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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

#321

Post by mikeokner »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #314
zcrar70 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Founders usually give up their family lives, social lives, leisure time, and sometimes their reputation, sanity, initial investment in the startup and self-esteem on top of what you list, depending on the outcome. The stress level for a founder is usually quite high, and the success rate is quite low.

Early startup employees are risking almost the exact same set of things. The moral of the story is that even as an employee, you're playing the lottery with a startup and you should only join on that will reward you as such if everything works out.

Depends a lot on the startup, especially outside the Bay. In other parts of the country, you usually don't get substantial stock grants from corporate employers, and you usually do get market salary or close to it from a startup. There's a relatively small difference between working for a startup and working for a corp, but there's a huge difference between founding a startup and working for a corp.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#322

Post by lj3 »

kp1234321 wrote: post #288
lj3 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but then you have to deal with the SV company. No amount of money is worth dealing with most of those companies.

Hundreds of thousands of employees would disagree with you.

I used to work there. You'd be surprised how many grow to hate it.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#323

Post by atomicUpdate »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #320

Number of years are not a good measure of experience. You can spend 10 years in a huge fortune 500 that isn't doing anything innovative or interesting, or even engineering right. There are people who have spent 5 years at companies with their heads in the sand. Also, must we have a key requirement of being a senior software engineer being mentoring other engineers? Just because I enjoy building good/stable systems an…

By working with others, you've obviously benefited from learning from others. And even if you have spent your career alone in a dark office, the company has spent time paying you to learn from your mistakes. Why it is strange for the company to expect you to pass along anything and everything you've learned to other developers, junior or otherwise?

The stranger part is that you can't recognize that teaching other people makes the whole team better. Time spent fixing a mistake that someone on the team knew how to prevent, but was too selfish to share, is time wasted. When it comes to education, the rising tide really does raise all ships.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#324

Post by ykler »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #248
pzo wrote: post #59

People in Europe can be envy of salaries in US. Even in London which is not cheap either it's common for dev to get around $60k annually before tax (and taxes are high). This beg to ask a question : why employeers are so reluctant to hire remote devs even within similar timezone?

When comparing European and USian salaries, it is important to remember that companies primarily care about what it costs to employ you, which is different than the number on your paycheck. Generally speaking, the cost to employ software engineers in the EU is much higher than in the US, so even though the differences in salaries seem large the cost to the companies are often similar. The proportion of that cost that…

Do you have evidence of this? This web page suggests that the extra costs in the UK are not that high: https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge/employment/how-much-does-... In some European countries it is hard to fire workers, which could be a serious issue, but in general it is hard to believe that hiring in Western Europe is not cheaper than in the US, usually.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#325

Post by vadimberman »

vkou wrote: post #185
regulation_d wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if any employees, C-level or not, get preferred stock. Unless you're putting skin in the game, you're probably stuck with common stock.

Working for below market rates is putting skin in the game.

It is not. It is just a deal worse than average, not necessarily when it's possible to get a better deal (it's not that the early employees in startups are all rock stars, many just can't get a job in a better place).

Putting skin in the game is:

* paying from your own wallet when there's a cash shortage

* being mentally prepared to have guns pointed at you and your personal assets for violating an obscure regulation No. 389343A, or just attacked by employees, investors, partners for whatever reason they can come up with

* being a face of a commercial entity and putting your reputation at stake. Most people on this planet don't see a difference between a billion dollar corporation and a penniless startup, and assume all companies are powerful and have unlimited funds. Hence, their key people are to be hated and mistrusted.

* and, last but not least, being prepared to be woken up at any given minute to fix an issue of any nature

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#326

Post by eli_gottlieb »

bgentry wrote: post #28

I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Even the salary figures themselves look low and are probably heavily skewed by an overrepresentation of underpaying startups. My base salary ~4 year…

> I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality.

Are you kidding me? I go and check salaries on Glassdoor and find out that about $85k/year is still the standard here in Boston for junior and mid-level engineers. And you're telling me that a median of $134k/year in the Bay Area is low?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#327

Post by pcurve »

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…

little bit less experience than you, but I'm a director at fortune 50 company in north east and I blown away by these numbers.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#328

Post by eli_gottlieb »

ng12 wrote: post #115
mrweasel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Quantity is the problem. I'm sure there are some blindingly talented developers in New Hampshire but there's probably only a few of them and they're more than likely gainfully employed by a company that appreciates their value. Hiring an engineer for 60% of the price doesn't help when you can only fill a third of your headcount.

There are plenty in Boston, and apparently our salaries remain a fair bit lower than those in the Bay Area. Come on over and bid our incomes up! Please!

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#329

Post by toomanybeersies »

sidlls wrote: post #164
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 doesn't come out in the wash. It's much easier to max out the 401k when your salary is higher, and with the exception of housing specifically the cost of other things is on par with anywhere else I've lived (in the midwest). The commute (by train) is in fact less expensive than gas and maintenance on a car in many cases. If you double your housing cost, even moving from a mortgage to renting because you cannot aff…

Double your expenses and income, and you also double your savings.
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