Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

triplebyte.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 455 posts

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#141

Post by [deleted] »

JonFish85 wrote: post #79
whataretensors wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.

"Don't settle for common stock" Unless you're a C-level employee, you're not going to have the choice. And even then you're probably still not going to have a choice except in very rare cases (e.g. Uber's new CEO might have some decent protections). If you're "just" an employee, you're going to get laughed at if you demand anything besides common stock.

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#142

Post by jxramos »

Impossible wrote: post #90
compumike wrote: post #2

(Disclosure: I work at Triplebyte and built this salary tool from our offers dataset.) I was surprised to learn that the median senior engineer earns only $36K more than the median junior engineer (base salary only). The gap does get wider on the right tail of the distribution: The 90th-percentile senior makes $47K more than the 90th-percentile junior. One possible explanation is that our data is dominated by startup…

Different people also I different expectations of senior. I know people a year or two out of bootcamp that have senior engineer titles. Likewise I recently interviewed with Riot games and was told I wasn't a senior engineer and was a good mid level candidate with 10 years game industry experience, and with my title being senior software engineer at time. Granted the responsibilities of this role sounded more like lea…

title dilution is indeed something to contend with.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#143

Post by htormey »

pm90 wrote: post #71
htormey wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I meet a number of people at Apple in this category (i.e 20-30 years + experience). At a certain point salary tends to flatten out unless you go into management or do something incredibly specialized.

Why do these engineers not switch jobs? Wouldn't inflation actually reduce what they are earning if their salaries do flatten out?

I worked on the core audio team. It’s kind of hard to find another company that pays as well as Apple where you get to continue doing that kind of work. The only other companies I can think of are either lab126 (Amazon) or google. Lab126 doesn’t pay as well as Apple.

Also, apples 401k match and internal stock discounts are amazing.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#144

Post by k__ »

dudul wrote: post #122
k__ wrote: post #105

Coming from Germany, these salaries often feel crazy to me. Is this because owning real estate is such a big deal in the US?

Real estate is very expensive in CA. It has nothing to do with owning, rents are crazy expensive as well. As a side note, even in less expensive areas, US salaries are way higher than European ones. I make probably 4 to 5 times what I would earn in Europe, but I also pay for more stuff that is usually almost "free" in Europe.

Like? I know about health insurance, but what else?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#145

Post by sdesol »

drspacemonkey wrote: post #112
Tade0 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My compensation is roughly 40% of the lower end of any of these charts, and that's considered "not bad" in my area. This makes me think: how valuable our work is really? Do I have a job only because I'm an inexpensive alternative to the devs from the US and western Europe?

Once you take the exchange rate into account, I'm below the 2nd percentile for a senior dev. And I make a great salary for the Vancouver area. I knew I could double my salary south of the border, but that hurts.

I've heard it's very difficult to get H1B visa's now a days, so Canadians looking to move to the states, might not be able to.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#146

Post by htormey »

JOnAgain wrote: post #88
htormey wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true for Apple/Facebook/Linkedin/Google (I worked for 2 of these).

More true at Amazon. Amazon actually has a salary cap, and everything else is stock. Amazon pays towards a "target total comp" number, which includes vesting RSU's. They do not do bonuses.

Tangentialy I have heard that Amazon has a vesting schedule for stock where everything skews towards the last two years.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#147

Post by what_ever »

user5994461 wrote: post #118
k__ wrote: post #105

Coming from Germany, these salaries often feel crazy to me. Is this because owning real estate is such a big deal in the US?

Yes, there is a lot about costs of living. The valley is $4000 a month to rent a flat.

I see people quoting those amounts for all of valley but South Bay isn't $4000 for a flat, SF is. In MTV, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, San Jose 1 Bed starts from 2k, 2 Bed from 2.5k and 3 Bed from 3k. It gets cheaper as you go South. If you want better quality/newer apartments, add $500.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#148

Post by ionforce »

mrweasel wrote: post #82
digitalsushi wrote: post #74

My god this is just another universe to me. I've got 19 years on the clock doing stuff, right now extending the jenkins model to make a usable 2.0 pipeline, for a fortune 50 hiding on the new hampshire seacoast, senior-straddling-principal level and just barely squeaking out a 6 figure salary. I know it all comes out in the wash, but it just blows my mind how different money is across the country. or, i am a country…

It really raises the question why anyone would put a software company in the Silicon Valley area. You could get cheaper and more experienced people pretty much anywhere in the world for at least 60 - 70% the price.

> You could get cheaper and more experienced people pretty much anywhere in the world for at least 60 - 70% the price.

If this was true and the only thing that people wanted, then it would have been done already. But clearly that's not all there is.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#149

Post by jcadam »

steverb wrote: post #9

I find it kind of amusing that someone with 5-7 years is generally considered a senior software engineer in SV. Maybe we need a different designation for engineers with 10-20 years of experience? Something other than "the old man/lady".

I know, I'm 37 and I'm off the scale, apparently. And here in Florida I'm making about the median for a Junior dev in Silicon Valley. For sake of comparison, my first programming job (in Colorado) paid $55k, back in the mid 2000s.

I'd jump at a remote gig in a heartbeat. Right now I'm stuck in an 80s vintage cubicle in a windowless office in an old, dust/mold/despair smelling office building while the beautiful Florida winter passes by outside.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#150

Post by dudul »

k__ wrote: post #144
dudul wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real estate is very expensive in CA. It has nothing to do with owning, rents are crazy expensive as well. As a side note, even in less expensive areas, US salaries are way higher than European ones. I make probably 4 to 5 times what I would earn in Europe, but I also pay for more stuff that is usually almost "free" in Europe.

Like? I know about health insurance, but what else?

Quality food is more expensive, day care is very expensive too. It is also understood that you should build up your own retirement fund. Phones and internet access is very expensive compared to most european countries.

And just to clarify, it's always weird to say "in Europe". We're talking about close to 30 countries that have big differences between each other. My XP is mostly with western and northern Europe. I have visited but never lived in eastern Europe for example.

Post reply on HN