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Comment by anandsubra | Hacker News Reader

The last section is eye opening for me. This is what the total compensation looks like for entry-level software engineers:

Apple: $160,548

Microsoft: $155,775

Google: $188,086

IBM: $95,857

The IBM total compensation does not even have 6 digits! No wonder they have a hard time attracting talent.

It would have been interesting to see the numbers for Amazon, Facebook and Netflix too.

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IBM's comp isn't very good at any level, but they also don't hire much in super-high cost-of-living areas. Here in the Boston area I've only started making more than any of those entry-level salaries in the last few years (I'm 32) but don't live somewhere where buying a house is a pipe dream.

The real reason IBM has trouble attracting talent is that they have no idea what they want to actually be doing, from a technical perspective. They are a sales organization, and that's all that they are to anyone in a position to make decisions about anything. I took a bit of a pay cut to go to IBM--I needed to get out of consulting because it was impossible to get a bank to verify income for a mortgage--but it wasn't drastic. Even setting that aside, though, IBM was the worst mistake of my career. I left in five months because the job was so stressfully do-nothing (if that makes sense?) that I could literally feel myself becoming a worse person, not in a "technologist" sense but that of a human being, by being ground down by that culture.

That’s a pretty big difference, but it would also be interesting to know where these positions are located. The cost of living differences between SV and outside of the Bay Area is pretty substantial, making these absolute number comparisons a bit harder to interpret.

Quickly putting Apple's (assuming Bay Area) $161K into a cost of living calculator says that's equivalent to $82K in Cincinnati, OH. (You'd need to make $82K in Cincinnati to maintain your standard of living.)

So yeah, I'd say that adding locations is required. I'm not sure where the majority of the IBM software engineer jobs are?

IBM is all over the US (much much more locations than others mentioned here) and it's also split into two: product and consulting. Consulting get paid less and bring down the average but people choose it for location and project variety

Yeah, a significant chunk of IBM's workforce works remotely. So they don't have to pay cost of living for Seattle or SF. Much of their American workforce that does report to an office is in much lower COL areas like North Carolina or upstate New York.

IBM is just fill seats with bodies, they aren't actually creating anything like Apple, Microsoft, and Google

That's true. They need certain percentage of people on the bench to bid on consulting projects.

IBM has a legacy of a more diverse approach to developing technology. They also employ more folks who are applying software solutions vs. developing technology. When I worked with IBM stuff alot, the onshore developers were in Austin, Minnesota, Florida, Toronto, New York (including ex-NYC NY) and other places.

When I had IBM folks working for me in ye olden days (not subcontractors), they weren't working in the valley, and were perfectly good at what they did. They made about 30% more than the full time employees did, in exchange for living in Hilton.

Big tech is the way it is because right now they have access to unlimited money. The good times will roll until they don't! As things mature, the era of $160k college grads and $500k+bonus staff engineers will end.

Without reference to cost of living where that salary is applied is rather meaningless. 160 in the South Bay is not very good. 95 in Minnesota might be a lot more.

160 in the South Bay is significantly better than 95 in Minneapolis, at least. Unless you want to buy a house. I lived in Minneapolis not long ago and the major cost differences were really only housing, gas, and electricity.

Link is blocked from my work. Google: $188,086? For a entry level software engineer? What the hell

They pay interns $6,000 a month don't they?

That $188k is total comp as well.

10K a month these days

Presumably Google's "entry level software engineer" at least on paper is a more advanced position than equivalent titles at other companies. We all probably know "experienced" programmers who wouldn't even make the cut.

That's definitely not accurate, unless you include stock and bonuses. As a base salary you'd need a senior title to make that much.

Microsoft Seattle is around 100k

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