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Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

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Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#71

Post by lhorie »

Impossible wrote: post #28
lacker wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That number is too high. If you restrict to the FAANG companies, though, it is only a small overestimate. See https://www.levels.fyi/ and select Google. There an L5 represents an "experienced" engineer with at least 4-5 years of experience, and total comp is $350k. Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft are similar.

Yeah $400K is high L5. Not uncommon, but slightly above average. It's possible that if you average all engineers you'd get something close to $400K, but L3 and L4 salaries would bring that value down. In surveys L5 makes up the majority of the engineering workforce in these companies, and L3\L4 have a bigger representation than L6+, so it's unlikely that the average TC is $400K.

Probably also worth highlighting that L5 at google is a much wider range than other companies. For example, at Uber, there's two separate promotion tiers (5A and 5B, with the latter being far less common than the former) that more or less overlap w/ Google's L5 range, while at Microsoft, google's L5 range would overlap with a good portion of 3 separate tiers (senior SDE to principal SDE)[0]

[0] https://www.levels.fyi/?compare=Uber,Google,Microsoft&track=...

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#72

Post by majormajor »

ghaff wrote: post #25
vmception wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those stock gains absolutely are negotiating leverage as much as the same person's prior or competing salaries would be, so I don't think it is productive to draw a distinction. Open to discussion. An "L5" position is very similar to what is written on Levels.fyi and Blind, no matter what macroeconomic factors made it so across the board

Sure, absolutely relevant as a backward looking measure to offer a potential new employer a baseline--to the degree you want to share it. Certainly, when I last got a new job, I handwaved a bit around "counting bonuses etc." when giving a salary. (Was a private company so no stock.) On the other hand, the fact that your comp could drop by $100K next year because your company's stock was flat or a bit down is probably…

> On the other hand, the fact that your comp could drop by $100K next year because your company's stock was flat or a bit down is probably at least somewhat relevant.

Sure, but that applies to cash-comp too, for companies paying big cash bonuses instead of equity.

If the overall economic environment turns downward, your share grants if paid in equity are gonna be worth less than in the last 5 years, and if paid in cash, your cash bonuses are likely to fall off as well.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#73

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

riantogo wrote: post #49

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

Palo Alto is a lot more expensive than most of the Bay Area, so this is a somewhat cherry-picked result.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#74

Post by opportune »

My theory for why "AR/VR" is so much higher is that those engineers are mostly just working for Facebook on Oculus, and FB has high pay.

Also telltale sign someone's not plugged into SV - looking at salaries rather than total comp. Then there are two further schools of thought: granted vs. vested compensation. What was your offer + refreshers at grant value + expected bonus vs. what are your initial grants and refreshers actually vesting at + what is your real bonus.

On one hand, you could say that vested comp mostly reflects the outcome of the equity lottery and doesn't have anything to do with what is actually the going "market rate". On the other hand, vested comp is what the person is actually earning. And because of that, it's also their opportunity cost if they were to switch to another job, which in a way does become the market price for that person (at that point in time). Although once appreciated grants fully vest you can hit quite a cliff.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#75

Post by splaytreemap »

legerdemain wrote: post #51
riantogo wrote: post #49

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

Somewhat visible in some of the outdoor photos: a railroad right-of-way is located directly behind this house , with at least two trains per hour from early morning until midnight.

And for those that aren't familiar with Caltrain, that train blasts its horn two or three times before each stop and the horn is so loud that you can hear it from a mile away. Living as close to the train as that house is would be miserable.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#76

Post by opportune »

fwiwm2c wrote: post #70

These numbers are ridiculously low. Here is what a typical FAANG setup pays you in the bay area (Source: I have worked in a couple of them): IC5 Eng (~5 yrs exp): $350k/yr all in (cash+stock+bonus) IC6 Eng (~9 yrs exp): $550k/yr all in IC7 Eng (~12 yrs exp and you are exceptional): $800k/yr As you go from IC5 to IC7, your stock and bonus goes up (as expected). A typical IC7 will earn around $250k in cash, ~25% bonus…

Worth keeping in mind lots of engineers in the bay area are working at startups for lower salaries (closer to median in this chart), bodyshops, and large companies that are not known for as good pay.

Also at higher levels it's not just the number of years you work. Average Joe with 9 years of experience is not going to be IC6 - the yoe:level relationship is also governed by pedigree, network, career history (where, what), projects led, previous roles, etc.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#77

Post by dilyevsky »

riantogo wrote: post #49

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

You do realize it’s the price of a lot? That house is a teardown

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#78

Post by kazen44 »

riantogo wrote: post #49

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

what i always wonder about this massive income inequality in silicon valley is, where are the non high paying people living?

you know, people who are not highly trained professionals with advanced degrees but who are still required to make up a community. (bakers, school teachers, nurses, technical craftsman, caretakers etc).

It is my understanding that those people make signficantly less money (more on the "standard" level most western-europeans make. say 30kEUR a year), But where do these people live?!

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#79

Post by clairity »

dang wrote: post #45
Scene_Cast2 wrote: post #11

The standard conversation that happens around such posts: "Salaries in SV are so much higher than elsewhere" - "But so is rent, but SV still comes out to be more profitable" "Salaries in USA are so much higher than elsewhere" - "But so is healthcare, and there's no social safety net" "Salaries in FANG make smart people work on optimizing for clicks instead of doing something more beneficial for the world"

You're quite right. I wish we had a more reliable way to downweight such generic responses, which reliably recur on every story related to an ongoing theme. HN threads are much better when they have interesting diffs. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so... Of course…

at the risk of wallowing in the meta, sometimes i fantasize about having a button that zaps away all the tropey, partisan, bigoted, and ideological comments (even ones i might nod along with) in one fell swoop, leaving just the ~10 genuinely interesting comments (which seems to be about the average on any given story, regardless of # of comments). can we get a button like that? #downvotingfatigue (i realize this is practically impossible)

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#80

Post by dilyevsky »

splaytreemap wrote: post #75
legerdemain wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somewhat visible in some of the outdoor photos: a railroad right-of-way is located directly behind this house , with at least two trains per hour from early morning until midnight.

And for those that aren't familiar with Caltrain, that train blasts its horn two or three times before each stop and the horn is so loud that you can hear it from a mile away. Living as close to the train as that house is would be miserable.

I would be more worried about thick layer of diesel dust on all surfaces (including your lungs) but hey they are going electric in next 20 years for sure
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