Poll: How much do you make as a programmer? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: How much do you make as a programmer?

170 pointsalmightygod235 comments

There is a trending item (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2763280) about how stack exchange pays it's developers. I found it interesting their top end is 200K. I suspect most people don't get paid near this much but more should.

How much do you make yearly as a salaried programmer? (no contractors)

UPDATE: This survey has been scrutinized as too simplistic. I think it adds value but I have also created a richer survey here (https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGFfZ1NuSXZ3WHNibmF5Rk5OSWxTekE6MQ)

The anonymous results will be shared on HN in a few days w/analysis.

View on HN

This has got me thinking. I would literally pay someone to figuratively sit down with me, go through what I've done/can do etc and then based off their experiences tell me what I could be getting.

Of course, it won't be too accurate and location makes a big difference but perhaps an enlightened recruiter type with a bit of experience in a couple of parts of the world could give a ballpark figure, say X in SV, Y in NY, Z in the UK. That's more use to me than looking at self-reported salaries where I know hardly anything about the real circumstances. Failing that, just a guy in one place from which I could very roughly convert to my part of the world.

Just apply for jobs, and negotiate, and you will get a feel for what you are worth.

I think the problem with this is that negotiations are very sensitive to starting terms, what he would pay for (and I think many others would as well) is basically an intelligent idea of where to start.

Exactly. I don't want to know what an employer thinks they can get away with or even what level I can push it to (which may be higher or lower than my 'recommended' level).

To get a proper idea I'd also have to do a lot of interviews. Hence where someone who's got a bit of experience/knowledge in this area can save me a load of hassle.

ex-Googler Piaw Na offers just the service you are seeking: http://books.piaw.net/negotiate/index.html

Sadly, that website says that he's on vacation and not accepting new clients.

recruiters are not your friend and are incentivized to place you quickly, not necessarily at top dollar.

But, if you give them guidelines, they can work well with you. If you're currently in the $150k range and you want to get to $200k but don't know how, talk to your local friendly recruiter over coffee. They'll even buy. As long as you're clear with them that you won't accept an offer for a penny less than <X>, they won't waste your time. They will also tell you if you have no chance of getting a job through normal means at that price range given your current skills and experience.

At least, most of the ones who are working for independent recruiting/placement firms that I've met hanging out here in Chicago will do that. YMMV elsewhere.

Certainly, if you just respond to the first recruiter who mails you after finding your resume via a random web search and industry-appropriate keywords, you'll get about what you put into it. If you're having trouble finding a reasonable one, either ask a friend or find them via your peers at companies you would like to work at on LinkedIn. Recruiters live there. And again, not the recruiters working for the company; try to hit up the independent ones if you want to have a lower-pressure conversation.

Those poor corporate recruiters are in a perpetual pressure cooker to fill their available headcount.

You're making a mistake in thinking that there is an objective value that you can apply to yourself. It's not you.value, it's you.valueTo(other,now).

This. Prices only exist within a certain place and time.

And between certain parties.

other.valueOf(you,now), I think

Sure, but the vast majority of people still tend to underestimate how much they could get. And you can get a pretty darn good estimate from a person's background and skills.

precisely.

You can email me and I'll give you some guesstimates. Also give you some tips on how to make sure you're presenting the message you think you're presenting and what it means for your job prospects. Something like this: http://www.pchristensen.com/blog/articles/what-your-resume-r...

I would happily accept some figurative payment of good will and satisfaction of you getting more out of your career :)

If you look at how salaries are distributed across the US public, the 60k - 100k category is way too large while 151k-200k should probably be just one range and not two.

As someone who hires programmers, I am much more interested in how many people make between 60-70, 70-85, and 85-100.

Unevenly sized buckets give weird data anyways. How would you show it on a graph? The buckets should be uniform, except for catch-alls at the ends, then you choose how to display them afterwards.

> How would you show it on a graph?

A relative frequency density histogram

You could argue for uniformity in the logarithmic domain just as well.

But the buckets in the poll are even more ubequal on a logarithmic scale than on a linear scale.

Yes. Logarithmic was just an example.

Mathematically you're right that every choice of buckets is arbitrary. But with same size buckets it is easier for humans to see what's going on.

Statistically speaking, using buckets is like throwing away 1/3 to 1/2 of your data. There was a salary survey on here a couple of months ago.

