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Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

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Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#81

Post by untog »

alkonaut wrote: post #65
untog wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that the US is severely out of whack in terms of work/life balance. It's one of the things I find most difficult about living here - when I first arrived I had 10 days vacation a year. I currently only have 15. And don't forget to factor in healthcare costs and the like. Money certainly isn't everything.

Yeah, that IS crazy. How come companies don't offer holdays as comp? Here (Sweden) having an extra week holiday (6 rather than 5 weeks) is a common comp. Why aren't companies competing with that in the US? If I was offered $150k with 10-15 days holiday and 50hr work weeks (expected), I'd immediately start bargaining for 25-30 paid days off, and make sure I wouldn't be expected to work more than 40h/w. Is that uncommo…

I suspect that, particularly in the startup arena, time is more valuable than money. VCs are throwing cash at you, but they want you to launch yesterday.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#82

Post by chiph »

cylinder wrote: post #72
simonsarris wrote: post #15

Why are tech salaries so low? Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the fruit of their labors.

That's what I was thinking. $120,000/yr in SF or really anywhere in California is firmly middle class if you're trying to raise a family.

Related story:

The American Middle Class Hasn’t Gotten A Raise In 15 Years:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-american-middle-clas...

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#83

Post by yid »

blue11 wrote: post #46
simonsarris wrote: post #15

Why are tech salaries so low? Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the fruit of their labors.

The salaries aren't low. The data capture mostly the lower end of the distribution. Keep in mind that the data are from H1-B visa applications, so these are relatively low level positions. There are lots of recent graduates (foreign students who studied in US universities) starting in their first full time jobs. There are also more experienced engineers hired directly from abroad, but they are somewhat of an unknown…

> Also, stock is not included in the data.

This is the big one. None of those numbers include equity, which can often be 40% or more of total compensation for engineers.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#84

Post by GreenGiant »

blue11 wrote: post #46
simonsarris wrote: post #15

Why are tech salaries so low? Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the fruit of their labors.

The salaries aren't low. The data capture mostly the lower end of the distribution. Keep in mind that the data are from H1-B visa applications, so these are relatively low level positions. There are lots of recent graduates (foreign students who studied in US universities) starting in their first full time jobs. There are also more experienced engineers hired directly from abroad, but they are somewhat of an unknown…

>"The salaries aren't low. The data capture mostly the lower end of the distribution. Keep in mind that the data are from H1-B visa applications, so these are relatively low level positions. There are lots of recent graduates (foreign students who studied in US universities) starting in their first full time jobs."

Well the table with Senior Software Engineers certainly aren't recent grads (at least not in the places I have worked).

I disagree, the salaries ARE low. Why do you think US companies want more migrant tech workers? They pay them less, they are stuck with the company, and they work harder for various reasons (less social life, distractions, have something to prove, failure would mean disgrace back home, work ethic, ETC).

The farce that businesses want to import workers because there is a shortage of local ones has been marketed and propagated by corporations for their own financial gain.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#85

Post by HarryHirsch »

djb_hackernews wrote: post #67
nostrademons wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Value capture is related to competition, not productivity. You capture value when there are few other alternatives in your space, and so your counterparties have to pay your price or go without. If engineers aren't capturing much value, it's because they're fungible, and there are many other people on the market who can do the same thing. Engineers that do have very specialized skills - say, compiler design experts o…

If engineers are fungible, and there are many other people on the market who can do the same thing, then why have a guest worker program like H1B?

To keep down wages, why else? If you have the choice between an American, who can leave for a better-paid opportunity whenever he likes, and a foreigner, who is chained to his job because of the green card process, who would you hire?

There is the additional twist that an immigrant foreigner who got their degree abroad won't nearly be as encumbered by student loans as someone with a domestic degree and won't negotiate quite as hard for a higher salary.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#87

Post by nostrademons »

michaelochurch wrote: post #12

We're not in a salary bubble. If anything, it's the opposite. I've analyzed the hell out of this "salary bubble" issue (or non-issue, because there is no such thing) at length. http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/whats-a-mid-c... http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/software-engi...

Your first article is based on faulty economics. When productivity increases are shared across an industry, nobody in the industry benefits. Instead, the benefits accrue to the customers and complements of the industry. There's a long historical precedent for that - productivity improvements in textile manufacturing destroyed the textile industry, productivity improvements in farming destroyed the small farmer, productivity improvements in fishing destroyed the individual fisherman.

Applied to software, the reason engineers aren't capturing most of that value is because all engineers are getting more productive. The benefit is accruing instead to those who employ engineers and those who use & purchase software. The exceptions are those fields where there are still significant barriers to entry and effective techniques are not widespread - isn't this why you want to become a data scientist?

I might buy that we're not in a salary bubble, but not for the reasons you propose. Rather, I'd say that the existence of a thriving market for startup founders is a market inefficiency. When engineers top out at $200K at a corporate job (and they don't always...I know some engineers with multi-million-$ stock grants) but can quit their job and instantly get millions in seed funding, that indicates that salaries should rise and seed funding availability should fall to bring those options back to equilibrium.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#88

Post by alkonaut »

untog wrote: post #81
alkonaut wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that IS crazy. How come companies don't offer holdays as comp? Here (Sweden) having an extra week holiday (6 rather than 5 weeks) is a common comp. Why aren't companies competing with that in the US? If I was offered $150k with 10-15 days holiday and 50hr work weeks (expected), I'd immediately start bargaining for 25-30 paid days off, and make sure I wouldn't be expected to work more than 40h/w. Is that uncommo…

I suspect that, particularly in the startup arena, time is more valuable than money. VCs are throwing cash at you, but they want you to launch yesterday.

Sure, and I realize good developers are hard to find, but unless you are looking for the 23year old "ninja" type developers who like doing all nighters, would you not need to care about work/life balance of employees too?

Startups that need to launch yesterday I realize often have young employees without family, but these are large corps like Oracle/Yahoo/Google, these have to employ quite a lot of engineers in their 30s, 40s and 50s? Like I said, I'd be willing to accept a substantially lower pay for a good holiday (5-6 weeks), and a good work/life balance otherwise, like good processes that ensure there's no regular "crunch time".

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#89

Post by kuni-toko-tachi »

Salary work is a dead end path. The only way to capture your economic value is to put it on the market as a business. I've taken too long to learn this. At a certain point you say to yourself that making the same thing week after week is foolish and you throw yourself into the fire to make it on your own.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#90

Post by thejdude »

pessimizer wrote: post #74
thejdude wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but healthcare is a few 100 bucks a month, which we pay too, only for us it's mandatory by government. Vacation sounds like a real problem, but it seems like you could circumvent that by going freelance and just taking off x days a year between projects.

Germany and the US do not pay the same amount for health care (regardless of who is responsible for actually sending the check.) http://www.statista.com/statistics/215502/per-capita-health-...

Not on average, but it's ~15% of your salary in Germany, so a high-income person pays a lot (it's capped at a certain level though).
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