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Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#21

Post by twox2 »

_qwfv wrote: post #5

IMO, it's not useful to look solely at salaries. My salary and my compensation are radically different numbers. My salary is approximately $200k/year, but my compensation is closer to $650k this year. Most of the engineers I know view their salary as only part of the picture. I'm also a firm believer in sharing compensation numbers openly and transparently as a mechanism for increasing worker negotiating power. Talk…

Is the rest RSUs? Only a select few that work for big publicly traded companies get to benefit from those...

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#22

Post by silicon2401 »

pugworthy wrote: post #6

I wonder how common it was for companies to not give out any raises due to economic changes from the pandemic. It depends I suppose on what the business is and what the impact is. Our Fortune 50 company late last year announced no raises based on the annual review cycle because of "things", but did give out bonuses. Of course then we had record earnings announcements recently, so it's not clear what the "things" were…

Depends entirely on the company. I switched jobs during the pandemic, the new company has constantly been hiring, I got a huge salary/benefits boost, and I got an end of year raise and bonuses. As I was heading out from the previous job, they sent out an email saying that hiring was frozen, salaries would be frozen (no raises for anybody), and retirement contribution matches would halt. I've had some friends furloughed and some also get new jobs. Probably comes down to how the employer was affected by changes due to the pandemic

(in case anyone wants to ask, I don't reveal personal info online, so I won't be disclosing any company I've worked for)

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#23

Post by jacques_chester »

pugworthy wrote: post #6

I wonder how common it was for companies to not give out any raises due to economic changes from the pandemic. It depends I suppose on what the business is and what the impact is. Our Fortune 50 company late last year announced no raises based on the annual review cycle because of "things", but did give out bonuses. Of course then we had record earnings announcements recently, so it's not clear what the "things" were…

> so it's not clear what the "things" were.

"Things" are easy to work out. Just follow the money.

Management gets far more RSUs and options and this means they are incentivised to do or say anything they think might push up the stock price.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#24

Post by jacques_chester »

gricardo99 wrote: post #16
thelean12 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several companies I know seemed to lie and use Covid as a convenient excuse to not give out raises (or give shitty bonuses, etc) to save money in the short term. Meanwhile hiring and earnings don't match up to those actions.

That's a fairly cynical take. You may be right, at least in some cases, but I also think it's reasonable for any executive to look at the unprecedented situation with a high degree of uncertainty and reign in spending on all possible fronts. In hindsight perhaps cutting back salaries/bonuses wasn't warranted, but that doesn't mean it was all planned as a scheme to boost profits.

I'm cynical because apparently reigning in spending can be done instantly, but handing out bonuses, raises or equity seems to be a very long and difficult process involving a lot of some-day-soons and any-day-nows and then perhaps-next-years.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#25

Post by ghaff »

vmception wrote: post #20
ghaff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, that sort of RSU appreciation can go away overnight. (To be clear, RSUs still have significant value even if they don't appreciate. But a lot of the really big $$ people have been making over the past 5 years or so are because of stock gains.) ADDED: It's a difficult problem to solve with one number though. Base salary hasn't been very representative of total comp at the big SV tech companies over the past…

Those stock gains absolutely are negotiating leverage as much as the same person's prior or competing salaries would be, so I don't think it is productive to draw a distinction. Open to discussion. An "L5" position is very similar to what is written on Levels.fyi and Blind, no matter what macroeconomic factors made it so across the board

Sure, absolutely relevant as a backward looking measure to offer a potential new employer a baseline--to the degree you want to share it. Certainly, when I last got a new job, I handwaved a bit around "counting bonuses etc." when giving a salary. (Was a private company so no stock.)

On the other hand, the fact that your comp could drop by $100K next year because your company's stock was flat or a bit down is probably at least somewhat relevant.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#26

Post by Impossible »

posharma wrote: post #7

This is so misleading. In silicon valley total compensation is touching 400k+/year on an average for experienced professionals. They should've at least consulted something like levels.fyi before publishing and looking dumb.

If you read it as base only, not TC it seems accurate.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#27

Post by chris11 »

silicon2401 wrote: post #22
pugworthy wrote: post #6

I wonder how common it was for companies to not give out any raises due to economic changes from the pandemic. It depends I suppose on what the business is and what the impact is. Our Fortune 50 company late last year announced no raises based on the annual review cycle because of "things", but did give out bonuses. Of course then we had record earnings announcements recently, so it's not clear what the "things" were…

Depends entirely on the company. I switched jobs during the pandemic, the new company has constantly been hiring, I got a huge salary/benefits boost, and I got an end of year raise and bonuses. As I was heading out from the previous job, they sent out an email saying that hiring was frozen, salaries would be frozen (no raises for anybody), and retirement contribution matches would halt. I've had some friends furlough…

Same here. My employer is fortunate to be doing well. I've heard we are seeing some really good applicants. But they want to compete with top tech companies. So initial offers are going up, they are still giving out raises, and benefits have improved.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#28

Post by Impossible »

lacker wrote: post #19
kar5pt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source that says the average experienced engineer in Silicon Valley makes $400k/year?

That number is too high. If you restrict to the FAANG companies, though, it is only a small overestimate. See https://www.levels.fyi/ and select Google. There an L5 represents an "experienced" engineer with at least 4-5 years of experience, and total comp is $350k. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are similar.

Yeah $400K is high L5. Not uncommon, but slightly above average. It's possible that if you average all engineers you'd get something close to $400K, but L3 and L4 salaries would bring that value down. In surveys L5 makes up the majority of the engineering workforce in these companies, and L3\L4 have a bigger representation than L6+, so it's unlikely that the average TC is $400K.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#29

Post by stack_underflow »

Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #11

The standard conversation that happens around such posts: "Salaries in SV are so much higher than elsewhere" - "But so is rent, but SV still comes out to be more profitable" "Salaries in USA are so much higher than elsewhere" - "But so is healthcare, and there's no social safety net" "Salaries in FANG make smart people work on optimizing for clicks instead of doing something more beneficial for the world"

One thing I've noticed is that the people making these counter-arguments seem to completely ignore (or don't know about) the ridiculous amounts of equity that $big_tech_co's are handing out.

Yes some of those points can be valid, and I understand that not all software companies hand out that much stock or are private and therefore it's harder to depend on, etc. But maybe it's just the bubble of tech that I've existed in within the PNW, but tonnes of people in my circle have built FIRE-level wealth by just having been driven enough to put up with bullshit interviews and staying long enough to get their stock grants.

I can say personally I definitely wouldn't have made it to where I did financially had I stayed in Canada, or it probably would've taken me at least 15 years instead of ~5.

If you're the type of person for who money can solve a lot of problems, I always suggest considering this as an option. It's solved ~90% of the problems in my life and has bought me years of time to be able to do what I actually want in life.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#30

Post by zuhayeer »

One of the founders of Levels.fyi here – wish we were cited on here too! But we also did a pay report for 2020 with a breakdown of companies and locations which was covered in another IEEE post: https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-...

In our report, we account for total compensation including equity. Feel free to check it out: https://levels.fyi/2020/

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