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Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

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Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#441
post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to anecdotal reasons, going to have to disagree. Last switch was a 39% increase at 11 years in industry. The market is hot. Most of my friends/colleagues have seen a similar increase the last year. Obviously market, location, expertise will vary, etc. YMMV.

In the real world, people work about 42 years. With 11 years, you've just finished the first quarter. GP spoke about the latter part of one's career.

GP talked about 20+ years, without knowing, they could either be halfway through their career, or nearing the end. Also assuming they started their career immediately instead of at a later time in life.

11 years in the (relatively young) tech industry is quite the tenure at this point, _imo_.

My point was that the market is hot. Hot enough for an 11 year "veteran" to still get a 39% increase. Also want to point out I've "hopped" as many jobs in about as many years. Some people coming into the industry get taken advantage of compensation wise for a multitude of reasons just to get their foot in the door. I also strongly believe in skill stagnation at certain companies and hopping is the only way out.

Again, none of these arguments really matter as it comes down to individual experiences.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#442
post #10

It also makes us Europeans feel underpaid :) I have 20 years of experience and don't even make six figures. $350000 base pay sounds like a different world.

20 years here too, UK, I've finally broken the 6 digit bar but I had to move to contracting. My experience made getting job offers simple, but no one wanted to pay more. I'd often get lowballs with the offer of kudos for working at that tech firm. £95k seems to be the upper limit at this point here for FTEs.

Contracting has been a very large component of the London market.

Developers have been contracting at £600+ per day, more than £120k per year income, for 15+ years.

It has historically been very easy to achieve that if you don’t mind working for a bank.

I don’t even think I’m in a bubble with these numbers. I know and have hired hundreds of contractors over the years.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Engineers in those big tech companies are very protective towards those processes as well, and loudly protest if one would try to change them (complaining about lowering the bar, not hiring top tier talent anymore, etc.). Hazing is a feature of almost every organization that is regularly recruiting new members.

Is it though? Seems pretty specific to the tech industry (and some others). Never heard that there were crazy interview rounds for experienced lawyers, marketers, project managers, even other non-tech engineers. After a certain amount of experience, people assume from your resume that you are not an impostor and interviews are mostly about motivations / behavourial fit.

[deleted]

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#444
post #323

I personally wish there is a healthier supply of modern housing in these attractive workplaces. Places like SF/NY/LA has atrocious rent and that’s okay if housing quality on average is okay but a lot of these buildings are 100+ years old, barely maintained or a new cash grab apartment complex that’s marketed as luxurious but look an inch deeper and you could tell these developers hardly spent time nor money knowing t…

> How come there isn’t a household name akin to Apple for apartment development? Because real estate development is capital-intensive on a fairly unique scale and it's very easy even for good developers to go under. It also doesn't scale in the same way because builders are subject to all of the tax and regulatory implications of each market they're in. They go bankrupt all the time due to market forces outside of th…

Yeah I think the idea was to have a proper functioning market in which a dominant player gains their position through directly winning over and maintaining customers

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#445
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel underpaid, but I definitely feel like I've lost tons of ground in the last 2 years. The floor has risen big time. Entry level jobs are paying up to 60k these days, whereas they were closer to 30k a few years back. Good for them, seriously. But watching the floor rise closer to you is never a great feeling.

entry level jobs in software engineering at FAANG were over 120K about 10 years ago and that was already underpaid. California is a really expensive place to live long term and people generally do not do the math and do not account for child care, retirement, sickness or health issues or whatever. then there is the cost of (ongoing) education and issues of mental health in this industry. And those who think remote wi…

Now that I think about it, you're right. The entry level in SF & Peninsula 10+ years ago was 120k (except startups). Entry level hasn't increased with cost of living so that 120k isn't the same as 10 years ago. Senior pay has increased a little at around 200k-300k. Depending on equity value that might be 300k-500k total comp.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#446
post #328
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most devs will admit that they couldn't readily pass the interview at even their own company without many hours of studying and practicing algorithms. I don't think, if asked to interview for it today, that I could land my current job. I'm also fairly certain I'm one of the top engineers on my team, and I do think we have a really good team of developers overall. It makes me feel better that I'm not alone, in this…

It's a random process. If you set the bar 2 std. div. above what you need, you are hiring qualified people with a p value of 5%. You're rejecting /most/ qualified people too. Most people underestimate how random the process is. There are a few ways in: - Be 2 std. div above the qualifications - Apply to many places and pick the one where you're lucky - Give another, less noisy source of signal than resume + interview…

Another data point - I'm an EM. I still get all the usual SWE interview questions (system design, coding which is often leetcode, behavioral/cultural, etc), plus additional loaded ones about how I've handled various situations in the past (which is always fun because sometimes they're about things I've never had to handle because the question assumes something that shouldn't be true, i.e., "describe a time you had to handle an employee who was angry with you", well, that's never happened; well, why is the employee angry with me, specifically, what happened to all the time spent building trust so they could calmly come to me with issues that they had, all the times they saw me advocating for them so they know that a disappointing and unexpected outcome is due to factors I'm not in control of, why had I dropped the ball in being responsive to their earlier voiced concerns, etc etc). This latter usually is asked by the hiring manager (usually a director)

My last three jobs, at least, I landed because I clicked well with my immediate hiring manager in this particular interview. That was it. I did no worse, and no better, than I did elsewhere on anything maybe a bit more objective (system design is weird, but coding, at least, you can say "does it work/is it efficient or not").

