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Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#12

I wouldn't put much weight on this.. it's a 3 sentence blog post without much backing.

"Technology sales are down 20%! ... I know 'cause I talked to my buddy who works at a computer store and he said he normally sells 5 laptops a day, but yesterday when we met for a beer he said he only sold 4."

That would be about as worthwhile of a generalization.

That said, I'd be surprised if wages weren't down across the board, with more emphasis on fresh graduates. This is hardly a surprise with lots of layoffs and a depressed economy.

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#14
post #10
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies greatly on skill/pedigree (the two often, but not always, correlate). If you are poor to average you'll start at $50K-70k/year. If you're average to good you'll start at 70k-90k, and 90k+ if you're particularly good (about 150K is the maximum I've heard of, and that's more in modeling or quantitative development than straight programming). About a 10% bonus is normal in my experience, but that obviously var…

Thanks. If I read your comment right, poor to average programmers in big cities will get $40k~/year after taxes, etc. Hmm... I guess it's not so different after all, I was thinking fresh programmers're getting $70k/year after taxes. In my experience (I'm still in univ. but got some offers from companies), we will get base salary: $2k ~ 2.5k/month after taxes etc, plus apartment(simple one) and transport fee. The year…

ahh, we don't get housing either. so you may come out ahead after all

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#16
post #7
post #5

Hi guys, I want to know how much exactly do fresh CS graduate(B.Sc) gets in US nowadays? I'm based in Japan, and we will get 2147 USD(200k yen) for base salary only no matter how good you are. It seems very cheap :( since the high living cost here. The yearly bonus is about 4~5 months of base salary, but you don't usually get it unless you are really recognized by the management team. EDIT: I must say, this is also t…

It varies greatly on skill/pedigree (the two often, but not always, correlate). If you are poor to average you'll start at $50K-70k/year. If you're average to good you'll start at 70k-90k, and 90k+ if you're particularly good (about 150K is the maximum I've heard of, and that's more in modeling or quantitative development than straight programming). About a 10% bonus is normal in my experience, but that obviously var…

Don't pull numbers out of nowhere.

http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresu...

There's no way that an "average" starting salary is 70k. Salary.com is famously inflationary and they have the median at 54K--and that's not just fresh grads. My guess would be more like 40K, with huge variations depending on where you live and whether you went to a well-known school. But then, "average" people don't go to well-known schools for the most part.

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#17
I've done some research in this area (my startup is dev recruitment related) and from what I've seen that large tech companies aren't cutting fresh graduate wages because it complicated internal politics. If you pay this years grads less than last years, then they will find out about it and it creates ill-will and bad politics within the company.

However the number of grad roles at the top-end are being cut, so previously grads who could have got a high-paying job at a top-end company now have to take a lesser paying job at a slightly worse company.

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#18
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It varies greatly on skill/pedigree (the two often, but not always, correlate). If you are poor to average you'll start at $50K-70k/year. If you're average to good you'll start at 70k-90k, and 90k+ if you're particularly good (about 150K is the maximum I've heard of, and that's more in modeling or quantitative development than straight programming). About a 10% bonus is normal in my experience, but that obviously var…

Don't pull numbers out of nowhere. http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresu... There's no way that an "average" starting salary is 70k. Salary.com is famously inflationary and they have the median at 54K--and that's not just fresh grads. My guess would be more like 40K, with huge variations depending on where you live and whether you went to a well-known school. But then, "average" people don't go…

First of all, I said my numbers apply to major cites. Your own source places the median salary in th 60K-65K range for most metros.

Second, my numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere they are based on my friends and my experience. And they seem to be independently corroborated by litewulf.

Third, note that my poor/average/good ratings weren't based on quintiles or anything like that - it was based on my personal characterization of skill/pedigree (pedigree being a combination of experience, personal projects, and school - in about that order). I incidentally think that about 90% of programmers are crap (sturgeon's law), so it's likely that the median salary is ~60K with everything I said being true.

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#19
Every year, the University of Michigan publishes a survey of salaries for its Engineering graduates:

http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/

Average annual full-time salaries for computer science graduates finishing in the 2007-2008 school year, by degree:

Bachelors - $73,761

Masters - $79,762

PhD - $103,740

All of these amounts are up from the previous year.

Caveats: the sample size is small, it's a top Research I University in Engineering, and participation is on a volunteer basis, so the participants may self-select in certain unknown ways. Also, the most recent survey is from the class that graduated in April, which was before many of the scary economic things began happening.

Re: Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent

#20
post #7
post #5

Hi guys, I want to know how much exactly do fresh CS graduate(B.Sc) gets in US nowadays? I'm based in Japan, and we will get 2147 USD(200k yen) for base salary only no matter how good you are. It seems very cheap :( since the high living cost here. The yearly bonus is about 4~5 months of base salary, but you don't usually get it unless you are really recognized by the management team. EDIT: I must say, this is also t…

It varies greatly on skill/pedigree (the two often, but not always, correlate). If you are poor to average you'll start at $50K-70k/year. If you're average to good you'll start at 70k-90k, and 90k+ if you're particularly good (about 150K is the maximum I've heard of, and that's more in modeling or quantitative development than straight programming). About a 10% bonus is normal in my experience, but that obviously var…

sounds correct

also, it seems like a large % of cs graduates are unable to get jobs in programming due to lack of experience

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