Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle • Hacker News Board

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#101

Post by _throwawayyyyy1 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #91

_throwawayyyyy1 wrote: post #56

I'm in Boston & went through an intensive FT job search here about 18 months ago. I'm a mobile developer with 20+ years total experience in desktop, backend, web+mobile, product management, started my own company, etc. Worked with lots of recruiters, personal network etc., felt like I really got a sense of what the salary landscape is here. Some facts: - I was leaving a job at a hot unicorn startup that paid $125K ba…

Purely based on my 'gut' (though I've been around): 1) SF/NY/Seattle salaries are skewed by really rich companies 2) Yes, there a big uptick as it's more competitive, FYI cost of living is much more. 3) The salary I think has a selection/sample problem that probably over estimates. My bet is $150K for an experienced dev at a normal company in Boston is probably somewhere in the league of normal. Consider that salarie…

excellent points - thanks for this perspective!

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#102

Post by foota » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

jcadam wrote: post #85

Years of experience tops out at "8+"? An engineer that started working at 22 is barely 30 by the time they reach that experience level. Is 8 years really the point where additional experience ceases to have a meaningful effect on salary? Or do these three cities (SF/NYC/Seattle) just do a pretty good job of expelling software engineers after they attain their first gray hair?

Easiest explanation is triplebyte doesn't have enough data past this. Especially when sliced by other dimensions.

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#103

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

maccio92 wrote: post #90

jcadam wrote: post #85

Years of experience tops out at "8+"? An engineer that started working at 22 is barely 30 by the time they reach that experience level. Is 8 years really the point where additional experience ceases to have a meaningful effect on salary? Or do these three cities (SF/NYC/Seattle) just do a pretty good job of expelling software engineers after they attain their first gray hair?

It's the latter.

I don't think that's really the case, but I do think it's common for good software engineers to move into other job titles (whether it's "founder" or "management" or "architect" or "software consultant" or a deep specialization in a particular subfield of software like security, deep learning, data science, data mining, compilers, databases, graphics, etc.) where they can avoid the salary cap. There's an adverse selection effect on those that don't; employers are likely to ask to themselves "Why are you still making $150K/year as an employee rather than $500K/year as a consultant, $2M/year as a deep learning specialist, or have retired as a founder? Did you never develop any sort of deep expertise worth paying you for in your 8 years as a software engineer?"

People going into software should plan accordingly. You get great wages to start, but you need to save some of those for a potentially risky mid-career transition where you specialize in a particular subfield.

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#104

Post by _throwawayyyyy1 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:38 PM UTC

_throwawayyyyy1 wrote: post #56

I'm in Boston & went through an intensive FT job search here about 18 months ago. I'm a mobile developer with 20+ years total experience in desktop, backend, web+mobile, product management, started my own company, etc. Worked with lots of recruiters, personal network etc., felt like I really got a sense of what the salary landscape is here. Some facts: - I was leaving a job at a hot unicorn startup that paid $125K ba…

Glassdoor has average boston Software Engineer salaries at $98K. Hmmm....

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#105

Post by Apocryphon » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

Probably too granular, but I wish one of these tools was able to compare salaries in S.F. itself with the Bay Area as a whole. I've heard that positions in the city pay greater than those in Silicon Valley, but I don't know how accurate that is.

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#106

Post by monocasa » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:39 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #100

ergothus wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the above poster, but for me - I omit my degree from my resume, because in my mind it was so long ago as to be irrelevant. It's also a bit odd - I have a degree in "Letters, Arts, and Science" - a make-your-own major from Penn State. My last two jobs the recruiters asked me if I had a degree - this came up AFTER they had decided to interview me and when they were entering me in to the system - the degree was just…

Even better... My wife has a Master of Science, but not an undergraduate degree. That literally makes recruiters and hiring managers do double-takes.

Where did she get it? I've been trying to find a decent college that'd allow me to do the same thing.

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#107

Post by _throwawayyyyy1 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

_throwawayyyyy1 wrote: post #104

_throwawayyyyy1 wrote: post #56

I'm in Boston & went through an intensive FT job search here about 18 months ago. I'm a mobile developer with 20+ years total experience in desktop, backend, web+mobile, product management, started my own company, etc. Worked with lots of recruiters, personal network etc., felt like I really got a sense of what the salary landscape is here. Some facts: - I was leaving a job at a hot unicorn startup that paid $125K ba…

Glassdoor has average boston Software Engineer salaries at $98K. Hmmm....

SF average is $126K per Glassdoor - so maybe there really is a much bigger difference than i thought. I feel like 5-10 years ago they were roughly comparable. Guess that's a long time ago in internet years!

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#108

Post by daphneokeefe » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

beneichler wrote: post #2

Ben from Triplebyte here, I'm the engineer who built this tool from our offer data. The finding that most surprised me was that the mean salary for an engineer without a college degree is only $3k (~2%) less than for those with one; this gap is much smaller than in the labor market as a whole. One explanation is that CS really is a field where educational signaling doesn't (or at least needn't) matter as much as in o…

After a career in finance, including an MBA + accounting certification, I learned programming at my kitchen table nights and weekends, entirely from books (this was in the '90's). No formal CS education. I didn't perceive any issues with the lack of the CS degree, but I also refused to consider FAANG. Even being the less-favored gender, I agree with the SF salary data. It conforms to my experience here.

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#109

Post by wallflower » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #69

esoterica wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The finding that most surprised me was that the mean salary for an engineer without a college degree is only $3k (~2%) less than for those with one; this gap is much smaller than in the labor market as a whole. The sample set of people using TripleByte is not going to be remotely representative of the market for developers as a whole. Candidates with stronger resumes are not going to be using third party recruiters…

The title is really better labeled: "How much software engineers on triplebyte received in offers in SF, NYC, and Seattle"

While I suspect the title will not be changed for SEO/targeting reasons, a slight improvement on your title is:

“How much software engineers on Triplebyte received in base salary offers in SF, NYC, and Seattle”

Yes, I know HTML titles cannot do any emphasis.

EDIT: HN title has now been improved by dang.

To be more accurate about “SEO/targeting”, I meant the title on the blog hosted by Triplebyte: “How much money do Software Engineers actually make?”

Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle

#110

Post by screye » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

I am not sure about these numbers.

These base estimates are much higher than what sites like Levels.fyi and anecdotal numbers I've collected from my new grad peers.

At the new grad level, Base salary numbers are $125-135k:Google, $105-115k:MSFT,Amazon,FB. The base salary numbers at other unicorns don't sound much different either.

I am not saying that TB's numbers are wrong. But, there has to be some reason for the huge difference in the numbers I've heard vs the ones TB reports.