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Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

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Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#31

Post by brandall10 »

IaacForHire wrote: post #29
Dig1t wrote: post #4

It’s TC (total compensation) that matters. Salaries haven’t changed a lot, but a lot of senior engineers at big companies are making 350k-400k a year total, most of which is stock. It vests every 6 months usually, in chunks of 50,70,100k. Usually there’s a bonus sometime in the year as well of anywhere from 15k-25k.

Sadly outside of FAANG this is not the case at all. Total compensation out of non-faang is: Salary + worthless stock option and maybe a 3% 401k match if they're more than 5 years old.

There's many companies that compete for FAANG talent and pay that type of comp or come within 15% or so of it. Just peruse levels.fyi

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#32

Post by lol768 »

Silhouette wrote: post #30
lol768 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UK contractors take home less now than they did 5 years ago due to taxation changes (IR35). The way I've seen this go with companies that care about their contractor workforce is that assignments and their working practices are thoroughly checked to ensure they remain outside IR35, so the take-home is just as good as it used to be. Some contracts I've seen involve a liability shift clause from the agency/client to…

Some contracts I've seen involve a liability shift clause from the agency/client to the contractor's Ltd co - and the client will often insist that you have fee-payer/agency IR35 insurance in place to protect the supply chain (Kingsbridge sell this sort of product) if such a clause is in place. Yes that's definitely happening. However this practice is on the radar of the relevant authorities and hasn't yet been teste…

I don't like it, and it's clearly not within the spirit of the rules (I'd rather the agency/end-client just paid Qdos for their own fee-payer insurance) but if it just creates a civil liability, I'm not sure I can see why it wouldn't be enforceable.

The agency would have to pay up first, but then could presumably pursue the Ltd co afterwards.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#35

Post by Cryptonic »

IaacForHire wrote: post #27
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

Oof, European salaries are absurdly low. When I first left the USA I was thinking "OK I'll get a nice job in Amsterdam or Denmark" .. Then I saw the cost of living and the low salaries, and waved away that dream.

Yes I also though about a move from Germany to the Netherlands but looks like Software is nothing they see worth of paying more than 60-70k€. Here in Germany I earn 110k€, but this is close to the max you can expect as Software Developer. Maybe 120-140k€ if you are a high value asset that bunkers critical knowledge (My company calls it subject matter expert - basically somebody who wrote critical, but unmaintainable code for a decade or more).

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#36

Post by atemerev »

IaacForHire wrote: post #27
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

Oof, European salaries are absurdly low. When I first left the USA I was thinking "OK I'll get a nice job in Amsterdam or Denmark" .. Then I saw the cost of living and the low salaries, and waved away that dream.

Exactly. Here, a software engineer is mostly just another low middle class profession, not even the upper middle. US immigration is hard enough, otherwise half of European software engineers would have moved to the Valley already.

(And no, "cheap medicine" and "cheap education" do not exactly cover the difference, at least for software engineers).

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#37

Post by bradleyjg »

Tech, like law, is a bimodal market. If you think of it as a single bell curve your intuitions will be all wrong.

The good news is that unlike law it’s possible to jump into the better paying market even if you didn’t go to the “right” school.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#38

Post by Silhouette »

lol768 wrote: post #32
Silhouette wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some contracts I've seen involve a liability shift clause from the agency/client to the contractor's Ltd co - and the client will often insist that you have fee-payer/agency IR35 insurance in place to protect the supply chain (Kingsbridge sell this sort of product) if such a clause is in place. Yes that's definitely happening. However this practice is on the radar of the relevant authorities and hasn't yet been teste…

I don't like it, and it's clearly not within the spirit of the rules (I'd rather the agency/end-client just paid Qdos for their own fee-payer insurance) but if it just creates a civil liability, I'm not sure I can see why it wouldn't be enforceable. The agency would have to pay up first, but then could presumably pursue the Ltd co afterwards.

I'm not a lawyer but from my understanding the attack would be on general principles: contractual provisions can't override statute law in our system, any contract has to meet certain basic standards to be enforceable, and if a contract isn't genuinely negotiated but rather dictated by the more powerful party (aka contracts of adhesion or standard form contracts) any later decisions about interpretation are likely to favour the little guy. In the case of employment there are lots of specific statutory provisions to protect employees but contractors don't enjoy the same protections automatically so again we're back to unfortunate levels of ambiguity until precedents from real cases start to clarify the situation.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#39

Post by yardie »

IaacForHire wrote: post #27
oxff wrote: post #7

In Europe they've probably gone down the past decade I'd say.

Oof, European salaries are absurdly low. When I first left the USA I was thinking "OK I'll get a nice job in Amsterdam or Denmark" .. Then I saw the cost of living and the low salaries, and waved away that dream.

Worked there as well and our son was constantly haranguing me about wanting to move back. Had to sit him down and explain what my compensation after taxes were and the cost of living compared to the US. He only remembers France as where his family and former schoolmates are.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#40

Post by wilde »

I mean the companies advertising the hardest are often the ones who can’t hire and retain due to underpay, bad culture, etc. Unless you’re willing to spend a bunch of money on a comp benchmarking dataset, I think the best self-published one is levels.fyi. Those values are below median but not uncommon based on that data.
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