8 ms·

>As a coder, your pay will definitely plateau. Mine seems to keep climbing. I'm hearing reports of >$300k, and have received an offer in that range myself (cou

>As a coder, your pay will definitely plateau. Mine seems to keep climbing. I'm hearing reports of >$300k, and have received an offer in that range myself (counting signing bonuses and stock grants). Granted my pay might plateau there, but honestly that's enough money to keep me happy without having to see it go up every year. I'm a total generalist, but I also have a few areas where I would qualify as a specialist; that offer I'm sure was because of the specific skills I've built up. I've also been programming professionally since 1989, and I try to keep learning, which can't hurt. Agree that keeping it fun is key. :)

Arnor 13y ago
Thank you! Reading some of these posts, I was worried that it was some law of providence that when you've been writing software for some number of years (15-20?) you magically stop wanting to learn about new tools. As a new tools junky, I was worried. I'm glad to see someone who's been doing this since I was 1 year old still loves learning new tools.
rschmitty 13y ago
Congrats on the pay grade! but you need to look at averages not anomalies like yourself 300k is definitely not the tract most programmers are on
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  >not anomalies like yourself Several people I know are in that range. But they all specialize in one thing or another.
  - JayBlanton 13y ago
    Could you share some examples?
    - rschmitty 13y ago
      Would also be interested in some examples, just for curiosity sake. COBOL maybe? Wild guess at something specialized/scarce. Personally, the only people I know in the 200+ club are in some form of management and rarely, if ever, code anymore. But then we are back into the anecdotal realm..
      - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
        Example specialties of people I know in the $250k+ range: * Machine learning + finance * iOS (I know several examples here) * Android * Enterprise Java * Embedded development * Specific scientific expertise (a friend is into optics and diffraction and makes $250/hour freelance, with some coding and some design) I don't know any COBOL programmers. Or at least if I do, they're in the closet. :) This is universally from big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Ball Aerospace, etc.
    - thrwy7372997 13y ago
      I'm a senior software engineer in the Bay Area and spend most of my days writing Javascript/Ruby. I don't manage anyone directly, but have technical/product leadership responsibility on my team. My gross comp is ~$350k, 60% cash. The 3 main learnings that I've leveraged to get that high are: 0) be the top performer on your team, no excuses 1) ask very explicitly for the things you want [0] 2) negotiate from a position of power (have a BATNA [1]) --- [0] "I'd like a raise" != "I'd like my salary to be $X" [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiate...
  - djur 13y ago
    In the Bay Area or New York?
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  Actually, I hear LOTS of reports of people with $100-$140k salaries who receive signing bonuses close to their salaries. To the point where it seems like the "new standard." No, you don't see this in start-ups. I think HN may skew toward people who usually work in start-ups, so the perceived average will be lower as a result. Until this recent offer, it was my perception as well. And no, that's not quite my pay grade, but a lot higher than the plateau that I think people are imagining. I think some developers do get sick of the programming, or they stop learning and go stale, before they get to be an anomaly like me. ;)
  - brianbarker 13y ago
    I kick ass. Where do I sign?
    - qstyk 13y ago
      On the dotted line, of course.
  - grmarcil 13y ago
    Where exactly are developers reporting six-figure signing bonuses? Google, Amazon, FB, etc I assume? Also, making $150k with a $150k signing bonus is not anywhere close to 'making $300k'. What do you earn in year 2? $150k (plus whatever raise and annual bonus, but annual bonuses don't typically make up a huge part of your annual income in software, as they do in finance).
    - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
      >What do you earn in year 2? Almost the same in cash, but a little more in stock grants. Years 3 and 4 have a lower salary but much larger stock grant vesting, that at today's stock price mean that I'd be making roughly the same amount in each year. If their stock crashes, then I might leave, though they mentioned that after the second year they may up the stock grants for the following years. And if their stock keeps going up (as it has been), then I would be getting a de facto raise in years 3-4. But I'm fine with the first 2 years; my personal burn rate is low, and it would let me work on personal projects full time again after the two years are up.
- quaffapint 13y ago
  Agreed - Around here @100K is higher than most. It all depends on your geography. I would live like a king with 300K!
  - ogreyonder 13y ago
    I wouldn't... I would live like a miser for 2-3 years and retire to do whatever I wanted. Maybe 4 if I felt like travelling the world for a decade. :)
    - danesparza 13y ago
      You sir, are smart.
  - robmcm 13y ago
    It would be relative. The ideal is to work somewhere that pays top whack, save, then move to somewhere with lower average incomes. Tricky to do though.
  - quaffapint 13y ago
    Ok, let me change 'would' to 'could'. I'm way too frugal (my kids call it cheap) to waste.
001sky 13y ago
">As a coder, your pay will definitely plateau." There are two problems with hitting a plateau @ 300K: Housing costs and College Tuition. At the traditional 3x debt to gross income metric, your home mortgage would be capped around ~$900k, vs the $1.3-1.5MM range of current trading prices. Which is not terrible if you lock something in. However, once you are at 4x paying for schools becomes a far greater challenge. You could be looking at anywhere for $175-250 per kid. So, capitalize this and you are at $350-500K. That is, your combined "future obligations" would be something in the range of $1.7 to $2.0MM (exclusive of retirement). Which is something closer to 6.5x gross income. Which is pretty highly leveraged. You're after tax cash flow without real-estate tax shields could easily be ~200k, so you are looking at something like 10x cash-flow leverage. That is about as high as most PE guys will take a decent c-corp. Just start shielding your income and assets as soon as possible. Strategize to minimize exposure to asset inflation (housing, education). The IRS (tax man) and the "doo gooders" in academia (ironically, the new "alternative minimum tax" man) have really boxed in the middle class (read: the not-rich enough) from the perspective of lifetime earnings. Most of your "savings" will be at risk to get swept from you, thanks to "financial aid" effect driving college tuitions. These numbers get bounced around every now and then but they are worth considering. Inflation in "raw materials costs" for knowledge workers (kids) need to get passed on to customers (ie, employers) if you want to stay in the same place (red queen effect and all that). This is relevant when you are evaluating career moves down the road. ======== 3 bedrooms (Weekly Average Prices, San Francisco) $1,339,274 $1,573,313 $1,805,297 $1,720,736
- nostrademons 13y ago
  Just throwing this out there: if there's a problem with developer salaries being capped at $300K, think of how hard it is for all the families who are making the U.S. median household income of $53K/year, or hell, the Santa Clara County median income of $45K/year. I understand that everybody wants more money - hell, I want more money too. But a lot of that is because everybody wants to be in the top 1% of nice neighborhoods, nice homes in nice neighborhoods, nice colleges, etc. You can have a life that is just fine on far, far less than $300K/year.
  - 13y ago
ChuckMcM 13y ago
Making an annual salary + bonus of $300K at a mobile games studio, in Boulder CO is pretty impressive. Counting stock though is always a bit dicey, especially if you coded through the 90's :-).
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  On counting stock: It's a big public company I'm talking about, a modern blue chip, so the stock will be worth something. But I'm not counting it right now, regardless. The cash part of the offer is entirely enough to keep me happy for each of the first two years, and the stock is a bonus. Starting in year three, though, compensation is nearly half stock. I did code through the 90's, so I'm going to take any stock valuation with a grain of salt. I'll reevaluate my options at that time, if I decide to stick with them for that long.
belial88 13y ago
that reminds me of a quote in J. G. Ballard's 2003 "Millenium People"... "anyone making less than 300.000£ does not count. You're just a prole in a three button suit." a statement which might not be that off the mark
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  Too true. Too true. I think that if salary levels hadn't been effectively frozen starting from the '70s until now, $300k would be about "normal" for a middle class income. It's not that $300k is a lot of money, it's that the people of the US (and the world in general) have been cheated out of their share of productivity improvements. There's a great video that talks about stagnant wages and the problems that are the underlying cause of the recent collapse(s) of the economy. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KqeU8nzn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KqeU8nzn4

