Interesting. But why can't I filter by city? I'd like to see the percentile plot but restricted to New York. I imagine that the shape and peak of that plot would be different for each city.
Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
141–150 of 301 posts
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#142I'm shocked that the salaries are so similar between Seattle and SF. Does this ring true for y'all?
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#143Recently made a switch from Seattle to NYC and was actually a bit surprised that the salaries in NYC were lower. People at my job didn't really believe me, so it's nice to have some numbers to back up my feelings.
I made the same switch, and I have been a hiring manager in both places. They are definitely lower on average.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#144It's nice to know what a competitive base salary is for an engineer but when negotiating an offer I think you really should be looking at Total Compensation. RSU, Stock Options, Bonuses all play a very significant role when looking at offers. Especially if you work at one of the large tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) the stock grants are a VERY large portion of your compensation.
You should, but it looks like triplebyte was explicitly ignoring that because it would add too many dimensions to the graph and those benefits are hard to value. Stock options are not a liquid asset, and their value can change wildly and unpredictably. Ask all those programmers around in 2001 how much their options were worth.
Not sure about others but I and many of my coworkers sell RSUs immediately. Many companies offer RSUs, not options, which have guaranteed value.
It's riskier than cash but definitely real compensation and not the monopoly money that options end up becoming.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#145(OT thoughts on Triplebyte) I think Triplebyte is stuck between a few incentives that aren't necessarily aligned with developers, and I'm not sure how to decide how I feel about their contributions overall to the job market for software. I absolutely love their outreach and data like this where they try to empower developers more. My problem I have is that they entered the market using the same exact worn-out old met…
> Do they have data about how their candidates perform after hire? 2 yr performance reviews? 2 yr turnover rates? How do they market to the recruiters who are their true "customers"?
Software engineering hiring, and Triplebyte as a company, at least think about, and make an attempt to evaluate these concerns. Have you ever seen how non-technical people (sales/marketing/finance) are evaluated? I'd argue Triplebyte at least moves the needle a bit versus in other fields.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#146Earlier 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…
> Candidates with stronger resumes are not going to be using third party recruiters This is an interest statement. It is interesting, because the data I am seeing is that apparently Triple Byte is able to give people quite successful results. (Yes, 150k base salary is pretty good). But your statement seems to imply that candidates that use them are apparently below average or something. And yet even though they arent…
I agree. I'd also say Triplebyte's interview process is pretty challenging, more so than big 4 etc for entry level. Being able to pass it is something I'd consider a strong signal.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#147Kudos to TripleByte for their efforts in making this kind of compensation information public! I referenced it during my last performance review discussion in an effort to negotiate for a raise that would bring my comp more in line with what was listed as the median in TripleByte's data.
I was pretty firm on insisting on a bigger raise based on that data, after which my boss's boss came in with the big guns. They had a spreadsheet of compensation data collected by investors in the startup, and this data was collated across all their (and other) portfolio companies.
It was broken down by total funding, company size, years of experience, role, all that. IIRC, it was Option Impact: https://www.advanced-hr.com/. I wish I could've looked at it more, such interesting information with specific numbers. Of course, that will never be made public, much to the detriment of the workers in tech.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#148It’s so interesting to see actual data that confirms what most people might suspect, instead of what you see here on HN where people talk about $200k+ base being “not that unusual”.
The data is on average base salary. Nearly half of my total comp is stock plus guaranteed bonus. That's how my total comp is $200k+ with 1 yoe at a low CoL city.
What low CoL city? Are you counting Austin as low CoL?
I got what I thought was a pretty good low CoL offer as a new grad for $95k base (+maybe $10k-20k bonus?). Haven't heard of people getting such high offers as yours in low CoL areas except for small offices of tech giants
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Very relevant for people working for startups, much less relevant for those working at public companies where the stock can be sold the day it vests. Standard vesting starts after a year cliff, but it’s common to get a large signing bonus which makes up for it. Plus some people are getting offers with no cliff. I worry that some really skilled developers may be looking at these stats and not realize what they are giv…
Unless you go to a FAANG you're basically going to be accepting compensation close to what's listed here. If you're at a FAANG and get those massive stock packages, then you can really start getting close to the $300k+ total comp packages that people talk about.
Given that FAANG (+Microsoft) employ close to quarter of a million software engineers and probably represent 50%+ of hiring in a given year, it seems weird to ignore those.
Re: Base salaries offered to software engineers in SF, NYC, and Seattle
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Candidates with stronger resumes are not going to be using third party recruiters to spray their resume around; they are going to be applying directly to the companies they want to work at or getting headhunted by the companies themselves. Why are those mutually exclusive? I like to think I have a decent resume and would apply to companies directly but if I can get more offers using Triplebyte why wouldnt I? Isn't…
Everything I've read indicates that you do still have to do the normal in-person technical interview gauntlet at each individual company. It's possible things have changed recently, though.
The draw is that you don't have to do a phone technical screen, which is true, but they do still want to have you over for a full-day technical & comprehensive interview.