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

triplebyte.com

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

#211

Post by paultopia »

esoterica wrote: post #45
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…

> 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…

Yeah, just to elaborate on this (because I think the point of this comment has been missed a bit elsewhere on the sub-thread):

- TripleByte imposes a cost (having to go through their process) in exchange for getting to signal programming ability, a prerequisite to getting in the door (getting an interview)

- People with strong credentials don't need to incur that cost, so they probably won't do so.

This means TripleByte's pool probably doesn't have any Stanford CS grads who are looking to leave their Google job. But these are also the people who command the highest salaries. Let's say it chops off the top x-percentile of the market, for some reasonable definition of x (10? 15?)

Then, TripleByte's screening process probably also chops off the bottom y-percentile, because those are people who can't actually pass the screening.

Once you restrict the range like that, and also make paper credentials less relevant because there's an alternate signal available, of course the rates are going to be compressed.

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

#212

Post by seattle_spring »

shepardrtc wrote: post #170
_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…

Having lived in Seattle and knowing several software engineers at various companies, I would have to say Triplebyte's numbers are being inflated by the FAANG companies. I have one friend at Microsoft that is making probably 160 to 180ish right now, and another friend at a startup that is making between 80 and 100. Most other engineers make around what you've been offered. I really would take Triplebyte's numbers with…

80 to 100 is insultingly low for even a startup in Seattle. Sure, some are able to get away with it like Energysavvy, but only bottom tier engineers should put up with it.

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

#213

Post by thedufer »

adtac wrote: post #208
thedufer wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking Google as the average is throwing off your numbers by an incredible amount. Amazon alone has more employees (around 540k as of the most recent reporting I can find) than you gave the entire group. Microsoft and Apple each account for more than Google as well.

Does the Amazon number include people working in logistics, delivery, and all that? I suspect that is huge portion of that number. Their engineering force is larger than Google's but not by much, I think (60-70k at best).

I wouldn't expect it includes those positions, as warehouse operations/logistics seems to be contracted out to other companies. Not sure, though.

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

#216

Post by reidjs »

sldjfkdsljffkjd wrote: post #164
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…

> Could this be indicating that [boot camp grads] at a disadvantage? Yes. Most boot camps are outright scams and I know that I (along with everyone I know) has never hired a bootcamp grad. They usually cannot write fizzbuzz. Some anecdata on the college grad note: most of the best engineers I've worked with did not study CS in college, though they all did graduate from college.

To counter this, I know dozens of people working as FAANG devs from app academy & hack reactor.

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

#217

Post by jniedrauer »

grigjd3 wrote: post #189
jniedrauer wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-taught programmer here. A long time ago, I lucked out with an internal promotion that helped me bridge the gap from support to engineering. Getting a foot in the door was the hard part. Ever since then, lack of a degree has been a non-factor during the hiring process. I've got years of experience and plenty of references to vouch for my abilities. The only thing I feel like I missed out on compared to a CS grad…

I find Big O to be useful when designing solutions just to be able to quickly decide what data structures are appropriate for a task, though, admittedly, this doesn't come up that often.

I do have a pretty good sense of how to structure things for performance, simply as a result of doing it over and over. But it's more akin to speed reading, where big O notation would be like sounding out each letter. It gives you the tools to explain to other people why something is better or worse.

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

#218

Post by echevil »

beneichler wrote: post #26
friedman23 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple questions, Are these base salaries or total compensation? Can you share what the distribution of companies you source to is? Ie are they mostly early stage startups or do they include many large post ipo tech companies?

These are base salaries - we have data on equity and other compensation factors, but those factors are difficult to meaningfully compare in an anonymized way. Triplebyte works with over 400 companies, including Apple, Dropbox, Instacart, and numerous early stage companies (including many YC companies). The Open Positions section on the salary tool page should give a pretty good feel for the kinds of specific roles an…

Still, it would be much more useful to compare total compensation, at least for late stage startups and public companies. Maybe that's something to consider for the next update?

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

#219

Post by autokad »

paultopia wrote: post #211
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…

Yeah, just to elaborate on this (because I think the point of this comment has been missed a bit elsewhere on the sub-thread): - TripleByte imposes a cost (having to go through their process) in exchange for getting to signal programming ability, a prerequisite to getting in the door (getting an interview) - People with strong credentials don't need to incur that cost, so they probably won't do so. This means TripleB…

that makes sense because these numbers feel inflated to me. I think facebook only pays data scientists 135k range.

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

#220

Post by fukbezos »

m3at wrote: post #133
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?

At 8+ you leverage your professional network and don't rely on websites like triplebyte

Speak for yourself. I don't use LinkedIn and have few references after 10 years. Don't need either, my work speaks for itself.
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