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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)

#41

Post by refurb »

the_watcher wrote: post #33
justboxing wrote: post #11

The #s and charts make no sense. Also the data is from "offered salary" and H1B Labor certs? Here's some real data (from last year). Someone here at HN started this anonymous spreadsheet that has captured REAL Salaries and Comps for Product Managers worldwide. Show/Ask HN: Anonymous Global Product Manager Salary List (docs.google.com) by @walthall on Aug 16, 2017 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15031426 Direct L…

It looks like someone hid all the data points in the sheet and Google Sheets isn't giving me an option to unhide. Am I missing something?

Download and turn the filters off.

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

#43

Post by 40acres »

Is a PM similar to the PO (product owner) role using the agile definition? It seems to me that PM's have a higher level view and take responsibility for the whole product (for instance, the PM of Gmail) while in Agile the PO is taking responsibility for an individual scrum team, which might be a handful of developers, maybe some QA, etc.

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

#44

Post by jimbokun »

alistairSH wrote: post #24
alistairSH wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wondered about that. The PMs with whom I work all have 15+ years experience in the business. And for most of them, "the business" is our specific domain area, not just "software". I would expect their salaries to be in the same ballpark as a senior engineer or line manager.

Also, the senior PMs all straddle the line between sales, consulting/services, and R&D. They tend to spend a lot of time in the company booth at conferences, dealing with client C-levels one-on-one, and working with our sales to team to ensure R&D is building stuff that will generate revenue. Their day-to-day interaction is with VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE mores than with us plebes. There shouldn't be any surprise that the…

If anything, I'm surprised the salaries aren't higher than what's reported in the article.

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

#45

Post by DavidAdams »

40acres wrote: post #43

Is a PM similar to the PO (product owner) role using the agile definition? It seems to me that PM's have a higher level view and take responsibility for the whole product (for instance, the PM of Gmail) while in Agile the PO is taking responsibility for an individual scrum team, which might be a handful of developers, maybe some QA, etc.

They're not exactly the same. A skilled Product Manager is going to make a particularly good Product Owner, but PO is more of a role on the project, while PM is a role in the organization.

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

#46

Post by dawhizkid »

As others have mentioned, this is because unlike developers few companies hire PMs straight out of college. As a current PM, I'm actually fairly bearish about the sustainability of this role as far as a long-term career outlook goes. It's an extremely nebulous role, hard to prove your value, wildly differs from company to company, and most of your time will probably not look anything like what is considered textbook "product management."

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

#47

Post by henryfjordan »

meritt wrote: post #23
err0ne wrote: post #6

Wait until you see how much the sales people rake in.

Or get the best of both worlds: Work at a company where engineers receive direct profit sharing for their contributions.

I'm having a hard time picturing this as anything but standard stock/option grants negotiated per employee.

How do you correlate a particular individual's contributions to profit in software? And even if you could really understand how much value everyone was contributing, how would you ever keep a cooperative atmosphere?

If me sharing a good idea with you potentially costs me money, I'm suddenly going to stop talking in meetings.

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

#48

Post by oneanddone »

curun1r wrote: post #39
indemnity wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my situation. I need the pay bump to get us to mortgage free in the next three years or so, at which point I hand in my resignation and seek a programmer job again.

Make sure to keep coding in your spare time. I'm trying to get back to dev work now after 5 years in management land, and I'm finding it difficult to get back to my prior level of productivity. Coding skills age pretty quickly.

I have refused to go into management precisely to avoid what you are experiencing. My wages have somewhat stagnated because of this, and most of my working acquaintances have moved up, but they are miserable in comparison.

Yes, they make more, in some cases much more, but after being in IT for over 20 years, I desire my "8-4 M-F no work nights/no work weekends" life more than I do a little extra coin. I go home and do zero work save things for the wife and kids, which are more akin to fun projects. I have told my boss more than once that I have a union mentality towards work. I work only during working hours. I demand a life/work balance and would happily leave should this become otherwise. I tell young IT people all the time to not allow themselves to be burned out. Work your day job and go home to your girlfriend/wife and enjoy your down time. When I'm home, I don't do any IT work other than tinker with Raspberry Pis or projects with my kids.

You cannot hit the rewind button if you have a family. Your family will not remember you for your long work schedule (hell, they may not even remember you), rather you will be remembered for the quality time. I have told myself that I want my kids to remember our time together as one big, fun on-going series of projects where we learn things together and have fun doing it.

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