Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tech compensation in 2021

jacobian.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 631 posts

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#71

Post by jiggawatts »

m_ke wrote: post #24
VRay wrote: post #15

Man, every time I think I’ve finally caught up to the market rate, I find out I’m behind again I’m a senior FAANG coder making 350k TC, and it looks like I should be able to net 400-600k at this level if I go to Apple or Google. Hoo boy, looks like it’s leetcode time again…

Yeah I know a lot of FAANG people getting 500-600K packages. Makes it hard to even think about startups.

What the... s%&#?

Half a million a year for a developer or architect is bonkers.

That's the equivalent of AUD 800K a year. That's more than what the Prime Minister and a cabinet member put together make here!

How can that possibly make sense? For that kind of money you can easily hire 4 senior developers here! Any company "hiring local" at those prices isn't exploring their international staffing options properly...

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#72

Post by i1856511 »

aynyc wrote: post #62
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?

My informal poll last year of my friends suggest a 50-60% drop rate. I asked about 30 friends who are still coding for work. Almost 20 of them said they would not code anymore if they can find equivalent salary.

Helpful anecdote, thank you. It sounds like you found the answer to my question to be, "most of them"!

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#73

Post by jandrewrogers »

zz865 wrote: post #6

> Chris can expect to make $300k at a non-FAANG company, but nearly double that if they’re willing to compromise on that “no-FAANG” stance Is that really a good rule of thumb? FAANG pays double non-FAANG?

No, it is not a good rule of thumb. Many non-FAANG tech companies pay at least as much as FAANG; I think it is more the case that FAANG pays a small discount to market based on reputation.

For non-tech companies the compensation landscape is more complex and diverse but I know of several cases where software engineers are on top FAANG-like compensation, sometimes straight salary, in unexpected companies and geographies. There is a much larger appetite across industries and geographies to selectively pay top wages for key engineers than there used to be. The median wage may still be lower than FAANG in these companies, they aren’t nearly as profitable, but they are finding significant value in making point investments in engineering talent to lift the level of the organization rather than spraying money at everyone with a money hose. If you can be one of those key engineers, you can ask for the same kinds of money as FAANG and sometimes more (on the basis that working for a non-tech company is less attractive).

The off-the-charts FAANG money has been rapidly spreading across the US and also starting to very slowly globalize. It has been crazy to watch.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#74

Post by beaconstudios »

Aromasin wrote: post #56
beaconstudios wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in the UK, junior is £20-40k, mid-level is around £40-60k, lead can be around £60-100k. Very rough numbers, and adjust upwards slightly for London. The big money is in contracting in the UK, which would be our accessible FAANG-equivalent.

Either contracting, or alternatively, consulting. Companies like Cambridge Consulting and et al (please correct me if I'm wrong, I only know this through word of mouth) earn more in line with our US counterparts supposedly. Additionally, our country is much more focused on financial services. You can make 2-3x the average engineer salary there. The rest of the market seem content paying far below, and also content ha…

I wouldn't say more in line necessarily, unless you work at the big banks in a profit center. Contractors can make anywhere from £300 to about £750 a day unless they land on an extremely profitable niche, which is great money for the UK but not the kind of insane rates SV engineers can get. Of course, cost of living is lower too, especially up north where I am.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#75

Post by gpt5 »

azinman2 wrote: post #33
gpt5 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's crazy to me that you can basically make a lifetime of earning doing the same job in Silicon Valley for one year

Except the cost of living is wayyy lower

Does it matter if you are comparing one year of living in the valley? You don’t need to buy a house for that.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#76

Post by jurassic »

metalliqaz wrote: post #63
rootusrootus wrote: post #31

In other news, if you aren't in the valley or working for one of the big tech companies, you're probably making 100-150K as a mid/senior developer. There's a pretty sizable leap.

Yeah no kidding. I was shocked at the numbers in this article. A 15-year engineer in aerospace gets you ~120k.

I'm not surprised. I'm guessing the aerospace industry is relatively stable in size (we don't suddenly need a lot more planes, spacecraft, or weapon systems than in the past), so employers in that industry don't need to offer big compensation packages to lure away scarce employees from competitors in order to enable that growth.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#77

Post by abeppu »

bpodgursky wrote: post #35
VRay wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, I’ve worked with a lot of people who didn’t hit it big with stock options and suffered ruinous tax liabilities in some cases.. Zero is probably too little, but if you’re being paid way under-market in cash and having to dip into that to exercise options and pay taxes, zero might actually be a good middle ground between the best and worst cases

There may be cases I'm missing, but afaik you never *have* to suffer ruinous tax liabilities from stock comp if you're willing to just eat the gains as raw income (making the (often smart) gamble to hit LCTG is what will get you in trouble).

I hope it's not "ruinous", but I think the other "gamble" that can play out badly is when you exercise and incur a large AMT liability for the year you exercise, but the company may still be years from exit.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#78

Post by pvarangot »

zz865 wrote: post #6

> Chris can expect to make $300k at a non-FAANG company, but nearly double that if they’re willing to compromise on that “no-FAANG” stance Is that really a good rule of thumb? FAANG pays double non-FAANG?

Kiiiiinda? If you put the unicorns also on the FAANG bag, which I think you should because the type of work you do on those is very similar.

Post-IPO you have a liquid stock grant that on FAANG is usually a second salary, bit less bit more depending on the company, role, tenure and performance. Some startups will give you a stock grant that's equally as fat or fatter after IPO, but you have to sit and wait on them to IPO.

Non-FAANG public companies in my experience helping friends with offers give slimmer stock grants, like 30% to 50% of your base.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#79

Post by gonehome »

paxys wrote: post #16

There's a huge difference between early stage and mid-late stage private companies. For the latter, you are almost always getting RSUs rather than options, so you don't have to pay taxes out of pocket to exercise them. It's also wrong to automatically consider all stock grants to be worth $0 just because you can't immediately sell them. If Stripe or Databricks offers you a million dollars worth of shares today it'll…

Agreed - Silicon Valley exists in part because of 500k-5M$ payouts to employees happening all of the time from private options.

Not trying to value that is a mistake.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#80

Post by steve_adams_86 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #71
m_ke wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I know a lot of FAANG people getting 500-600K packages. Makes it hard to even think about startups.

What the... s%&#? Half a million a year for a developer or architect is bonkers. That's the equivalent of AUD 800K a year. That's more than what the Prime Minister and a cabinet member put together make here! How can that possibly make sense? For that kind of money you can easily hire 4 senior developers here! Any company "hiring local" at those prices isn't exploring their international staffing options properly...

Facebook seems to be aggressively searching for remote workers outside of the US if my inbox is any indication. I imagine others in the US are too.
Post reply on HN