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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?

#261

Post by goodpoint »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #183
IaacForHire wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This sounds great if you're the type to have a family. Otherwise, seems like you kind of get screwed?

Only if you consider the pure $ value. US colleagues that have come to Australia, have gotten sick and um-ed and ah-ed about visiting the doctor because they are so used to the high costs. If I even notice something weird that freaks me out I go to the doctor. Mental health care, physiotherapy, certain tests and imaging. You get a yearly allocation to use up. GP visits are all "free". I never have to worry about it a…

THIS. It's incredible how much stress some people are willing to endure by not having good free healthcare.

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

#262

Post by dannyw »

Test0129 wrote: post #238
ausbah wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions are popular in fields like construction, medicine, teaching, etc because of: 1. The field otherwise would be chronically underpaid what world are you living in where these are considered fairly compensated?

You have a very funny definition of "fairly compensated" because both construction and medicine are 6 figure fields after 10 years in most occupations. I have a friend who is a journeyman pipefitter making 60k for all of 2 years of experience. That is comically overpaid for YoE in a field that requires all of 1 year of on the job training you don't even pay for.

60k a year for skilled labour is comically overpaid now? What?

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

#263

Post by goodpoint »

Melchori wrote: post #102
yrgulation wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left denmark many moons ago for the same reason. Tipping point was when i wanted to buy a car. When i was the amount in tax i basically packed and left. Somehow people think that denmark is expensive because somehow products are better quality, but they arent really. It’s just high taxes. At hospitals you have to wait in long queues for anything serious and universities are meh. Paid for my public uk degree a very…

So as soon as you were paying back into your country you decided enough is enough and moved to a country with much higher social inequality? Okay good for you but a weird brag. One of my main reason not to go to USA is exactly that. I don't want to earn lots of money while my country people have to go to a Sporthall to get their teeth fixed once a year because you need to be special to go to a dentist.

> enough is enough and moved to a country with much higher social inequality?

"screw you I got mine"

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

#264

Post by sologoub »

Victerius wrote: post #165
giantg2 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, were seeing the largest increases in pay over the past two years (and i think in real pay too), and they're forecasting that will continue this year as well. This is much more prominent in the lower paying jobs than in professional ones.

A little mentioned dynamic is that tech salaries can't be too much out-of-sync with non-tech salaries, because overpriced housing bought up by SWEs making 300K+ eventually leads to non-SWEs demanding wage increases to keep up with rent payments and/or remain able to save for a downpayment on newly priced homes. In turn, the lower disposable income from workers being squeezed by housing costs is lowering growth and te…

Sounds like you are focusing on exceptions like SF Bay Area and to a lesser extent Seattle. There aren’t that many SWEs in the world and there are always professions that make exceptionally high income vs rest. The problem you are describing is most acute in the peninsula because of concentration, lack of new development, unwillingness to densify to meet demands, lack of rapid interconnected public transit and some geographic restrictions (once you leave the peninsula, commute becomes very bad because you either have to cross a bridge or go all the way around the bay).

The WFH/remote is actually good for this problem as it reduced concentration and enables wealth to be a bit more spread out where it’s less impactful to the local communities. Of course, in resort areas we got concentration again (because of shallow supply) and many of the ills came back. Hopefully things stabilize a bit more on that front and a semblance of affordability is achieved.

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

#265

Post by 411111111111111 »

gbajson wrote: post #252

Not in Poland. They grew ~3-4 times during last 10 years. COVID-19 definitely helped here!

Thats quite surprising to me as a german neighbour. the salary gap in europe is usually small...

It would move from basically minimum wage up to the top 10% of earners if the wage multiplied by 3-4 within the last 10 yrs. (from 20k to 60-80k)

And 20k would be a _really_ low payment for a developer working fulltime, even in 2012.

What were the numbers you had in mind if I may ask?

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

#266

Post by dsr_ »

bottled_poe wrote: post #135
pid-1 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tech salaries are going to be on a decline for a while with the Fed rate hike Isn't that true for the whole economy?

No. Another hard truth is that some jobs are more essential than others.

Sanitation. Childcare. Primary education. Fire departments. Groceries.

If your city doesn't have those, it stops being a livable place pretty quickly.

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

#267

Post by jsharf »

Victerius wrote: post #165
giantg2 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, were seeing the largest increases in pay over the past two years (and i think in real pay too), and they're forecasting that will continue this year as well. This is much more prominent in the lower paying jobs than in professional ones.

A little mentioned dynamic is that tech salaries can't be too much out-of-sync with non-tech salaries, because overpriced housing bought up by SWEs making 300K+ eventually leads to non-SWEs demanding wage increases to keep up with rent payments and/or remain able to save for a downpayment on newly priced homes. In turn, the lower disposable income from workers being squeezed by housing costs is lowering growth and te…

It seems like this only affects areas where tech workers make up a lot of the population, like the bay area.

Also, it assumes that non-tech workers won't just move to cheaper areas.

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

#268

Post by faangiq »

No. FAANG and their wannabe competitors started paying more over the past 15 years. But all other tech jobs have been stagnant that’s correct. It’s because companies view engineers as code monkeys. And they’re right for the most part because that’s how our profession behaves. Unfortunately you take a group of smart (sort of) people with below average social skills, and they WILL get exploited to the max.

Even FAANG underpays by a factor of 2-3x.

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

#269

Post by ausbah »

Test0129 wrote: post #238
ausbah wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Unions are popular in fields like construction, medicine, teaching, etc because of: 1. The field otherwise would be chronically underpaid what world are you living in where these are considered fairly compensated?

You have a very funny definition of "fairly compensated" because both construction and medicine are 6 figure fields after 10 years in most occupations. I have a friend who is a journeyman pipefitter making 60k for all of 2 years of experience. That is comically overpaid for YoE in a field that requires all of 1 year of on the job training you don't even pay for.

teaching is pretty chronically underpaid. there's more to medicine than just doctors, nurse don't come out that great after adjusting for hours worked iirc. not sure how 60k is comically overpaid in any sane sense, coming from this field of all places where 6 figs out of college is pretty common

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

#270

Post by MisterSandman »

kevstev wrote: post #248

I have more than quadrupled my comp over the last 10 years, and I have not worked at a F*NG. I have not really climbed the ladder much either, I went from a senior to tech lead and manager back to a tech lead/IC. My comp is almost entirely cash as well, though I am fortunate in that regard. This is in the US in the NYC area.

The thing you're forgetting to mention is that you're probably a very good and talented SWE. The average SWE is not. :P
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