Stack Overflow Salary Calculator
stackoverflow.blog
stackoverflow.blog
For true random sampling of the software developers in the United States, use the Bureau of Labor Statistics, who employ real statisticians:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm#15-0000
You can also break them down by U.S. state:
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oessrcst.htm
And by MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area):
In either case, the problem is coming up with a reasonably accurate reference class. At least in my case, I'm not well represented by the BLS breakdowns (which underestimate what I can expect to get by a factor of about four.)
The Stack Overflow approach, using industry-specific features (developer-friendly keywords/job titles/languages) is definitely smarter, though still wildly insufficient. (It's only off by a factor of about three.)
> We don't support this location. Select a location from the dropdown menu.
There is no dropdown menu. I then hovered over the I icon, to only then learn my country is not supported.
"You have exceeded your daily request quota for this API. For more information on usage limits and the Google Maps Javascript API services please see: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/...
And only three locations available in the US? How is this useful? I suppose this tool is awesome if you're a web or mobile dev in Seattle, SF, or NY.
Edit: I have no idea why this got attached to my comment and I am unable to comment to @catacombs
Do you build houses then? ;)
[Adding this text to test if I can post as long as I don't post the same exact text in my seemingly haunted, un-deletable comment attached to my OP.]
Edit: It worked!
Is it that rare to be a "close to the metal" developer? Or is that where people draw the line between developer and "engineer"?
Can't speak for other companies
Everyone wages are more so tied to how much leverage they have. Increasing one's output has never been a great recipe for increasing compensation, however, increasing your leverage (get a new offer, get a government certified monopoloy, lower the supply of people with your skills, etc) will do wonders for your wage!
Seriously, though.
You might question rate of leverage increase between your value / other factors, but ranting about "decoupling" seems simply wrong.
If the job can be performed remotely, then suddenly workers must compete with the global stock of candidates. And there are many locations around the globe that are much cheaper than low-cost areas in the US.
It was saying that half of devs were making less than $90k for 3 years of experience. I find that hard to believe. Yes, maybe that's the listings but I think it's insane to think you get paid that when almost every company here past seed stage will pay $100k+ for any new dev.
It said $146k or so was 75th percentile in the South Bay for 5 years of experience, but I am at the second to lowest level of software engineer at my company (which is one of the biggest tech employers in the area) and my base is $160k.
How much closer can you expect? The purpose of these calculators is to let folks know whether or not they're in the "right ballpark" when considering salary for job offers. $14K less than your salary is still very much the right ballpark for your job.
Any expectations of accuracy better than 10-15% are unrealistic.
In many markets 100K+ is quite nice for an MS-degree'd 20-something with a few years of experience.
I definitely know young devs at Uber who were in the 90-110 range on base salary and then a ton of stock. It's the height of stupid but they're young so...
Of course it is.
Glassdoor, Indeed, Angelist... all those have these salary calculators to attract inventory (your eyeballs, my eyeballs) that they then turn around and sell as product on their job listing boards.
To be fair though, I don't have time or patience for long interview processes. But, on the other hand, a lot of times I get rejected just after the phone screen (with no feedback, of course).
(which you can do here:)
> You have exceeded your daily request quota for this API. For more information on usage limits and the Google Maps Javascript API services please see…
Wow, either the calculator is incredibly popular, or someone didn't change their api key from their dev one…
I know people for whom half their pay is equity and they can't even afford to take the options. And for many places I've been, the stock was never sellable outside of shady private stock trading groups that your board may or may not let you sell to.
I don't see why you felt the need to make a fresh anonymous accont to share this?
So if you take someone whose base salary is 180k at whatever big tech, you're missing the part where they actually make >300k/yr in cash.
I certainly never made 150kyr,in stock. How would you even exercise that and then handle the taxes? I guess if you have a retention salary?
1) Typically shares are treated as ordinary income when they vest, so you owe tax on that no matter what you do (but the vest price becomes your cost basis).
2) Wash sale rules apply to grant vesting events, so if your grants vest monthly every sale is a wash sale.
It's also important to note that the clock for long term capital gains tax starts at the date of exercise, so you'd still need to exercise the options, which will cost money.
There are a lot of folks similar doing that at amazom, google, etc.
Does this seem like a huge oversight to anyone else?
I'm ~30% lower than the 25th percentile... :/
Not sure what happened here. Stack Overflow generally puts out better analysis and posts.
My guess is that they don't have enough data for niche topics like ML. (ML is still pretty niche in terms of headcount compared to, say, webdev.) The tags that they offer are probably those where they have reasonably many data points to actually get something resembling a distribution.
Also a lot of technologies seems to be missing, like .NET.
Is it really only a 30 minute commute into Manhattan?! I live in Bristol, and at times I've had an hour commute by bus. I always assumed that Americans spent longer on commute in the larger cities.
I was always surprised the amount of premium people were willing to pay to live on Manhattan when it was so much cheaper on the other side of the river, with equal commute times.
From my house in NJ to the office is 90 minutes including a 15 minute walk to the train station. Last Monday there was a delay on the NJ train and the subway so it was 2 hours door-to-door.
That's why I work remotely 2-3 days a week.
PS. I work at stackoverflow.com
LA does it worse. commuting from the San Fernando Valley to, say, Silicon Beach, is like 60 minutes+.
Contact me (see profile) if you have any questions.
Our nodeJS and angular deployments in Azure's managed app services are hosted in IIS.
If you are only counting the OS as an indication of .NET or no .NET, your numbers are severely inaccurate.
I could count on a single hand the amount of job postings for 'startup/startup-ish' companies that had a .net stack.
Edit: https://stackshare.io/application_and_data#! Somewhat anecdotal but still better than nothing..
Stack Overflow (and all the Stack Exchange sites) is in .NET
There are currently 200+ angel list jobs that require .NET
The stackshare link is not helpful because stackshare is something popular in the HN community. .NET is an incredibly popular framework outside of the SF/HN bubble. Startups around the globe and in middle America use .NET all the time.
Lots places uses salary as a monthly unit.
Cuz uh, I checked 13 things conseratively that I'd feel comfortable talking about in an interview.
- Were you born in America or has your employer held your pay down because you have a green card?
- How many times have you changed jobs (each time probably leads to a $15k bump or more!)
What garbage. If you're going to do an analysis like this try to teach us something interesting by looking at numerous factors (race, sex, age, major, do you have a github, public speaking skill, number of raises asked for, etc)
Of course you make good points about salary. But this is just using data from the SO jobs board. What do you expect?
This might be true for H1-B holders, but a green card gives you the same freedom to leave and join employers as a citizen.
> - How many times have you changed jobs (each time probably leads to a $15k bump or more!)
I don't know about what goes on in the startup world, but at the big-name tech companies you typically get a stock grant vesting over four years every year, meaning your compensation will not top out until at least four years into the job, so switching jobs frequently can actually dramatically cut your compensation, by a factor of two or more.