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The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

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Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#301

Post by Aeolun »

enjo wrote: post #210
payne92 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...because the skill gap between “ok”, “good”, and “great” is so much bigger for some jobs (software development) than it is for other jobs (carpentry).

It's not tho. It's really not. Most of the software you use every day was developed by very average software developers. The vast majority of the work software developers do isn't terribly novel or particularly difficult. And you know what? They do just fine. Things work well. Systems stay on line. Companies make money. I've seen too many "bad" teams produce perfectly functional software over the years to think that…

I’d argue they’re more like electricians. All their work is hidden behind the drywall, and as long as the lamp turns on, nobody has any idea of the absolute mess of wire that was used to turn on the single lamp.

If you have great developers, there will be a single straight wire from the switch to the lamp.

The end result for the user is the same though, until the mess of wire eventually overheats and burns down your house.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#302

Post by Aeolun »

_qbxp wrote: post #295
reggieband wrote: post #73

I swear, every time I read an article on HN about salary it gives me anxiety. I'm perpetually worried that I'm not earning as much as I should be earning. I don't think it is healthy but I can't look away.

I get the same weird anxiety reading these threads. I was making 50k base as a post-doc, anxious about ex-academic friends making 80k in the "real world". Then I got a corporate job making ~$120k, and felt anxious that I wasn't making the ~$150k some of my bosses and friends were making. Switched jobs, making ~$200k in a small southern city, and I come into threads like this ("$500k comp at FAANG) feeling anxious tha…

Recognize that getting more salary is a fun goal to strive for, that might even get you some more options, but that you’ll be fine forever at your current salary regardless.

I guess I’ve made it one of my goals to strive for more, but If I’d end my career at my current salary that would still be a solid endgame.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#303

Post by justboxing »

gnulinux wrote: post #300
aliston wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it possible to save 2/3rds of a 90k salary in Boston? After tax, that's probably about 64k, which means you manage to live on 21k a year? The average studio in Boston rents for more than that a year...

I'm very young (21) so no need for a studio. My current rent is $900 including everything. I'm extremely conscious of what I eat to a paranoia level so I never eat out (except when I go out on a date with a girl or a close friends) so I cook home (I have a Trader Joe's literally next to my house) and my monthly food expense is $200. With various other stuff (gym, phone, entertainment, Uber etc...) I spend less than $…

This is simply not sustainable. As a veteran in this industry, I must tell you that a software engineer's career is very similar to an athlete or model's career in the sense that you make the most money in your career only in your early years ( 10 - 12 years after the first 3 to 5 years).

So if you started your career at 21 and if you are above average, your salary will grow from 25 to 25 / 37 or even 40. After that, ageism will play a role, so also newer tech that companies would prefer to hire the younger version of you rather than pay you your high salary.

Given that, if you already settle for a low salary and remain content at 21, you'll very quickly get priced out of your neighborhood in Boston (I own a rental unit there in Fenway and know the going rents for 1 BR, 2 BRs), and if you do end up getting married and having kids, your current lifestyle and saving will not be sustainable.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#304

Post by efuquen »

_qbxp wrote: post #295
reggieband wrote: post #73

I swear, every time I read an article on HN about salary it gives me anxiety. I'm perpetually worried that I'm not earning as much as I should be earning. I don't think it is healthy but I can't look away.

I get the same weird anxiety reading these threads. I was making 50k base as a post-doc, anxious about ex-academic friends making 80k in the "real world". Then I got a corporate job making ~$120k, and felt anxious that I wasn't making the ~$150k some of my bosses and friends were making. Switched jobs, making ~$200k in a small southern city, and I come into threads like this ("$500k comp at FAANG) feeling anxious tha…

~200k in a small southern city if you adjust for cost of living is about equivalent to $500k at a FAANG in SF/NYC. When you know people who brag about how cheap their $2000 a month tiny studio in an old poorly maintained building in midtown Manhattan you'd understand you have it pretty good making a salary like that in a place you actually have the freedom to move around without running into someone and easily afford a really nice house & property.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#305

Post by aesclepius »

walshemj wrote: post #260
jahaja wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with this usage of the word "talent"? Tech is in such acute need of humble pie I don't even know where to begin. I'm becoming disillusioned. Why is a programmer etc. a "talent", but a carpenter just an employee, hire or whatever? But maybe it's actually an appropriate term, now when our interview processes so clearly have ceased to be job interviews, and have become auditions - because nothing less satisfie…

Because Tech is a "profession" and if you think we are you obviously haven't seen how other professions Architects for example and Journalists have a very high opinion of them selves.

