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Be in a field where tech is the limit

mathiaskirkbonde.substack.com

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Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#71

Post by pvarangot »

Judgmentality wrote: post #63
barry-cotter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even after any attempt to account for healthcare, pension and education the US will still look vastly better off. Unfortunately we don’t have figures on average individual consumption but by household Hong Kong consumes about $1,000 more a year than the US and the next closest is Switzerland, consuming about $10,000 a year less[1]. Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention excep…

> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better. I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k. So how much do people make in finance?

A friend retired with more than 1M after four years in finance and living the life in NY, like he was not saving much. Most of his comp was commissions on what his algorithms or the stuff his team worked on was marking on the market. His base salary and comp were a little bit above Google, were he worked before switching to finance.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#72

Post by 908B64B197 »

_Wintermute wrote: post #44
d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #23

I worked in bio tech for 4 years. Amazing people and problems. Worst pay, top heavy salaries. When a phd makes 80k a year and a “ML/AI” data scientist is lucky to make 100k you won’t find any progress like software They need to cut the top heavy executive bloat, respect the mid tier with better pay

I worked as a post-doc at a pharma company in Europe, our research-based department was in need of a software engineer as our collection of crappy R/python scripts couldn't actually be linked up to any equipment or processes. HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit…

> HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit. I've since left, but I'm pretty sure they've still not manage to hire a software engineer.

Just relocate your lab to be in the US and associated with a US University. Then you can hire a Masters/PhD student from Europe's top schools at that salary.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#73

Post by ipaddr »

sho_hn wrote: post #37
d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #23

I worked in bio tech for 4 years. Amazing people and problems. Worst pay, top heavy salaries. When a phd makes 80k a year and a “ML/AI” data scientist is lucky to make 100k you won’t find any progress like software They need to cut the top heavy executive bloat, respect the mid tier with better pay

I'm always curious when I hear HN opine on salary levels. Now I understand that in SF / at certain FAANG locations you can expect to make far in excess of 80-100k, and that exerts a competitive pressure in the job market - while also being balanced to some extend by extreme CoL. But I always wonder just how small that bubble is and what the trade-offs really are. In essentially all of Central Europe except perhaps, s…

The creation of the EU created a situation where supply increased which meant salaries were not going to rise in the richer EU countries. The free college, health care, services is the reason for the taxes.

We will see salaries in the UK increase over Germany.

Lower salaries make it easier for businesses to compete.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#74

Post by ptudan »

Judgmentality wrote: post #63
barry-cotter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even after any attempt to account for healthcare, pension and education the US will still look vastly better off. Unfortunately we don’t have figures on average individual consumption but by household Hong Kong consumes about $1,000 more a year than the US and the next closest is Switzerland, consuming about $10,000 a year less[1]. Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention excep…

> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better. I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k. So how much do people make in finance?

Top traders at hedge funds are the people who become billionaires. You can easily make 2, 5, 10m+ once you become a partner.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#75

Post by lostlogin »

fridif wrote: post #69
_Wintermute wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a post-doc at a pharma company in Europe, our research-based department was in need of a software engineer as our collection of crappy R/python scripts couldn't actually be linked up to any equipment or processes. HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit…

I don't understand, you guys have PhDs, why can't you write a script yourself? Porting it to java will speed it up a few x, and if it uses some silly library like pandas or numpy or spark then consider it a great time to rewrite it from scratch properly with no dependencies :)

If they had enough work for a developer, how long would it take some enthusiastic amateurs?

DIY doesn’t sound like a saving here.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#76

Post by cameronh90 »

plandis wrote: post #51
sho_hn wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always curious when I hear HN opine on salary levels. Now I understand that in SF / at certain FAANG locations you can expect to make far in excess of 80-100k, and that exerts a competitive pressure in the job market - while also being balanced to some extend by extreme CoL. But I always wonder just how small that bubble is and what the trade-offs really are. In essentially all of Central Europe except perhaps, s…

Even with the higher cost of living in SF/NYC/Seattle, tech pay at FAANG is pretty high. Senior software positions are pretty much start at $300k/yr across all of those companies. Plus these companies generally have excellent healthcare plans and good vacation policies. At those income levels pretty much the only thing you’re really priced out of are nice single family homes, but I suspect that’s the same in Zurich.