Which sounds bad, but it means my expectation of management aligned with theirs. It was a complete crapshoot in every case, with a lotta rejection along the way, before I found that, but each time it led to good outcomes.

Interestingly, there was also one company where I know I was a strong contender, did decently with the HM, but was beaten out by another candidate. I know because the recruiter reached out to tell me how close it was, and that was further validated when I later applied to a role, spoke with a different recruiter, who said "yeah, I saw the feedback and was like 'why the heck didn't we hire this person?!'". But that second application went nowhere; the HM gave the initial phone interview and didn't want to continue.

It's all random (or at least, so many variables that can't be measured or controlled for as to be indistinguishable)

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#447

>the average tech worker’s salary [will] reach $104,566 in the U.S. — a 6.9% increase since 2020, the report found. But inflation is over 11% since 2020. This isn't an increase. The average tech worker is making less than they were 2 years ago according to the Dice salary report. Why do tech workers feel underpaid? Many companies posted record growth and profits over the pandemic, but still give out paltry 3-5% raise…

The money we make pales in comparison with the size of our contributions to the company. Especially so if you are in a value-adding position and not something like internal tooling. Management and executives are DEFINITELY underpaying us relative to what we bring to the table for them. Maybe that is one of the reason headcounts have ballooned and complexity has increased so much -- an attempt to minimize individual i…

Depending on the industry, this can be so true that at a certain point you start to wonder why VCs are even tolerant of companies with zero technical founders in 2022 given the obvious risks of this situation.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually so much of why people feel underpaid. Pay varies incredibly widely. The job also varies quite widely, but when you're not in the job, IC sounds a lot like IC. You could be an IC with a total compensation of $80k (and actually getting $80k), you could be an IC with a TC of $300k (and actually getting $300k), and you could be an IC with a TC of $750k (and actually getting something like $200k-250k becau…

If your employee is private, it is silly to count non liquid statistically meaningless “equity” as part of your compensation. “compensation” is something I can trade for cash once I have earned it and then exchange for good and services.

Paper equity for late stage startups can be traded for cash in secondary markets like EquityZen

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to anecdotal reasons, going to have to disagree. Last switch was a 39% increase at 11 years in industry. The market is hot. Most of my friends/colleagues have seen a similar increase the last year. Obviously market, location, expertise will vary, etc. YMMV.

It's more accurate to say that job-hopping has diminishing returns. Get a single +39% increase is one thing. Getting a +39% increase every single time you change jobs isn't going to happen. If that was possible, you could change jobs every year for a decade and be earning 27X what you started with. If you started at $100K, that would put you at $2.7 million year after 10 iterations. That's why whenever someone insist…

I'd still be very cautious about dissuading people from job hopping. My advice is always "Keep interviewing for new positions at regular intervals until you're bordering on retirement."

A lot of people a lot of people are making less money than they could be due to being complacent about reaffirming their own value. America, and most of the modern world, runs a labour market and to properly value a good in a market you need real sales data - I think it's a solidly good idea to interview regularly, be prepared to job hop... but make a sane evaluation about the decision before committing to leaving or joining a particular job. Most employers over-advertise their business because... well... advertising works - so the grass might not be greener on the other side. But if you have an offer for 120k and are currently making 80k from an employer that values you you can discuss that with your employer to seek a salary equalization.

Re: Tech Salaries in 2022: Why the Six Figure Pay Makes Techies Feel Underpaid

#450
post #425
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Code review this" or "debug this" or "refactor this" are things that an actual developer doesn't need to do special preparation for as they probably do it almost every day, unlike LC, and should provide a signal more relevant to the job of coding that the candidate is smart and capable of doing good work. Having a bit of code to work with can also take away some stress by reducing the emphasis of typing a complete s…

The challenge with code review/debug/refactor interviews is that they rely on the candidate being familiar with the "this". The original intention of LC interviews was to remove domain specificity from the "this". Prior to LC interviews, candidates would get asked about their familiarity with things like ISO standards, random libraries, or other weird behaviors best learned through memorization. This can be mitigated…

Domain specificity can be mitigated by matching the interview problem(s) with the tech stack that's being hired for. Doing a refactoring of some basic Java code that's not going crazy with annotation processing would be quite reasonable for a job ad seeking to hire someone to do Java development; the same problem can be replicated in Python, JavaScript, etc. to accommodate different skill sets. I wouldn't expect this style of an interview to determine whether one understands the specific gotchas of Django Models if the company is seeking an average developer to do average work for average pay.

The 12 hour vs 2 hour thing is to allow for a degree of normalization, similarly to how it's unclear about what's being considered when 1 applicant spends 3 hours on a LC medium and another spends 30 minutes. Spending an extreme amount of time on take-homes confounds simple pride with someone who's otherwise a bad fit skills-wise but can eventually make up for it with an input of time, something that might not be appreciated after an offer is accepted. Too often companies will refuse to speak further with candidates if even 1 out of 20 test scenarios are not covered just because someone else chose to spend their entire weekend on the problem -- they'll be the same ones complaining about a dev shortage, no doubt.

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