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Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

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Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#261

Post by user5994461 »

lloyd-christmas wrote: post #183
otakucode wrote: post #99

Does anyone know an easy way to derive a Cost/$ of profit for various tech companies based upon reasonable estimates of how many engineers of whatever salary they've got? Obviously it would be a rough estimate, but it would be interesting to see, if only within an order of magnitude, just how terribly the cost center of software engineering is destroying their earnings.

For some baseline comparison, salaries usually account for 20-30% of revenue for a company (not profit). Netflix employs about 3500 people, with a revenue of ~$11b. That ratio would put the average salary at 630k - 940k.

This simple formula doesn't hold for super profitable business like netflix. They can't spend the money they get fast enough.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#262

Post by albertgoeswoof »

badpun wrote: post #241
albertgoeswoof wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contracting scales only with the hours you work, so you can’t earn more than a day rate x number of days you work. You have to leverage capital and/or people to go beyond that.

Yes there's a limit, but with contracting rates reaching 2500 GBP per day (a real life example) I'm fine with that limit.

That’s a very good contract- I’m curious as to what that’s for?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#263

Post by albertgoeswoof »

sjg007 wrote: post #259
badpun wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there's a limit, but with contracting rates reaching 2500 GBP per day (a real life example) I'm fine with that limit.

Contracting in the UK seems to be a sweet gig. It has good tax advantages for the contractor right? And companies like it because it is easier to scale up or down based on need?

In London it’s good - outside of London not so great

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#264

Post by twic »

user5994461 wrote: post #221
joshvm wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any evidence for this? Or at least how much this underestimation is? Salaries in London are certainly higher than the rest of the country (by a comfortable margin), but anywhere from £40-80k seems to be the norm. £80k being at the high end of senior. Six figures is possible, but fairly unlikely outside of finance or senior positions at the megacorps. If you don't live in London (or the South East), £40k a…

The norm for senior is certainly 6 figures. It is ill advised to ignore finance, big companies, and contracting.

That doesn't contradict what joshvm said, though. Outside finance and the tech giants, my observation has been that seniors make 60-90k. Hedge funds pay 100-130k base, with cushty bonuses, but there really aren't that many jobs like that to go around.

Contracting, though, yeah. 500 a day for a competent but unexceptional Java developer? 800 for Scala? More if you happen to know whatever's hot right now? A contractor friend once told me to plan around billing 220 days a year, which would see the Java grunt on 110k, and the Scala astronaut on 176k.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#265

Post by anonacct37 »

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…

Check out /r/cscareerquestions for their experienced dev salary https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/6yt8pl/o...

Personally I bring in around $400k/year working remotely in a low COL area. That being said if I was working on the local market I'd probably be making somewhere between $120k - $150k.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#266

Post by anonacct37 »

DerfNet wrote: post #215
softawre wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're a king? So you live in a mansion? I live in the midwest, wife doesn't work, 10 years experience - we live in a 4k sqft house in the best school district in the state about 25 minutes from the city. How much does that cost in SV?

do you have to commute an hour a day? I'm not from silicon valley but priorities vary a lot from person to person. I value shortest possible commute time much higher than an extra ~2500 square feet I don't need.

I hope you're not implying that the typical commute for someone in the city is less [edit] than 25 minutes. http://kron4.com/2017/10/30/study-san-francisco-ranks-among-...

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#267

Post by sjg007 »

user5994461 wrote: post #223
pedrosorio wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you realize that at $150k gross pay, that's ~$96k net/year or $8k/month -> $6k after paying for rent?

That's not the point that was being illustrated. The point being that at 60k a year, it's not even possible to pay for the rent in the valley. That's why salaries are much higher than Europe.

Yeah 120k or so for a family of four in San Mateo qualifies you for affordable housing.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#268

Post by nnd »

cgh wrote: post #121
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…

The key is to work remotely for a SV company but live in a cheap small town (this is a humblebrag). Higher salary, no Valley real estate madness, no freeway nightmares, placid country bumpkin existence preserved. I do have to bite the bullet and travel down to that blighted land a few times a year though.

How would you find a SV company open to remote workers? I haven't heard of any.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#269

Post by mikeokner »

celdon25 wrote: post #133
JonFish85 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

That's the point. Being "just" an employee is not a fair deal anymore.

Why not? No one's stopping you from starting your own venture. What makes you entitled to a larger piece of the pie if you aren't putting in the extra work or shouldering the extra risk of a founder?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#270

Post by monaghanboy »

didnotinfact wrote: post #29
tedivm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely an artifact of your data focusing on startups. These numbers are shockingly low for the larger or established companies. I also think focusing on base salary may have been an easier choice but it is really doesn't paint an accurate picture. Between bonuses and stock I've had years where my base salary was roughly half of my overall compensation.

Yep. I don't know why anyone would even get out of bed for these numbers. Between base, bonus, and stock a senior engineer at a large, profitable company (Apple, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc) in the Bay Area will be grossing over $400k. The startups are offering similar base salaries, no bonuses, and 1/1000th or less share of a company that in all likelihood is worthless or, at best, illiquid. That's real…

>I guess startups only recruit the irrational?

There are plenty of rational and not necessarily fiscal reasons why someone would prefer to work at a startup than at BigCo.

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