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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#461

Post by fn1 »

sanxiyn wrote: post #299
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is that while work is dull, people are not overqualified. They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. If they could refactor and get internal systems in order they could lower qualification bar, but that refactoring requires super duper overqualified people, etc.

> but that refactoring requires super duper overqualified people, etc

Yes, and it needs super duper overqualified managers to understand that the super duper overqualified engineers actually are on to something with their suggestions.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#462

Post by Mauricebranagh »

nly wrote: post #438
_delirium wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty complicated in general. For example, if you have kids, the European advantage tends to be bigger than if you don't (depending on which country, this may include subsidized daycare, cheaper or free college tuition, cheaper or free healthcare, etc.). In my particular case, when moving from the UK to the US, my estimate is that the "headline" salary number for the US offer I got overstated my pay by about 30…

I don't see how taxes were lower in the UK to be honest.

It is if you take the US health insurance cost and compare it to the uk employees NI.

And UK has 20k PA ISA allowance (put 20k beyond tax) and a 12.3 k CGT Allowance and we don't get crucified on employee shares, if my EMI shares vest I pay no income tax and 10% CGT

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#463

Post by michaelt »

jasonkester wrote: post #433
missedthecue wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's refreshing to see someone pushing back on this narrative a little. FAANG employ a cumulative total of about 100,000 software engineers globally (can't find US-specific numbers). There are 4.4 million software engineers in the USA. I'm sure the graduate -> $200k move happens, but it's only an extremely small number in terms of the occupation as a whole. People on this forum seem to casually mention it as if it's…

What does pushing back gain you though? How about we stipulate that you can convince Facebook to pay you $70k to work for them. But they’re also happy to pay you $300k, so if I were a fresh graduate I,would benefit from taking that on board and adjusting my goals and strategy accordingly.

> What does pushing back gain you though?

More accurate knowledge of reality.

After all, if someone on a forum is talking about $300k graduate salaries while the Bureau of Labor Statistics thinks the median pay of programmers in the US is $89k [1] I gotta take both of those numbers into account in my world view.

Otherwise you end up being out of touch with reality, thinking that bananas cost $10.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#464

Post by Mauricebranagh »

thewarrior wrote: post #261
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

There’s some truth to this I’ll admit. But if most of the work is dull why do you need the “best” ? I saw an explanation later in this thread that made more sense. FANGs do have a lot of good employees. And if they didn’t pay high salaries other companies would simply swoop in and free ride on all the hard work they do to find and groom talent. FANGs spend a lot of money scouring the entire globe and interviewing so…

Dull doesn't mean you can half ass it - I worked for telco billing systems and getting it right to the penny is important.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#465

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

Nursie wrote: post #460
Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's because you're looking at London, infamous for how expensive it is to live in. It's fairly easy to be on £60k outside of London with a few years of experience. Moving up north towards the Midlands or even further like Manchester or Leeds and you're going to live a very comfortable life on a Software Developer salary. Yeah, it's not the US where people are on £200k at 25. But earning £60k in your 20s puts…

> It's fairly easy to be on £60k outside of London with a few years of experience. Yeah, but that is the point isn't it - in the US and some other countries you have the potential to earn a few hundred K per annum. That sort of money just isn't available to software people here. In fact you're more likely to be offered around £50k for a 'senior' role somewhere. IMHO it's partly because here in the UK we don't really…

The UK does treat SKILLED software engineers as skilled professionals. It's one of the highest earning professions here. What other jobs do you know where there's an earning potential of £80K+ outside of London while working regular 8 hour days? Not many I'll tell you that. If you want to be earning £200-300k then set up your own company. Almost no one is going to be employed by someone else on that money. And those that are, big law firms etc., are working 16 hour days 6-7 days a week.

Many US developers are overpaid. That's the reality. The pay floor has been shifted too high and so the ceiling is even higher. We mustn't kid ourselves, the skill floor in software development is relatively low. Why should a graduate front end developer get paid 6 figures? There's some good ones that deserve it, but there's also some really shit ones who will never learn and grow as a professional.

I've worked with good graduates and I've worked with shit graduates. The good ones get rewarded. The unskilled ones who don't learn, don't. I think that's fine. 6 figures for entry level grunt work is just an unreasonable amount of money and the only reason the US gets away with it is because of the pay floor.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#466

Post by marvin »

onion2k wrote: post #412
comp_throw7 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, FAANG compensation lets you trivially retire (or achieve financial independence) by ~40 (if you're single), and that's assuming you're budgeting for 200k/year with an extremely conservative withdrawal rate (3%). If you're willing to resettle somewhere cheaper and live a somewhat less extravagant lifestyle, you could do it by your early 30s no problem. And, again, this is if you're single, i.e. no second incom…

I imagine this is true in theory . The math checks out. But every FAANG company has been around for at least 15 years now and we don't hear many stories of their early hires retiring. Where does it break down in practise? Is it just too hard to give up the high paying role? Is it that retirees don't talk about it? Or is it that the theory is actually wrong for some reason, and working for $200k for 20 years doesn't a…

Those who retire don’t get too public amout it.

