My Salary Progression in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#311

Post by DVassallo » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 6:52 AM UTC

bronxbomber92 wrote: post #300

DVassallo wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years experience at one of the leading cloud companies (AWS, Azure, Google) will very likely put you right in that market. Nothing special to join. It’s very hard to enter directly as an SDE-3 (or equivalent) without having experience at one of the big companies. I think in 8 years at Amazon I’ve only seen 1 person doing that. With a phd and some work experience you can likely join as an SDE-2 and get to an SDE-3 l…

"Cloud" can mean a lot of things, so what does it mean to you in this context? Edit: Put another way - day to day, what are people in such roles working on exactly?

Deep knowledge of how services like those offered by AWS, Azure, and Google are built, operated, and designed to scale.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#312

Post by dsaron » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

thundergolfer wrote: post #96

tvphan wrote: post #45

I am Asian but was born and raised in Australia. I have a Bachelor of Science and I work as a web developer, e.g. Spring, ASP.NET, React, WordPress, Drupal, etc. 2013 - 23yo - $45K - First job - Magento developer building eCommerce websites for clients. 2014 - 24yo - $54K 2015 - 25yo - $70K - Second job - Magento / Shopify / WordPress developer, building eCommerce websites for clients. 2016 - 26yo - $75K 2017 - 27yo…

Do you work in Australia as well? If so, Ignoring US even, you've got 5 years exp and you're making $85k AUD. That's not high for Australia. Is that including Super? The larger tech companies in Melbourne and Sydney are giving $120k+ AUD total comp to grads .

> The larger tech companies in Melbourne and Sydney are giving $120k+ AUD total comp to grads.

That's some nonsense. Could you drop some names for 'Graduate X' which has that kind of pay scale?

With that being said, it's quite possible to earn 150k+ within 4-5 years in Melbourne. Just be smart about it, listen out for what technologies are trending because inevitably they will be the most numerous and with the highest chance to score a well paying role -- especially if you have your ahead of the influx of developers in X language.

By all accounts I'm not especially talented and I have done so.

PS. If you want $$ learn Salesforce, the money which comes along with knowing that system is freakin craziness.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#313

Post by throwaway441 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 6:54 AM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #159

fma wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, time to leave SV if you want to provide for a family. I'm in Atlanta. 10 years experience, 135k base, 150k total comp (401k and bonus). You can easily provide what you parents provides you here for 100k salary, which can be easily had. No one will judge you if you don't have large scale systems experience.

As a potentially helpful data point, I've occasionally been approached for senior technical roles in Atlanta, at large non-tech companies, where they've opened with $600-700k total comp. While I've never seriously pursued a job in Atlanta, that market apparently has at least some willingness to pay well for high-end technical talent that I would not have expected.

Are you open to sharing which companies? I've looked extensively in Atlanta and haven't found anything near SV comp. Square was the highest that I found.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#314

Post by aerovistae » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 6:58 AM UTC

subsubsub wrote: post #281

bitcoinmoney wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share your friends backgrounds that go to data engineers?

wow, you really want to find out who these people are.

I mean I'm interested too, I thought my 150k was good but holy fucking god...

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#315

Post by scomp » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 6:59 AM UTC

prodisdev wrote: post #279

tvphan wrote: post #45

I am Asian but was born and raised in Australia. I have a Bachelor of Science and I work as a web developer, e.g. Spring, ASP.NET, React, WordPress, Drupal, etc. 2013 - 23yo - $45K - First job - Magento developer building eCommerce websites for clients. 2014 - 24yo - $54K 2015 - 25yo - $70K - Second job - Magento / Shopify / WordPress developer, building eCommerce websites for clients. 2016 - 26yo - $75K 2017 - 27yo…

I am in Australia as well, I started on a similar base as you. I told employers that I was willing to learn and do anything. Most the stuff I have worked on is back-end services. 2010 - 25yo - 41k - First job - .net dev (internal services / sql). 2011 - 26yo - 41.1k 2012 - 27yo - 65k - Second job - job advertised as .net became pseudo COBOL dev. 2013 - 28yo - 80k - moved more in to tech lead / manager role. 2014 - 29…

Was it hard to get into a COBOL role? I am interested in moving that way, was driven to Coldfusion under the excitement of working on challenging code. Naturally the next progression is COBOL.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#316

Post by dsaron » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 7:01 AM UTC

Benjamin_Dobell wrote: post #257

thundergolfer wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you work in Australia as well? If so, Ignoring US even, you've got 5 years exp and you're making $85k AUD. That's not high for Australia. Is that including Super? The larger tech companies in Melbourne and Sydney are giving $120k+ AUD total comp to grads .

