Live data from Hacker News

Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

news.ycombinator.com

11–20 of 349 posts

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#11
post #9
post #4

Do it on google docs, and include how much money your company has raised (0-5m, 5-15m, 15m+ is probably sufficient options) and roughly how much equity you have. In a vacuum, this number is meaningless. Comparing what someone makes at Google and what someone makes at a seed funded startup is silly.

> In a vacuum, this number is meaningless. Lucky for us, we're not in a vacuum. We're in a market.

Neither. Just inside a bubble.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#13
As always, voluntary response data are worthless.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5538059

Good luck to all of you looking for higher salaries. I hope you gain the salary you desire, and more knowledge of statistics along the way.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#14
post #2

Bad options. The choices should increase by a fixed percent over previous one, instead of a constant fixed amount. Who cares if someone gets 280k instead of 290k?

I do. Maybe one slot for something outrageous like 500k+ would be interesting, but I like that it's so granular personally.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a vacuum, this number is meaningless. Lucky for us, we're not in a vacuum. We're in a market.

Neither. Just inside a bubble.

At least there's free soda. For now...

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#16

As always, voluntary response data are worthless. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5538059 Good luck to all of you looking for higher salaries. I hope you gain the salary you desire, and more knowledge of statistics along the way.

Agreed. Consider: those who don't read HN are probably worse engineers that earn lower salaries, on average.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#17

It seems silly to ignore stock and bonuses. My base salary is only ~$150k, but with stock and bonuses I'll make over $260k this year (Google). Would this compare with a job that also gives a $150k salary but nothing else?

I was trying to avoid people voting based on "fun bucks" from startups eager to promise you the world. Maybe in future polls it could say "liquid" compensation only, instead of base? Liquid assets would mean cash, or even shares traded on the open market.

Thing is, other polls included non-base compensation, and the opposite argument gets brought up. But yeah, let's try liquid next time.

Also: this is exactly the class of anecdote I was hoping to hear today. Thanks. Maybe I should go respond to that Google recruiter that keeps emailing me..

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#18
post #7
post #2

Bad options. The choices should increase by a fixed percent over previous one, instead of a constant fixed amount. Who cares if someone gets 280k instead of 290k?

Oh crap, you're right. I like your idea much more than the lame increments I picked. Next time I'll use a logarithm or something.

No, I like these options. You can extract the logarithm from these, but you can't go the other way around.

To someone making 125k, it's more useful to know the distribution of the 25k above than to see them all in a single bucket.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#19

It seems silly to ignore stock and bonuses. My base salary is only ~$150k, but with stock and bonuses I'll make over $260k this year (Google). Would this compare with a job that also gives a $150k salary but nothing else?

Mind sharing some basic background info? Years of experience / education would help add context.

Re: Poll: Full-time software engineers in the Bay Area, what's your annual salary?

#20
post #19

It seems silly to ignore stock and bonuses. My base salary is only ~$150k, but with stock and bonuses I'll make over $260k this year (Google). Would this compare with a job that also gives a $150k salary but nothing else?

Mind sharing some basic background info? Years of experience / education would help add context.

I don't want to share too much. A few years out of undergrad.
Post reply on HN