And most who could will in fact keep working in some capacity, either because they’re excessively paranoid about the capital markets or they enjoy work too much to quit.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#467

Post by Nursie »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #465
Nursie wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's fairly easy to be on £60k outside of London with a few years of experience. Yeah, but that is the point isn't it - in the US and some other countries you have the potential to earn a few hundred K per annum. That sort of money just isn't available to software people here. In fact you're more likely to be offered around £50k for a 'senior' role somewhere. IMHO it's partly because here in the UK we don't really…

The UK does treat SKILLED software engineers as skilled professionals. It's one of the highest earning professions here. What other jobs do you know where there's an earning potential of £80K+ outside of London while working regular 8 hour days? Not many I'll tell you that. If you want to be earning £200-300k then set up your own company. Almost no one is going to be employed by someone else on that money. And those…

> What other jobs do you know where there's an earning potential of £80K+ outside of London while working regular 8 hour days?

Woo, £80K, for people in the top 2-5% of the game (going by salary distribution). Such rewards. Just don't look over the pond...

> If you want to be earning £200-300k then set up your own company. Almost no one is going to be employed by someone else on that money.

And that's part of the problem right there. In the US you can aspire to getting salaries in those sorts of ranges, one day, if you're good at what you do and make good choices.

> 6 figures for entry level grunt work is just an unreasonable amount of money

Sure it is! But unless you either strike out on your own as a contractor (which I have) or leave software behind and go into management/consulting/whatever, six figures is effectively unattainable at all.

I'm not disputing there are a lot of really not-that-great software people around, or claiming we should just hand a bag of gold to every new grad. But there is vanishingly little in the high end for the better people to aspire to. Which is why people either transition to management, go independent or just plain leave.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#468

Post by Mauricebranagh »

nly wrote: post #444
koyote wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western European salary is taxed for around 40% You'll only get that tax rate at very high salaries and it's also of course marginal. In the UK the first 12k (~$17k) is entirely tax free for example. After that it's 20% up until you have earned 50k (~$70k). Only after that does the 40% tax kick in. So on a $75k salary, only $5k will be taxed at 40%. For a $75k salary you would be paying just over 16% tax and 9% nat…

There are artifacts. Your marginal tax rate in the UK is 62% between $140K and $170K. £100K ($142K) take home => £66,689.16 ($94K) £120K ($170K) take home => £74,289.16 ($105K) (£74,289.16 - £66,689.16) / £20,000 = 38% for keeps

If you hit that you normally salary sacrifice pension to drop you out of that.

Also the UK has very generous matching for pensions

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#469

Post by [deleted] »

socialist_coder wrote: post #150

Just to have a bit of a counter argument from me, a game developer who loves games and has worked in the US games industry for the majority of my 20 years career: If your argument is "You can make more at a FAANG company" - well yeah, you can. You don't work in gaming because you want to make the top salary. You work in gaming because you love games and you enjoy having all your coworkers also love games and being ab…

[deleted]

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#470

Post by marcus_holmes »

blagie wrote: post #456
marcus_holmes wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Divorces are ridiculously expensive. That was the major culprit for my generation. Only one peer of mine has actually retired before 50 (that I know of), and he stayed married. Everyone else ended up splitting up, which wiped all their savings. Or they went another path. I followed the other path - total mental breakdown, severe depression followed by "non-retirement" - working freelance, as a co-founder and in inter…

Both the divorce rates and the divorce cost are thanks to the divorce industry and the divorce lobby. We have a massive industry set up to encourage and profit from divorce. Most countries don't have this problem, but it's a bigger problem than even the US' ballooning medical costs.

I'm not American :) The UK and Australia both have this problem.

I think it's less to do with the actual costs of the divorce, and more about converting one household into two. All the equity in the house gets split up, which usually gives a decent deposit for another house for each partner, but nowhere near enough to pay off the whole mortgage. Each partner needs enough rooms to host the kids during their shared custody, so a family of 4 goes from needing a single 3-bed house to needing two 3-bed houses. They need two cars, instead of being able to survive on one. If one of the partners gave up their career for the kids then there's alimony to pay. And so on. The legal bills are like icing on the cake.

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