Arnor 13y ago

Thank you! Reading some of these posts, I was worried that it was some law of providence that when you've been writing software for some number of years (15-20?) you magically stop wanting to learn about new tools. As a new tools junky, I was worried. I'm glad to see someone who's been doing this since I was 1 year old still loves learning new tools.

rschmitty 13y ago

Congrats on the pay grade! but you need to look at averages not anomalies like yourself 300k is definitely not the tract most programmers are on

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
>not anomalies like yourself Several people I know are in that range. But they all specialize in one thing or another.
- JayBlanton 13y ago
  Could you share some examples?
  - rschmitty 13y ago
    Would also be interested in some examples, just for curiosity sake. COBOL maybe? Wild guess at something specialized/scarce. Personally, the only people I know in the 200+ club are in some form of management and rarely, if ever, code anymore. But then we are back into the anecdotal realm..
    - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
      Example specialties of people I know in the $250k+ range: * Machine learning + finance * iOS (I know several examples here) * Android * Enterprise Java * Embedded development * Specific scientific expertise (a friend is into optics and diffraction and makes $250/hour freelance, with some coding and some design) I don't know any COBOL programmers. Or at least if I do, they're in the closet. :) This is universally from big companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Ball Aerospace, etc.
  - thrwy7372997 13y ago
    I'm a senior software engineer in the Bay Area and spend most of my days writing Javascript/Ruby. I don't manage anyone directly, but have technical/product leadership responsibility on my team. My gross comp is ~$350k, 60% cash. The 3 main learnings that I've leveraged to get that high are: 0) be the top performer on your team, no excuses 1) ask very explicitly for the things you want [0] 2) negotiate from a position of power (have a BATNA [1]) --- [0] "I'd like a raise" != "I'd like my salary to be $X" [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiate...
- djur 13y ago
  In the Bay Area or New York?
SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
Actually, I hear LOTS of reports of people with $100-$140k salaries who receive signing bonuses close to their salaries. To the point where it seems like the "new standard." No, you don't see this in start-ups. I think HN may skew toward people who usually work in start-ups, so the perceived average will be lower as a result. Until this recent offer, it was my perception as well. And no, that's not quite my pay grade, but a lot higher than the plateau that I think people are imagining. I think some developers do get sick of the programming, or they stop learning and go stale, before they get to be an anomaly like me. ;)
- brianbarker 13y ago
  I kick ass. Where do I sign?
  - qstyk 13y ago
    On the dotted line, of course.
- grmarcil 13y ago
  Where exactly are developers reporting six-figure signing bonuses? Google, Amazon, FB, etc I assume? Also, making $150k with a $150k signing bonus is not anywhere close to 'making $300k'. What do you earn in year 2? $150k (plus whatever raise and annual bonus, but annual bonuses don't typically make up a huge part of your annual income in software, as they do in finance).
  - SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
    >What do you earn in year 2? Almost the same in cash, but a little more in stock grants. Years 3 and 4 have a lower salary but much larger stock grant vesting, that at today's stock price mean that I'd be making roughly the same amount in each year. If their stock crashes, then I might leave, though they mentioned that after the second year they may up the stock grants for the following years. And if their stock keeps going up (as it has been), then I would be getting a de facto raise in years 3-4. But I'm fine with the first 2 years; my personal burn rate is low, and it would let me work on personal projects full time again after the two years are up.
quaffapint 13y ago
Agreed - Around here @100K is higher than most. It all depends on your geography. I would live like a king with 300K!
- ogreyonder 13y ago
  I wouldn't... I would live like a miser for 2-3 years and retire to do whatever I wanted. Maybe 4 if I felt like travelling the world for a decade. :)
  - danesparza 13y ago
    You sir, are smart.
- robmcm 13y ago
  It would be relative. The ideal is to work somewhere that pays top whack, save, then move to somewhere with lower average incomes. Tricky to do though.
- quaffapint 13y ago
  Ok, let me change 'would' to 'could'. I'm way too frugal (my kids call it cheap) to waste.

