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Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

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Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#91

Post by noir_lord »

mattmanser wrote: post #14
michaelchisari wrote: post #2

A solid article, but it should have commented on single family home prices. If you use the 3x salary rule, a $120k a year techie couldn't afford the median home price in America ($374k). A software engineer in San Francisco would have to make $526k a year in cold hard cash to reasonably afford the median single family home ($1.58 million). Talking about six figure salaries as if they are unquestionably upper-middle c…

in the UK at the moment you can get morgages for 5.25x salary, especially if you have a high income. I assume the US has roughly the same now. The old mortgage multiplers have gone for now.

Yep you can.

My partner and I earn dissimilar amounts (I earn more than double what she does) so we are borrowing only what can be covered on her wages which is about a third of what the bank will actually lend us (a frankly eye watering amount).

We don't want to be in a situation where I have to earn what I do now forever to cover the mortgage and doing the above would allow me to take a 50% paycut and still comfortably pay all the bills.

The houses we are looking at decent size in a nice area with good sized gardens, what the hell more do we need, there are only 3 of us, a 3 or 4 bed is just fine.

We are effectively borrowing about x2 our household income not the 5.whatever the bank would lend.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#92

Post by jokethrowaway »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #78
rocketbop wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The I have heard this point made a couple of times recently. Is there any reason why these two values should be the same? It is a point of concern for those on very low incomes who spent all their income and are not able to save anythiny, but if you are on a six figure income and only a portion of that inc…

On a six figure income here. Most is spent on groceries and housing because we have kids.

I was living in a HCOL location with kids and my experience matched yours. I then moved to a LCOL location and I spend a fraction of that.

I've been working remote since long before the pandemic, but I did enjoy some benefits of living in a HCOL (fun events, social life, networking) - benefits that I wasn't using as much after having kids.

If you're in the States you may also consider the benefits of lowering your tax rates + health insurance bill by moving to LCOL country overseas.

There are a few (mostly) english speaking countries with low taxes, cheap properties, low crime with decent public healthcare or cheap good private healthcare.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#93

Post by refurb »

indecisive_user wrote: post #5

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

I hope people realize that when monthly inflation numbers are released those are annualized.

So the 8.5% inflation rate in March is actually 1.085^(1/12) = 0.7% for March, and 8.5% assuming that same rate lasted for 12 consecutive months.

In 2021, the CPI-U was 4.7% for all of 2021.

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/infl...

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#94

Post by kilroy123 »

indecisive_user wrote: post #5

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

I got ZERO raise this past year and boy let me tell you, it really pissed me off. I didn't feel I wasn't making enough until that happened.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#95

Post by jokethrowaway »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #81
silisili wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, I do quite a bit better than that... I'm not complaining. But using 120k as an example...a person went from making 4x the typical full time salary to 2x the typical full time salary in a very short period.

> To be clear, I do quite a bit better than that... I'm not complaining. But using 120k as an example...a person went from making 4x the typical full time salary to 2x the typical full time salary in a very short period. This is what I will never understand about most established tech people, they see all the widespread misery and poverty in SV and they still have the capacity to feel sorry for themselves for not mak…

The cost of everything else raised as well, so wealthy tech workers also lost purchasing power (especially after the last stock crash).

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#96

Post by zece »

> Despite the average salary for tech workers breaking six figures in 2022, many IT and tech professionals still feel underpaid.

> According to hiring experts, the most significant factor contributing to this feeling is likely the long and extra work hours of the existing IT staff, which makes them feel burdened.

This is great point. I'm sure we all know someone in this field who has experienced burnout from their job, or indeed you may have experienced it yourself.

In the end, by understaffing and piling on more and more work onto their tech workers, managers are stealing not just time from their employees, but their health too.

I personally realized far too late in my career that I'd wasted vast amounts of time working late to meet arbitrary deadlines for projects that, in the end, didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

I wish I'd pushed back and just worked my contracted hours, to spend more time with the ones I love, doing things I enjoyed, rather than forcing myself to endure further work stress.

That is much more important than getting extra money on top of a salary that is already well above the average earner, in my opinion. Though more and larger pay increases would have welcome too, of course.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#97

Post by Melting_Harps »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #84
Melting_Harps wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be clear, I do quite a bit better than that... I'm not complaining. But using 120k as an example...a person went from making 4x the typical full time salary to 2x the typical full time salary in a very short period. This is what I will never understand about most established tech people, they see all the widespread misery and poverty in SV and they still have the capacity to feel sorry for themselves for not mak…

Your argument I visualize as the floor falling from the room, the lowest paid have fallen, tech workers are “safe for now” but they are concerned and are trying to move to safer ground, and Bezos is in a spaceship above it all. People who think techies are well paid probably haven’t tried raising a family yet.

> People who think techies are well paid probably haven’t tried raising a family yet.

I started my own fintech startup by bootstrapping and working 90+ hours a week and I managed to survive in Boulder where/when the average house price was over 1 million USD, you will get no sympathy from me.

My investments are the only thing that saved me, and I didn't have health benefits that entire time. I treaded water and almost drowned many times most of it's existence while disrupting an entire Industry in the process and eventually got head hunted by a mega corp.

When will you realize that are not one of the tech oligarchs? What part of that don't you get yet? You're an expendable part of the equation.

You guys have been coddled so much by these corps that insulate you from reality I almost wonder if you can see the trees from the forest and what your role is in all of this?

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#98

Post by [deleted] »

kilroy123 wrote: post #94
indecisive_user wrote: post #5

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

I got ZERO raise this past year and boy let me tell you, it really pissed me off. I didn't feel I wasn't making enough until that happened.

[deleted]

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#99

Post by _Wintermute »

Thorrez wrote: post #52
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5.25 joint salary, though, so that could be as high as 11.5 times one person's salary for one house if you're buying together (they may have a slightly different calculation when combining salary). And indeed my house, but not the mortgage, was well over 10 times my salary when I bought it. The mortgage was around 8 times my (entry level UK) salary, but about half that if you counted both of us. Which is one route to…

What percent of people have fixed vs variable rate mortgages?

In the UK even fixed rate mortgages are only fixed for the first couple of years, which wasn't so bad as rates were decreasing, but obviously things might change in the next couple of years.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#100

Post by eru »

kilroy123 wrote: post #94
indecisive_user wrote: post #5

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

I got ZERO raise this past year and boy let me tell you, it really pissed me off. I didn't feel I wasn't making enough until that happened.

Genuine question: would you have felt better with a 1% raise?

In 2010 I was working in the UK and we had about 5% inflation that year (or so). I got a 2% raise, and found that more insulting than if they had given no raise; even though objectively any positive raise is better than no raise.

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