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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

#491

Post by RussianCow »

zeku wrote: post #437
elijaht wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are misrepresenting in the other direction (ie posting salaries that are unrepresentative in the low direction). Just out of a job hunt and had two offers in Atlanta, one in person with a TC of $180k and one fully remote with a TC of $235k. This is with 2 YoE The costs you post also seem really high. Atlanta United tickets are $35 for the cheapest, food/drink is around $25 total. I generally would take tr…

I'm in Nashville. Our salaries seem to be the same or lower than ATL and our cost of living is for sure higher. I think we are getting a bad deal here compared to ATL. It's possible that I am hilariously underpaid and need a new job.

> It's possible that I am hilariously underpaid and need a new job.

If you're willing to work remotely, then absolutely. :) There are plenty of fully remote jobs in the US paying $180k+. I interviewed at all sorts of random companies last year (all remote), and the lowest offer I got was $150k (plus equity). For reference, most of them were senior frontend engineer positions, but there were some generalist gigs in there as well.

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

#492

Post by grog454 »

Melting_Harps wrote: post #119
jokethrowaway wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> I don't understand this opinion. Ok, let me spell it out: you're not special. Nothing about your profession makes you special, you are not somehow better than anyone because you can sit at a computer and write code. It's a skill, a very highly compensated one for now but an incredibly narrow one that happens to be useful a select few corps, sure, but so was were many other things. And if one thing that COVID has ta…

> And if one thing that COVID has taught us is how incredibly unnecessary you are to maintaining civilization--unless you are some supply chain developer

Wait what? So you somehow realize that if you're a software engineer supporting some necessary field, you're necessary by extension, but apparently the only thing we needed during covid was a function supply chain. Impressive mental gymnastics.

No one was calling for the "return" of programmers because (almost) no one interacts with them directly like they do their barber. Do you think their barbers decided during covid that they no longer needed to support credit card payments, an electronic scheduling system, etc?

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

#493

Post by twblalock »

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…

A price to salary ratio doesn't make a lot of sense because it ignores interest rates.

At today's interest rates, which are still historically low even though they increased last year, 3x is unusually conservative.

The better rule of thumb is to keep housing expenses under a certain percentage of gross income. 28% and 30% are common number that get mentioned in that context.

Why gross income and not net income? Because two people with the same gross income might have very different tax situations and their net income could be very different. So, of course you also need to consider what percent of your net income your housing costs represent -- these are all just rules of thumb.

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

#494

Post by standardUser »

erwincoumans wrote: post #368
gorbachev wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall economy inflation numbers are completely meaningless when cost of education, housing and healthcare has been skyrocketing for more than a decade, maybe even longer. The average worker, especially those with families, have seen their costs inflate much, much higher than 11% per year for quite some time.

In Foster City, CA, bay area, a salary of $146k is considered low income, and can get access to affordable housing [1]. A 3/4 bedroom townhouse in Foster City, CA bay area used to be 800k usd 10 years ago, today it goes for 2M usd, with offers 200k to 400k above asking price. [2] [3] [4] [1] https://www.fostercity.org/faqs?keys=&field_microsite_tid=Al... [2] https://deniseliew.realscout.com/homesearch/listings/p-812-…

That $146k/yr is for a family of four. A lot of affordable housing is built for middle-income households.

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

#495

Post by ScalaFan »

scarface74 wrote: post #417
toomuchtodo wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why people unionize. Hasn't happened to tech yet, don't know if it will, but it isn't a forgone conclusion this is how markets have to work.

And when costs get to high, what’s stopping tech companies from just expanding their overseas presence?

Going overseas also carries risk. It could be something as irritating as just cultural or language friction or as bad as a civil disturbance or war breaking out.

Never mind just the quality of workers available for the price you have set as the threshold.

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

#496

Post by DonnyV »

I believe software engineers should be getting residuals from the products they help build. Like the way writers and actors get residuals for shows and movies they have worked on and are not a part of anymore. The company that owns that show or movie is still making money from licensing that and the actors and writers helped make that happen. Same with developers. Long after you leave a company that software product you helped create is still making money for its owner. Yes the structure would have to be hashed out. Ground floor developers would get more than maintainers. After some time OG creators would get less and the revisionists would get more. But at least developers could live off that money to take sabbaticals and not get burned out.

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

#497

Post by escapedmoose »

dalyons wrote: post #8
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…

What 1980s fantasy is this 3x rule? Median household incomes to home price ratios have risen to ~8x across the US as a whole , not just crazy house price areas like SF/NYC. Canada and Australia are far worse again, pushing 15x in some cities. 3x, if it ever was a rule, has been dead for a long long time.

My gut reaction was also “what kind of outdated rule is this?” until I realized that I accidentally followed the 3x rule almost to the dollar in buying my house. And I have to say, I feel extremely comfortable with the results, so I would recommend it.

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

#498

Post by ericmay »

dimitrios1 wrote: post #298
jandrewrogers wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has 50-60 cities with 1+ million people. You may be conflating administrative boundaries with cities.

You may be conflating metro areas with cities. If you are, it's not a helpful distinction in either case, and not the point I am trying to illustrate. For example, I could live in Wise County in Texas, and be technically counted towards the population of the Dallas/FW/Arlington Metro, but I would never dream of driving into Dallas from there daily for services, schooling, or work, and if I did, I would be severely di…

I don't they are conflating metro areas, I think they're describing the accumulation of population a defined area. Metro area can make "cities" seem larger than they are because that population is spread out, but city is misleading as well because it ignores the surrounding population.

Let me put it this way. If you go by city population size, Columbus where I live is larger than San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Las Vegas, or Atlanta [1]. In fact, Columbus is almost the same size as Atlanta and and Miami combined. Does that seem right to you?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

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

#499

Post by hurxnid »

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…

The FAANG companies also worked together to drive tech worker salaries down by agreeing to avoid hiring each other’s employees.

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

#500

Post by naravara »

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…

Sales pay scales are very bimodal. A handful of rock star people make incredible amounts of money, most just get by alright, and maybe a quarter drop out because they can't close enough. It can be very high pressure, and a significant factor in your own success is outside of your control (i.e. depends on your product/service actually being good).

In a more civilized world they'd have higher bases across the board and the commission/incentive structures would be less "winner-take-all" but they operate those divisions like running greyhounds around a track.

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