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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

#241

Post by ptmcc »

seattle_spring wrote: post #212
shepardrtc wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why can EnergySavvy get away with it?

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

#242

Post by seattle_spring »

ptmcc wrote: post #241
seattle_spring wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why can EnergySavvy get away with it?

Because there are enough people that don't know their own market value to fill their ranks, I guess.

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

#243

Post by gumby »

bzbarsky wrote: post #231
gumby wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! We are a small team of 5 expecting to double in 2019, all from experienced folks extracted from big companies. We budgeted $260 each and our investors didn't bat an eye.

To be fair, the budget and the employee's base salary are not quite the same thing. Let's take a $150k base salary as a specific example, as a nice round-ish number. The numbers from Triplebyte don't include bonuses and equity; I suspect that 20% combined is a reasonable assumption. That puts us at 180k. Now we have employer costs that the employee never sees (this all assumes the US): * Social security: $8.2k (6.2%…

We budgeted 260 base.

We expect most of the hires to have tuition payments to make...not that we will pay younger hires less. But we have specific people with specific experience in mind. These folks are getting that kind of money at FAAxG today.

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

#244

Post by bzbarsky »

gumby wrote: post #243
bzbarsky wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the budget and the employee's base salary are not quite the same thing. Let's take a $150k base salary as a specific example, as a nice round-ish number. The numbers from Triplebyte don't include bonuses and equity; I suspect that 20% combined is a reasonable assumption. That puts us at 180k. Now we have employer costs that the employee never sees (this all assumes the US): * Social security: $8.2k (6.2%…

We budgeted 260 base. We expect most of the hires to have tuition payments to make...not that we will pay younger hires less. But we have specific people with specific experience in mind. These folks are getting that kind of money at FAAxG today.

Ah, 260 base is a totally different story. Thank you for clarifying!

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

#245

Post by ptmcc »

frakkingcylons wrote: post #147

Kudos 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…

I just left my company that swore up and down that they work hard to pay competitive market salaries. They claim to have all this fancy compensation market data compiled by experts. I don't know why they trust this data so much, but it consistently shows lower salaries than even Glassdoor or Payscale, which tend to be lower than surveys like this one.

They don't criminally underpay or anything, but they are on the low side of average and I've been insisting that they are 20-30% under market on just base salary alone for high caliber people. No RSUs and there's some cash bonuses (maybe up to ~10%) and other near-cash perks but nothing super significant.

Well, jokes on them, I just accepted a new non-FAANG gig for a nearly-25% base salary increase, plus a significant initial RSU grant of ~1.5x salary, plus other bonus potential. And I'm more excited about the company and work anyway.

It's bananas out there right now, go get it while you can.

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

#246

Post by nilkn »

autokad wrote: post #219
paultopia wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can't imagine an experienced data scientist at Facebook is only making $135k in total. I'd double or triple that for experienced senior engineers (including non-cash compensation like RSUs, etc.).

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

#247

Post by badfrog »

Grustaf wrote: post #165
yellowstuff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hedge fund programming jobs in NYC pay a significant annual cash bonus, I believe 50-100% of base salary is standard. From what I can tell $250-300k is pretty standard total comp for senior software devs. I'm just a programmer, probably a hiring manager or recruiter would have a better sense of the market.

Do you happen to know how to get a programming job at a hedge fund? I have a finance background, ran a tiny algo fund and is currently doing Swift development at a FAANG company, would love to combina my passions!

If your current FAANG role is listed on LinkedIn, you're probably getting a ton of messages from head hunters. Just start asking them if they can get you an interview at one.

The hard part is that there are only like 4-5 trading firms that have a reputation for great technology, and their size combined is like 1% of FAANG size, so there just aren't that many openings.

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

#248

Post by [deleted] »

adtac wrote: post #180
dang wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're happy to change titles to make them more accurate, but someone's going to need to make it fit 80 chars. Edit: I took a shot. "Triplebyte" doesn't fit, but probably shouldn't be in there anyway; it's already next to the title.

>(Triplebyte) software engineer base salaries in SF, NYC, Seattle You have 15 more chars to work with.

[deleted]

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

#249

Post by badfrog »

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 the big tech companies, you normally reach the "terminal level" (i.e. there's no more up-or-out pressure) within ~5 years. It's entirely possible to reach that level and then keep working another 30 years without a promotion. And even if you do strive to continue getting promoted, each level is significantly more difficult and could take another 5+ years to reach.

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

#250

Post by ontoillogical »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #229
mquander wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a strong resume by most metrics, and I used Triplebyte because it seemed like a good method to learn about a ton of small companies I otherwise would never be able to find. (I didn't end up joining any of them, but they were solid 2nd/3rd/4th-choice offers.) I'm confused about why you think this is irrational. If I find some startup through Triplebyte, and then apply to them, it doesn't seem like a substantial…

By virtue of locating you via TripleByte, those 2nd/3rd/etc. companies revealed their goal is explicitly to dramatically underpay you, through a hiring platform that enables them to treat you like a commodity. If you’re OK with that, then by all means use that commodity portal to seek jobs. I mean that sincerely. If you prefer to trade possibly tens of thousands of dollars of salary, bonuses, equity or other compensa…

> For me, for example, the fact that those positions can be matched up to me on TripleByte would literally make me reject those jobs.

That seems shortsighted.

If I was running a startup again and looking to grow my team after exhausting my personal network, triplebyte would be a good value proposition: reduce the time it takes me to hire by pre screening candidates and presenting me with a curated set of people to interview.

So it follows that if I wanted to join a startup I’d consider triplebyte for the same reason —- I can see busy ceos of small companies using it.

You seem to be focused on compensation not finding interesting offers though. To that I’d say two things:

1) If you want to purely optimize for compensation, work at FAANG. I don’t think they source via triplebyte so the point is moot.

2) In my experience, offer size is not related to where the candidate was sourced.

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