I'm also very interested in this.

Can somebody else make a poll with ranges 50-59,60-69,70-79,80-89,90-100?

My karma's too low :(

I think it adds value but I have also created a richer survey here (https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey...)

The raw anonymous results will be shared on HN in a few days w/analysis.

May want to clarify what domain means in order to get useful values for that.

yep - changed to industry

You might want to add "Technology/Industry" like Web Companies(FB,Twitter), App Companies(Built on Top of FB, Twitter), Mobile Companies, Networking (Cisco, Juniper), DB/related (Oracle), OS(Apple, MSFT).

I "get" the feeling that programmers in Web technologies get paid less than people in hardware/appliance companies like Cisco, Juniper, NetApp etc.

Edit: Just noticed the Industry Option :)

Hardware (as in embedded programming) actually pays pretty badly compared to web programming (although I expect Cisco/Juniper are exceptions).

Depends on what field you are in with embedded programming. I know a few people that work on embedded hardware such as microwaves, fridges and whatnot that make 100,000+ a year.

How about a seniority/years of experience field?

I agree that this is a good thing to add to the poll but I've always had a funny feeling about the importance of experience in programming. Some people learn faster than others and can get 10 years' worth of (average) experience in 5. I think that a more accurate metric would be to find out how many different situations, defined as working with different platforms, languages, markets and libraries, a person has been in. This would probably need to be coupled with the person's IQ to guesstimate how much they gain from each change.

C++ is an 'Other' language? I am feeling really, really unhip.

It is not. Taking the liberty of grouping C with C++, you get the most popular language in existence.

http://langpop.com

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....

You could group Perl with C and get the most popular language in existence. C is just that popular.

That's an interesting language stack you've displayed. You have Obj-C but not C/C++... From your selection, I'd guess you're either a web or mobile app dev?

It doesn't say whether you're supposed to give gross or net income. Can make a huge difference when comparing countries or even states.

The buckets might have a Valley bias. It seems the only programmers at SV companies that make less than 100k these days are interns.

Actually, this is a serious consideration. Location greatly affects pay, as cost of living changes. For example, it's substantially more expensive to live in Silicon Valley than it is to live in Cocoa Beach, FL or Seattle, WA

On the other hand London is more expensive than Silicon Valley and salaries are much lower. The correlation to cost of living is loose at best. In the case of Silicon Valley I'm convinced it's actually the tech money that raises the cost of living.

Salaries in Britain are in general lower than the US, especially as measured by purchasing power parity; the difference is about 30%. This is recouped in theory by the increased services provided by the British government (e.g. NHS and the Dole).

On the other hand, New York is more expensive than the Valley and salaries are, IIRC, even higher.

Actually this is a big misconception in UK/Europe. Unless you are a independent software contractor you get insurance thro your company in US. So the salary posted here excludes the benefits (insurance, vacation, 401k etc)...

IMO, with lesser US taxes & cost of living the US software programmer makes atleast twice than that of his eurpoean counterpart!

Even if you get it through your company sometimes, if not most of the time the employee is required to put in Y out of X amount where X is the amount of the plan.

And founders

Also it might have a bias towards Web/Mobile Apps. So, I created another poll to verify that.

http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=2764570

Agreed. 100k is a tech-lead salary in St. Louis area...but houses can be bought for under 100k so I guess it balances out.

I would agree. The company I work for gives a 25% boost in pay just for relocating to the SV branch from other branches. This is merely a cost of living bump for the exact same job title.

What about an unemployed category?

Heh I read that as "as someone who pays developers, I am much more interested in the low end, or at least believing that most developers are that cheap"

Maybe I should have been specific and said that I am a developer who is now the founder. I pay well above average, but I hire people who earn it.

Still, as the company grows, there will be a need for more junior developers. In our market (Nashville, TN) many senior developers still make less than $100k while some make $60k fresh out of school. As I look at how the poll numbers play out, I suspect that is true for most markets and not just mine. That is why I say the range is too big.

That's not a fair reinterpretation. The parent hires for positions that pay <$100k. It's fair that he/she would be more interested for fine degrees of scale at the general range the company hires for.

