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> And we work hard on algorithms?

There are mathematicians (and scientists) who work harder than most programmers and are poorer than most programmers.

Agreed, the amount of effort you put into something has never decided how much you got paid. Only the value you can convince others you bring changes your compensation and that is only loosely coupled to effort put in

It's probably just a rounding error

150000 / year for fresh graduate versus 30000/year for fresh PhD student is not a rounding error.

How to you end up making only 30000/year with a PhD in a subject where graduates make 150k? Even post-doc positions tend to pay more than that. Everybody I know that has a STEM PhD and went into industry earns a lot more than I do.

PhD _student_

150K isn't anywhere near the stated "most programmers".

Sorry you're right I was thinking of salary of Stanford undergraduate first job in Bay Area versus stanford PhD student .

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