The Best-Paying Internships in America
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
I'm bringing this up because it is important, when we're discussing "shortages" of engineers, to keep in mind the kind of options highly educated people have available to them in the US.
Yes, law requires a graduate degree and passing the bar, but many of these interns at tech companies have graduate degrees, and the undergraduate prep for a STEM degree is considerably more rigorous than the typical poli-sci or economics taken by pre-law types (yes, Econ takes a bit more math, but not typically on a level of what is demanded of STEM majors).
Generally speaking, Law school isn't a great idea, but for the top students at the top schools, it remains extremely lucrative. It really makes no sense to compare the top CS and Engineering majors at top schools to some average salary. You need to look at what the options are in other fields for elite students.
Once you do, it is pretty clear why people with choice often decide to do something other than STEM, and why a bit part of the appeal of work visas such as the H1B is that they create a pool of workers who aren't allowed this free choice. Without that crutch for employers, I suspect salaries in tech would rise. And keep in mind, it wouldn't require denying talented immigrants entry to the US, all we'd have to do is let these talented immigrants make the decision about what to study and where to work for themselves. No more allowing Silicon Valley employers to dictate these choices for them.
this equation is often true for non-family people I know: SFRent - EBRent <= OwningCar
for family people renting bigger spaces, the equation then might look like: SFRent - EBRent >= OwningCar
An hour each way (20 minutes for first and last mile, 40 minute train ride) will save you maybe 30%.
It's whatever, I'm working to move industries. I just look at these numbers for INTERNS and realize I've almost spent a decade treading water with nothing to show for it...all because I picked the wrong major in college.
Extremely disheartening and shame inducing to realize I can't even compete with a college kid on renting an apartment.
Keep in mind, a lot of what we do in software is either dull or not highly inspiring.
If your work is dull, you are most likely doing lots of intricate bug fixing or feature addition in constantly evolving frameworks. For instance, I recently upgraded an application written in a rapidly evolving javascript framework to use a different object model for integration and acceptance testing. There are patterns, but you can't just automate it. Imagine if the rules for english grammar, spelling, and punctuation change every six months, and your job is to go through Ulysses and Finnegans wake, line by line, and update it (some grammar rules will depend on how you changed a different sentence 8 pages ago). But here's the thing, the once you start the upgrade, the entire book is unreadable until you get it all right, and everyone who wants to read it is getting irritated that you're taking so long. If you're good at that, yep, you can make 150k or more a year at it. In fact, there's a shortage in this field at some vaguely undefined salary that can't be revealed because it's secret.
If what you do is mathematically interesting, you may be collecting privacy shattering amounts of information about people and using it to figure out better ways to get them to click on advertisements, or how to get them to stay glued to their screens. Or, you may accept that this is their life, that you're not trying to get them addicted to their screens, and that you just want those who already live this way to look at your screen rather than someone else's, kind of similar to how tobacco advertising was really about getting people to switch brands, not to start smoking, certainly not before they're old enough and haven't yet chosen a brand and/or are wise enough not to start smoking, certainly not that!
That may be grim, and there are good things to do as well. This isn't the only path to make money as a programmer. But do be aware a lot of what we do is boring and/or useless, if not actively harmful.
Two Sigma at the top with $10.4k/mo + $5k relocation + $5k housing.