Interesting. When doing hiring, I've always mentally divided developers into different categories than you've been suggesting: - 65k (entry-level) - under 100k (intermediate, or junior with a lot of promise) - 100-125 - most of my hires have been in this range - mid-level, talented, solid programmers - 150k+ - 'lead' / superstar level. It's very rare to find candidates that meet this level.

Beyond 150-200k range, most of the compensation tends to come from bonuses, stock, and options - which can vastly exceed base salary.

I'm amazed at what people in the US earn. Seems like the Netherlands is a developing country after all.

I'm rather certain that my employer rates me in at least what you describe as the "under 100k" range, but I earn 40k euros per year.

Do you guys all go on holidays to Latin America 3x per year? And have six broadscreen TVs? And villas with seaside views?

Or is a 1 liter bottle of coke just also 10$ in the US?

A 1 liter bottle of coke is about $1.50-2. Some people do have several large screen TVs. Mostly, though, college education is really expensive, minimum wage is comparatively low, medical coverage isn't nationalized, and debt is (or at least used to be) easy to acquire.

In other words, it's easy to come out of college with $50-100K in student loans. It's also easy to get a major injury without medical insurance, pay $10K out of pocket to rectify it, and rack up another $10-15K by living on credit for a year.

Paying a student loan of $60K over 25 years at 3.5% interest is $300 per month. Paying the medical bills of $10K over 2 years at 0% interest is $415 per month. Paying the credit card bills of $15K over 5 years at 14% interest is $350 per month. Ugh... $1K in debt payment alone.

As I understand it, Americans actually get/take far less vacation than Europeans. Couple that with comparatively no social services and this should start to make sense.

hee skrebbel! :D

see this http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/7413/2008usincomedistribu...

I had to massage a whole bunch of numbers from bls.gov to get this histogram (huge list of annual income per county per occupation group), it's not exactly the kind of data they like to publish :)

Of course this is 2008, mostly before the recession. Would be interesting to see if they got new data and how it changed.

And this is for all occupation groups, computer programmers are of course on the higher end of this graph.

And yeah, depending on where you are in the US, things you'd expect to be cheap in the supermarkets here generally tend to be a bit more expensive. Also because they always list the prices excluding VAT [in most states]. If they list the prices correctly, or at all. And actually charge you the same amount at the checkout. Outside of supermarkets, prices seem reasonable, until you find you need to pay 15-20% in tips because waiting staff doesn't get minimum wage [in most states] and it's up to the customers to make sure they don't starve. So yeah, not very developed after all :-) [also: healthcare. unless you're rich you get none. half the people on the street walk around with visible ailments of some kind. but I'm getting OT]

A bottle of coke, however, is much, much cheaper than over here. Also, bigger.

groetjes

- ritz

What rights do you have as an employee? Vacation time, maternity leave, severance pay?

In the US, these things are not mandatory. Good employers (like mine) are relatively generous, but not like what I've heard in Europe.

I love being in a profession where the lowest tier on a salary poll is "Less than 60k."

And I'm guessing that'll be the longtail. All hail our new (rich) geek elite.

For now. There's a hiring crunch on which is driving up salaries. If/when that ends, expect to see them trend toward the population mean.

Some of us are a lot less than 60k :)

Indeed, though in my case that's purely from geographical considerations :)

I make just over 50% of that (about US35k, full-stack web developer with one year of professional experience and no degree).

Quite interesting. In Germany or Europe very very few programmers would make more than 100k USD (around 70k EUR) unless he is in some position where he leads a team or oversees bigger projects. Then i see how cheap cars and computer hardware etc is in the US and i really start to wonder where this massive difference comes from. US engineers seem to earn way more and generally pay much less for many things.

Apple hardware for example is the same price in EUR as it is USD in the US, cars generally the same or even less.

Except contractors - good contractor in the UK makes £300-£600 day programming

I think the survey specifically excluded contractors.

In any case, £300-£400 is not unusual for a good, experienced software development contractor in the UK, but plenty make less. You won't normally see rates much above £400 unless you're looking in London and/or at jobs requiring very specialist skills.

I've seen several long-term UK contracts for £800 a day. Especially for someone with a niche technology, but also rarely for generalists.

That's a rate as advertised by recruiters, so try and get another 12.5% on top if you could go direct.

That would be about $340,000 a year (allowing for 25 days holiday over the year).

but do they earn that in a year on average ? i doubt it.

