parent-poster's $40k figure.)
- triceratops 2y ago
  I assume the BLS median accounts for all software jobs. That would include software jobs at GM (the US equivalent of BMW), banks, insurance companies, and the rest of the economy. Does it control for industry?
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Going back to the phrase "software companies", the closest category-breakdown looks to be "Software Publishers", where the mean average [0] rises a bit to $149k. (I'm going to assume that the relative difference in means is similar to the difference in not-shown medians.) You can see higher values, but I think they look suspiciously like generic labels slapped over large something-opolies such as Google ("Web Search Portals, Libraries, Archives, and Other Information Services", mean $215k) or Uber and Lyft ("Taxi and Limousine Service", mean $187k.) [0] https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#ind https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes151252.htm#ind

arcticbull 2y ago

You can make double or triple that in total compensation at the staff or principal level in the Bay Area. I'm not saying these jobs are easy, or easy to get, but yes, they exist, even in this market. The reality is the biggest drop-off in recruiting is at the very top of the funnel. Your basic phone screen and first technical screen -- before you get to a full panel. Once there you have way more, qualified, applicants than roles. I'm not sure it really matters which person gets the job, and this is one way you can make a fairly arbitrary decision. It's nice because it's within your control to grind some leetcode lol. From the company's perspective it's fair and has limited negative selection risk, and doesn't lead to as many regrettable hires. If you've got 100 great candidates and 1 role, does it really matter which great candidate gets the job, so long as the selection process is relatively fair and uniform? From the company's perspective, probably not. Since there's no feasible way to select the local maxima, the second sort is consistency.

Thrymr 2y ago
> You can make double or triple that in total compensation at the staff or principal level in the Bay Area. Sure, it is possible, but that is a small number of roles at a small number of companies, and the vetting process will be more intense. I think the coding interviews we're talking about in this thread are going to be at the junior to mid-level for the most part.
damontal 2y ago
You can make millions as a famous actor in Hollywood. So what? That doesn’t describe the average actor’s situation.
- arcticbull 2y ago
  I think it's a lot easier to get a staff role than being a Hollywood actor. Staff+ comprises around 7-10% of a company's engineering team. A quick Google leads me to believe there's usually about 15-20 A-list actors at any given time and 130,000 members of SAG-AFTRA. I think it's certainly achievable if you put in the time and effort (and of course if you're good at your job) -- the question is do you want to or not. It can be incredibly demanding and may not be intrinsically rewarding to you. It seems folks generally believe "senior" is an achievable level -- they should, it's usually the first "terminal" level at which it's ok to remain for the rest of your career -- then you shouldn't view staff as intrinsically out of reach.

fnfjfk 2y ago

Low level (L4) at big tech can clear $400k if the stock appreciates, otherwise L5 (“senior”, but really just mid level) will easily be there. Higher level ICs can make 7 figures.

krat0sprakhar 2y ago

I think the author is talking about comp data from levels.fyi https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer?countryId=254&country=254 https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer?countryId=254&cou...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

humansareok1 2y ago

How are people still so misinformed about Tech salaries? Are you in the EU? Salaries are lower across the board there for engineers. In the US for Silicon Valley Type large Tech Companies the starting salary for New Graduate SWE's is 150k USD on the low end. For a senior engineer at FAANG it can easily get above 500k USD.

speeder 2y ago
I am in Portugal yes.
- def_not_troll 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - esafak 2y ago
    Americans emigrate to Portugal, you know; don't feel so sorry.
    - humansareok1 2y ago
      Retirees usually
nsxwolf 2y ago
Keep in mind that 150k USD can also be a terminal salary at 30 years of experience in most other places in the US. Most jobs are not FAANG or FAANG adjacent.
- humansareok1 2y ago
  Yes of course this is true but I was responding to this common idea that high salaries, say over 300k, don't actually exist in the US when they do and are very common for Engineers at large SV tech companies.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

wasteduniverse 2y ago

[dead]

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago

> C++ guru at BMW This sounds interesting--what did you work on?