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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

#41

Post by pageandrew »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #30
garyguo110 wrote: post #4

It's nice to know what a competitive base salary is for an engineer but when negotiating an offer I think you really should be looking at Total Compensation. RSU, Stock Options, Bonuses all play a very significant role when looking at offers. Especially if you work at one of the large tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) the stock grants are a VERY large portion of your compensation.

You should, but it looks like triplebyte was explicitly ignoring that because it would add too many dimensions to the graph and those benefits are hard to value. Stock options are not a liquid asset, and their value can change wildly and unpredictably. Ask all those programmers around in 2001 how much their options were worth.

At large, public companies, the stock options are basically as good as cash.

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

#42

Post by [deleted] »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #30
garyguo110 wrote: post #4

It's nice to know what a competitive base salary is for an engineer but when negotiating an offer I think you really should be looking at Total Compensation. RSU, Stock Options, Bonuses all play a very significant role when looking at offers. Especially if you work at one of the large tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) the stock grants are a VERY large portion of your compensation.

You should, but it looks like triplebyte was explicitly ignoring that because it would add too many dimensions to the graph and those benefits are hard to value. Stock options are not a liquid asset, and their value can change wildly and unpredictably. Ask all those programmers around in 2001 how much their options were worth.

[deleted]

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

#43

Post by pageandrew »

djakjxnanjak wrote: post #39
jalgos_eminator wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should, but it looks like triplebyte was explicitly ignoring that because it would add too many dimensions to the graph and those benefits are hard to value. Stock options are not a liquid asset, and their value can change wildly and unpredictably. Ask all those programmers around in 2001 how much their options were worth.

Very relevant for people working for startups, much less relevant for those working at public companies where the stock can be sold the day it vests. Standard vesting starts after a year cliff, but it’s common to get a large signing bonus which makes up for it. Plus some people are getting offers with no cliff. I worry that some really skilled developers may be looking at these stats and not realize what they are giv…

Unless you go to a FAANG you're basically going to be accepting compensation close to what's listed here.

If you're at a FAANG and get those massive stock packages, then you can really start getting close to the $300k+ total comp packages that people talk about.

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

#44

Post by protonimitate »

cm2012 wrote: post #31

This just shows how game changing bootcamps and the like are. People with no software background can go from no experience to a job paying 130k a year with a year of training. That's downright miraculous.

I think it says more about how unrelated traditional CS programs are to getting students "work force ready".

While I wont deny the foundational knowledge that CS degrees can offer, it doesn't seem to make much a difference in earning potential.

The biggest difference between CS degree holders and bootcampers / no degree holders is the amount of time + effort required to land that first job. It seems that once you land that first job, there is not a huge difference in earnings between traditional and non-traditional engineers.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out over time. I'm curious what the average earnings will be between bootcampers vs 'others' in 15-20 years.

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

#45

Post by esoterica »

beneichler wrote: post #2

Ben from Triplebyte here, I'm the engineer who built this tool from our offer data. The finding that most surprised me was that the mean salary for an engineer without a college degree is only $3k (~2%) less than for those with one; this gap is much smaller than in the labor market as a whole. One explanation is that CS really is a field where educational signaling doesn't (or at least needn't) matter as much as in o…

> The finding that most surprised me was that the mean salary for an engineer without a college degree is only $3k (~2%) less than for those with one; this gap is much smaller than in the labor market as a whole.

The sample set of people using TripleByte is not going to be remotely representative of the market for developers as a whole. Candidates with stronger resumes are not going to be using third party recruiters to spray their resume around; they are going to be applying directly to the companies they want to work at or getting headhunted by the companies themselves.

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

#46

Post by BonesJustice »

beneichler wrote: post #26
friedman23 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple questions, Are these base salaries or total compensation? Can you share what the distribution of companies you source to is? Ie are they mostly early stage startups or do they include many large post ipo tech companies?

These are base salaries - we have data on equity and other compensation factors, but those factors are difficult to meaningfully compare in an anonymized way. Triplebyte works with over 400 companies, including Apple, Dropbox, Instacart, and numerous early stage companies (including many YC companies). The Open Positions section on the salary tool page should give a pretty good feel for the kinds of specific roles an…

Seems a rather glaring omission—as a software engineer in NYC, roughly 55% of my total annual compensation comes in the form of a cash bonus.

Since total compensation tends to vary more significantly than base salary, I would continue showing the salary-only graph by default, with an option to toggle total compensation as a second series.

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

#47

Post by goldenzun »

wellreally wrote: post #28
beneichler wrote: post #2

Ben from Triplebyte here, I'm the engineer who built this tool from our offer data. The finding that most surprised me was that the mean salary for an engineer without a college degree is only $3k (~2%) less than for those with one; this gap is much smaller than in the labor market as a whole. One explanation is that CS really is a field where educational signaling doesn't (or at least needn't) matter as much as in o…

Do you have this data for management roles as well? Could be helpful for career planning.

Check out levels.fyi they have some management tracks

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

#48

Post by echevil »

pageandrew wrote: post #43
djakjxnanjak wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very relevant for people working for startups, much less relevant for those working at public companies where the stock can be sold the day it vests. Standard vesting starts after a year cliff, but it’s common to get a large signing bonus which makes up for it. Plus some people are getting offers with no cliff. I worry that some really skilled developers may be looking at these stats and not realize what they are giv…

Unless you go to a FAANG you're basically going to be accepting compensation close to what's listed here. If you're at a FAANG and get those massive stock packages, then you can really start getting close to the $300k+ total comp packages that people talk about.

Later stage startups also have equity packages similar to FAANG based on their valuation.

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

#49

Post by BonesJustice »

jalgos_eminator wrote: post #30
garyguo110 wrote: post #4

It's nice to know what a competitive base salary is for an engineer but when negotiating an offer I think you really should be looking at Total Compensation. RSU, Stock Options, Bonuses all play a very significant role when looking at offers. Especially if you work at one of the large tech companies (Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc) the stock grants are a VERY large portion of your compensation.

You should, but it looks like triplebyte was explicitly ignoring that because it would add too many dimensions to the graph and those benefits are hard to value. Stock options are not a liquid asset, and their value can change wildly and unpredictably. Ask all those programmers around in 2001 how much their options were worth.

In NYC, and in the financial sector in particular, total total compensation often includes cash bonuses, while stock components are less common compared to S.V.

Without insight into total compensation, these numbers are only minimally useful.

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

#50

Post by beneichler »

many_indicator wrote: post #22

I imagine the signaling is partly due to the selective admissions processes at elite universities. MIT, Stanford, Harvard already vetted for you, so surely you must be intelligent, driven and cut above the rest. But I wonder if there are recent studies on the demographics of who attends elite universities in general? I'd assume it is mostly kids from the upper middle class to upper class backgrounds. These sort of pl…

indeed, or even people like: https://triplebyte.com/blog/how-i-got-a-software-engineering...
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