It's probably the market -- the demand is higher in the US.

We work many more hours and we have to pay more for benefits like health care. Most other medical costs are higher here too; drugs are a lot more expensive in the US than the rest of the world, because the drug companies fold the research and testing costs into our prices, and only include manufacturing and distribution costs in the rest of the world's pricing.

Cars might be cheaper here, and gas certainly is, but we use a lot more of both than Europeans because we tend to be spread out a lot more. That's another factor raising our cost of living, which drives up the salaries we demand.

That is not the case that the large drug companies sell for distribution + manufacturing cost. If that were the case, drugs would be essentially free in the rest of the world and they most certainly are not for brand names. In Canada the government sets the price. Here's a chart that's still relevant that shows prices in US/Canada/Mexico: http://cummings.house.gov/pdf/intl.pdf

Some generic drugs cost literally pennies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_drug#Economics

The drug companies convince foreign governments to let them charge more because they say it costs a lot to develop the drugs. Other countries pay too. The US isn't the only one.

Obviously they're making a profit too. My point was that they determine prices for most of the world on a mass-production manufacturing basis, while for the US they also include recovering the research and testing costs. That's why we get charged more. (That, and because most of the drug costs are hidden behind the insurance system which helps them get away with this practice.)

"The drug companies convince foreign governments to let them charge more because they say it costs a lot to develop the drugs."

It's kind of funny that they say that, since they're effectively heavily subsidized by the US government -- because virtually all of the basic research in the US (and in the world) is funded by the US government. Pharmaceutical companies get to use the fruits of all that basic research for free.

Even accepting the premise that drug companies are dependent on all the basic research, it's but a tiny fraction of what goes into making an actual drug. Just because you know the basic biological reasons for a disease doesn't mean squat to making a chemical entity that you can give to a human being. The whole process of designing something that has actual efficacy while at the same time not injuring the patient is extremely expensive and difficult science and it almost never is done in an academic setting.

"it's but a tiny fraction of what goes into making an actual drug"

I think it's the other way around. To make drugs you have to know chemistry and biology (not to mention the dependence on various tools and techniques which have their origins in various materials sciences, electronics, math, statistics, etc), sciences which were and still are almost entirely based on and advanced by basic research. Without this knowledge, these tools, and these techniques the pharmacutical industry would be nowhere. Furthermore, many commercial drugs are based directly on discoveries made by researchers working in university settings and funded by the US government.

Of course, after all of that, the drug companies still do their own research and pay various fees to get the drugs on the market. So it's not like they contribute nothing to the process -- and obviously the process is still very expensive. But it doesn't erase the fact that the entire pharmaceutical industry is still effectively heavily subsidized by the US government.

Having spent over 8 years doing drug R&D I can tell you that it is most certainly not the other way around. The specific kind of chemistry you need to develop a drug (a discipline known as medicinal chemistry) is exclusively practiced inside pharmaceutical companies. The academic research in the field is paltry. Without a compound, all e basic bio in the world is useless.

By your logic though, aren't all technology companies subsidized by the federal government? Don't companies like Intel and IBM use various discoveries from academia to make their products? Aren't all software companies essentially benefitting from government funded research into computer networking, language design, etc... Where do you draw the line?

"Having spent over 8 years doing drug R&D I can tell you that it is most certainly not the other way around. The specific kind of chemistry you need to develop a drug (a discipline known as medicinal chemistry) is exclusively practiced inside pharmaceutical companies."

You still have to know basic organic and inorganic chemistry, and math and statistics. All fields to which the pharmaceutical industry contributes absolutely nothing.

"Without a compound, all e basic bio in the world is useless."

But many of the compounds pharmaceutical companies use are based directly and indirectly on breakthroughs in basic research. And that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the debt the pharmaceutical industry owes to the fundamental understanding of the human body (and that of animals) that came from basic research.

"By your logic though, aren't all technology companies subsidized by the federal government?"

Absolutely. There's a huge debt corporations the world over owe to the fruits of research funded almost exclusively by the government.

Erm.. I'm certainly no expert, but 'we have to pay more for benefits like health care' should be somewhat qualified.

In DE half of the (state based. There's a 'I don't want to be part of the general system' option that works slightly different) health care is payed by your employer, half is deducted from your salary. It's a percentage of your income.

