Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germany without any education (an African refugee) makes more money than that. Even my friends from Ukraine (which is a much poorer country) don't want to move there, because in Ukraine they only pay 5% taxes and cost of living is much lower. So they can afford a much better life comparing to German developers.
Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
101–110 of 272 posts
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
And for those that aren't familiar with Caltrain, that train blasts its horn two or three times before each stop and the horn is so loud that you can hear it from a mile away. Living as close to the train as that house is would be miserable.
I would be more worried about thick layer of diesel dust on all surfaces (including your lungs) but hey they are going electric in next 20 years for sure
That's OK, Atherton residents are against Caltrain electrification. We must maintain the quaint character of our multi-billionaire enclave!
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Equity is great when the stock market is booming, but when it decides to drop off a cliff every decade or so for whatever reason I'd prefer if my actual salary didn't go with it
Sure, but there are also strategies to buffer yourself from that. Barring the first year where you have to wait/make it up to the 12-month mark to get the full 25% of your equity paid out, 99% of companies (i.e. almost everyone except for Amazon IME) will vest 1/4 of your annual 25% stock comp quarterly - I've even seen 1/12th-monthly in an offer.
If you're willing to take the short-term cap gains hit you can sell your stock immediately after vesting and reinvest in a total market index or w/e aligns with your investing philosophy. If we're talking hard numbers, you'd still be pulling in 150-200k+ in base salary/cash and let's say, in a non-ideal situation, what would've been your $125k of annual stock vest is now worth 30% less - still not a bad deal IMO.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#104The 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"
On balance, anyone remote before the pandemic and traveling the world has probably had a better life than someone with the same skills making double the salary in SV. Just the reduction in poop on sidewalks speaks for itself. Apparently this comment triggered someone lol.
Maybe this is falling into the trap that OP wanted to avoid but I think you're right. Sure, if I moved to the Bay Area my income would go up by 10-15%. But about half of that would go straight to taxes, and IMO the remainder wouldn't be enough to set me up with a comparable quality of life.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#105These numbers are ridiculously low. Here is what a typical FAANG setup pays you in the bay area (Source: I have worked in a couple of them): IC5 Eng (~5 yrs exp): $350k/yr all in (cash+stock+bonus) IC6 Eng (~9 yrs exp): $550k/yr all in IC7 Eng (~12 yrs exp and you are exceptional): $800k/yr As you go from IC5 to IC7, your stock and bonus goes up (as expected). A typical IC7 will earn around $250k in cash, ~25% bonus…
The competition for these roles is extremely intense. Even doing well isn't sufficient in pandemic times. The baseline of prepping every night + weekend for 3+ months still isn't enough to guarantee you'll get in. Get unlucky and join an org like Ads at FB and you're gonna be miserable AF. Add in the general huge amount of luck that is involved with what interviewer you get, the hiring environment going on, and it's…
Prepping for 3+ months is definitely not the baseline. I'd really need some convincing that you're getting any real incremental benefit past a week of interview prep. There's not that much ground to really cover and at some point you're just solving different versions of the same problems over and over again.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#106Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…
LOL. Is that the Ukraine that has an active war zone, multiple provinces annexed and mostly abandoned by Russia, and a comedian who played a president on TV... actually serving as president? The Ukraine that's mostly used as a punching bag in disputes between other countries?
If someone would rather live in the third most corrupt country in the world than in Germany, well, they can have it.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bay area comp is massively bimodal. FAANG tier folks are certainly making that much, but they are a tiny fraction of the market. Most senior devs at smaller companies and startups are making under $200k.
Companies in the tier of Stripe, Lyft, Uber, Airbnb, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Robinhood, etc. pay that much at senior levels. Often better than FAANG.
You're confining your thinking to well-known companies you can name. For every company you can name, there are 20 you've never heard of and they sure as hell aren't paying average developers $200k.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#108Meanwhile, EU salaries are stagnating and it's one of the worst places to be a software engineer. An average salary for a software developer in Germany was 46000 Euro per year in 2020, and don't forget, it's one of the richest countries in Europe. The average in EU is even lower... After paying taxes a single person with that salary will only have 2400 Euro per month (~ 2800 USD). The guy who cleans our house in Germ…
LOL. Is that the Ukraine that has an active war zone, multiple provinces annexed and mostly abandoned by Russia, and a comedian who played a president on TV... actually serving as president? The Ukraine that's mostly used as a punching bag in disputes between other countries? If someone would rather live in the third most corrupt country in the world than in Germany, well, they can have it.
It's not a war, but a frozen conflict. Even Wikipedia says that:
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#109One 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/
One of your cofounder's, Zaheer, set a date and time with me for a phone interview and proceeded to ghost me even after sending multiple emails asking why he didn't appear for the call. I'm really glad I didn't join the company whose cofounder can do something like that.
Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.
#110IMO, 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…
Even if we can get over the pro-employer stigma of not discussing compensation openly, we still have to deal with ego and the fact that people earning in the top 20% are going to be much more vocal than people in the bottom 20%. For example, see this entire thread.