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So what salary does a mid-level developer earn at a London startup at the moment? I know a bunch of people at more traditional software places (i.e. not startup

by SandB0x 12y ago

So what salary does a mid-level developer earn at a London startup at the moment? I know a bunch of people at more traditional software places (i.e. not startups) in the £40-60k range. I know a some people who've gone through accelerator programmes as founders and are barely drawing enough salary to eat.

_random_ 12y ago
I would be _very_ surprised if it is any more than 60k for a senior developer. This isn't Silicon Valley, unfortunately (well, at least property prices are on par!). PS: except for start-up Hedge Funds I guess :).
- ig1 12y ago
  Plenty of (funded) startups hire senior developers in 60-120k range.
  - CmonDev 12y ago
    Could you please provide a list of plenty of 90k+ right here? I am sure many HN Londoners will really appreciate.
    - ig1 12y ago
      I suggest looking at post-series B venture funded startups they're the ones who have enough money and the need for senior engineers. That's around the level I'd expect a VP eng with domain experience (i.e scaling a high-growth consumer product, deep ecommerce experiences, etc.) to be able to make. I'd recommend approaching startups who just raised a significant round (>$10m) as that's the point when many companies make key senior dev hires.
      - CmonDev 12y ago
        At this level of compensation they would be competing with financial sector. I have not seen any evidence of this so far in London. I have not seen start-ups openly offer that kind of money so far. I think this is just a speculation from your side. Shame we don't have an AngelList.
        ig1 12y ago
        I work at a venture capital fund so I've seen internal salary data from a number of tech startups as well as from recruiters in the space. I also used to run a developer recruitment startup which gave me access to a lot of internal data from hiring companies. While it closes the gap with fintech, top devs at hedge funds can make £200-£300k (I have friends who are in this range) which it's hard for any tech startup to compete with. FYI. AngelList are now operating in the UK and are ramping up. @andychung is their guy on the ground here.
        CmonDev 12y ago
        I see, thanks. I hope AngelList UK will be relevant, at the moment there are just a few positions there disclosing salary info.
MehdiEG 12y ago
I'd be interested to hear about this as well. The £40k - £60k range is indeed what you can expect to get as an intermediate to senior software developer in London (add maybe another £10k to £20k in the financial industry at a push). Which I find ridiculously low given the cost of living in London. And you haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in London on this salary. Contracting rates, at £400 - £600 / day are more in line with the living costs. But it's quite sad to see that living and property costs in London have become so insane that even senior software developers either have to contract or end up earning just about enough to pay the rent but not much more. On the other side, a good seed round for an early stage startup in London is £200k. Maybe £300k if you're the hottest startup in town and work incredibly hard on your round. You're not going to be able to pay your employees very much at all with so little funding. To me, the numbers just don't add up. I don't see how London can build a sustainable startup community. Or even tech community to be honest.
- ig1 12y ago
  The average full-time salary in London is 34k right and that 60k would put you in the top decile in the country. Property prices are indeed high in London, but as a software developer you're earning significantly more than the average Londoner which is worth keeping in mind.
- vidarh 12y ago
  > And you haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in London on this salary. You haven't got a hope of being able to buy a decent family home in central London on that kind of salary. If people can be bothered to commute just a little bit further out, you can in fact get a decent family home in Croydon for example, for 200k-300k. My 3 bedroom house with a garden cost use 208k when I bought it in 2004. The market has gone up, but it's still "only" valued at around 270k. When we did buy, I was paid only a little bit out of that range, and it was only my income, and we lived very comfortably on my salary despite that mortgage. For years before that, I rented properties that cost me more per month even on salaries closer to the bottom of the 40k-60k range. The issue, in my experience, is that younger people tends to want to live in areas that are more hip and closer to the centre, despite not having built up any equity, and if they can't, they often prefer to rent. And then years down the line they're still complaining that they can't afford to buy, when competing with people who spent the last decade living somewhere cheaper and building up equity that lets them put up higher total amounts and gives them access to cheaper mortgages.

by SandB0x 12y ago

_random_ 12y ago

I would be _very_ surprised if it is any more than 60k for a senior developer. This isn't Silicon Valley, unfortunately (well, at least property prices are on par!). PS: except for start-up Hedge Funds I guess :).

ig1 12y ago
Plenty of (funded) startups hire senior developers in 60-120k range.
- CmonDev 12y ago
  Could you please provide a list of plenty of 90k+ right here? I am sure many HN Londoners will really appreciate.
  - ig1 12y ago
    I suggest looking at post-series B venture funded startups they're the ones who have enough money and the need for senior engineers. That's around the level I'd expect a VP eng with domain experience (i.e scaling a high-growth consumer product, deep ecommerce experiences, etc.) to be able to make. I'd recommend approaching startups who just raised a significant round (>$10m) as that's the point when many companies make key senior dev hires.
    - CmonDev 12y ago
      At this level of compensation they would be competing with financial sector. I have not seen any evidence of this so far in London. I have not seen start-ups openly offer that kind of money so far. I think this is just a speculation from your side. Shame we don't have an AngelList.
      - ig1 12y ago
        I work at a venture capital fund so I've seen internal salary data from a number of tech startups as well as from recruiters in the space. I also used to run a developer recruitment startup which gave me access to a lot of internal data from hiring companies. While it closes the gap with fintech, top devs at hedge funds can make £200-£300k (I have friends who are in this range) which it's hard for any tech startup to compete with. FYI. AngelList are now operating in the UK and are ramping up. @andychung is their guy on the ground here.
        CmonDev 12y ago
        I see, thanks. I hope AngelList UK will be relevant, at the moment there are just a few positions there disclosing salary info.

MehdiEG 12y ago

I'd be interested to hear about this as well. The £40k - £60k range is indeed what you can expect to get as an intermediate to senior software developer in London (add maybe another £10k to £20k in the financial industry at a push). Which I find ridiculously low given the cost of living in London. And you haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in London on this salary. Contracting rates, at £400 - £600 / day are more in line with the living costs. But it's quite sad to see that living and property costs in London have become so insane that even senior software developers either have to contract or end up earning just about enough to pay the rent but not much more. On the other side, a good seed round for an early stage startup in London is £200k. Maybe £300k if you're the hottest startup in town and work incredibly hard on your round. You're not going to be able to pay your employees very much at all with so little funding. To me, the numbers just don't add up. I don't see how London can build a sustainable startup community. Or even tech community to be honest.

ig1 12y ago
The average full-time salary in London is 34k right and that 60k would put you in the top decile in the country. Property prices are indeed high in London, but as a software developer you're earning significantly more than the average Londoner which is worth keeping in mind.
vidarh 12y ago
> And you haven't got a hope of being able to buy any decent family home in London on this salary. You haven't got a hope of being able to buy a decent family home in central London on that kind of salary. If people can be bothered to commute just a little bit further out, you can in fact get a decent family home in Croydon for example, for 200k-300k. My 3 bedroom house with a garden cost use 208k when I bought it in 2004. The market has gone up, but it's still "only" valued at around 270k. When we did buy, I was paid only a little bit out of that range, and it was only my income, and we lived very comfortably on my salary despite that mortgage. For years before that, I rented properties that cost me more per month even on salaries closer to the bottom of the 40k-60k range. The issue, in my experience, is that younger people tends to want to live in areas that are more hip and closer to the centre, despite not having built up any equity, and if they can't, they often prefer to rent. And then years down the line they're still complaining that they can't afford to buy, when competing with people who spent the last decade living somewhere cheaper and building up equity that lets them put up higher total amounts and gives them access to cheaper mortgages.