Next thing that kind of trips me here is that I'm pretty sure that the tax rate is a little different...

So - comparing the salary is probably already problematic, but if you want to start a discussion about costs you should compare the income _after taxes_. Good luck with that..

Edit: For kicks and giggles: If you're a single (not married, no children etc.) your tax rate here would be around (ballpark fiture. +/-5, I was too lazy to look it up and it ~depends~) 40% of your salary. This is the tax for your income only. You pay more than that (your share of the health care, a different 'tax' like thing for retirement fonds etc).

up to 45% !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income_Tax_Germany_2010.pn...

But remember that you only pay that on the last step of the income, to get to 40% of real deductions from your wages you should have a monthly pay >20000€

Marginal tax rate for me is around that (including California state tax) and likewise that doesn't include the Social-security and medicare.

Also, we have very limited safety net for retirement, so figure another 10% (or so) going to retirement savings. With my 401(k) contributions, my paycheck is almost exactly 1/2 of my gross pay.

http://dbaron.org/views/taxes-2007.html claims that in California, total marginal tax rate including SS but excluding private health insurance is around 40%, depending on the income. So with some room for retirement and health insurance, yes 50% is about the same or less as in most of Western Europe (the 40% quoted for Germany is only income tax, you'd need to add the mandatory part of the health insurance to it, the local taxes and of course the sales tax which is 19 to 21%; I don't think it ever goes above 10% in California). Oh and 'capital taxes', (not even 'capital gains taxes', which you have to pay too, I'm talking tax on things that you own and on which you've already paid tax before).

Yes California is expensive, tax-wise, but it's not as expensive as most places in Europe. Other places in the US are much cheaper.

I swear I'm not picking on you but I see this line all the time when US-EU gas price comparisons are made and I just can't buy it from a logical POV. So I thought I'd get all anal and play with the stats :-)

The average US driver does about 13,500 miles per year: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

The number I keep finding again and again for UK driver is 9,628 miles a year (which sounds very low to me but I'll roll with it). That's almost a spot on 40% extra for the US driver (for a country with 42x the surface area, to be fair). OK, cool.

Given a US gallon of gas in the UK is about $8.25 compared to the current Californian average of $3.77 and the US driver is only driving 40% more miles on average, the US driver is still spending way less money on gas and would need to drive significantly further distances to make up the difference.

Our cars are probably less efficient on average too, with all the SUVs. You've got miles/year and $/gallon, but not miles/gallon. You need all three to compare. I'd be interested in what you come up with.

For what it's worth, my commute is one mile and I drive a Mini, so I can't use the commute cost to justify my own salary...

Having a more costly car ones own choice. You can't expect to have more luxury in the US when you're trying to compare $/gallon

US is quite easy to find; http://www.bts.gov/publications/national_transportation_stat... -> let's say 33 mpg for passenger cars (depends a bit on which vehicle classes you count). EU data is harder; Eurostat doesn't seem to track it (haven't searched very far - I'll ask my friends at the DG Transport if I don't forgot if they track it). http://www.greencarcongress.com/2004/11/average_fuel_co.html seems to suggest 43 mpg, but I don't see where they get their data from (the linked report is MIA). So US cars, in aggregate, use 30% more fuel. Which, intuitively, seems to be about right.

Taking into account gas prices, that still confirms that US citizens don't spend more than Europeans on gas, in absolute numbers, even given their different preference in cars, radically different urban development patterns and fuel purchasing power vis a vis the rest of the world.

I am in Germany, and 70k EUR seems average for someone with experience and/or specialist skills. (Of course less experienced or "motivated" developers will be on a bit less than that). 70k would be low for anyone in a leadership role. Of course half of that gets taxed away, so I wouldn't really compare it to 100k USD.

Can you, without giving away too much information, tell me what kind of market you're talking about (i.e. are you thinking of embedded, financial, whatever)?

I'm from Germany as well with (depending on skill) 5-10 years experience and your numbers just don't match mine. Maybe you just confirmed once more that I fail to negotiate, but.. by a large margin.

I am drawing this from the semiconductor, telecommunications, automotive, healthcare technology, and travel domains. It doesn't really seem that relevant though as software developers are not tied to domains like say hardware engineers, or I guess non-programming domain specialists. Although now that I think about it, software developers do tend to pigeon-hole themselves a bit. I have heard of people calling themselves ".NET developers in the real estate branch", which I suppose is a psychological blocker to jumping to a better-paying job.