Come to the medical field, and it's all the way down.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#306

Post by gnulinux »

justboxing wrote: post #303
gnulinux wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very young (21) so no need for a studio. My current rent is $900 including everything. I'm extremely conscious of what I eat to a paranoia level so I never eat out (except when I go out on a date with a girl or a close friends) so I cook home (I have a Trader Joe's literally next to my house) and my monthly food expense is $200. With various other stuff (gym, phone, entertainment, Uber etc...) I spend less than $…

This is simply not sustainable. As a veteran in this industry, I must tell you that a software engineer's career is very similar to an athlete or model's career in the sense that you make the most money in your career only in your early years ( 10 - 12 years after the first 3 to 5 years). So if you started your career at 21 and if you are above average, your salary will grow from 25 to 25 / 37 or even 40. After that,…

Thanks I'll take this into consideration but, as a note, I live near Central Square, Cambridge and $900 is a pretty average rent for a mid sized room. I don't know what "you'll very quickly get priced out of your neighborhood in Boston" means. If suddenly housing market inflates and my rent increases, it's not like I won't be able to afford it? I've already been working for a while (I graduated early from uni) so I already have an emergency fund that's enough for me to live off of about 5 months without income.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#307

Post by aggie »

Stryder wrote: post #192
g9yuayon wrote: post #103

This hardly comes as a surprise. How many companies, especially startups, really need to tackle tough technical challenges? On the other hand, how many companies desperately need product talents to figure out what is valuable to produce? In addition, engineers have commoditized many technical solutions that used to be challenging in the past 15 years. Scaling used to be a tough challenge, not any more for many compan…

We are quite literally running out of productive things to do so we (the collective group) are all currently micro-optimizing everything we can lay our hands on. It's like a pond that's shrinking with all the fish gasping for air. A paradigm shift is necessary before we end up strangling ourselves.

"The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." -Henry Ellsworth, US Patent Office Commissioner, 1843

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#308

Post by starchild_3001 »

Who else thinks this article sounds fishy? Well, the numbers sound quite low. Nothing is mentioned about stock, RSUs, options, bonuses. Nothing is mentioned about sample sizes or the statistical significance of the delta.

Comp is very heavy tailed! This makes computing averages very noisy and skewed to the right. If you don't understand understand any of this, or don't show error bars around your estimate, stop writing misleading articles please.

Please also compare apples to apples. I.e. control for seniority, experience, large vs small company bias etc. Don't compare apples with oranges (as PMs are less likely to be found in smaller companies, where SW eng have lower salaries).

So many ways this kind of math can go wrong. The salary deltas are so small (vs person-to-person variability), let's ignore this BS article please?

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#309

Post by BurningFrog »

enjo wrote: post #210
payne92 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...because the skill gap between “ok”, “good”, and “great” is so much bigger for some jobs (software development) than it is for other jobs (carpentry).

It's not tho. It's really not. Most of the software you use every day was developed by very average software developers. The vast majority of the work software developers do isn't terribly novel or particularly difficult. And you know what? They do just fine. Things work well. Systems stay on line. Companies make money. I've seen too many "bad" teams produce perfectly functional software over the years to think that…

The statistics I've seen say 60% of all software projects fail. My experience, anecdotal as it is, bears that out.

Projects that don't fail, usually have to be rescued from some crazy doomed plans fairly regularly.

You seem to have found a calmer, saner corner of the industry.

Re: The highest paid workers in Silicon Valley are product managers (2016)

#310

Post by rhizome »

Stryder wrote: post #200
codingdave wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And most product managers would confirm that most companies do not need a good machine learning pipeline.

As an older engineer currently having fun digging into ML: yep, a well thought-out set of good-ol business rules can do a lot of what teams are applying ML to these days. Nothing wrong with learning new things, though. I can get behind that. It's important to stay intellectually honest, however. On the other hand, research efforts on vision, language and autonomous systems are genuinely pushing boundaries.

Business rules are concrete and have people and names attached to them. ML allows the robot to take all the blame.
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