251–260 of 303 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
usually Chief Product Officer
At our 5k person company, the CPO has the heads of engineering and product management report to him, and is responsible for them working together well and delivering product.
Question from someone not living in the US: How come you guys have such high salaries compared to ROW? Is the cost of life that much higher than other countries, or is your income simply taxed less / companies have generally more money to spend on employees? I am currently working in one of the highest paying (if not the highest) consultancy firms in my country, and my salary is probably lower than your minimum wage.…
They are measuring total compensation. In European countries, you have five weeks of paid vacation and money that is put into your retirement fund in addition to your salary. Plus sick days. That is worth 10-24 % more than your base monthly salary. The spread of US developer salaries appear to be insanely high though. Median is "only" 70k according to this site: https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Devel…
I've been reached out to before by recruiters for High Freq trading companies and other financial groups, offering 300-500k starting. A friend of mine worked at one of them and basically said that yeah you do make that kind of money but you work 70-80hrs/week and if anything is ever determined to be a crime, you'll be the one who gets thrown under the bus.
I think this applies to many jobs in Investment Banking as well. Salaries are great but you won't have much time to spend it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are working in SV for one of the MAFANGs or tech unicorns, you will have: healthcare covered by employer, generous severance package, 99 weeks unemployment benefits from California govt, parental leaves, 401k benefits. You will not have great public education in most of SV, but the salary differential will more than make up for the cost of private schools. If you are upper middle class or higher in the US (whi…
>If you are upper middle class or higher in the US...life here is better than most other places in the world Please change to: your purchasing power is better than most places in the world. Do not confuse purchasing power with better life. 13% of Americans are on anti-depressants. I know many "successful" people in my very affluent suburb of a major US city, who have an addiction problem ( prescription drugs, mostly)…
Wading into social indicators is a tricky business without the full context of a place, so I will speak only about SV - great climate, progressive policies like enthusiastic adoption of Obamacare, unemployment benefits, good employers provide health/401k/parental leave benefits, non-racist environment (though certainly classist) etc.
Finally, my point was about "a software engineer in SV working at MAFANG or unicorns", who should not have to constantly uproot. A new job should be across the street for such a person.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r...
* What do you do? "Internal Tools & Automation". String together data pipelines (source and sink), write system tools, rapid app development for small and time limited tasks, review and optimize code for the team at large, public API reviews for usability / sanity. * What is your job title? Whatever I want :^). But my card currently says Lead Automation Engineer * What is your total comp? Amortizing my RSUs, it's abo…
Can you talk more about your experience, or what sort of projects you worked on in previous roles to become a "lead automation engineer"?
In short, I would say it has felt like a straight forward progression after performing well yet being aggressive with pay negotiations. The latter becomes easier when you realize it’s not money out of your managers pocket, just a spigot guarded by HR.
Question from someone not living in the US: How come you guys have such high salaries compared to ROW? Is the cost of life that much higher than other countries, or is your income simply taxed less / companies have generally more money to spend on employees? I am currently working in one of the highest paying (if not the highest) consultancy firms in my country, and my salary is probably lower than your minimum wage.…
> It's actually something that pisses me off more than it should when I think about it. 1. all that glitters is not gold. 2. what life style does your salary afford you? I live in the greater Seattle Area. Engineering base salaries are ~130-160k range. Total comp, add $60-100k on top of that (bonus, +equity). SOme make more, some make less. All of us at that level live a pretty good lifestyle, but no one is really ba…
CPO for 400+ person, post Series-D private company. Salary and bonus, about $350k. Maybe $400k or slightly higher if I'm counting options. Report to the CEO. I live in Brooklyn, office is in Manhattan. Got here by my current company acquiring mine; I've been here a little under three years and have resisted starting another company because I like my current one so much and frankly, I've got a lot of impact. I have a…
Mind clarifying what CPO means in your case? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPO Could take a guess from several of those.
- Specialist consulting? I help large organisations migrate systems, develop API's in-house, train existing staff to use good tools and frameworks.. I wear a lot of hats, but it's mostly API development. I think most developers could manage it with a good foundation and knowledge of how things "should be done".
* What is your job title?
- Often something with "API", "Integration" or "Engineer" in the role. Varies by client, I let them decide.
* What is your total comp?
$350K/yr
* Who do you work for?
Varies; usually banks, education, government, insurance - not traditionally IT places.
* Where do you live (assuming you don't work from home)?
Australia
* How long did it take you to get here?
5 years from doing an internship where I was made to write VB6. In 2013.
* How did you get here (networking/raw technical skill/job board/dumb luck, etc.)?
Mix of luck, soft skills, good mentors and really hard fucking work. First job was a fluke - found a great team who I learned a lot from. Got the right title bumps at the right times. Was happy to tell people no and give ultimatums on pay and titles. Didn't put up with bad managers, shit code and toxic culture during downturns. My resignation is always the same, "right now I don't think this is the right environment for me at this point in my career, I've found another opportunity I wish to pursue. It's been great blah blah blah". Eventually just started selling my time by the hour, now I put up my rate every 3 months (or at the end of a contract which is usually 6+ months) until I can't find a job, then I take a holiday and usually land something within a few months at the new rate.
Honestly, I think most average developers at large organisations are just that - average. The kind of people who've been writing code for 20 years but still not using source control properly or in some cases at all. Ask them something obscure about anything in their code-base and they'll tell you what you need in under 20 seconds. I think this is usually because they've had a manager in the past who said no and questioned everything, so they stopped improving and just maintained.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>If you are upper middle class or higher in the US...life here is better than most other places in the world Please change to: your purchasing power is better than most places in the world. Do not confuse purchasing power with better life. 13% of Americans are on anti-depressants. I know many "successful" people in my very affluent suburb of a major US city, who have an addiction problem ( prescription drugs, mostly)…
If you want to quote stats about anti-depressants, please do so for other competing places as well. I do not have those stats, but stats about suicide rate[1] show that other supposedly better places with free healthcare, social bonds and no guns (Sweden, Finland, Belgium, Japan) have higher suicide rates than the US. Wading into social indicators is a tricky business without the full context of a place, so I will sp…
2. The US would move further up the suicide table if you classify deaths from overdosing as suicides.
3. If the US population had not had such an easy access to "happy pills" (mood enhancers), the suicide rate would have been higher.
>A new job should be across the street for such a person
There are a lot of people coming and leaving S.V. on any single day. This has been discussed many times on HN.
If you are happy in S.V., good for you, but don't project the mini-bubble you live onto the whole country.