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

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121–130 of 349 posts

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

#121

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.

voluntary response data is flawed I agree, but I hesitate to call this worthless. I'd plaster warning signs all over the place alarming people to think through their reasoning and consider all the biases that would have taken place in the poll. (come to think of it, if the poll data incites that kind of skeptical thinking in some of its readers, that in itself might make the endeavor worthwhile)

If you had absolutely no idea for what kind of salaries people got around here, then this data would be useful. Is it $25k or $250k? This can answer that question.

But what people are really interested in is "is $125k high or low" and this data is useless for answering that question. It is worse than useless because it may lead you to believe something that isn't true and think you have a valid reason for believing it. It's worse to know something that isn't true than to correctly know what you don't know.

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

#122
post #75
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I recommended including how much money the company has raised. Companies with lots of money also have a lot of employees, hence skewing 'market rate' up to something significantly higher than you'll get from any < 10m raised company. It's like (obviously not as extreme, but I'm using hyperbole) comparing salaries for similar roles at non-profits vs. investment banks just because they're both in the same ci…

> It's like comparing salaries for similar roles ... just because they're both in the same city. Yes, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Apples and oranges are in the same aisle in the grocery store. Good enough reason for you, I suppose?

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

#123
post #10
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.

But since most startups fail, won't the equity be worth little to nothing in the median case? Kind of like playing the lottery.

Doesn't stock affect the money you get from investments? Be it seed or later series.

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

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My base salary is $220k; this year my bonus plus equity will be around $200k, so my total compensation will be over $400k. I've been out for a number of years, and the bonus plus stock is performance based, and of course the value of the stock compensation may change depending on the future direction of Google stock --- it's climbed very nicely since the beginning of the year! The main point is that ignoring the stoc…

Interesting. Would you mind revealing your level?

[deleted]

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

#125
post #103

For everyone in the Bay Area and the rest of California, the minimum legal salary (with exceptions) for software developers is ~$81k. It is likely if you are being paid less for full time software development that you are not being paid enough. I'm not a lawyer, but googlefu: http://www.morganlewis.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/publication....

That's not quite what it means. That's the minimum salary to be an "exempt" software developer, which means that if you are paid less than that you have to get paid overtime.

So it seems - http://www.dol.gov/elaws/faq/esa/flsa/011.htm - that if you're a software developer in California earning under $81k and you work more than 40 hours per week, those extra hours should be paid at a minimum of 150% your normal rate, if I'm to understand correctly. Or is it possible for an employment contract to specify a higher number of hours as the "standard" work week?

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

#126
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37 / 511 (7.25%) are worth greater than $40MM, and that doesn't take into account that many are too young to be decided yet [1]. Not sure if that confirms or refutes your comment (were you being cheeky?), but at least it's a source rather than a statistic without evidence. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/26/paul-graham-37-y-combinator...

0.05% of $40MM is $20k, which is not "Lifechanging".

If they can't afford to pay a market salary, you should be getting at least 0.5% (and probably more like 1%). Still not life changing at 40mm with no dilution (200-400k), but a little more meaningful.

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

#127
post #109

For everyone in the Bay Area and the rest of California, the minimum legal salary (with exceptions) for software developers is ~$81k. It is likely if you are being paid less for full time software development that you are not being paid enough. I'm not a lawyer, but googlefu: http://www.morganlewis.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/publication....

Wow. Just when you think America is just like countries you know, something like this comes along.

It's more California, they have some pretty interesting laws on their books.

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

#128
post #30

depressing, midwest software engineer here, 6 years experience 60k.

Have you applied for remote positions? I work remotely for a startup in SF and we're hiring :)

Given you know his current salary, would you offer 2-3x bump?

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

#129
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

37 / 511 (7.25%) are worth greater than $40MM, and that doesn't take into account that many are too young to be decided yet [1]. Not sure if that confirms or refutes your comment (were you being cheeky?), but at least it's a source rather than a statistic without evidence. [1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/26/paul-graham-37-y-combinator...

0.05% of $40MM is $20k, which is not "Lifechanging".

hardly even new car money.

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

#130

So seeing as this polls the whole SF Bay software engineering community of HN, young and old, and the distribution is centered around 120k-129k, can we finally put to rest the ever-perpetuated claim that the average CS grad can expect $150k+ in the Bay?

This is just the base pay though. Total pay could indeed exceed 150k
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