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Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

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Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#101

Post by peelle »

radarsat1 wrote: post #30

I'm frankly super confused about salaries right now. Currently job hunting in Europe and the other day when a recruiter asked how much I was looking for I gave my current salary as a minimum of 65 euros/h and the recruiter kind of chuckled and told me that if I'm a good match I could ask for like 90. Okay, sounds great. So a few days later I was having an initial interview for a senior ML position and when asked how…

> Also, what's up with people asking this question in the first conversation?

At least here in the USA, there's a lot of advice about deflecting that question. Things like, countering with "What are your pay ranges?", or "Let's wait to negotiate the salary until we're sure we're a good fit." and so on.

I believe the common reasoning that they ask early is to cut out overpriced developers. When a company gets lots of applicants this probably makes sense to them. I think generally, if you're a good fit they'll go a little above their max pay to try and bring you in.

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#102

Post by projektfu »

adultSwim wrote: post #22

The first job I had out of school billed me out for $325/hr. That's a high rate for a high level lawyer. Unlike lawyers, they were able to bill me out for almost every hour I was at work, which comes out to about $650k/yr. I made a small fraction of that. Were we better organized, we engineers would take a much greater portion of the profits we generate. After unionizing, professional athletes are paid about half of…

And if the industry were better organized overall, the other workers in it would be taking home more, too. Support, customer service, technical writing, etc. It seems that programmers are pretty hostile to organizing as a group. Many here even defended the anti-poaching agreements that FAANG got in trouble for.

A lot of our innovation these days is coming up with new ways of extracting rent. The programmers don't directly do that but they make it possible at scale. Google, VISA, Yelp, etc.

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#103

Post by radarsat1 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #93
radarsat1 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

your numbers concur pretty well with what another poster replied, so thanks! I'll try to tailor my answers accordingly in the future, really helpful cheers. It just gets so confusing when people post their salaries like in the US and other places and I just don't know what is reasonable to ask for. Learning though, glad for the answers here.

>when people post their salaries like in the US and other places and I just don't know what is reasonable to ask for. When people are posting US salaries, they are usually quoting the gross amount. In Europe people are usually quoting the net amount because people care what they can spend, not some sum written on the paper.

Actually, so far in my experience, this advice has been very misleading. I have been told this before, and it had bad consequences. A while ago I got through multiple interviews for a job (in Europe) that had the salary range pre-posted, and somehow I kept forgetting to check whether the posted salary range was net or gross. I asked some advice from people, and was told that it is always net, so I went with that assumption, only to find out when the job offer was actually on the table that it was gross, and the interviewer made me feel a little stupid for not knowing that, saying "it always means gross salary". I didn't take the offer, as it turned out the salary was lower than I was looking for, but I felt rather guilty for wasting their time and getting their hopes up.

So, I find that net vs. gross is this weird thing where people become convinced that there is some default that is always implied, but different people think the default is different. Don't know how that happened, but in the future I will always be clarifying that as early as possible, otherwise it can be a major source of miscommunication.

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#104

Post by radarsat1 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #92
radarsat1 wrote: post #30

I'm frankly super confused about salaries right now. Currently job hunting in Europe and the other day when a recruiter asked how much I was looking for I gave my current salary as a minimum of 65 euros/h and the recruiter kind of chuckled and told me that if I'm a good match I could ask for like 90. Okay, sounds great. So a few days later I was having an initial interview for a senior ML position and when asked how…

Is it a gross or a net amount? In Europe when being contacted to work as a freelancer or contractor, they ask for a gross rate per hour. The company aren't going to pay anything else and you are responsible for taxes, health insurance, social services, pension funds and so on. The highest rate I was offered in Romania is 50 EUR / hour and I refused. I am not going to work with a B2B contract for less than 65 per EUR…

Oh thank you, this is very helpful.

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#105

Post by ellen364 »

908B64B197 wrote: post #90
ellen364 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that’s often true, but the outsourced work isn’t always as routine as cleaning up training data. E.g. I worked at a company that provides “real-time transit data feeds for journey planners”, to quote the marketing literature. The company’s publicly mentioned customers include Google and Microsoft. I’d guess (and it is a guess) that big companies like to outsource that kind of work so their devs only have to…

> I worked at a company that provides “real-time transit data feeds for journey planners”, to quote the marketing literature. The company’s publicly mentioned customers include Google and Microsoft. So they aren't outsourcing dev work, they are basically buying access to the data feed. > And perhaps also because dev salaries in the UK are so much lower. Not for SV caliber talent.

That’s interesting to hear. If someone who’s just graduated from a top UK compsci course asks me for advice, where should I recommend they apply to get a starting salary >£100k?

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#106

Post by ellen364 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #94
ellen364 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruitment is bizarre right now. I chat to recruiters sometimes and in the last few months have specifically asked about salaries in the UK. Essentially, “What’s the going rate for a web dev with 5 years experience?” The answers have ranged from “£45k-55k” to “£100k-130k”. The most common response seems to be “£70k-80k”. And everyone who’s answered seemed confident they know “the market rate”. Sometimes people even…

I get few job proposals per day. If one seems interesting, I am always asking for a salary range first, to not waste time. It worked wonders as I was able to find a good paying position relatively fast, instead of doing countless interviews and find out I don't like the payment. People were receptive in general, I think employers do not like to waste their time either, so talking about salary in the first place is a…

That’s useful to hear, thanks.

Re: Is 400k/yr overpaid for a SWE?

#107

Post by davidguetta »

aristofun wrote: post #98

If you bring less than 400k to the table — you’re overpaid. Else — otherwise. This is why same skill level people get different salaries in different companies. Yes, some companies overpay hoping for rapid growth. Others - underpay, accounting for risks or just because they can (like in Europe). It’s obvious. As obvious as overfunded startups with worthless business models out there. But without an army of unknown mu…

You are actually overpaid also if you bring exactly 400k
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