I guess it depends on where in Germany we're talking. The Cologne and Frankfurt areas pay better than the East, from what I hear. But 70k isn't unusual; I was paid 60k straight out of college in Frankfurt, 10 years ago.

This is exactly why I moved from Germany to the US. I was tired of being on the end of the salary bell curve at international conferences. Higher salary and lower taxes mean that my disposable post-tax income is now 3.5 times what it was in Germany. And I am not even in the Bay Area yet!

From my point of view, the situation for software developers is particularly bleak though. You don't have to move to the United States to do much better. Going to Switzerland or Luxembourg is pretty good too.

My starting salary in the bay area right out of college is higher than what I would have conceivably made my entire career in Germany. I understand that small companies that do business locally operate with different economics, but what's the excuse for multinational corporations?

My decision to work in the US wasn't based in any way on expected compensation but rather on the excitingness of the job. Still, it's nice to be treated well as an employee.

There's so much more demand in US. They got companies like Microsoft, Google, Intel, AMD, Oracle, etc, plus the combined demand of VC-funded startups.

There's no equivalent market in other developed countries, not even UK, Germany and Japan.

Again, this doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense without location data. I'm voting with my salary adjusted to San Francisco levels by using the following adjustment tool:

http://www.bestplaces.net/col/

I'd recommend that people do the same so we can remove a substantial source of noise from this poll and actually get a meaningful distribution.

I'm not sure that is accurate. To my surprise...my NYC salary of $176,000 adjusted to San Francisco should be $217,151

Is SF really more expensive then NYC?

I'm not sure - never lived in either place. I'm not particularly tied to that calculator, it just came up first in a Google search. I do, however, think it's important to remove the location parameter from the salary function as best as we can. Otherwise the distribution of results is meaningless.

In my personal experience, there's a growing trend of developers working remotely from wherever they want. As that trend becomes more mainstream, I would expect regional differences in developers' salaries to shrink.

So I don't think the poll is meaningless without geography.

No I don't think so. You will have a lot of people who live in average places and have average salaries entering in their information, and any information generated from data is going to be representative, and reveal something about average salaries in average places. Then you might get a whole bunch of people in expensive places entering in their large salaries, and any information generated from that data will reflect that.

Then you will have a smaller number of people living out in the country, entering in their low salaries. Now there aren't too many of them so the affect they have on the statistics is proportional to their number.

Basically, you will end up with a number like 70k as an average salary. And that means something. It means the average developer, wherever he may live, earns about 70k. Sure people in expensive places earn more than that on average, people in cheaper places earn less. But that is obvious, each person in each place entered their salary and they all counted towards the average.

Now if everyone decided to try and correct away location, whatever that means, and scaled their salaries up to some arbitrarily expensive city, you might end up with a value like 120k, when in fact a vast majority of people are earning less than that. How is that representative? How is that useful or meaningful? Even people living in expensive cities are going to look at that value, and think they are earning below average when they aren't.

Depends on where you live in NYC. Average salary in Manhattan is $120k.

From the breakdown provided by the calculator, it looks like the big differentiator is housing costs (369 vs 250). My guess would be that they are using housing data for places like Queens/Brooklyn, where housing can be considerably cheaper than Manhattan, but are not considering places like South San Francisco, Colma, etc. when calculating the housing prices for San Francisco.

Queens / Brooklyn (other than Williamsburg) can be orders of magnitude cheaper than Manhattan.

Colma / South SF / Oakland are probably 30% cheaper than SF. Still cheaper, but not overwhelmingly so.

Use WolframAlpha instead: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%24176%2C000+in+manhatt...

More accurate and they give a lot more details to the data.

*Note: I specifically stated 'Manhattan' in that query

  Yes, although a large part of it depends on if you want to rent or buy. Rent is comparable in both cities from what I've seen, although nyc (unlin=ke san francisco) has semi reliable public transport and more rent friedly areas with reasonable commutes.

If we do that then we would be trusting that tool, which doesn't look right to me. (I don't think that SF is 138% more expensive than Miami, FL.) Let's put whatever we make, knowing that it's just an approximation.

