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Comment by superuser2 | Hacker News Reader

>programmers pull $100k

My understanding is $110k is an unsurprising entry-level salary; people who are mid-career would be making quite a bit more.

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A bit off topic, but I just cannot grasp those US salaries for programmers. Even for UK, that would be insanely high, with the exception of maybe london, but if you work anywhere else the number is 1/3 of this. Average junior programmer salaries in the North East of England are around ~$35k/year, and I know seniors with 15-20 years of experience and they make 60k pounds/year(so ~85k USD/year). I have friends working as C++ programmers in Krakow, Poland, and they make ~$20k/year(bear in mind that it's extremely good salary there, as houses rarely cost more than $100k, in fact you could buy land and build a house for less). I just cannot grasp how an entry level position would pay $100k/year.

It is hard to compare European salaries to their US counterpart. You have to take account they have much less holidays on average, you have also some sort of "free healthcare" that is not tied to your job, a state pension plan, access to some cheap higher level education for your children.

In my country, between what is paid by the employer and what I actually get there is a factor of 2 to pay for all the "free" service aforementioned.

I would be careful with that comparison. Many higher-wage US jobs get much more vacation than the minimum 2 weeks, health insurance is paid for by the company (employee only pay ~10% of premium), you get a pension (Social Security) and you're kids can go to a state school with subsidized tuition (albetit, nowhere near as cheap as Europe).

That is why I mentioned "not tied to your job" which seems, from my very European viewpoint, a bit saner. I heard at least one horror story of an expat who went to work in the US, got a cancer, lost its job, and then had to come back because he was totally uncovered. I don't know the system well enough to determine if it was a total lack of precaution (and luck) on his side, or that was how the system was supposed to work.

> Many higher-wage US jobs get much more vacation than the minimum 2 weeks

[citation needed]. Most high-level American techies I've met get two weeks and take less.

Just as anecdotal as yours, but around here, the standard for new hires seems to be 14 days of PTO per year, which gets increased by about a week after a few years of service and again a few years after that. That's with the contractor companies working with the FAA outside Atlantic City, NJ. So, having and using 3-4 weeks isn't too uncommon. Don't know how that compares to elsewhere, but my last non-contractor job closer to Philly had a similar breakdown.

Edit: Oh, and it's probably worth noting that starting salary is wayyyy lower than SF, or even other major metro areas. Ballpark $50k. Balanced by the stability, benefits, lower cost of living, and lack of traffic/commute.

...> 2 weeks [after a few years of service at the one job].

Most tech people, especially younger people, have to switch jobs every one or two years, roughly, in order to get a proper compensation boost and career growth, so they never accumulate the years at one company that lead to the 4-5 weeks that some people get.

Like at my current job, there's several people here who have been here for 5 years and have 4-5 weeks of PTO accumulated. I've been here for less than a year, so I have 2 weeks, even though I have more career experience than quite a few of the people here.

Also, due to some recent changes that screwed with benefits quite a bit, I'm not sure I see myself staying here for much longer than maybe two years max (we'll see, there's a pretty good team, nice boss, and perfect commute, so I'm in no hurry), so I'm probably not going to see any extra PTO out of that either.

Interesting. I have heard of that being a problem here as well, with each contract change/new company resetting seniority (even to do the same exact job) and keeping your annual PTO allotment. However, I don't know if my current situation is special, but I'm in the process of negotiating a move to a new company and was able to get them to agree to honor my service with my current company toward PTO seniority. So, it may just be something you need to fight for, that most people don't think to fight for?

There are a lot of things that I cannot grasp, that are still true.

I know of one Big Five tech company where the lowest pay bracket for permanent-position software engineers is $110k USD base salary, plus substantial annual bonus and liquid stock (roughly $150k total comp, plus perks). Interns get less base and no bonus/stock, I think.

If we assume that all of the Big Five are within 20% of that, and if we also assume that every startup wants to hire "only the best" (or, more realistically, every startup wants to credibly lie to themselves that they do so), what do you figure they need to pay to get anybody taking their jobs seriously?

Market forces, friend.

Note that these are not salaries that apply to any ol' schlob who can sling a little HTML and got Apache running that one time, this isn't 1998.

Those aren't "US salaries". They're Bay Area salaries. Most American programmers don't live in the Bay Area, don't make Bay Area salaries, and would be rejected as Not a Rock Star by Bay Area companies.

