131–140 of 349 posts
depressing, midwest software engineer here, 6 years experience 60k.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 i…
Clearly, at least the maker of the poll seems to assume that I can expect to earn at least $80k-ish. I earn a bit over half that now. This is a very big difference.
Additionally, given that most people in this poll earn well over $100k, and I'm a pretty experienced programmer, this poll teaches me that asking for, say $120k, at an SV company, isn't an odd request. People won't frown or laugh at me. They might not want to pay me that, and just as well I might be undercharging, but it's not out of the question.
Can I draw these conclusions? If not, why not?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Related: 90% of people think they are smarter than average. Inference: 90% of engineers probably think they are smarter than average engineers
Not necessary. Engineers are usually smarter to not to think that way.
I do not think you can segment Engineers different from the society & Humans in General ... There are Arrogant people everywhere, those who think they are in some way better than others. Not just that, they think everyone else is stupid :)
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.
Reading HN is not the be-all-end-all of technical knowledge. In fact, at a certain point it most definitely becomes negatively correlated with productivity (and subsequently value/salary).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Lifechanging" only if you win the startup lottery. 95% of YC startups fail.
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...
To evaluate what you are worth this is a great calculator: http://www.jobsearchintelligence.com/NACE/salary-calculator-...
Uses government stats and asks you for all your information and then gives you averages and percentiles based on that. A much more accurate way of comparing or delving into your own worth to the industry.
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.
From what I've heard in other places, Google only gives about 150k to their developers, so how does one make it to the 300k level?
With some golden handcuffs (say around 100 RSUs vesting each year), and the annual bonus of ~15%, many will top 200k.