Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas • Hacker News Board

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#51

Post by cagriaksay » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 5:47 PM UTC

madcaptenor wrote: post #47

cagriaksay wrote: post #29

We recently used salary prediction data to come up with salary charts and maps as well: https://salaryfairy.com/salary One interesting finding was that not only SF salaries are much higher compared to rest of the US, but users from SF tend to over-estimate how much the rest of the country is making. You can see this effect in the third map at https://salaryfairy.com/blog/first-10k-users-salary-maps-and...

For what it's worth, I work for a company that has offices in both Atlanta (which is probably a relatively low-wage market) and San Francisco. I was given a choice between the two offices (I lived in SF at the time of the offer but was looking to move) and was offered X in Atlanta or about 1.2X in SF. (I took Atlanta, by the way. The cost of living difference is much larger than 20%.)

No kidding! I just checked Atlanta vs SF cost of living out of curiosity. SF cost of living is almost twice and rent cost is almost triple. Crazy!

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#52

Post by autokad » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 5:48 PM UTC

kissickas wrote: post #20

captainaj wrote: post #13

Engineers are just middle class who didn't get screwed. The real bubble is in the medical industry and Wall Street and it's not gonna pop any time soon.

Some would say that the medical industry isn't seeing a bubble, as much of the inflation in prices and salaries is going straight to the insurance companies - so the real bubble is in Wall Street and Wall Street.

If the argument that medical spending cannot continue to keep rising at present rates, then I would argue its a bubble. I also do not believe 'going straight to insurance companies'. Their profit margins are usually around 5% (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=UNH+Key+Statistics)

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#53

Post by Domenic_S » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:03 PM UTC

seiji wrote: post #8

runako wrote: post #2

According to the data here, salaries for "Senior software engineer" in both SF and NYC are lagging rental inflation over the last 5 years. Does this jibe with reality? Is the data bad, or are engineers losing ground?

My rent is going up by 10% next month at lease renewal time. My yearly review/raise increase was ~1%.

You have to consider housing cost as a % of your salary, not as a % of itself.

For example, say your rent is $1000 and your salary is $100k. A 10% increase of rent is $100; a 1% salary increase is $1000. Net gain $900.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#54

Post by wyuenho » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:05 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #50

wyuenho wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey ah guys. Most devs in HK earn < 30k USD a year. China is half that, Taiwan is even worse. When you factor in how freaking expensive everything is in HK, especially real estate, HK devs in general are basically slave labors.

In the U.S. a Software Development(dev, designer, etc.) job is a middle class role. What is a developer in china? Lower class? What is a middleman class job then? EDIT: Should probably define middleman class then...I guess I'd have to say, being able to purchase a house, pay off student debt in less than 10 years, afford to have children, buy a car, go to events and maintain a relatively comfortable lifestyle.

Software dev is definitely a middle class job in China, but in HK, it's only considered marginally better than clerical work. Labor in Greater China for any job other than the most exploitative ones (finance, sales, insurance, legal, upper management) are treated like dirt in general. Don't even get me started on the hours and the lack of benefits and incentives.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#55

Post by nilkn » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:06 PM UTC

ryanSrich wrote: post #26

thejdude wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's low to you? Wow. Just wow. Over here in Europe (or at least Germany) salaries are incredibly uniform (doesn't really matter if you suck or get as much done in a day as others in 1-2 weeks; if your bugs get constantly reopened or your code is rock-solid), and most people seem to get maybe 35-50k€ after graduation (diploma/master's degree).

I'll reiterate OP and say that these seem low to me as well...and dare I say that I still think Software Developers are underpaid?! These employees are bringing in billions of dollars for these companies and for them to still receive Think about this. You get into work at 8am and you leave work at 8pm. You manage a team of engineers that are literally building the foundation for the future of the company. Your entire…

> Think about this. You get into work at 8am and you leave work at 8pm. You manage a team of engineers that are literally building the foundation for the future of the company. Your entire life is dedicated to making this company money.

Do you really think this is truly representative of what the typical programmer is doing day-by-day?

Many will get in at 10am, leave at 4:30pm, manage nobody, and work on somewhat important projects that nevertheless are not even remotely the foundation for the entire company or the company's future.

