As an anecdote, my manager has had 2 open positions for 7 months now, paying $125k base + sign on + relocation + bonus + stock for a new grad. Guess how many we've filled after 7 months? A big fat zero. Why would anyone move to California for $125K when they could live in one of 20 other major cities, make the same amount with a lower cost of living?
Because the you cannot make the same amount in those 20 other cities.
You really don’t think a developer can make $125K anywhere besides SV?
>Trump apparently (I did not know this until reading the sibling links) wants to move to merit based immigration He also wants to cut the quota to a third of its current value.
Not sure why you're being downvoted if it's true. It can still be better for engineers though, if they are in the top third of desired immigrants from a jobs perspective.
Engineering benefits from enormous network effects. American engineers are better off if all the engineers in the world move here. The industry goes where the engineers are. It's not because the valley has few engineers that it pays high salaries, it's because it has many engineers, and the high paying companies locate here to benefit from the network effects.
GP didn't say $125k total comp. Counting sign-on, bonus, and stock, it could be as much as $200k total comp - for a new grad. Which other cities/industries pay that much? (outside of finance or law, at the top end)
What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period? Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potent…
>> Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potential employee.
And this kind of over-generalization and over-rationalization is exactly the reason why Americans cannot be found.
Sorry, if you want the job, take it else the jobs are going elsewhere. We have a product to sell.
Silicon Valley will remain to the IT industry what Wall Street is for the commerce. It is the peak, the absolute peak of humanity's IT pursuits. I am not American, nor live in US and never been or worked in/for Silicon Valley and yet this is how I feel about it. Sure, there are good times and bad times but just like wallstreet has remained global champion of the commercial world, so will SV. I have zero doubts about…
This sounds like an article of faith. Do you really want to have faith in a place that is likely ephemeral? People once had this same degree of faith in the technology corridor of New Jersey.
> People once had this same degree of faith in the technology corridor of New Jersey.
What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period? Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potent…
>> Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potential employee. And this kind of over-generalization and over-rationalization is exactly the reason why Americans cannot be found. Sorry, if you want the job, take it else the jobs are going elsewhere. We have a product to sell.
Americans can be found. But obviously if your company can’t find any, then the compensation you offer isn’t competitive and Americans have better opportunities elsewhere.
What are the chances that the stock+bonus will be an extra $75K per year? Also, the stock and probably sign on bonus probably has a vesting period. What will be the future value of the stock? What if the project doesn’t go as planned and they let the potential employee go before the vesting period? Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potent…
If it's a FAANG-type company, the stock has done well in the past 10 years so it's been a pretty good bet to make. Public tech companies have done well overall. Sign-on bonuses don't have a vesting period. That's why they're called "sign-on" - you get them when you sign on. You might have to give them back, pro-rated, if you leave the company within a certain time period (typically a year). > Cash is king. I'm not di…
At Amazon, you have to pay back the sign on bonus if you leave within one year and you have to pay back relocation expenses if you leave in two from what I have heard.
>> Cash is king. Anything else shifts the risks away from the better capitalized corporation to the less capitalized potential employee. And this kind of over-generalization and over-rationalization is exactly the reason why Americans cannot be found. Sorry, if you want the job, take it else the jobs are going elsewhere. We have a product to sell.
Americans can be found. But obviously if your company can’t find any, then the compensation you offer isn’t competitive and Americans have better opportunities elsewhere.
> Americans can be found. But obviously if your company can’t find any, then the compensation you offer isn’t competitive and Americans have better opportunities elsewhere.
So you have better opportunities elsewhere. Whats your problem with me hiring legal taxpaying smart international people?
Do you want to kill my razor thin business causing layoffs? Do you want me to move to another country? Do you not want smart people here in the US? Do you not want growth in the US?
I'd bet either NYC or Seattle is number two. I think Seattle comes closest in salaries thanks to the number of FAANG and similar companies with either HQ's or large branches (same time zone as California helps). NYC is probably number two as far as startup scenes.
NYC and Boston are #2 + 3 for VC funding. Seattle's a tiny fraction of either and not growing in that area. https://www.citylab.com/life/2018/03/the-extreme-geographic-... Obviously, that's only one measure of a tech scene, but I don't think Seattle's that large.
Your article is titled "high tech" venture capital, but the Pitchbook data they use span all sectors. If you include biotech, then yes, Boston will be way up there. And New York is just a huge city and an economic hub, so there will be a bunch of entrepreneurial activity going on there. But if you take the more narrow view of "tech" as in computer-related things, I'd be surprised if New York or Boston were much ahead. And yes, as you mentioned, it's one measure of the tech scene. Seattle is Facebook's largest engineering presence outside of the Bay area. I think Google may have more engineers in New York right now, but that will not last - they're tripling their footprint in Seattle right now. It's one of the largest (non-Bay area) engineering offices for Uber and the largest for Lyft and Salesforce. And then there's MS and Amazon. I've looked for SWE and data science jobs in New York and Seattle and if you're not interested in FinTech, Seattle is the winner by a mile.