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My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

humanwhocodes.com

81–90 of 691 posts

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#81

Burner account. Los Angeles. I've worked in the same large public company since college (about 15 years), but have changed roles a few times. I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from a somewhat prestigious regional school. Numbers are approximate but pretty close. I left out options and RSUs because I can't remember them all, but they were typically around $5k-$10k/year with 4 year vesting. Embedded Firmware…

How did you move from embedded to data science if I may ask. I know it's a urner account but hey :)

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#82
post #24

Nice money at those big American companies. In Australia, you have to become a plumber to get to those levels :-)

Plumbers work hard to show the right amount of crack. That's a pretty important life skill!

Please don't do this here.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#83

Burner account :) All amounts in AUD and all jobs based in Sydney and I am yet another white male. 1999 $27,000 Tech Support at an ISP 40 hour week. 1999 $29,000 Tech Support at a different ISP 32 hour week (graveyard shift) then Linux Engineer. $20k Stock that I never took because dot.com :( 2000 $30,000 House Gamer at a net cafe (Oh god I miss those days). 40 hours a week graveyard shift. 2001-2 Unemployed, occasio…

Please tell me about this job of "House Gamer". Like what were your duties?

So we charged hourly rates of say $3 to play games, or $20 for all night until 6am. My job was to get people to stay. If someone comes in and plays a few rounds of counter-strike we make $3-6, but if I convince them to play Starcraft, Baldurs Gate or Rainbow Six they'd stay all night. I would encourage people to join me in games like R6 and we'd spend bloody hours on the game. I was also good enough at CS, HL etc that if we played a tournament I could "just win" and again get people to stay and try again. I miss the muscle reflexes of 19 year old me.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#84
post #39

I can’t help but be alarmed by the fact that his health has been on the decline for the last five years due to contracting Lyme disease. I know of one person who was fine after like a month (detected early) and someone who spent the better part of a year recovering, but nothing like this! Hope the blog writer gets better soon.

He remarks here (https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2014/04/02/i-have-lyme-diseas...) that his health has been poor for the last (now) 19 years. Having contracted Lyme roughly 9 years ago myself, I can empathize with him. The effects never truly go away.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#85

Burner account. All numbers adjusted to USD: 2007: Junior developer $25k (no bonus) 2008: Project manager $50k (10% bonus) 2009: Project Manager $65k (10% bonus) 2011: Senior Project Manager $92 (10% bonus) 2011: Product Manager $97k (Some worthless options as it turns out, and an approximately 8% bonus) 2012: Founded my own startup / developer $28k that year 2013: Startup founder / CTO $65k 2014: Startup founder / C…

[deleted]

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#86
post #16

I don’t know if I’m misreading it but did OP include the value of the options or did they just leave them unexercised? Box did IPO, and obviously Yahoo was liquid the entire time. What was the total compensation be like with these numbers?

Box IPOed at $14/share but spiked to $23/share on the first day of trading. Assuming 50K shares (and ignoring the strike price / any upfront cost he might have paid), total additional compensation was ~$700K to $1.150M.

You can make a pretty good guess at strike price from Box's financing history. They raised a Series F in 2013 at $2B post. There are currently 141M shares outstanding, of which 12.5M were offered in the IPO and roughly 10% of the company (13M) shares was sold in the Series F & Series G, so figure 120M shares outstanding at the time of his option grant. That implies a strike price between about $10 (@ the $1.225 Jul 2012 Series E valuation) and $17 (@ the Dec 2013 Series F valuation).

At the end of the 6-month lockup Box's shares were worth $17, so that would imply his options were anywhere from +$175K (he'd only have vested half of them, with standard 4-year grants) to just slightly underwater. If he held to the $28 peak this May, he'd be anywhere from +$500K -> +$900K, but if he kept holding them, he could potentially be underwater today. It's a nice additional bonus (particularly if he got in at the Series E valuation), but not enough to make one rich.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#87
post #78

Everyone excited about SF Bay salaries - please don't forget how expensive is to live here. My rent is $3K/m (half of my net salary) and that's considered "a decent rate" for 3 bedrooms. Simple salad or a sandwich will cost you ~$15. Round-trip fare on BART - $11. So just to get to work and eat something over lunch will cost you over $600/m. If you're offered a job here with relocation - negotiate! If possible - bett…

If you earn 3 times as much, but wind up spending 3 times as much, you are still saving 3 times as much. It's almost always better to get high pay in a high CoL area, than to get low pay in a low CoL area.

Working from paycheck to paycheck you don't earn 3 times as much and you don't save. Most of my friends who live here can't afford to buy a house, they rent. Almost all my friends who left SF Bay were able to buy within months. Cost of living and the housing prices in SF Bay are extremely disproportionate to salaries.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#88

Burner account. Los Angeles. I've worked in the same large public company since college (about 15 years), but have changed roles a few times. I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from a somewhat prestigious regional school. Numbers are approximate but pretty close. I left out options and RSUs because I can't remember them all, but they were typically around $5k-$10k/year with 4 year vesting. Embedded Firmware…

I might be under a misapprehension, but a 5-6k pay bump for getting to Senior Staff seems low. Isn't it exponentially harder to keep going up levels, but your rate of pay increase went down.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#89
Also a white male.

2012-2016: Grad student $23k

2017: Data scientist $110k (very low COL)

2018: Data scientist $250k (very high COL)

Weirdly enough, I only save slightly more after all expenses at my new job than I did at my previous job because of tax and COL differences.

Re: My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

#90

Everyone excited about SF Bay salaries - please don't forget how expensive is to live here. My rent is $3K/m (half of my net salary) and that's considered "a decent rate" for 3 bedrooms. Simple salad or a sandwich will cost you ~$15. Round-trip fare on BART - $11. So just to get to work and eat something over lunch will cost you over $600/m. If you're offered a job here with relocation - negotiate! If possible - bett…

I'm amazed you found a 3 bedroom for just $3k. Or maybe it's just that much cheaper outside of the city. Where do you live?
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