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My Salary Progression in Tech

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Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#421

Post by linuxftw »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #403
clarry wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Find something you love doing and do it for the 'work' itself People keep repeating that advice, but finding something you love doing just for the work might be an endless chase, not unlike the chase after success and money. Some of us actually feel that it is easier to chase money than it is to find work you really love.

Yes. I am so tired of people parroting "Do what you love." Real life isn't a Disney movie. Doing what I love, I would be lucky to make $10k a year. You know what else I love beside that? Making enough money to eat. You know what I REALLY like, knowing that I'm making enough money now to GUARANTEE my dreams will come true. Not scaping pennies together as a starting artist, crossing my fingers, and hoping that one day…

> Real life isn't a Disney movie. Doing what I love, I would be lucky to make $10k a year.

Unfortunately, an increasing number of people don't feel this way. Their solution is to increase their salary (and benefits) at the ballot box.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#422

Post by throwaway218 »

Wowza, hard not to look at these things and feel twinges of jealousy. It's hard to stay grounded in what the important things in life are....

United States - have perfect SAT and ACT scores, went through university for free

Age 21-28 - Work in NGOs, non-profits - $25k Age 28 Finish Masters degree Age 29-32 - Work in NGOs and non-profits and policy analysis - $32k Age 32-34 - Suicide Counselor - $35k Age 35 - Bootcamp - become Rails developer -$60k Age 36 - $65k Age 37 - ask for raise $80k Age 38 - $85k Age 39 - Senior developer/manage projects/do mentoring/keep coding - $90k Age 40 - $92k

Based on these it seems like 5+ years of experience on the backend and frontend with multiple stacks and the ability to manage 4+ engineers, keep backlogs groomed, talk to clients to manage expectations and translate requirements into usr stories and acceptance crtieria, etc should be more than $95k - and yet $95k still seems high for a developer anywhere outside of the US

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#423

Post by distances »

aristophenes wrote: post #120
hk__2 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we really compare them, though? I live in France, where €90k/y puts you in the top 1% salaries. In the US, you’d need to earn $400k/y to be in the same position. Standard of living and other social benefits come to mind.

I don't get this thinking. I think everyone is making the comparison to Silicon Valley, which is ridiculously expensive because their are too many people making too much money that all want to be in the same place. In most of the USA, not only do you make more than you would in France, but things are actually cheaper, not more expensive. Imagine you make $150,000/year, a really nice house cost $300,000 (think $2,000…

> I think the biggest difference might be that Americans report their salary before taxes, and I think Europeans tend to do it after taxes. $150,000/year with a small family is probably $110,000-$120,000 after taxes in most states. €90k after taxes is comparable.

Europeans also report before taxes, and that 90k€ is definitely before taxes. I don't know about this person's taxation, but it's probably around 50k€ after taxes. That's still a very good salary in Europe though.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#424

Post by thundergolfer »

minhaz23 wrote: post #227
thundergolfer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy shit you went from $55k to $475k in 5 years with no college degree. This is a big reason I'm in tech. What a rocketing salary progression.

Would this kind of progression not be possible in finance?

As other poster said, not without a relevant degree, and likely that the degree needs to be from a prestigious college.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#425

Post by throwaway784523 »

In SF Bay Area:

1999-2006 - $55k (starting) to $70kish various jobs at a startup. Began in an implementation role, moved to software engineer

2006-2008 - $80k-$95k as a QA engineer at NetSuite

2009-20012 - $95k-$105k as a SWE at NetSuite

2012 - $110k as a SWE at an early-stage startup

2013-2014 - $120k-$140k as a SWE at a different startup

2014 - $150k as a Sr SWE at a different C-stage startup

2015 - $158k as a line manager at same startup

2016 - $170k (?) as a line manager at same startup

2017 - $190k as a manager-of-managers at same startup

2018 - $205k as department head at same startup

2019 - $220k as director of engineering at different late-stage startup

All this is base salary, excluding equity and so forth. Very recently, bonuses have started to be a thing, so base salary is a little less relevant than it was.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#426

Post by throwaway999624 »

2005 - $15k consulting and college

2006 - $16k consulting and college

2007 - $20k Company 1

2008 - $26k Company 1

2009 - $40k Company 2

2010 - $52k Company 3

2011 - $104k Company 3

2012 - $170k Company 4

2013 - $180k Company 5

2013 - $215k Company 6

2015 - $250k Company 7

2016 - $350k Company 7

2017 - $450k Company 7

2018 - $700k Company 7

2019 - $1.6M Company 7 *

* Based on stock remaining at today’s share price.

Only the company >=6 had significant portions of compensation contribution through equity.

I recently interviewed and secured two offers for around $1.5M but ended up staying. Offered role were Distinguished Engineer / VP Engineering.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#427

Post by mxuribe »

klohto wrote: post #393
alexgmcm wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, also what company gives that many raises!? Normally it seems it's 2-3% and if you want more you jump ship...

Having been to 3 corporations, all of them offer a raise of 7% - 10% every year. I'm not sure if I'm lucky but I thought this is a norm.

Yeah, you might be in the rare - and lucky! - case...I've worked for numerous large enterprises in northeast U.S. (in different industries), and all of them were 2~3% increases per year max.; and in some years such as during recession, they were 0~1%. Kudos to you good sir!

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#428

Post by ddelt »

I feel slightly motivated, but mostly crushed by these crazy TC levels.

Although I know I'm doing fairly decent for myself, as someone who is very critical of my own progress or lack of, it feels very disheartening to see people my age making 10x what I am, simply because they are located in SV, doing the same work.

In my area, short of being extremely fortunate to land some amazing fully-remote job, there is not one tech company that pays out anywhere close to 300k+ TC, unless you are in senior leadership or just consulting/doing work on the side.

I understand the reasons for the big disparity, but still... feels bad man.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#429

Post by saagarjha »

linuxftw wrote: post #421
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I am so tired of people parroting "Do what you love." Real life isn't a Disney movie. Doing what I love, I would be lucky to make $10k a year. You know what else I love beside that? Making enough money to eat. You know what I REALLY like, knowing that I'm making enough money now to GUARANTEE my dreams will come true. Not scaping pennies together as a starting artist, crossing my fingers, and hoping that one day…

> Real life isn't a Disney movie. Doing what I love, I would be lucky to make $10k a year. Unfortunately, an increasing number of people don't feel this way. Their solution is to increase their salary (and benefits) at the ballot box.

Or fortunately, depending on your sociopolitical views, assuming you're talking about universal basic income?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#430

Post by myvoiceismypass »

kilbuz wrote: post #201
kuhhk wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the 800k is because of vested stock with strong share growth.

An actual Netflixer can chime in, but as far as I know from friends who work there, Netflix is almost all base, no stock and no large bonus. My friends are data engineers with 3-5 YOE making about 400k base upon their hire, so I believe it. They thought folks in the ML group were in the 700-800k range. All hearsay though, so please take with grain of salt.

Ex-Netflix here. I left at the tail end of 2016 & was making 320k then. No bonuses, but they did give you [an additional] 5% of your salary in options at I think 40% of the strike price. I assume it is still that policy.
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