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

spectrum.ieee.org

141–150 of 272 posts

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

#141

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/

Funny thing I noticed on https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...

You're abbreviating 'NSW' as just 'NS', is that intentional?

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

#142

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/

(really like the site)

sidenote, it's a bit hard to access aggregated data, I always have to click bunch of things if I want to see e.g. distribution of salaries for role in switzerland.

(all the default views seem to show just a list of entries, I think you first have to pivot to company, then to location before you can see any aggregated data)

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

#143
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, the difference between the two tiers comes down to public companies that pay equity with real stock vs those who are not public and cannot offer comp in the form of liquid equity.

Several of those companies are not public. They are indeed offering paper money, but if you trust valuations during fundraising rounds (and given how late stage Stripe, Robinhood are) it's a pretty safe bet.

well, there's a spectrum there. There are the late stage unicorns offering paper money that is close to becoming real money, there are the pie-in-the-sky startups whose paper money may or may not be worth a damn and there are the companies that have no equity comp structure at all for whatever reason.

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

#144
i never worked at a big tech so hope someone can help me on this.

The stock grants usually has a 4 years vesting? that means after 4 years , you will not get any more granted stock? Does that mean after 4 years, your salary is going to drop down significantly

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

#145

I cannot believe how high tech salaries are right now in my city (Seattle) versus even three years ago the last time I had a "real" job. What would have been a low 100s salary three years ago is easily pushing over 200k now. This is all well and good except for when one of those folks tries to go to buy a house here and is outbid by 15 people all offering cash with 200k in escalation clauses...

> I cannot believe how high tech salaries are right now in my city (Seattle) they had better be, to keep up with cost of living, have you priced real estate in seattle recently?

You've reversed cause and effect.

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

#146

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 Germ…

>The guy who cleans our house in Germany without any education (an African refugee) makes more money than that

Another way of framing this is that Germany is successfully combating inequality, right? Professional-managerial class incomes and lifestyles aligning and sometimes inverting with working-class incomes is sort of the point.

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

#147

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 Germ…

EU engineers need to vote with their feet and simply go to SV for things to change.

H1-B are not that easy to get, but it might get better after the required minimum salaries were raised.

Heard mixed things about intra-company transfers from Europe to the US.

Otherwise it's rather difficult to get to SV.

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

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU engineers need to vote with their feet and simply go to SV for things to change.

H1-B are not that easy to get, but it might get better after the required minimum salaries were raised. Heard mixed things about intra-company transfers from Europe to the US. Otherwise it's rather difficult to get to SV.

Maybe it's time for EU countries to negotiate a better deal than H1.

Or just get an O-1.

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

#149
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I cannot believe how high tech salaries are right now in my city (Seattle) they had better be, to keep up with cost of living, have you priced real estate in seattle recently?

You've reversed cause and effect.

well, yes, though at some point it begins to resemble a reinforcement feedback loop

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

#150
post #70

These 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…

IC6 is rare (15%ish) even among people working there, even ignoring people at less flush companies. IC7 is even more rare.

And those years of experience are for the fastest ladder climbing superstars. Multiply by 1.5x for the average.

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