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How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

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Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#401

Post by bcbrown »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #307
textminer wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too. Forty minute drive from Oakland to Menlo Park.

I would be troubled by the thought of spending 80 minutes each day trapped in a steel cage. That's 400 minutes per week, or about 300 hours per year just sitting in traffic. Even if SV were the best place to be an engineer, it's hard to imagine it being worth sacrificing 300 hours per year. A 10 minute commute is 25% of that, which is 75 hours per year, which is still a lot. But for me, there is a huge psychological…

I've done a not-quite-so-bad commute, Seattle to Redmond, only 20-40 minutes on the way to work, 50-70 minutes on the way home. I found it soul-crushing. Most of the wait on the way home was in the line to get on the freeway. I became a worse person, unwilling to let other cars merge in, always assuming the worst of other drivers.

Currently I have a 20 minute pleasant bus commute to work, and I wouldn't go back to that commute. For me, it wasn't worth it.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#402

Post by kyleblarson »

argonaut wrote: post #222
nerfhammer wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are a student, I would still recommend moving to SV. My advice would be to make sure you could find a place to live there first

Are you from SV? There are plenty of affordable places to live in SV. Just because everyone is talking about how SF is sooo expensive, does not mean you can't live in Berkeley/Oakland/East Palo Alto/other areas.

Yeah, they are practically laying out the red carpet for tech transplants. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/23/google-engineer-...

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#403

Post by blacksmythe »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #167
pg wrote: post #148

It seems like we should be able to measure whatever effect there was. There must be sources of data about salaries in the Bay Area. Has anyone tried looking to see if there is a depression in tech workers' salaries, relative to people in other fields, during the time this agreement was in force?

Look at a typical software developer salary in SF vs a typical software developer salary in Chicago, adjust for cost of living, the difference between SF salary and adjusted Chicago salary is the depression For example, demand in SF is much higher than Chicago so SF salary should be >> Chicago * cost of living adjustment. My guess is it's lower

Not such a simple calculation, as paying higher salaries drives up the cost of living.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#404

Post by protomyth »

pg wrote: post #148

It seems like we should be able to measure whatever effect there was. There must be sources of data about salaries in the Bay Area. Has anyone tried looking to see if there is a depression in tech workers' salaries, relative to people in other fields, during the time this agreement was in force?

The statistics are there for the time period[1], but I am a little uncertain what would be a valid comparison career. I would bet the wages grew above the local aggregate. Perhaps looks at the line on the last boom?

1) http://www.bls.gov/data/ http://www.bls.gov/bls/blswage.htm

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#405

Post by mrbrowning »

pg wrote: post #223
cs702 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt we will ever be able to "measure" the effect. We can only guess and debate it with hypothetical scenarios -- "what if all these CEOs had had to compete for talented employees, instead of fixing the market for them?" Regardless of the effect, it is a shame to see that these leading CEOs, who for years have vociferously complained about media & telecom oligopolies for preventing competition, were for years simu…

This comment thread is like a micro version of the origins of the hard sciences.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but empirical data on human behavior is notoriously more difficult to both collect and control for than data on more basic processes. I think it's glib to suggest that the effect here should be easily measurable. I also don't think the actual effect is relevant in the first case: no reasonable ethical accounting would gauge the immorality of the act in proportion to its final impact on wages.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#406

Post by mooreds »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #200
cs702 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt we will ever be able to "measure" the effect. We can only guess and debate it with hypothetical scenarios -- "what if all these CEOs had had to compete for talented employees, instead of fixing the market for them?" Regardless of the effect, it is a shame to see that these leading CEOs, who for years have vociferously complained about media & telecom oligopolies for preventing competition, were for years simu…

Apparently, they're all for free markets, except when it affects their bottom line! Seems to be a trend in every discipline, why should Big Tech be any different? See: Big TELCO, Big Banking, Big Oil, Big Ag etc...

Err, I think it is more a human trend, than a "big" trend. Most everyone I know loves the benefits of competition, except when they are competing, then they aren't as big a fan.

(Yes, yes, there are the people who love competition even when they are competing, but I find that they are fairly uncommon.)

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#407

Post by debt »

ryanSrich wrote: post #371
robyates wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there many good positions for new college grads. I don't think there is any better location than SV when starting a software engineering career. While housing prices are quite high, working in technology you are certainly able to afford the higher rents. The problem is when you don't work in tech and live here.

I'd have to respectfully disagree. While I've never worked in the valley I have researched and interviewed with 10+ companies there. My findings were that startups there are extremely busy. They are slow to respond to emails, meetings and interviews are often missed/rescheduled, and salaries are relatively low ( Compare that to Austin, Seattle, DC, Chicago, and Portland, who all have thriving startup communities that…

I want to agree, but the scene here is really incomparable to anywhere else. There's simply too much damn VC money floating around which attracts top business people. Chicago does not have billions of dollars of VC floating around. Austin might. DC does not.

Also, the wages here in SV can not be matched anywhere else. It's economically impossible to pay someone a SV wage anywhere else. Economically impossible because if you're a business that has intentionally based your company in say DC then why would you continue to pay your engineers SV-sized wages. You'd be amongst the wealthiest people in DC if you were paid what a typical engineer is offered here.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#408

Post by jeremyt »

jeremyt wrote: post #384
dperny wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a student in the Deep South, and getting out to the Bay Area is a dream of mine. Here's to hoping the price comes down in the next couple of years.

Don't listen all the whining. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008 to work on a startup, I rented a small bedroom in a house with an immigrant couple for $450 per month. If you want to make it work, you'll make it work.

Also, I'm from the south, so feel free to contact me if you need any advice. I've been there; done that.

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#409

Post by n6mac41717 »

aspensmonster wrote: post #14

Jobs' comments: >OK, I’ll tell our recruiters they are free to approach any Adobe employee who is not a Sr. Director or VP. Am I understanding your position correctly? >if you [Brin] hire a single one of these people that means war. Chizen's comment: >if I tell Steve [Jobs] it’s open season (other than senior managers), he will deliberately poach Adobe just to prove a point. Knowing Steve, he will go after some of ou…

I think you can assume that this kind of thing goes on outside of SV, so it shouldn't color your relocation-to-SV utility curve...

Re: How Silicon Valley CEOs conspired to drive down tech engineer wages

#410

Post by [deleted] »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #126
kareemm wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. A competent freelance developer in the valley will make $150-200/h. A competent lawyer (not a partner) in the valley will make $350+/h.

I know lawyers who charge $1000+/hour. Name me one programmer who can do the same. Outsourcing has killed our industry in terms of monetary compensation

[deleted]
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