By the way, I'd rather live in an expensive city making proportionally more money, because my savings would also be proportionally larger, and when you're buying a plane ticket to Europe online or a pair of shoes at Zappos, they don't check your zip code to give you a price.

I live in San Francisco and it is probably 138% more expensive than Miami, FL. A cheapo 1br in the city runs around $1200 a month. Nice places cost $1500-2500 a month. I'm paying $2k a month myself but it's a really nice place w a Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and city view. How much are places in Miami?

As someone that moved to the bay area from Miami 6 years ago 138% sounds about right to me. Comparing apples to apples you would need to compare Biscayne, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables in Miami to SF. Those neighborhoods are $1,000 to $2,000 a month.

As someone making the move from Miami to SF I can give some approximations that are hopefully time-accurate. Brickell/Downtown/South Beach/Grove 1BR prices are in the $1200-1600 range down here now for a now standard pad. You can of course go much higher, but not much cheaper (cheapest I've seen is $1100, a total steal these days). I myself have paid $1250 or so the last few years, however the building I just left in Brickell now has 1BRs starting at $1400. Demand has certainly moved the price needle up in the cooler parts of town here. For a similar looking place in SF I'm looking at the $1800-$2000 range in similarly cool parts of town. I could of course venture out to the Richmond and save/get more space but that's the same anywhere. In keeping apples to apples I'm comparing the Miami areas above to Nob Hill/Russian Hill/North Beach/Marina/Pac Heights/Inner Richmond areas. If I'm off in the SF comparisons someone please DO let me know. :)

i've lived in SF for 6 years. I have no idea where you can get nice 1BR place with GG Bridge and Bay Views for $2k! Let us know!

Oooh, sorry, I messed this one up. To clarify, I live in a 2br with a friend and it's $4k a month for the both of us. $2k a person.

That's only "renting" and prices are not too far off in Miami based on your numbers (a place equivalent to yours in Miami I would say cost "maybe" a little less). How about food, clothe, transportation? Are those things also more than twice more expensive? No way. For example, you can live without a car in SF because public transportation there is decent. In Miami you need a car as you need your legs.

And I'm not even considering the benefits that a globalized world brings to "expensive" cities. In other words, if we assume that everything is 138% more expensive in SF then savings will also be 138% larger and, in the "equivalence equation", you have to factor in the purchasing power of San Franciscans in markets outside SF and Miami, otherwise you'd be saying something of the sorts of: To maintain your standard of living when you move to SF from Miami you need to make 138% more money (and by the way, you'll get a 20 days vacation in Spain for free).

To be honest, you can usually shop better in large cities than you can in small ones. Flights are cheaper, you have more specialized discount stores, the amount of competition is higher. Big box pricing is also fairly consistent country wide. You'll find 'levi signature' jeans for $10 on clearance in the Mountain View Target and in the Austin Target.

Haha: "Housing is 581% more expensive in San Francisco."

And I live in the Northeast!

I mean, I guess they would need to pay me a lot more, because I literally could not spend 6x my current rent, because that would be all of my income.

I think it means you would have 6 times less housing for what you're paying now (although that could also be non-sensical).

Too many people confuse SF with the Bay Area. SF is just one city in a much larger populated region. You don't need to live in SF proper even to work there. And housing is cheaper outside of the City than in it (generally).

It's just a pain to bart/caltrain/drive every day.

Tell you what, Mountain View / Palo Alto is getting ridiculous. My 650sqft one-bedroom which cost $1700 2 years ago, is going up to $2600 when I move out. Granted you can still find cheaper in Mountain View, and you can get wayy cheap in the East Bay, but honestly the city is not looking so expensive to me these days.

The $150/month bridge toll tax difference is how you should calculate the rent.

Just did a comparison between East Lansing and San Francisco on that site. Salary went up 2.25 times. SF cost of living is 1.5 times and rent is 6.6 times as expensive. Holy cow!

If you ever need to run a poll with location data -- please feel free to use my site: http://gopollgo.com -- we give awesome reports and location data all free of charge.

Sheesh, I live in Austin, TX and according to that, my salary adjusted for San Francisco nearly doubles.

Why? How are honest values more "noisy" than faked ones? I mean if it turns out that more programmers work in places that have San Francisco salaries, then those values will dominate anyway. If people in other smaller cities with lower salaries artificially inflate theres for the survey, they survey will present a skewed result. If they enter the correct values, then whatever information can be extracted from it will also be more accurate.

