341–350 of 455 posts
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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.
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…
> 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. Are you kidding me? I go and check salaries on Glassdoor and find out that about $85k/year is still the standard here in Boston for junior and mid-level engineers. And you're telling me that a median of $134k/year in the Bay Ar…
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I'd be more interested in a guild or craft association than a union. I don't find collective bargaining, closed shops, standardized pay schedules, and some other features of unions to be compelling.
Agree. I'd much rather we organize the same way lawyers with their Bar Associations operate.
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…
> RSUs and bonuses at established companies will easily double your take home pay. Is this really true for more than the top subset? For instance, are there really a significant number of engineers at Oracle or Cisco getting that much non-salary compensation?
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Definitely true for Apple/Facebook/Linkedin/Google (I worked for 2 of these).
More true at Amazon. Amazon actually has a salary cap, and everything else is stock. Amazon pays towards a "target total comp" number, which includes vesting RSU's. They do not do bonuses.
Q: “What does an ordinary non-elite baseball team do?”
A: “Well the Yankees...”
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…
> 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. I agree with your overall message, but base salary itself is very important. That's what puts a roof over your family's head and food on the table…
RSU / options are lottery tickets not a reliable income stream.
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Agree. Engineers outside the Valley often list the cost of living as a negative, but coupled with the insane amount of salary leverage (in part because of the COL), I never got financially ahead until I moved to the Bay Area. You're a King in SV as a software engineer.
You're a king? So you live in a mansion? I live in the midwest, wife doesn't work, 10 years experience - we live in a 4k sqft house in the best school district in the state about 25 minutes from the city. How much does that cost in SV?
This 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 h…
That being said, there is a very serious lack of opportunity in Florida. That's why I left.
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Agree. I'd much rather we organize the same way lawyers with their Bar Associations operate.
Kind of an ironic example, lawyers have terrible working conditions. Pay is great, but the partner system of advancement is dehumanizing, and encourages cutthroat behavior and insane working hours.
The bar is an accreditation and verification system as well as a means for upholding ethical standards across the membership.
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What on earth do you do for $400k/year? Make moon rockets in your garage or something?
Nowadays, this might not be true. 10 years ago, I hired Oracle dbas (not many, mind you) at hourly wages of 300K+ (edit: yes, they worked 40hrs/wk at least)