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Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

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Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#61
post #50

Having worked in startups in SF and now Boston for the last 12 years, I first started making my current salary in 2014 and have never made more than that from one job. So in real figures, salaries have come down quite a bit due to inflation. Only real way to make money in tech is FAANG. I've owned so much worthless stock it's basically a meme.

as in, all the non FAANG startup stock you earned became worthless? its actually kind of rare to have that high of a failure rate in startups, particularly by name brand VCs. feel like at worst you get a shitty acquihire but you at least get _something_ for your stock

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats odd. I know loads of lawyers living in mansions while loads of “highly paid” developers live with housemates, or rent tiny homes. If anything, software development pay has reached construction worker pay. At least we dont have to sit out in the cold.

Highly paid as a developer means you're making $400k+ with less than 10 years under your belt. Those people don't generally live with roommates unless they're aiming for aggressive FIRE.

One should factor in taxes, vesting times and what % is actually yours of those shares. Two websites i quickly used for calculating take home pay showed 8000-9000 usd per month. I may be wrong but it would seem like that’s rather low. I know people in east europe making almost that after tax on a way lower salary / daily rate.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#63
post #61
post #50

Having worked in startups in SF and now Boston for the last 12 years, I first started making my current salary in 2014 and have never made more than that from one job. So in real figures, salaries have come down quite a bit due to inflation. Only real way to make money in tech is FAANG. I've owned so much worthless stock it's basically a meme.

as in, all the non FAANG startup stock you earned became worthless? its actually kind of rare to have that high of a failure rate in startups, particularly by name brand VCs. feel like at worst you get a shitty acquihire but you at least get _something_ for your stock

Personally I've only ever gotten close to making $$ off of stock once, but got fired 2 weeks before my first vesting period because I took 2 weeks off after my father's death.

Every other start-up I've worked for either went under, never exited or had an exit only the founders profited from. This is probably true for 99% of all start-ups.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#64

That's a hard question. I'm in Denmark, which is notoriously expensive, and I'd say that even $120K for Sr DevOps is a bit on the high end. There where a period of time with large "year on year" jumps in pay from 2010 to 2018 (something like that). That does seem to have cooled of in the past four years. I did see a brief surge in positions offered and higher wages last year, but that stopped in during spring time th…

Issue in denmark is that high pay gets heavily taxed. So 102k is what 50k at best? Factor in vat and its less.

Why would that push salaries down? Should they be even higher in that case?

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#65

Tech, like law, is a bimodal market. If you think of it as a single bell curve your intuitions will be all wrong. The good news is that unlike law it’s possible to jump into the better paying market even if you didn’t go to the “right” school.

Thats odd. I know loads of lawyers living in mansions while loads of “highly paid” developers live with housemates, or rent tiny homes. If anything, software development pay has reached construction worker pay. At least we dont have to sit out in the cold.

When I was 18 in rural America I had to do telemarketing and day labor in addition to webdev gigs to cover food and keep gas in the car I lived in. My income more than 10xed once I moved to Silicon Valley where my skills are in high demand. I do not think I know anyone technical making less than 6 figures here, with 200-600k being the norm for anyone with 10+ years of experience.

In a post-covid world you can normally move anywhere you want and keep your pay after you build a good network and reputation.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a cousin who makes $220k as a crane operator at a port. I'll never make that much in my career.

A welder in london charges 700£ plus per day. A bit difficult to reach as a software engineer.

My place has a large shipyard and as story I got told is that good welder lands there with a private jet, do their welding then fly to the next place. I am guessing good welders have a niche market as well.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#67
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like it, and it's clearly not within the spirit of the rules (I'd rather the agency/end-client just paid Qdos for their own fee-payer insurance) but if it just creates a civil liability, I'm not sure I can see why it wouldn't be enforceable. The agency would have to pay up first, but then could presumably pursue the Ltd co afterwards.

I'm not a lawyer but from my understanding the attack would be on general principles: contractual provisions can't override statute law in our system, any contract has to meet certain basic standards to be enforceable, and if a contract isn't genuinely negotiated but rather dictated by the more powerful party (aka contracts of adhesion or standard form contracts) any later decisions about interpretation are likely to…

This is not against the spirit of the law. The deemed employer is suppose to pay tax at source _on_behalf_ of deemed employee. So, if someone has been found to be in fact in scope of IR35 and now the Fee Payer has to pay the tax - this is the tax _on_behalf_ of the deemed employee. They can legally and ethically claim it back from the resource, because this is _their_ personal tax. The grey area could be the fine itself. Then you have the mess when resource's company already paid Corporation Tax, Dividend Tax and other taxes. Good luck for any accountant to do the reconciliation. This legislation is completely botched and cares only about the happy path, where everyone works in scope of IR35. That's why it had a huge chilling effect across industry, as companies don't want to take the risk and simply write contracts in a way that they will be firmly in scope or just tell the resource to abandon their company and join unregulated umbrella and become their employee.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#68
post #61
post #50

Having worked in startups in SF and now Boston for the last 12 years, I first started making my current salary in 2014 and have never made more than that from one job. So in real figures, salaries have come down quite a bit due to inflation. Only real way to make money in tech is FAANG. I've owned so much worthless stock it's basically a meme.

as in, all the non FAANG startup stock you earned became worthless? its actually kind of rare to have that high of a failure rate in startups, particularly by name brand VCs. feel like at worst you get a shitty acquihire but you at least get _something_ for your stock

The only acquihire I was remotely involved with resulted in stock worth something, but on the amounts of low thousands for the chief engineer.

Many many many startups don’t even get that much. They fold entirely or get acquihired for “hey you still have a job”.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#69

That's a hard question. I'm in Denmark, which is notoriously expensive, and I'd say that even $120K for Sr DevOps is a bit on the high end. There where a period of time with large "year on year" jumps in pay from 2010 to 2018 (something like that). That does seem to have cooled of in the past four years. I did see a brief surge in positions offered and higher wages last year, but that stopped in during spring time th…

Issue in denmark is that high pay gets heavily taxed. So 102k is what 50k at best? Factor in vat and its less.

True but you also get more “free” services for your tax payments - especially if you have kids.

Re: Ask HN: Have tech salaries been stagnant for the past decade?

#70

That's a hard question. I'm in Denmark, which is notoriously expensive, and I'd say that even $120K for Sr DevOps is a bit on the high end. There where a period of time with large "year on year" jumps in pay from 2010 to 2018 (something like that). That does seem to have cooled of in the past four years. I did see a brief surge in positions offered and higher wages last year, but that stopped in during spring time th…

Issue in denmark is that high pay gets heavily taxed. So 102k is what 50k at best? Factor in vat and its less.

So very wrong.

$102k/year = DKK 759288/year = DKK 63274/month.

Typing 63274 into https://hvormegetefterskat.dk (howmuchaftertax) says 40.2% tax rate.

The you have to factor in $0 in health costs (gratis hospital and doctor visits), no payments for kids attending university, 32 weeks of paid maternal leave, and 5 weeks of mandatory holiday each year.

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