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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

#451

Post by PragmaticPulp »

cactus2093 wrote: post #391
ryandrake wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile for those that have the time and willpower to grind leetcode, they know they can command a 20-40% raise every few years. One thing a lot of people forget about this 20-40% number is: It's only true early in your career. It might be hard for younger folks to believe, but you will all hit a ceiling and plateau. My first job hop was for +50%! The next one was about 40%, the next one 15%, and so on. Now, with…

Your example is not actually that crazy at FAANG level companies. I know a lot of people in their early 30's that are L6 or even L7 at big tech companies, maybe they've changed jobs every 2 years on average in their career which is well under 9 times, and those level of roles have a total comp of 500k-750k/yr. With a 4-year stock grant and some luck on the stock performance in that time, that can turn into well over…

This is a thing that can happen and does happen for a very small number of people.

But when discussing the entire job market, it's a minuscule fraction of tech workers who could even get there if they tried (sometimes due to no fault of their own e.g. location), and it's a much smaller number that even get there at all.

Hitting L7 in mid 30s and catching a massive bull market to pump up compensation is mythical unicorn levels of lucky. It does happen to some people, but it's not useful at all when discussing realistic expectations even 95th percentile developers in the general population.

Getting into a bubble with top FAANG engineers can really distort perceptions of what the market looks like for the median developer.

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

#452

Post by bastardoperator »

ryandrake wrote: post #312
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…

> Meanwhile for those that have the time and willpower to grind leetcode, they know they can command a 20-40% raise every few years. One thing a lot of people forget about this 20-40% number is: It's only true early in your career. It might be hard for younger folks to believe, but you will all hit a ceiling and plateau. My first job hop was for +50%! The next one was about 40%, the next one 15%, and so on. Now, with…

To be honest, I used to think developers in tech did well, then I worked with some really good sales people in tech and realized they're making WAY more on top free vacations and spiff (even more money) opportunities. It's night and day. We've heard about developers making upwards of 500K, I've seen sales people make triple on a single deal with similar deals lined up for following quarters. It is insane, and most developers don't have a clue when it comes to this type of disparity in pay because they don't interact with that process or people at all in most situations. The work is very different, especially the types of pressure each role faces, but they're valued very differently. Maybe most folks know this, I had no clue.

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

#453

Post by dsaavy »

gameman144 wrote: post #141
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…

The main issue is that all of your dollars, even the ones you save, are worth less. Let's invent our own unit: the "grocery-year" -- one grocery-year represents the amount of money needed to buy one year of groceries. Now let's say I am making $100k this year, and spending $10k on groceries. My annual salary is ten grocery-years (though I'm saving nine of those). Let's assume that inflation is 10%, but I get a 5% rai…

I like this analogy. Going to start using it as a metric in conversation.

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

#454

Post by javagram »

Beached wrote: post #260
danachow wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you miscrunched? A 5x mortgage over gross pay should be just over 30% of monthly gross take home. Maybe too much for some, but not absolutely irresponsible - especially if you choose to stay in a stable housing market. 2.5x is completely ridiculous to expect - that’s going to be far below rental payments in most places that anybody would want to live. Its definitely not the norm. It’s obtainable in some areas o…

but total cost of home ownership is supposed to be 33% of take home. how do you pay electric, gas, internet, trash, water, sewer, umbrella insurance, AND routine maintenance on just 3%?

Utilities normally wouldn’t be included in the 33% of take home rule - the 33% rule applies to renting an apartment too, where most of the items you listed except trash are also separate costs not included in the 33%. (Also the 1/3 rule is of gross income not take home.)

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

#455

Post by adamweld »

bastardoperator wrote: post #452
ryandrake wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile for those that have the time and willpower to grind leetcode, they know they can command a 20-40% raise every few years. One thing a lot of people forget about this 20-40% number is: It's only true early in your career. It might be hard for younger folks to believe, but you will all hit a ceiling and plateau. My first job hop was for +50%! The next one was about 40%, the next one 15%, and so on. Now, with…

To be honest, I used to think developers in tech did well, then I worked with some really good sales people in tech and realized they're making WAY more on top free vacations and spiff (even more money) opportunities. It's night and day. We've heard about developers making upwards of 500K, I've seen sales people make triple on a single deal with similar deals lined up for following quarters. It is insane, and most de…

What industry are you in?

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

#456

Post by vvladymyrov »

Teknoman117 wrote: post #427
cactus2093 wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your example is not actually that crazy at FAANG level companies. I know a lot of people in their early 30's that are L6 or even L7 at big tech companies, maybe they've changed jobs every 2 years on average in their career which is well under 9 times, and those level of roles have a total comp of 500k-750k/yr. With a 4-year stock grant and some luck on the stock performance in that time, that can turn into well over…

I guess I'm somewhat lucky that I was able to double my compensation over 5 years within the same company, but at this point I've hit the ceiling for rapid compensation growth for the most part. Maybe I should just grind leetcode for a few months (my dynamic-programming algo skills are a bit rusty) and switch jobs. I would miss the 30 days of PTO though.

leetcode is a good idea - but coding problems are more like to get foot in the door (pass phone screen). Senior and above candidates are "leveled" and judged using design and behavioral questions - so the way you answer them would impact level and target compensation significantly. So it make sense to spend time preparing for Systems' Design questions Behavioral questions.

From another point of view - design and behavioral questions original goal is to confirm that candidate have related experience from day to day work, so if you have enough practice on your current job - it is not so much time to prepare for design and behavioral part of interviews.

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

#457

Post by weaksauce »

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…

> yet none of that savings or record profits trickled down to the people writing code.

yeah trickle down economics was just a rebranding of horse and sparrow economics.

as in you feed the horse all the oats and then the sparrows get to pluck the undigested bits from the feces. Never was going to work.

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

#458

Post by adamsmith143 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #374
firstplacelast wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

…or form a union with only those capable of generating 10M/year and dictate that market together. Easier than starting a company.

I might join a union of all software engineers in order to help junior engineers keep from getting completely burned out or horribly exploited, but I wouldn't join a union of elite FAANG engineers. I'm pretty sure the $250-$500k we can command is the most we can reasonably expect companies to be able to pay, since there's a ton of competition among them to hire us already Otherwise, someone would've collected some VC…

Except Apple and others have already been caught colluding to stop engineers from making higher salaries.

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

#459

Post by jcims »

Spooky23 wrote: post #309
dolni wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Especially so if you are in a value-adding position and not something like internal tooling. Why the knock on internal tooling? If internal tooling helps a value-add position go 10% faster, that's worth a lot. And most likely it isn't just one position, it's many.

It's not a knock - if you're not aligned with revenue, you're valued less. This historically was the some for technology in general. When grandpa was the chief of data processing in the 1980s for some insurance company, he wasn't making FANG salaries. But the IBM dudes were.

Infosec is generally in the same boat.

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

#460

Post by pb7 »

mjbeswick wrote: post #151
mathverse wrote: post #129

We europeans are underpaid and taxed to death. The US could easily fill its worker shortage by offering easy visas for EU engineers. Many of us would like to move but it's a real PITA to apply to companies that are even willing to consider visa sponsorship. I actually have no idea why this is not the case already. It's basically 1st world to 1st world transition and the one losing would be EU.

It only seems like that but people in the US have to pay for things that Europeans take for granted. You might earn more, but most people would end up with less disposable income.

United States has the highest median disposable income in the world.[0] The gap is astronomical if considering tech workers alone.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...

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