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Tech compensation in 2021

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Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#551

Post by mmmmmbop »

wiseowise wrote: post #532
throwaway2016a wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was data. The "I must be doing something wrong" was tongue in cheek. The specific data point was that I am not seeing any salaries anywhere near that. And Salary.com actually backs me up. Just the fact "grind Leet Code" is a recommendation to someone who's most recent job title was CTO and has written two books may be a sign these interviews are broken. But point taken, I'm sure if I studied specifically for inter…

> Just the fact "grind Leet Code" is a recommendation to someone who's most recent job title was CTO and has written two books may be a sign these interviews are broken. Well, I'm sorry you have to go through the same ropes that we peasants do, you highness.

Exactly.

If I was hiring for a tech position and had to choose between an engineer with a few years of experience and strong analytical skills proven through coding & system design interviews, and a person who prides themselves on 10 years as a CTO at a company I've never heard of and two book authorships, I'd strongly lean towards the former.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#552

Post by sli »

Threads like this kill all hope I have of making a real living if I stay in the tech industry, because I'm stuck in a hole where I need therapy for my social anxiety, ADHD, and depression to maintain the work, but can't afford it due to my wages and can't get my foot in the door anywhere offering the pay and insurance to cover that therapy, which keeps my job prospects dire and leaves me without the ability to afford school. And now that I'm in my mid-30s, that door is about closed forever. Even just 60-75k/yr would be life-changing for me, much less the 300-400k/yr people in this thread are throwing around.

I've dedicated my entire life to this industry and working for startups has left me with nothing to show for it except for drowning in mental health issues from the abuse suffered at the hands of terrible clients and bosses and my lack of any kind of support network, something I struggle build at my level of anxiety and don't get from family. At what point do I throw in the towel and just take some shitty minimum wage job?

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#553

Post by smorgusofborg »

I half agree with his math on private stock, though some private stock is like having the same access as the ultra rich to underpriced off market stock..

I don't follow the stock grants math at all. AFAIK what is usually given is a mix of low priced and ultra-low priced options vesting over 5 years. One might end up getting 300K a year of profit in vesting options by year 5 but is anyone getting $300k in pure stocks given to them in year one?

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#554

Post by helen___keller »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #90

20 years experience, two books under my belt, and lead architect (with a CTO title) on several good sized projects and most I have ever gotten in $175k... every time I see an article like this, I think I am doing something "very wrong" I live about 40 miles outside of Boston. Edit: Looking at levels.fyi for Boston that actually puts me above the median[1]. Why the heck is Boston so low compared to other markets? Edit…

I live in Boston, 6 years of experience. I just went through the big tech thing for the first time. I got an offer from two of them and ended up almost doubling my total income (salary about the same but adding a ton of RSU and cash bonus). I did not grind leetcode, but I do know my data structures and I practiced enough to code basic algorithms without googling for method names or syntax. I spent more time practicing anecdotes, which is the part of the big tech interview where they ask questions like “describe a time you identified a customer issue and went outside your role to resolve it”

From my experience no company founded in Boston pays top end wages. This job search I only considered big tech side offices in Boston and remote roles for Silicon Valley companies.

My recommendation: find some data points on Levels.fyi that match your experience/level, location, and desired TC. If there’s a bunch of data points, then it’s possible. Interview with every employer listed in these data points, and don’t take a job if it’s less than your desired TC. The market is hot and you are in control.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#555

Post by vincnetas »

renewiltord wrote: post #493
vincnetas wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i had to read this twice to make sure i was reading it correctly: and it might actually be better to donate the diff between 300k and 175k vs working in a slightly more ethical place for 175k this really triggered me. you basically say its ok to do shady things as long as you give something to the poor. sounds so much like "indulgence" in Christian churches where you could pay off your sins. sad. i'd say money is not…

