So how does a SV salary compare to the rest of the world? I.e. what is the conversion factor for a salary in e.g. NY, Canada, UK, Germany, France, etc.
In Germany 30-60%. Higher in the big expensive cities (Berlin, Munich).
Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
191–200 of 455 posts
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true. I think it discourages ship jumpers after 12-24 months which isn't a bad thing in my opinion.
Isn’t the average tenure at amazon and most tech companies 2 years these days? http://www.businessinsider.com/employee-retention-rate-top-t... Not saying it’s a bad thing just that vesting schedule is Something to think about when comparing offers. Liquidity is worth something.
That's likely the reason for the skew. They are trying to retain engineers past the typical time on site.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#193My god this is just another universe to me. I've got 19 years on the clock doing stuff, right now extending the jenkins model to make a usable 2.0 pipeline, for a fortune 50 hiding on the new hampshire seacoast, senior-straddling-principal level and just barely squeaking out a 6 figure salary. I know it all comes out in the wash, but it just blows my mind how different money is across the country. or, i am a country…
It really raises the question why anyone would put a software company in the Silicon Valley area. You could get cheaper and more experienced people pretty much anywhere in the world for at least 60 - 70% the price.
in my experience, a couple reasons:
1. It's far easier to raise money from VCs if you are located in SV/SF vs anywhere else in the country.
2. Once you raise that money, the only thing you are going to spend it on is employees. Infrastructure costs, real estate costs, etc, are comparatively cheap.
3. People starting companies rarely look around and decide where they should strategically be located based on costs. A few do, including my last company which was located in baltimore, but not many. Most people want to start their companies where they already live, and have a network for hiring, etc.
These 3 things, and probably others, lead to a significant amount of new companies getting started in SF/SV.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
Senior engineers usually come to us for one of two things: 1) Finding a really early stage startup. We spend time finding the most interesting and fastest growing startups, and given the difference in outcome between the median startup and Airbnb, it's worth spreading the net as wide as possible. 2) Executing a broader job search (including larger companies) faster.
Does Triplebyte do anything other than get past the phone screen these days? Because that value proposition is really low. Saving 30 minutes on a phone screen isn't very valuable. Bypassing the absurd CS trivia interviews would be. If you could somehow convince your clients that a technical interview with Triplebyte is an acceptable proxy for their technical interview, so that on-sites are more about personality fit…
Yeah, we do more than let people skip phone screens (although don't undervalue skipping phone screens and take-home projects at 8+ companies). Companies really do look for different things in interviews. Not all companies look for CS trivia. So in your case, if you went through our process, we'd suggest 20 or so companies that look for more practical / architecture skills (depending on your skillset). Because we do this, engineers who go through our process get job offers at about 2X the rate of engineers who go through regular channels (we avoid the cases where engineers who don't like CS are rejected for being bad at CS)
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I hope the corporate tax break gives a good hike but that's just a dream. That dream is so not going to happen. CEOs are going to forward any tax cut to their investors. Since companies owe a fiduciary duty to their investors this should not at all be surprising. Trump's Tax Promises Undercut by CEO Plans to Reward Investors https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/trump-s-t...
> Since companies owe a fiduciary duty to their investors this should not at all be surprising. When is the myth that a company's fiduciary duty to its shareholders includes funnelling all profits back to them going to die?
Practically, with the low interest rates, cash isn't worth a whole lot to an average Fortune 500. You can already see how Apple is getting heat for having so much cash on hand, only reason there isn't more is that people are hoping for a tax repatriation holiday. With most large companies being a) well capitalized already and b) able to borrow large amounts cheaply, you have to make a really hard case that holding onto cash (or spending it internally) is the best thing to do.
Funneling all profits back to the shareholders is only a duty when there isn't much else to do with the cash, which is mostly what's happening.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
My compensation is roughly 40% of the lower end of any of these charts, and that's considered "not bad" in my area. This makes me think: how valuable our work is really? Do I have a job only because I'm an inexpensive alternative to the devs from the US and western Europe?
I make less than $100K and despite my 10+ years experience I'm by no means underpaid, and I'm in Denmark, a rather expensive country to live in.
I also make less than $100k in Canada and I can live a comfortable life with no issues
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#197These numbers can be misleading. I don't work for the big four or five, but rather for a boring enterprise company. One of our top UI developer pulls in more than 500K. How do I know that ? Because I can see his comp statement as the manager of the group.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#198This is a huge contrast to the south and particularly in Florida. I'm a project lead in Florida, started programming when I was 8, have won multiple national competitions, and now a project lead with people working under me (most that apply have an MS degree) but as a government worker making only 58K. I work for the government because in this area of the country there have been problems with finding companies that hire based on merit (I'll just leave it at that). It's shocking to hear these numbers and think that this is the norm in other places. Maybe I just don't know Florida like I thought I did but for being a state with the 3rd largest population there are a serious lack of opportunities in technology. Maybe I'm missing something maybe someone can recommend how they've been able to 'make it' in Florida with a job here doing development. Otherwise I think it's worth putting it out there to encourage people to think about this very circumstance before ever moving here.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#199(Disclosure: I work at Triplebyte and built this salary tool from our offers dataset.) I was surprised to learn that the median senior engineer earns only $36K more than the median junior engineer (base salary only). The gap does get wider on the right tail of the distribution: The 90th-percentile senior makes $47K more than the 90th-percentile junior. One possible explanation is that our data is dominated by startup…
One point of anecdata: I've typically found that recruiting sites like Hired and Triplebyte lean low on the comp scale when it comes to senior engineers.
This may be less of a gap in salaries, and more a gap in the kinds of companies using your service.
The last time I used Hired, for example, it asked me to name a salary expectation - I put in ~my base salary at the time, and got an email soon after asking me to lower my expectations since nobody using Hired in NYC was willing to bite.
Someone else brought up the fact that the data for major established companies look very different - AppAmaGooFaceSoft comp for seniors is overwhelmingly higher than this.
But even within the realm of startups, I've interviewed at, and negotiated offers with startups in my area that are in a range that major recruiting sites (and their clients) seem unwilling to contemplate.
Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level
#200(Disclosure: I work at Triplebyte and built this salary tool from our offers dataset.) I was surprised to learn that the median senior engineer earns only $36K more than the median junior engineer (base salary only). The gap does get wider on the right tail of the distribution: The 90th-percentile senior makes $47K more than the 90th-percentile junior. One possible explanation is that our data is dominated by startup…
The reason you're surprised is that you're only seeing the salary they get when they start at the company. It's not unusual for a senior engineer to double comp in 12 months. I suppose that sucks for recruiters like triplebyte who get paid a % of first year's comp ;)