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Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

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Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#91

Post by morgante »

pmorici wrote: post #80
morgante wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate these reductive COL adjustments. They're preposterous. Even if you assume that all your expenses are linearly multiplied (hint: Amazon costs the same no matter where you live), your savings are a lot more afterwards. If you were living on $40k/yr in Kansas City, you could move to SF and suddenly be saving $80k/yr. Would you really rather have $600k in Kansas City than $1 million in SF?

I totally disagree. Housing is such an over riding cost that no amount of things you can buy on Amazon will save you. The housing prices are rising so fast in SF that it makes estimates like this one LOW. you would be unlikely to save any money at all living in SF on 150k but Kansas has such a wide variety of hosing options that range form super cheap to substantially affordable that you could easily save as much or…

> you would be unlikely to save any money at all living in SF on 150k

This statement is farcical. You do realize that the median wage in SF is less than $100k. How do you think those people are living?

Have you actually lived in SF or NYC? You're totally out of touch with the actual costs.

Yes, housing is expensive. But you can still easily get a solid apartment for $3k/m. Add in another $2k/m for food (high!) and that's still only $60k a year. You're still left with $10k more than the KC developer even started with.

Unlike you, I'm actually using real numbers and the reality on the ground. I made $150k/year in NYC and managed to save almost $100k/year.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#93

Post by pmorici »

morgante wrote: post #85
TuringNYC wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in NYC and I cannot speak to SF. But perhaps the NYC figures will provide insight. In short YES the car DOES cost 45% as much. My monthly parking cost is $520/mo (with another per-use fee if I take my car out more than twice a week.) The $520/mo is more than my $300/mo car payment. I dont know how much parking costs in KC but i'd venture it is near-free. Oh, and this is just the monthly cost at the apartment b…

Except the part where you can very easily not have a car in NYC and just spend $120/m on the subway + $200/m on Uber. You actually come out ahead.

You could easily not have a car in Kansas City or any reasonably large city if that's a choice you want to make.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#94

Post by alistproducer2 »

bpyne wrote: post #86
alistproducer2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work at a large corp that has recently insourced all its IT. To support this they have been vacuuming up as much mediocre IT talent as they possibly could. Every once in a while they hire a person who is curious about the field and competent. For the most part, though, the majority MIS/CIS folks who couldn't hack CS or were business until a professor told them they could make a lot more money in MIS or "experienced…

What I find in in-house IT is that CS curiosity and ability to develop good software aren't the critical traits. In those environments, a "developer" spends the majority of his/her time integrating vendor solutions and writing connector code. Often they are task switching rapidly between projects, operations, and support. The critical skills belong to executive function: time planning, task switching, communications,…

Your accessment is spot on.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#95

Post by morgante »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #90
morgante wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have an insanely huge apartment for rent to increase by $4k/m by moving to SF. But even assuming that -36k adjustment, you're much better off making $150k in SF than $80k in Kansas City. Of course, you also have the option of downsizing into a smaller apartment. The amenities in a large city make it much easier to have a small apartment (for example, in NYC I drop off my laundry instead of washing it at home…

>You must have an insanely huge apartment for rent to increase by $4k/m I meant to type 3K/mo (which is where my 36K adjustment came from). And yes, I've actually looked up housing in the Yay when I was considering a prospect there. Honestly, at the tiime I was looking for 2 bedrooms so my 3K adjustment may actually be under because now I need 3 bedrooms. >Of course, you also have the option of downsizing into a smal…

> No I don't. I have a wife and 2 children who if I can afford to give them their own room, I will.

Fair enough, I didn't mean you specifically. Once you have a family the advantages of a low-cost locale definitely become greater.

Of course, the advantage of working in SF/NYC is that by the time I'm ready to have kids I'll have enough money saved up to buy a house in a low-cost area in cash.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#96

Post by antocv »

pathy wrote: post #45
antocv wrote: post #7

You can find salaries data by looking at Swedish IRS, the numbers are public, but may not be in digital form/easy API yet. But you can order a catalogue from a redistributor, containing every persons income from work and income from capital and taxes payed, for previous year. Would not take much to scan it and analyze.