You're on HN, everyone is talking about a small distinct sector of the country where all of this is insane. I've been in the conversation on here before. Leave the west coast of America and the salaries normalize quite a bit. There is literally a 'gold rush' right now of people moving west to work in tech with no thought to the cost of living.

The US national average is around $90k/year (£65k, €82k).

If you're in a place like Indianapolis, Indiana, which is basically as vanilla as a middle America gets, median salary drops to something like $70k/year (£50k, €65k). But there are basically no entry-level jobs there, and you either have to go to Chicago or a military base to find work nearby as a new graduate. That means the 12 experienced software pros that still work as employees in the city earn waaay below average. But the housing costs there are very low, such that it's much easier to buy a home in Indianapolis on $70k/year than in San Francisco with $105k/year (£75k, €95k).

There is the additional disadvantage that none of your employers will be even remotely sexy, there will be a pathetically low number to choose from, the public transit is terrible, and if you are at all worried about public schools, you would need to live in Carmel, Fishers, or Washington township, all quite a lengthy and congested commute from downtown.

Two hours away, in Chicago, median salary is $75k/year (£55k, €68k), with a greater variety of potential employers. Housing still affordable. Public transit is very usable. But the city is more corrupt than Dis, and nearly bankrupt.

The competition for housing around SF-Oakland-SJ is certainly driving up software industry salaries in that area. Companies hiring on-site employees in the metro area can't get anyone who can't afford to live within commuting distance, and can't keep in the long-term anyone who can't eventually secure family-appropriate lodgings within the same radius. And the intense competition for competent employees means that companies have to constantly outbid each other.

It really is insane out there. I have utterly no clue on how they can sustain such a high salary differential with the entire rest of the world without collapsing the market.

UK has rather low salaries for engineers. Even Singapore, Hong Kong or Australia are higher than UK.

If you don't mind paying for a FIFA cable package, you can move to the US and get that kind of salary perk quite easily. The downside is that the word "marmite" will raise eyebrows and you'll constantly be having to tell yourself to say "soccer" instead of "football."

Nah, professing your love of `football' works very well in casual conversation in America. (Just make sure you never mention any details, so they don't pick up that you are talking about the other football.)

Some of these entry level "compensation" figures include illiquid stock. Ask HR what the outstanding number of shares are and you get a blank face. Other stock classes? Silence. Liquidity preferences? Secret. The real worth is zero, yet they get treated like $30k on top of salary.

I am specifically talking about base cash salary here, but point taken.

According to Glassdoor[1] and Payscale[2] the average salary across all (not just entry-level) software engineers in San Francisco is $103K. So I doubt $110k is even close to a normal entry-level salary.

1: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/san-francisco-software-en...

2: http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Software_Engineer/Sa...

That ignores substantial publicly-traded equity and cash bonuses

There is something really off about these numbers. unless i'm totally off about how many entry level employees are in the area vs mid/senior level employees. Since this data is collected by people reporting their salaries, I think that people that are more junior are more likely using and submitting their salary info to the site. This will skew salary data toward entry level employees.

I also see Glassdoor is accounting for stocks now, though that's not factored into avg salary, but total comp. Looking at some companies this raise compensation by ~$50k.

I would say that counts, provided it's actual stock and not options. If it's actual stock, it's liquid, which makes it almost as good as cash for most purposes.

RSUs and other post ipo options should definitely count cause you can sell it right after they vest, basically treating it like cash.

What I'm saying is that Glassdoor does not count it towards their avg salary number. If you click a salary for a role at a certain company it'll give you a different breakdown showing Avg Salary, and one showing Total Comp that includes salary + bonus + stock

RSUs will typically all vest after a certain period of time, depending on the company (4-5 years?). But your mortgage is for 30 years. I wouldn't count that stock towards your "yearly income".

they vest over a period of time, not usually all at once. my company does it evenly over 4 years with a 1 year cliff. other companies can have it skewed towards the latter 4 years. employees do get refreshers as well. so if it vests equally over a certain amount of years, totally should count that portion towards yearly income. In your analogy, it's like counting how much you owe in mortgage payments every year towards yearly expenses.

RSUs refresh, or employees go to another employer for new RSUs.

We're just talking about entry-level salary, right? I've heard really high numbers for first year total compensation.

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