The people who actually worked on the foundations of these companies are already multi-millionaires. The people spearheading huge projects at the highest level are also almost certainly making far more than $200k/year.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#56

Post by acchow » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:07 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #15

Why are tech salaries so low? Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the fruit of their labors.

For many of these bay area engineers, the compensation in equity is more than their salary.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#57

Post by barrkel » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:12 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #21

thejdude wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's low to you? Wow. Just wow. Over here in Europe (or at least Germany) salaries are incredibly uniform (doesn't really matter if you suck or get as much done in a day as others in 1-2 weeks; if your bugs get constantly reopened or your code is rock-solid), and most people seem to get maybe 35-50k€ after graduation (diploma/master's degree).

Bear in mind that the US is severely out of whack in terms of work/life balance. It's one of the things I find most difficult about living here - when I first arrived I had 10 days vacation a year. I currently only have 15. And don't forget to factor in healthcare costs and the like. Money certainly isn't everything.

10 days vacation was one of the biggest reasons I didn't move to the US when I got my H-1B visa.

Company policy was that vacation was a reward for tenure, rather than a negotiable component of compensation. Best they could do was offer 20 days for the first year, and only the first year.

It was an asinine policy if you ask me. An immigrant is exactly the type of person who would want to take a holiday back home to see friends and family. To make the cost and hassle of two long flights worth it, it would have to be two weeks at least. And that would leave 0 days left for the rest of the year.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#58

Post by mvgoogler » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:13 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #15

Why are tech salaries so low? Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the fruit of their labors.

FWIW, I think this only shows data for base salaries. My total comp is almost 2x my base salary. I believe that's pretty typical at Google.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#59

Post by bduerst » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:14 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #11

Most interesting takeaway for me is that salaries weren't significantly higher in SF in 2013. As someone living in NYC I always imagined moving to SF/Silicon Valley would give me a big pay bump. Also one thing to note here: these are 'Labor Condition Applications', not actual salaries. Often they are one and the same, but (for example) they do not include pay rises. I've ended up being paid more than every LCA I've h…

This is biased data. As someone who has mined the LCA data applications, I can say you're absolutely right.

These are H1B labor applications, and salaries are carefully calculated to be a certain margin over the average salaries for the same SOC jobs for employed citizens in the region. These SOC classifications can be nebulous and thus not reflective of the true market - e.g. "PROGRAMMER" could be anything from data entry to senior software engineer.

This means that the salaries are calculated and set for a successful LCA approval, NOT the market rate.

Re: Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas

#60

Post by Iftheshoefits » Tue, Sep 23, 2014, 6:15 PM UTC

thejdude wrote: post #42

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in the US we basically have little or no social safety net, and certainly few meaningful regulations and laws protecting labor. Our "wow just wow" salaries have less buying power than yours, because any difference in the margins is eaten up by having to use the additional salary for basic services you would be able to (mostly) take for granted as being government supplied (via taxation and other means).

I'm not too sure about that. Yes, if you compare the average American to the average European, you make more and have to pay for more things, so it more or less evens out. But developer salaries - definitely not.

No, it doesn't really even out at all. There are several factors you're neglecting to consider here.

The salaries listed here are in our highest cost of living areas. The vast majority of developers aren't earning anywhere near these wages. Most are in the $50,000-$90,000 range (not too far off of your EUR$35k - $50k figures). Second, I think you're discounting far too heavily how much extra the average American has to contribute on his own for his own health and retirement. One might consider the 15%-20% one should take out of his pre-tax salary for savings to be an implicit tax we have to pay. The federal marginal rate for an individual earning $130k/yr is around 30% (for the sake of argument--it's actually a bit higher). In SF and NY, the state taxes wll boost that 8%-10% (or more). So the base tax rate is already around 40%. Couple that with this implicit tax, and Americans are paying a "tax" that is about what Europeans pay. Except we get a lot less for it by a long, long way. And, actually, since it's infreqent to earn that much money as a software developer without having a college degree, there is the additional factor of the cost of our education. Most people can't afford the 15%-20% hit to their pay because of the high cost of everything else, so the 'add-on' cost that hits them in retirement is even worse.