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The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

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Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#71

Post by joker3 »

aetherson wrote: post #2

This is a stupid use of averages. PMs come in a little senior to rank and file programmers. That doesn't mean that a PM of ten years experience makes more than a programmer of ten years.

From the article:

"The salary advantage for product managers has only grown, says Hired’s data scientist Jessica Kirkpatrick. 'We see that software engineers have always been paid less than product managers, but that the pay gap has widened over the past year,' she wrote by email. The trend holds after accounting for experience. Software engineers, on average, are paid about 10% less than product managers in their first year as well as after six or more years of experience."

So it's not just a matter of PMs being more experienced.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#72

Post by dawhizkid »

luckydata wrote: post #64
dawhizkid wrote: post #46

As others have mentioned, this is because unlike developers few companies hire PMs straight out of college. As a current PM, I'm actually fairly bearish about the sustainability of this role as far as a long-term career outlook goes. It's an extremely nebulous role, hard to prove your value, wildly differs from company to company, and most of your time will probably not look anything like what is considered textbook…

I'm exactly in the same boat. I love the job when I actually get to do what the ideal product manager job should be. It's very stressful, not very rewarding and it's very unstable work because EVERY fuckup down the chain will just be absorbed by the PM. We're always the first in line to be fired if someone else decided not to do their job (can be Eng, marketing, sales... doesn't matter).

Yeah...I'm looking into sales engineering

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#74

Post by tombert »

maxxxxx wrote: post #12

This not Silicon Valley but in my company product managers start in a higher bracket than engineers. They also seem to have a steadier career progression. They seem to get promoted more regularly.

This. A couple years ago I was promised a promotion that I didn't get because of "budgetary reasons". I find it funny that despite that, literally every PM that I met managed to get promoted.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#75

Post by xxpor »

joker3 wrote: post #71
aetherson wrote: post #2

This is a stupid use of averages. PMs come in a little senior to rank and file programmers. That doesn't mean that a PM of ten years experience makes more than a programmer of ten years.

From the article: "The salary advantage for product managers has only grown, says Hired’s data scientist Jessica Kirkpatrick. 'We see that software engineers have always been paid less than product managers, but that the pay gap has widened over the past year,' she wrote by email. The trend holds after accounting for experience. Software engineers, on average, are paid about 10% less than product managers in their fi…

I wonder how experience is corrected for. Someone who comes in here as a PM usually has previous job experience and an MBA. So someone who has been a PM for a year != SDE for one year.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#76

Post by sokoloff »

joker3 wrote: post #71
aetherson wrote: post #2

This is a stupid use of averages. PMs come in a little senior to rank and file programmers. That doesn't mean that a PM of ten years experience makes more than a programmer of ten years.

From the article: "The salary advantage for product managers has only grown, says Hired’s data scientist Jessica Kirkpatrick. 'We see that software engineers have always been paid less than product managers, but that the pay gap has widened over the past year,' she wrote by email. The trend holds after accounting for experience. Software engineers, on average, are paid about 10% less than product managers in their fi…

What is the typical overall experience of a product manager in their first year vs the overall experience of a software engineer in their first year?

No one is getting a product manager title at 21 right out of college. Lots of people are getting SWE titles at 21 right out of college.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#77

Post by autokad »

aetherson wrote: post #2

This is a stupid use of averages. PMs come in a little senior to rank and file programmers. That doesn't mean that a PM of ten years experience makes more than a programmer of ten years.

it doesn't mean it, but there is evidence to it being true.

According to sallaries on glass door, in sanfrancisco with 10-14 years exp: Product Manager: 145k$ Web Developer: 110k$ Software Engineer: 135k$

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#78

Post by rebolek »

reggieband wrote: post #73

I swear, every time I read an article on HN about salary it gives me anxiety. I'm perpetually worried that I'm not earning as much as I should be earning. I don't think it is healthy but I can't look away.

I'm not worried, I know it.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#79

Post by truebosko »

analog31 wrote: post #14

In my view, they can have it. I was a project manager (granted, a slightly different title and role) for a couple years. I went back to the bench. Fortunately I took a pay hike in both directions. Those middle management jobs seem to be super high stress, long hours, and low reward. Literally everybody I've known who went into one of those jobs did so upon the birth of their first kid, when they felt the financial pr…

Middle management -- this hits home hard.

Switched to People Manager / Product Manager / Many Other Hats role around the birth of my child.

I find it quite rewarding, but yes, endless hours and high stress. It's also an adjustment from programmer life when you had very short feedback loops, but now as a manager no one ever tells you "Hey, you're doing a good/bad job here!" and instead, you have to just read every situation better and generally don't see results of initiatives or work you've done until months (or years) later

When people grow and you find opportunities for them, it's incredibly rewarding and amazing. That's one thing I could never have as a programmer on my own.

Turning "off" is hard but I manage my hours so that I get home early enough to make dinner and spend the evening with my son before he's in bed by 8pm. I usually work (or think about work) after that unless I have a planned event.

I'm just spewing now -- I think most of us product managers need therapy sessions to just talk to people. There's just so much .. :)

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#80

Post by beat »

alistairSH wrote: post #19
aetherson wrote: post #2

This is a stupid use of averages. PMs come in a little senior to rank and file programmers. That doesn't mean that a PM of ten years experience makes more than a programmer of ten years.

Yeah, I wondered about that. The PMs with whom I work all have 15+ years experience in the business. And for most of them, "the business" is our specific domain area, not just "software". I would expect their salaries to be in the same ballpark as a senior engineer or line manager.

I saw my spouse go through this a few years back. She was a product manager with 13 years of industry experience in a deep but narrow domain (international e-commerce) when she got laid off. The job hunt was kind of arduous, because we live in the midwest and don't want to relocate, and there just aren't that many jobs in her specialty in our area. Eventually she found one, but it took months.

There were plenty of generic product manager jobs in other industries, but they were all wondering why she's worth so much if she doesn't have experience in their industry. Shifting industries, even with the same generic skill set, would have resulted in a 10-20% salary cut.

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