Ask HN: Is it possible to make $200K/year base salary?

Post by bsvalley » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 1:14 AM UTC

danial wrote: post #11

AmaGooFaceSoftApple will pay senior developers in excess of 200k per year. You can't ignore stocks because they will often cap your base salary and pay the rest in stocks. For example, a VP at one of these may have their annual compensation at $X,XXX,XXX per year but only receive $1XX,XXX in base salary. This is true for developers as well, but the ratio of base to total compensation is skewed more towards base compa…

Post by micahbright » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 1:15 AM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #6

I'm not sure why you wouldn't care about stocks or bonuses, but 200k base salary is entirely possible at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Oracle, most hedge funds, and so on. 200k per year doesn't even put you in the 1%. 200k per year isn't even an infinite amount of money -- larger house and nicer car and poof it's gone. Right now software engineers with AI and Deep Learning experience or Big Data experie…

Post by frankchn » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 1:16 AM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #20

gizmo wrote: post #6

I'm not sure why you wouldn't care about stocks or bonuses, but 200k base salary is entirely possible at Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Oracle, most hedge funds, and so on. 200k per year doesn't even put you in the 1%. 200k per year isn't even an infinite amount of money -- larger house and nicer car and poof it's gone. Right now software engineers with AI and Deep Learning experience or Big Data experie…

I've been there, there is not such things for an individual contributor unless you're an old employee (10 years at the same company). I'm talking about +200K/y base salary, no stocks, bonuses etc.

Post by micahbright » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 1:18 AM UTC

bsvalley wrote: post #15

jandrewrogers wrote: post #12

I know many people that are paid like this, most outside of Silicon Valley even, and the common factor is that they are exceptionally skilled and proven domain experts in their field. The specific field of software is less important. Obviously market demand does influence the salary, but there are many fields in software development where top skill will command this wage. Generally though, you have to really love wha…

What are those fields?

Post by bsvalley » Mon, Jan 16, 2017, 1:21 AM UTC

frankchn wrote: post #25

bsvalley wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been there, there is not such things for an individual contributor unless you're an old employee (10 years at the same company). I'm talking about +200K/y base salary, no stocks, bonuses etc.

Google Staff Software Engineers make $200k+/year in base salary for a total compensation of $350k+ according to Glassdoor: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Staff-Software-Engin... This is three promotions for a new grad software engineer to reach this level, but if you are good, it is reasonable to get 3 promotions in 9 years. I assume other companies pay comparably at this level of seniority.