Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level • Hacker News Board

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#361

Post by trhway » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 3:51 AM UTC

sgs1370 wrote: post #315

trhway wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What i see around, ie. friends & acquaintances, is at some point, usually after a good stint at one or a couple places a midlevel manager/executive decides "time to make next level of money", and together with several like minded guys and established good connections they pick up some investors from a line up of the investors eager to get in, and the rest is a well defined process. There is no risk, no giving up of a…

"There is no risk" What? You're wrong.

please specify at least one risk.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#362

Post by monaghanboy » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 3:54 AM UTC

psyc wrote: post #334

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…

I hear you. I also have exactly 19 years in this industry. I've had "senior" in my titles for most of that time, and I've never received an offer higher than $105k base, even in the Seattle area. I'd get more than that if I returned to Microsoft, but when I started there in '05 they offered $80k.

How often did you switch jobs? At 3.5 years of experience in Seattle I was making in the $140-150K range base, and this is at a struggling startup with an non-viable business model.

I'd think that if you stayed at mostly the same jobs, you can't expect to get meaningful salary increases. My own experience contradicts this though; got a 15K bump and 17K bump at my last two jobs respectively in a single promotion at each (both in Seattle).

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#363

Post by closeparen » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 3:55 AM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #285

jfornear wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COL multipliers for San Francisco are about 1.8x...

People that say it's 3x to 10x seem to think they deserve to live in the same 5,000 sq ft mansion that they have in nowhere, Indiana.

Then you are comparing lifestyles, not locations. You can live car-free with roommates in a rundown apartment in an unsexy neighborhood 60+ public-transit minutes from work in a major world city like Chicago for less than $1k/mo (including rent, food, transit fare, and basic entertainment). Nowhere, Indiana would be even less.

Many, many young people exploit this fact to try and launch careers in un-lucrative fields like arts and academia.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#364

Post by closeparen » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:11 AM UTC

htormey wrote: post #58

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people won't have a 40 year career in a high paying industry like software engineering in silicon valley. A huge amount of people in high paying positions don't stick it out for 40 years straight. People become burnt out, have kids, live off savings/their partner, or just pay off their mortgage and live an lower-stress life. Sometimes people die, get long term sick, retire early or retrain. Or they hit a glass c…

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.

I would honestly be fine with this, as long as the salary plateau was high enough to comfortably do all the upper-middle-class life things (homeownership, put kids through college, take a couple of vacations a year, etc).

Trouble is, the current plateaus are still too low to even contemplate homeownership, unless you want to commit 2/3rds of your paycheck to housing costs.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#365

Post by hpcjoe » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:17 AM UTC

zcrar70 wrote: post #296

trhway wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>shouldering the extra risk of a founder founders give up ((potential salary + RSU at a megacorp - salary at the startup) multiplied by number of years at the startup) while employees give up ((potential salary + RSU at a megacorp - salary at the startup) multiplied by number of years at the startup). Did you notice any significant difference? I mean there may be difference between megacoprs and numbers of years at t…

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.

This. +1000.

When you are the person worrying about making your number on a monthly basis, so you can pay your team ... whom aren't worried about this, because they get a salary ... and you sometimes/often can't pay yourself, so that you make sure that everyone else gets paid ...

... yeah.

When you do that, you are putting real skin, real risk into this game. Your reward should be commensurate with that risk if it pays out.

In my case, it didn't.

I got all the stress, pain, heartache, overdue bills, while dealing with skittish customers, people who demanded free things, etc.

All the while, growing a business from nothing to millions in revenue, with no VC involvement (not for lack of trying). To watch it shot in the head by the bank after sinking my entire worth into it.

I understand why founders/CEOs should expect excellent return upon a positive event. If they don't, then why, exactly, should the bust their behind as hard as they do?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#366

Post by grad_ml » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:18 AM UTC

cairo140 wrote: post #65

ringaroundthetx wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, your analysis is correct. This is why the transparency is important. Check out www.h1bdata.info for what h1b holders are getting paid. The US Department of Labor forces this disclosure and is pretty up to date. Your tiny startup's cheap workers are probably in there too and you can deduce exactly who they are even though the names aren't in the disclosures.

H-1B applications often exclude expected value of bonus and RSUs (mine does) and can understate comp at bigtech by ~60k (entry level) to ~150k (mid level) to ~300k+ (senior+).

Always.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#367

Post by closeparen » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:18 AM UTC

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #85

plandis wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah their senior role sounds like a SDE2 at Amazon or Microsoft (61-62?)

This is the biggest problem I've faced. I can't put down Senior SE despite holding the title (which is verified by calling the company) because the technical skill expectations fluctuate MADLY across geographical areas and companies. If you are moving from a low-skill tech area to a high-skill tech area, there's been a lot of wasted time discussing how I moved from a more "primitive" state in the US to a more "modern…

I wish my employer had an Engineer 3 position. I'm on track to be promoted out of Engineer 2, which will make me "senior" with two years of experience on a single team. It seems farcical. It seems unlikely that I'd hold up to any other company's expectations for "senior." I'm not wild about obfuscating my title, and I'd guess that a prospective employer isn't wild about hiring someone into a lower level.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#368

Post by shmerl » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 4:24 AM UTC

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…

They don't look low to me.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#369

Post by newfoundglory » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:14 AM UTC

trhway wrote: post #340

ykler wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're complaining, but if it is really so easy, just become a founder. In a way, it is impossible for there to be an unfair distribution of wealth between people who do A and people who do B if everyone has the choice whether to do A or B.

>it is really so easy, just become a founder. you've missed the important point. It isn't for everybody. I specifically mentioned that it is already successful people with a lot of good connections. Thus such a startup is just the next step in the career progression. For a plain engineer, like me for example, who can't make even a CTO/VP of engineering of a small company or a Director/division Chief Architect/etc. at…

> reality is unfair (which it just can't be by virtue of being the reality)

Fairness is absolutely orthogonal to reality. An imaginary scenario can be fair, and a real scenario can be unfair. You've never heard the saying "life isn't fair"?

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#370

Post by sulam » Thu, Nov 30, 2017, 5:18 AM UTC

softawre wrote: post #210

aantix wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree. Engineers outside the Valley often list the cost of living as a negative, but coupled with the insane amount of salary leverage (in part because of the COL), I never got financially ahead until I moved to the Bay Area. You're a King in SV as a software engineer.

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?

Yep, I'm a king. I don't live in a mansion, but I don't need one. My wife works because she wants to. My kids go to a wonderful school 2 minutes from our house. I commute 25 minutes into SF (worst part of my day, BART is seriously crowded). I make a fairly absurd amount of money (it's embarrassing to say, and I don't need the hassle of having it out there, but let's just say that I hit 6 figures many years ago). We spend well under half that, and we have enough saved that we can retire anywhere in the world tomorrow if we want. I _am_ older than you, but what people are saying is true, after 25 years working as a developer in the Bay Area, I am making money hand over fist and the only place that can compete compensation-wise is NYC -- and honestly you couldn't pay me enough to live there.