Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 349 posts

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

#161

Post by olavgg »

tharshan09 wrote: post #148

Holy crap. I am student in the UK, recently did a internship at a fairly well known company. Got paid £16k for that year. If I were to get a full time job, it would be around ~30k a year. These figures are insane, people have told me in person this is what the figures are really like in SF but wow. I think applying for a couple of jobs in SF etc just for kicks will be one of goals when I finish uni. I know the term W…

They're really getting paid well in SF. Their living costs are maybe the highest in the US, but not in the world.

I live in Stavanger ,Norway and have a salary around 75-80K USD, 40% of it goes to paying taxes. This is slightly above the average salary here for a software developer.

My biggest living costs here is my apartment, and my car. My car (Rusty Mercedes C Class) from 1997 costs me around $8000 per year in gas, toll road, insurance, reparations/service. My small apartment, about 600 sqft in size costs today around 350 000 USD, I bought it two years ago for about 290 000 USD. Standard is good, but you have no chance finding anything around this size for less than 300 000 USD, if you're not willing to move hours with car away from Stavanger. Food and beer is also a lot more expensive.

I may have free health care/insurance and 5 weeks with holiday, and cheap air tickets to London :) But that's about it. Every time I visit the US, I go shopping like a woman who just got her credit card. Clothes, shoes, sports wear & equipment costs only a third of what it costs in Norway.

But I'm not complaining, because I'm doing fine here, though I would love to have sunnier and warmer weather. For me it sounds like the extremely high salaries in SF is becoming a bubble. Much like the oil industry here.

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

#164

Post by lostlogin »

mistermumble wrote: post #144
skrebbel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Now, I don't actually understand statistics at all, so please correct me if I'm missing something, but as a European I find this poll pretty telling, and a good indication of what to expect if I'd consider moving to the Valley. 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 t…

I think you can draw those conclusions: if you move here you can expect to double your current salary. Not covered by the poll is the fact that your living expenses will likely more than double, especially if you have to use a car to get to your job. Your vacation time will be cut in half. Health care expenses may rise. Bottom line is be prepared for some decline in your current standard of living. At the same time,…

Health care costs may rise? Where is more expensive than the US? I'm not being facetious as you may have something in mind - what situation do you imagine where it would get cheaper by moving to the US?

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

#165

Post by g0lden »

joshAg wrote: post #152
skrebbel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you explain that? Why would companies pay less to people on visas?

because h1b visas require you to stay employed (you have like 30 days before they deport you) and they require you to keep the same job title throughout the whole greencard process or your waiting period starts over.

So if you were to get a promotion at your current job, the entire process would essentially start over? Why is that?

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

#166

Post by vacri »

tokenadult wrote: post #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.

Not to mention that it only takes a few spoilers to completely throw the numbers off.

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

#167

Post by ivix »

mistermumble wrote: post #144
skrebbel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Now, I don't actually understand statistics at all, so please correct me if I'm missing something, but as a European I find this poll pretty telling, and a good indication of what to expect if I'd consider moving to the Valley. 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 t…

I think you can draw those conclusions: if you move here you can expect to double your current salary. Not covered by the poll is the fact that your living expenses will likely more than double, especially if you have to use a car to get to your job. Your vacation time will be cut in half. Health care expenses may rise. Bottom line is be prepared for some decline in your current standard of living. At the same time,…

Why will living costs double? Cars and fuel are just as cheap and sv housing costs are pretty close to London averages for example.

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

#168

Post by venomsnake »

Willyfrog wrote: post #150
yen223 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah, be thankful you're in America. Third-world programmers get half that if they're good.

I'm a junior developer in Spain and it's 26k€, and I probably can't complain given the situation here.

Yeah same in Bulgaria. The salaries are low ...

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

#169

Post by scorpion032 »

curiousDog wrote: post #130
sliverstorm wrote: post #104

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

The net pay will be lesser considering the taxes.

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

#170

Post by slevin8 »

rcush wrote: post #149
tharshan09 wrote: post #148

Holy crap. I am student in the UK, recently did a internship at a fairly well known company. Got paid £16k for that year. If I were to get a full time job, it would be around ~30k a year. These figures are insane, people have told me in person this is what the figures are really like in SF but wow. I think applying for a couple of jobs in SF etc just for kicks will be one of goals when I finish uni. I know the term W…

Graduate software engineer jobs in the UK hit £30,000 at the very top end. From the experience of friends in the industry, £24,000-26,000 seems more realistic.

I work as junior software engineer in central London and my salary is £26.000 before taxes. I think I am underpaid but there are a lot of benefits (gym, breakfast, friday lunch, office in Soho), so I can't complain.
Post reply on HN