001sky 13y ago

">As a coder, your pay will definitely plateau." There are two problems with hitting a plateau @ 300K: Housing costs and College Tuition. At the traditional 3x debt to gross income metric, your home mortgage would be capped around ~$900k, vs the $1.3-1.5MM range of current trading prices. Which is not terrible if you lock something in. However, once you are at 4x paying for schools becomes a far greater challenge. You could be looking at anywhere for $175-250 per kid. So, capitalize this and you are at $350-500K. That is, your combined "future obligations" would be something in the range of $1.7 to $2.0MM (exclusive of retirement). Which is something closer to 6.5x gross income. Which is pretty highly leveraged. You're after tax cash flow without real-estate tax shields could easily be ~200k, so you are looking at something like 10x cash-flow leverage. That is about as high as most PE guys will take a decent c-corp. Just start shielding your income and assets as soon as possible. Strategize to minimize exposure to asset inflation (housing, education). The IRS (tax man) and the "doo gooders" in academia (ironically, the new "alternative minimum tax" man) have really boxed in the middle class (read: the not-rich enough) from the perspective of lifetime earnings. Most of your "savings" will be at risk to get swept from you, thanks to "financial aid" effect driving college tuitions. These numbers get bounced around every now and then but they are worth considering. Inflation in "raw materials costs" for knowledge workers (kids) need to get passed on to customers (ie, employers) if you want to stay in the same place (red queen effect and all that). This is relevant when you are evaluating career moves down the road. ======== 3 bedrooms (Weekly Average Prices, San Francisco) $1,339,274 $1,573,313 $1,805,297 $1,720,736

nostrademons 13y ago
Just throwing this out there: if there's a problem with developer salaries being capped at $300K, think of how hard it is for all the families who are making the U.S. median household income of $53K/year, or hell, the Santa Clara County median income of $45K/year. I understand that everybody wants more money - hell, I want more money too. But a lot of that is because everybody wants to be in the top 1% of nice neighborhoods, nice homes in nice neighborhoods, nice colleges, etc. You can have a life that is just fine on far, far less than $300K/year.
- 13y ago

ChuckMcM 13y ago

Making an annual salary + bonus of $300K at a mobile games studio, in Boulder CO is pretty impressive. Counting stock though is always a bit dicey, especially if you coded through the 90's :-).

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
On counting stock: It's a big public company I'm talking about, a modern blue chip, so the stock will be worth something. But I'm not counting it right now, regardless. The cash part of the offer is entirely enough to keep me happy for each of the first two years, and the stock is a bonus. Starting in year three, though, compensation is nearly half stock. I did code through the 90's, so I'm going to take any stock valuation with a grain of salt. I'll reevaluate my options at that time, if I decide to stick with them for that long.

belial88 13y ago

that reminds me of a quote in J. G. Ballard's 2003 "Millenium People"... "anyone making less than 300.000£ does not count. You're just a prole in a three button suit." a statement which might not be that off the mark

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
Too true. Too true. I think that if salary levels hadn't been effectively frozen starting from the '70s until now, $300k would be about "normal" for a middle class income. It's not that $300k is a lot of money, it's that the people of the US (and the world in general) have been cheated out of their share of productivity improvements. There's a great video that talks about stagnant wages and the problems that are the underlying cause of the recent collapse(s) of the economy. [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KqeU8nzn4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-KqeU8nzn4