231–240 of 418 posts
> Perceptive readers will note that 100 does not actually show up on a d100 or rand(100). I was just perceptive enough to notice, that, copy the entire table into a comment and pontificate on it, then notice that I missed the sentence in question immediately after commenting, and delete it 3 seconds after posting it. :/
250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…
That this is currently the top comment reinforces the author's hypothesis that many software engineers underestimate how much they could make at a large company. > 250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yes, really. > Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Nope, not true. > So I think this art…
Provide an anecdote, links to articles, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I use total comp, I exclude non-cash benefits, and I think that's the normal use of the phrase. Health care, vision, dental, long-term disability, etc are all excluded.
I would include 401(k) or HSA matching under benefits (cash equivalent).
In the neighborhood of $250K, 401K and HSA match are just a few percent of comp generally.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The top senior engineer at Google, Facebook, and LinkedIn is not making $200k. Fair point. The Top engineer at each of those companies is making more than $200k. Edited for clarity.
What he meant is that they are making far more than $200k, which makes his next sentence illustrative as an example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah I saw that and thought, ok maybe if you are on of the known or maintain a popular open source package, a conference speaker. But 250k in year 5 is not a number that rings true. Or, maybe I am doing something wrong here and am underpaid...
Are you a senior engineer? Are you at a large company in a metropolitan area? Is your salary less than $250k? If you answered yes to all three, yes, you are probably underpaid. That doesn't mean you're doing something wrong if you love your job, but know that you could earn more.
...on the West Coast or Northeast, sure. It's my understanding that $250k is a little high for other cities, unfortunately. Hopefully the corporate culture there catches up.
Otherwise, a lot of engineers are getting used to living off of some sort of bubble.
250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…
I think the median after 5 years is closer to ~225k. (source I've worked at Google 5 years after joining right out of school).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area. So Dallas doesn't count as a metropolitan area? I can almost guarantee nobody here is making that kind of money after only five years. In fact, I'm willing to bet that this kind of compensation is extremely rare outside SV, NYC, and possibly Seattle. In fact, based on what I remember of the salary b…
Some cost of living calculators make $150k in Dallas equal about $250 in NYC. It's worth noting that $150k is high for Dallas, but not impossible for people with Principal, Fellow, or Chief in their job titles. It's worth noting that using a flat cost-of-living adjustment both overestimates and underestimates things. The kind of place you'd likely rent in Plano or Addison would cost ridiculous amounts in NYC, given c…
No one is reaching any of those titles 5 years out of college though.
I've made this point before, but since it's a bit relevant here, I'll make it again (sorry to repeat): If you're primarily interested in making money, or if you love the startup but not the compensation, you should NOT work at that startup. If you're a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing. This has been true for every startup offer I've ever seen. Ever. I…
AFAIK, working at Google et. al. pays well, but for most people your career will cap out at senior engineer. At other big companies (banks, telecom, oil, etc) a good Google dev can climb the tech career ladder quickly and make more money, get more responsibility (if that's your thing). Do you want to be a small fish at Google, or a big fish at Goldman Sachs?