The difference between the two options is saving 125 lives / year at GiveWell’s current estimate. In ten years, you will have saved more than Oskar Schindler did during the entire Holocaust. But of course you have taken one path to the Trolley problem and Schindler (who joined the Nazi party) has taken the other. Now it remains to be seen whether history remembers Oskar Schindler the Nazi Party member or user vincnet…

i doubt that Schindler was weighting his options of joining nazi to be saving jews. it was after he joined he saw whats happening and acted in good faith. so he was saving lives not because he joined nazi, but because he mostly could not be not saving them.

this is tangential to slavery where slave owners where treating their slaves very well, but fundamentally they still were slavers.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#556

Post by sciurus »

rokob wrote: post #355
throwaway19170 wrote: post #336

So there are all these people in these threads who are like "I only make $175K/200K/150K, I feel like I'm grossly underpaid when I read these things." I got you all beat. I have 15+ experience. I am a really good coder . I can be very not humble because this is a throwaway, but everyone who has ever worked with me or gone to school with me or worked on open source with me would agree, I am very good at designing and…

If you know Ruby really well you might want to look at Stripe. You might be able to just apply and get an interview and see where it goes.

Also GitHub and Shopify.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#557

Post by xboxnolifes »

i1856511 wrote: post #40

How many people go into programming now simply for the money? More than 70%? What percentage of programmers would still be programmers if competitive salary was not a concern in life, and people were free to simply pursue their passions?

If competitive salary wasn't a concern in life, I would make my living casually playing video games. And specifically for the exact amount of hours that I would like to allocate toward it every day (because hours are part of the competitiveness of salary, and 40 hour weeks aren't a permanently fixed standard).

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#558

Post by CrimpCity »

mmmmmbop wrote: post #551
wiseowise wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just the fact "grind Leet Code" is a recommendation to someone who's most recent job title was CTO and has written two books may be a sign these interviews are broken. Well, I'm sorry you have to go through the same ropes that we peasants do, you highness.

Exactly. If I was hiring for a tech position and had to choose between an engineer with a few years of experience and strong analytical skills proven through coding & system design interviews, and a person who prides themselves on 10 years as a CTO at a company I've never heard of and two book authorships, I'd strongly lean towards the former.

I mean “tech position” is extremely vague here if you’re going to make them code because what you actually need is an engineer then yeah I would prefer the leetcoder too but if you’re going to build a team and put processes in place then I’d go for the CTO. I think it all depends on the position specifics. Generally speaking tho the CTO interview is VERY different than a typical engineer or senior engineer.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#559

Post by throwaway2016a »

mym1990 wrote: post #442
throwaway2016a wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being downvoted (not by me) but you have a point. I did two things wrong that I know of: - I graduated college right before the great recession and that effected my career starting rates - I stayed at a company I knew was under paying me for far too long (because I had a lot of stock options and I valued them too highly) If either of those two things were different I'd probably be making a lot more. But my poi…

I feel like those 2 points are just excuses(no offense but plenty of people would kill for a chance to even go to college)...if you were to go back would you hold off graduating college until after the recession? It sounds like you are extremely proficient in the technical space, are you good at negotiating and/or identifying where the value is? There is really no reason for someone to stay on a linear pay progressio…

A lot of research has been done on how the recession stunted career growth for anyone who graduated into it. Effectively anyone who graduated during it got passed over for the people who did graduated right after it. Leaving the people who graduated during it in underemployment and unable to move on because companies were more willing to hire people who were fresh graduates than people who were underemployed.

So yes, actually... in hind sight I should have gotten my Masters degree instead of entering the workforce.

Edit: That job I stayed at too long... only reason I took it in the first place was because the recession left me almost no choices. No one was hiring in Boston. The job boards were empty for someone right out of college.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#560

Post by jhugg »

Two things that jumped out at me: 1. It’s 2021. You can get a remote job for a big company that pays 10-15% less in Akron, not 40%. If you don’t want to work remote, you can still use BA remote salaries as leverage for local negotiations. 2. What “ggregoire” said: Engineers vary in quality EVERYWHERE. Many people holding onto CTO-type jobs in Akron or in BA startups can’t always move laterally. The salaries for everyone are rising in 2021, but for the truly strong (or for those who can nail an interview) they are rising even faster.
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