Here is a quick Google Sheets with most "Developer employee codes" that are reported to the tax authority/Statistics Sweden. Salaries listed per Quartile, in SEK. The categories are quite broad. There is a listing per decile but I could not find it right now. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yPjcXoKuwq8SBngQ2-G9... http://SCB.se is the source.

This is nice, and should give a good picture of the industry as a whole.

The data probably masks those who are self-employed subcontractors and take a lower salary in order to lower taxes at profit time, which should effectivly double or tripple the reported salary.

Ofcourse, it does get a bit difficult to compare this data vs USA, because we have social necessities already payed for by the high tax of the collective workforce, such as health care, pensions, safety, and many other insurances.

So, say average is 42 000sek per month, that gives about 59 000USD per year salary. Which may seem low compared to USA, but behind those 59 000USD, is 31.49% in taxes for things we enjoy.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#97

Post by pmorici »

morgante wrote: post #91
pmorici wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally disagree. Housing is such an over riding cost that no amount of things you can buy on Amazon will save you. The housing prices are rising so fast in SF that it makes estimates like this one LOW. you would be unlikely to save any money at all living in SF on 150k but Kansas has such a wide variety of hosing options that range form super cheap to substantially affordable that you could easily save as much or…

> you would be unlikely to save any money at all living in SF on 150k This statement is farcical. You do realize that the median wage in SF is less than $100k. How do you think those people are living? Have you actually lived in SF or NYC? You're totally out of touch with the actual costs. Yes, housing is expensive. But you can still easily get a solid apartment for $3k/m. Add in another $2k/m for food (high!) and th…

You must be young, and have no dependents. Also taxes alone on 150k must be close to 1 third of your income so based on that alone I'd be skeptical of someone who claimed they could save 100k per year on 150k salary in NYC.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#98

Post by morgante »

pmorici wrote: post #93
morgante wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the part where you can very easily not have a car in NYC and just spend $120/m on the subway + $200/m on Uber. You actually come out ahead.

You could easily not have a car in Kansas City or any reasonably large city if that's a choice you want to make.

I have to assume you're trolling at this point. The quality of public transport varies massively between cities.

Almost every city in America besides NYC is built under the assumption of car ownership and, for that reason, the vast majority of people have cars. NYC is the only city in the US where the majority of people go without one, because the infrastructure is in place to support it.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#99

Post by hueving »

morgante wrote: post #83
alistproducer2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This adjustment is on the extreme end to be sure. If you make 80K where I am and live in the square footage I do, a comparable place in SF is around 3K* more expensive per month. So there's a very real, ~36K negative adjustment to that 120K SF salary for me. *editted

You must have an insanely huge apartment for rent to increase by $4k/m by moving to SF. But even assuming that -36k adjustment, you're much better off making $150k in SF than $80k in Kansas City. Of course, you also have the option of downsizing into a smaller apartment. The amenities in a large city make it much easier to have a small apartment (for example, in NYC I drop off my laundry instead of washing it at home…

In many places in the US you could easily rent a 3 bedroom house with a 2 car garage for $1000. Guess how much a 3 bedroom house is in San Francisco.

>you're much better off making $150k in SF than $80k in Kansas City.

Don't forget state income tax and tax bracket. Also don't forget that some things like student loan interest aren't deductible above $80k. And don't forget that to get the mortgage interest deduction you have to actually own a house (easy in Kansas city on $80k, not in SF on $150k). The list goes on (price to get your kids into a decent school, etc) once you really start to dig into it.

SF is great if you don't mind rooming up with people or living in a tiny studio. To raise a family though... it's not so cut and dry.

Re: Is developer compensation becoming bimodal?

#100

Post by ghaff »

pmorici wrote: post #93
morgante wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the part where you can very easily not have a car in NYC and just spend $120/m on the subway + $200/m on Uber. You actually come out ahead.

You could easily not have a car in Kansas City or any reasonably large city if that's a choice you want to make.

Maybe--depending upon your commuting and family situation and what compromises you're willing to make. However, NYC (esp. Manhattan/parts of Brooklyn) is a qualitatively different situation with respect to car ownership and public transportation--and just the culture associated with them--than pretty much any other US city.
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