Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up) • Hacker News Board

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#191

Post by Joakal » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:33 PM UTC

dev_jim wrote: post #175

I'm not sure why people find this so unbelievable. The revenue per employee at GOOG is $1.2M in a very high margin business. That means some of their best developers, the guys whose products generate all the revenue, take home only 20% of the pie. In finance, this would be laughable. Corporate America baffles me sometimes.

Which areas of finance? From what I understand from some finance people is that they don't take away as much either.

There's also an oversupply of labour in the city though.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#192

Post by jacquesm » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:43 PM UTC

iradik wrote: post #174

jacquesm wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the guy I just met" can be someone you never knew before or someone that you've just had a meeting with. I thought from the context that it was clear I meant the second version.

This is just my opinion/rant. I just met this guy. Idk just doesn't conjure up the idea of someone you once knew. It's just loose language, that's why I was confused. Also you said you recently met him, then you say you just met him. Which is it? "The guy I just met who was once my ex-employee." This sentence just feels confusing. I can't tell you why but it does. A simple "He" would be much clearer.

The verb conjugation is 'meet, met, met'. I can't help it, that's just the way it is.

http://www.verb2verbe.com/conjugation/english-verb/meet.aspx

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#193

Post by rayiner » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:48 PM UTC

This is a good sign. Market salary for a 30 y/o corporate lawyer in NYC was north of $250k this year, and for a 30 y/o banker it was probably 1.5x-2x that. Yet Google makes more revenue per employee than any law firm or investment bank.

Professional salaries are a function of both objective factors (supply and demand), and subjective factors. Engineers have long had a disadvantage on the subjective side because it is difficult to quantize their contribution to the revenue of the company. Hopefully signs like this mean the perceptions are changing.

Like it or not, the Valley needs to pay more to attract top people. If you're a science/engineering major at a top school at the top of your class, how much would you be willing to give up to go into engineering? Prior to these recent salary spikes, you were looking at making $30k less to start versus finance, growing to $300k-$400k less by 30. It takes a lot of love and dedication to turn that down for what is at the end of the day just a another job.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#194

Post by rayiner » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:52 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #127

wanorris wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, setting up software firms where the best developers can "make partner" would be quite an interesting approach. I'm not sure it would work, but if it did, it could be a perfect solution for keeping a great team together for the long haul.

The amount of politics and backbiting and sabotage that gets mixed in with partner-track programs is horrifying. Find an incentive scheme that empowers first-year hires to do amazing things for your company.

As someone who left software engineering for law, I have to say that partnership is a great motivator.

I don't want an incentive scheme to help make you money. Pay me 20-25% of the revenue I generate for the company and give me a non-zero chance to be a stakeholder and I'll work my ass of for you.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#195

Post by wtfcisco » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:52 PM UTC

Maybe I can shed light on why some of us are "shocked" about this number, while others seem to think it's no big deal.

I work for Cisco, which is certainly not considered a Google or Amazon, these days, but still a fairly respectable place. I'm a software engineering doing embedded work for the last three years out of my BS in CS. I got hired on at $73k with 300 options (now underwater).

I have had consistently good reviews, though only given one promotion and one raise - with a whopping $79.5k in salary afterwards. A bonus is typically 6%, though this year I've got the highest rating possible, so I had a 12% bonus. I've been given RSUs once, at a value of about $10k, though the stock price dropped and they are sitting at around $5000 now.

So, my yearly compensation is about $90k or so, though they've jacked up our medical costs, taken away free drinks, raise prices in our cafeteria, taken away the home broadband reimbursment, etc etc since I've been here.

So, Anyone need an embedded engineer with a network security focus?

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#196

Post by wyclif » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:54 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #47

HN has a curious relationship to money some of the time. a) Many of us watched our classmates go into management consulting, investment banking, finance, medicine, law, etc. These are all fields where $250k is not exactly outlandish for a 29 year old. b) We have a lot of friendly, accessible fellow posters who write computer code and are financially very successful. c) We talk about $X million valuations and $YY mill…

Yes. Yet, when I posted The Pardo Axiom in a recent HN thread related to talent acquisition and hiring, I received an irrational, angry response. I don't get it. If there is a huge demand for engineering talent, then it seems obvious to me that companies haven't even approached the top end of what they can offer.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3180674

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#197

Post by rayiner » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:55 PM UTC

tomkarlo wrote: post #95

mvc wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably, equity in these companies would be like being a "partner" in a law/accountancy firm.

I hope not. If you talk to folks in law, in particular, the partnership system is broken. It basically results in a situation where it's in the interest of the existing "partners" to have as many "non-partner" employees as possible, dangle the carrot of partnership in front of them so they work really hard, but in reality only promote 1% or so to partner. That maximizes the return to existing equity holders but it me…

Yet the partner/director carrot in law/banking/consulting convinces tons of Harvard, Yale, etc, grads each year to work 80 hour weeks for their 20s for a shot at equity (which realistically is more like 5-10% at big NYC type places and upwards of 30% in secondary markets).

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#198

Post by wyclif » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 10:59 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #50

patio11 wrote: post #47

HN has a curious relationship to money some of the time. a) Many of us watched our classmates go into management consulting, investment banking, finance, medicine, law, etc. These are all fields where $250k is not exactly outlandish for a 29 year old. b) We have a lot of friendly, accessible fellow posters who write computer code and are financially very successful. c) We talk about $X million valuations and $YY mill…

Spot on. (d) in particular is worth stressing. There is no difficulty in attracting and retaining talent. There is simply an unwillingness to pay them what they're worth and give them an environment in which they'd want to work. Supply and demand. It's pretty simple. Yet so many (typically business types) want to treat engineers as an interchangeable cost center. "5 years ago an engineer cost $100k so I refuse to pay…

You're talking about The Pardo Axiom:

"There's no shortage of smart, hardworking engineers. There's a shortage of smart, hardworking engineers willing to work for very little money." ~ David "Pardo" Keppel

If you're having trouble hiring, it's probably because you're not paying enough. It turns out that talented people are worth paying a lot for.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#199

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 11:08 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #192

iradik wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just my opinion/rant. I just met this guy. Idk just doesn't conjure up the idea of someone you once knew. It's just loose language, that's why I was confused. Also you said you recently met him, then you say you just met him. Which is it? "The guy I just met who was once my ex-employee." This sentence just feels confusing. I can't tell you why but it does. A simple "He" would be much clearer.

The verb conjugation is 'meet, met, met'. I can't help it, that's just the way it is. http://www.verb2verbe.com/conjugation/english-verb/meet.aspx

[deleted]

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#200

Post by zem » Sun, Nov 06, 2011, 11:21 PM UTC

stuntprogrammer wrote: post #170

zem wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think what's happening here is that no one really envies hedge fund programmers. sure, they make a lot of money, but the job itself is perceived as unpleasant, unfulfilling, boring, stressful, or some combination of those. google, on the other hand, is a standard[1] software job - the type that most people in the hacker news demographic are probably doing, so it is seen as directly comparable. [1] i don't mean that…

A /lot/ depends on the fund. I know some that are extremely tech focused as it makes the difference between profitable and not.

true, but their product is not software, nor do the dev team develop anything outward-facing. i'm not saying that some of the funds aren't great places for a techie to work (anecdotally, if jane street capital had an office in san francisco i'd have been tempted to apply there), it's just that there is no perception of them as enjoyable places for a dev to work. pushing money around simply doesn't excite me, and i daresay a lot of other devs (especially those who work in product companies) would feel the same way.