> The larger tech companies in Melbourne and Sydney are giving $120k+ AUD total comp to grads Which larger tech companies? I'm self employed and have worked 100% remote for around 5 years, so am a bit out of touch. However, I have close friends in senior positions at major tech companies in Melbourne (REA, Xero etc.) and $120k for grads sadly does not align with what I've heard from them, closer to $70k (AUD) for a g…

> closer to $70k (AUD) for a grad seems to be the norm

Which by all accounts is a fantastic wage for someone fresh out of Uni -- nothing to sneeze at. Don't get discouraged keep at it, you'll get there.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#317

Post by throwaway348418 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

Throwing myself in the pool here.

My salary progression in SF while working at small/medium-sized startups.

No college degree.

All base.

In my early 20s, 2014 - 105k, SWE

2015 - 110k, SWE

2016 - 115k, SWE

Now my mid 20s, 2017 - 130k, Senior SWE

2018 - 135k, Senior SWE

2019 - 145k, Senior SWE

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#318

Post by aerovistae » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 7:04 AM UTC

rubicon33 wrote: post #155

tvphan wrote: post #45

I am Asian but was born and raised in Australia. I have a Bachelor of Science and I work as a web developer, e.g. Spring, ASP.NET, React, WordPress, Drupal, etc. 2013 - 23yo - $45K - First job - Magento developer building eCommerce websites for clients. 2014 - 24yo - $54K 2015 - 25yo - $70K - Second job - Magento / Shopify / WordPress developer, building eCommerce websites for clients. 2016 - 26yo - $75K 2017 - 27yo…

Web development and other easy domains like iOS / Android are quickly going the way of other craft jobs of the past: Blue collar. If you want to make above average salaries you're going to have to specialize. Find something that is both challenging (to reduce barrier to entry) and niche (to demand a higher salary). In other words - specialize. Staying as a generic web/ios/android dev is only going to guarantee that y…

I really don't agree with this. I'm a 27 year old JS-focused web dev @150k base.

I understand that the bootcamps and proliferation of web-teaching schools have made web dev seem like the easy thing, and I agree that what I do is less complex than these $800k-earning data engineers, but web development in 2019 is no joke. The same goes for iOS/Android.

The types of things these companies are trying to build are not just "slap it together in a week and done" type projects and it takes experience to architect and engineer them effectively. Your average bootcamp grad is not able to do it yet.

iOS/Android/Web development forms the 3 primary portals to a company's clients, and as long as that's true, the value of such skillsets will remain high.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#319

Post by pedrosorio » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

soulnothing wrote: post #222

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most FAANGs pay well even without vested stock, Amazon in particular relies heavily on stock for compensation but provides bonuses the first couple of years to compensate.

I had made a comment in another thread, where I think my education hurt me, associates. I took about a 50K pay cut up front to go a FAANG. That came with a demotion as well. So I can see the pay cut not equaling responsibility. But I was in a immediate position and didn't have a choice to say no.

Given the numbers you mentioned (190k peak) this doesn't sound right at all. Was that software engineering in the Bay Area?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#320

Post by dsaron » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 7:06 AM UTC

switch007 wrote: post #224

salaryFoo wrote: post #136

About three years after graduating I stumbled into some extra freelance work a school friend passed on to me. Then got lucky again by finding myself in a well-paid (for UK) devops niche. - 2009: £1,000/yr Mostly depressed, unemployed and unmotivated. Some income from teaching English and arbitraging signup bonuses on gambling websites. Lived close to rent-free by subletting rooms in the apartment I was living in. (Sp…

I've never heard of those 18-19 London salaries. Woah! Finance though surely?

I have a few friends in London, contracting whilst working a Single Person Business (lacking the proper terminology). Super high wages £500 - £700 per day, whilst having an effective tax rate or 13%. Boom.