What's a good vacation policy in SF? I'm tempted to move from London, but I currently get 28 days holiday a year + 8 public holidays + birthday + Xmas to NY (so about 40 days give or take). I know there's a lot of "unlimited" holiday policies - but would they really be okay if I took that kind of holiday?

I earn a lot here in London, but moving to SF would be a significant bump. However, I very much value my time off.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#77

Post by ForHackernews »

ausbah wrote: post #65
kemiller wrote: post #50

I think he's got it exactly wrong — the reason we have seen a lot of "non-tech tech" companies is that software still fundamentally kinda sucks. We have become so used to it we don't always notice, but software is a fragile nightmare to work with. It's like trying to build skyscrapers with tinkertoys, and it's a miracle we can do as much as we do. Software needs a leap; AI/ML might be the start of it, not sure yet.

why does it fundamentally suck? anything specific in mind?

Ever used Kuberenetes? Hope you like writing yaml.

Ever written Javascript? Good luck doing real maths with only floats.

Ever used Electron? Hope you didn't need that 8 GB of RAM.

I could go on, but most mainstream software is one step above absolute garbage. There are isolated islands of extremely high quality tools, but they tend to be esoteric FLOSS packages that are isolated from market pressures. OpenBSD is a work of art.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#78

Post by Aeolun »

_Wintermute wrote: post #44
d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #23

I worked in bio tech for 4 years. Amazing people and problems. Worst pay, top heavy salaries. When a phd makes 80k a year and a “ML/AI” data scientist is lucky to make 100k you won’t find any progress like software They need to cut the top heavy executive bloat, respect the mid tier with better pay

I worked as a post-doc at a pharma company in Europe, our research-based department was in need of a software engineer as our collection of crappy R/python scripts couldn't actually be linked up to any equipment or processes. HR asked what sort of salary range we were looking at, we suggested that we won't get any decent candidates for less than 70k EUR and were laughed out of the room and they decided on a 50k limit…

On the plus side, the average level of engineers in Europe seems to be fairly high.

On the negaive side, yeah, all the truly high talented people will leave because the salaries in Europe can be so laughably low.

Trying to figure out how to move back to my home country now, but short of director level positions, there’s just nothing with a comparable salary range.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#79

Post by ipaddr »

Judgmentality wrote: post #63
barry-cotter wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, even after any attempt to account for healthcare, pension and education the US will still look vastly better off. Unfortunately we don’t have figures on average individual consumption but by household Hong Kong consumes about $1,000 more a year than the US and the next closest is Switzerland, consuming about $10,000 a year less[1]. Generally the US pays better and at the top of any field you care to mention excep…

> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better. I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k. So how much do people make in finance?

Pre 2008 a lot of people were retiring in 4 years. Things have changed (smaller parties) but people are still getting rich. The top tier are crushing faang salaries. A million a year is a lot but more can be available when you are trading.

Re: Be in a field where tech is the limit

#80

Post by harikb »

pvarangot wrote: post #71
Judgmentality wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except perhaps finance it pays far, far better. I hear this a lot, but I've never seen it. I know plenty of people in tech making the better part of $1 MM a year at FAANG, and a few who even breach that. Most people I know in finance never break $500k. So how much do people make in finance?

A friend retired with more than 1M after four years in finance and living the life in NY, like he was not saving much. Most of his comp was commissions on what his algorithms or the stuff his team worked on was marking on the market. His base salary and comp were a little bit above Google, were he worked before switching to finance.

I take it that is not pure finance, but fin tech?
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