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Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

triplebyte.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#271

Post by mikeokner »

whataretensors wrote: post #63
bgentry wrote: post #28

I understand that it’s hard to compare non-salary compensation. But these figures give the impression that compensation for a Bay Area software engineer is shockingly lower than the reality. RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Even the salary figures themselves look low and are probably heavily skewed by an overrepresentation of underpaying startups. My base salary ~4 year…

Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.

> And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk

What risk? The only risk I've ever had as an engineer at a startup was the risk of losing my job (which everyone has, they just ignore it). And let's be real, a good engineer can find a new job at the drop of a hat. The risk is nil.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#272

Post by s73ver_ »

notyourwork wrote: post #249
s73ver_ wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is a bad thing because it encourages the company to treat people like shit.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this?

They know that the options would be quite difficult to pass up, and so they don't have to try as hard to retain people during that time. "Treat like shit" may be a slight exaggeration, but we've also all heard about the working conditions at Amazon.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#273

Post by nnd »

sidlls wrote: post #167
compumike wrote: post #57

Earlier 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…

Triplebyte is doing an absurd CS trivia interview themselves, so you don't have to it multiple times.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#275

Post by cgh »

nnd wrote: post #268
cgh wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is to work remotely for a SV company but live in a cheap small town (this is a humblebrag). Higher salary, no Valley real estate madness, no freeway nightmares, placid country bumpkin existence preserved. I do have to bite the bullet and travel down to that blighted land a few times a year though.

How would you find a SV company open to remote workers? I haven't heard of any.

Bigger companies often have good remote work policies. On the downside, these companies are rarely cool by the usual HN metrics and aren't normally mentioned here except dismissively.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#276

Post by regulation_d »

vkou wrote: post #185
regulation_d wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if any employees, C-level or not, get preferred stock. Unless you're putting skin in the game, you're probably stuck with common stock.

Working for below market rates is putting skin in the game.

Maybe, but it's not on the cap table.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#277

Post by bgentry »

mikeokner wrote: post #271
whataretensors wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.

> And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk What risk? The only risk I've ever had as an engineer at a startup was the risk of losing my job (which everyone has, they just ignore it). And let's be real, a good engineer can find a new job at the drop of a hat. The risk is nil.

I believe the parent was talking about the financial risk of being underpaid by a startup by something like $50k–$250k per year of nearly guaranteed income that you would make at BigCo.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#278

Post by kornish »

mikeokner wrote: post #271
whataretensors wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at how little equity in startups engineers get. Don't settle for common stock, it's 95% of the time worthless. And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk, definitely not less than RSU compensation at megacorp #3.

> And if it isn't you should be a millionaire for your risk What risk? The only risk I've ever had as an engineer at a startup was the risk of losing my job (which everyone has, they just ignore it). And let's be real, a good engineer can find a new job at the drop of a hat. The risk is nil.

I think the grandparent meant the opportunity cost of foregoing bigco salary and equity, which over a few years can materially add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#279

Post by wikibob »

twic wrote: post #264
user5994461 wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The norm for senior is certainly 6 figures. It is ill advised to ignore finance, big companies, and contracting.

That doesn't contradict what joshvm said, though. Outside finance and the tech giants, my observation has been that seniors make 60-90k. Hedge funds pay 100-130k base, with cushty bonuses, but there really aren't that many jobs like that to go around. Contracting, though, yeah. 500 a day for a competent but unexceptional Java developer? 800 for Scala? More if you happen to know whatever's hot right now? A contractor…

London is a weird market. Don't believe the incredibly low salaries you see on Glassdoor. There seems to be a handful of places that have reasonable salaries. I don't fully understand why contract pays so much higher.

One interesting thing in London is many (most?) permanent roles have a two or even three month contractual "notice period". So if you hand in your notice, you're stuck working for another three months. This causes friction in the labor market which certainly has a depressive effect on wages.

Re: Silicon Valley Software Engineer Salaries by Experience Level

#280

Post by sjg007 »

drspacemonkey wrote: post #112
Tade0 wrote: post #94

Earlier 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?

Once you take the exchange rate into account, I'm below the 2nd percentile for a senior dev. And I make a great salary for the Vancouver area. I knew I could double my salary south of the border, but that hurts.

I don’t know.. Vancouver is a great place to live!
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