I recommend people don't enter "adjusted" information in.

That calculator is making a very common and yet very fundamental error: It assumes that cost of living adjustments should apply linearly across a salary range.

It costs more to live in San Francisco that it does to live in Detroit. However, that additional cost is largely static: You'll pay a lot more for housing, you'll probably pay noticeably more for food, and you may pay somewhat more for clothing and other items. You won't pay more for a car (if you have one), you won't pay more for the items you buy from Amazon, and you won't pay more for your Netflix subscription.

If you earn $30,000/year, the difference in cost of living between San Francisco and Detroit will be dramatic. You may not be able to afford a place to live in San Francisco at all on that salary.

If you earn $300,000/year, the difference will be almost negligible, since your living expenses will be a trivial portion of your income. (The one kicker will be housing--you'll probably need to settle for a smaller living space.)

It doesn't make any sense to apply a cost of living adjustment as a strict multiplier, which that calculator does. It claims that someone making $30,000 in Detroit will need an $80,000 salary in San Francisco to be equivalent, while someone making $300,000 will need $800,000.

That's clearly ludicrous. It does not cost an additional $500,000 annually to live in San Francisco.

Determining equivalent cost of living is a complex question, and will always be imprecise. There are things that simply can't be converted--on my current salary, I could afford to buy a house with a hundred acres of surrounding woodland near my home town. There is no amount of money in the world that will buy that in San Francisco. Equally, there are many things available in San Francisco and its environs that can't be had for love or money in my home town.

> Determining equivalent cost of living is a complex question,

While that's true, the calculator presented isn't as bad as you make it out to be. It splits up the calculations across several different indexes. Food, Housing, Utilities, Transportation, Health, and Misc.

It's increase is based merely on the average. This is probably fair, considering if you want to maintain the same life style you have in one location, this gives you an estimate as to what you'll need. And I imagine if you live in Detroit and spend a substantial portion of that on housing, you'll need that much of a pay raise to maintain that same level of housing. You even suggest this: "The one kicker will be housing--you'll probably need to settle for a smaller living space."

That's the point. The monetary comparison assumes you maintain the same level of housing. Obviously it's not precise. However, if you accept that housing will be different, you can remove it from the equation. In this case, the overall percentage is used, but housing is the reason for that. Remove housing, and it helps get a good idea of overall living costs.

You can't maintain the same level of housing no matter where you are. That's what my example comparing my home town (backwoods Connecticut) with San Francisco is about--it simply doesn't make any sense at all to compare a hundred acres in rural farmland with the equivalent housing situation in a major metropolis. Cost doesn't really enter into it.

The type of housing you can afford is a quality of life issue as much or more than it is a cost of living issue. If you live in San Francisco or New York, you accept a smaller living space than you'd get elsewhere. In return, you get access to nightlife, concert venues, and other amenities that can only be had in a densely-populated area.

If living on a hundred acres of woodland is important to you, you will not live in San Francisco. If being able to bike to work is important to you, you will not live in Los Angeles. If staying out of the cold is important to you, you will not live in Minneapolis. Money won't buy you any of these things.

At some levels, it may seem that it's just an issue of money. You can, of course, buy a detached, single-family house in San Francisco. It'll cost you millions, but you can do it if you're rich enough. Attempting to paint this as a difference in cost of living, however, is simply disingenuous--the detached home in San Francisco is the local equivalent of a mansion in my home town. It's not equivalent, any more than hiring Michael Franti to make a personal trip out to Connecticut to play for you would be equivalent to catching a show at a local concert hall.

And, finally, it's important to remember that unless you're living entirely hand-to-mouth, not all of your income goes to living expenses. If you're in the well-paid engineer club, then hopefully only a relatively small portion of your income goes to living expenses. Moving from a cheap location to an expensive one may increase that portion, but it doesn't make any sense at all to multiply your current income by a constant factor to determine the "equivalent" in a different location. That's what that calculator does, and it's deceptive and wrong.

> You can't maintain the same level of housing no matter where you are.

I realize that, and what you said. My point was, the numbers there had housing playing a major role in affecting your cost of living. Simply put, if I wanted the same 4 bedroom, 2500 sqft house between here and San Francisco, it's going to cost me a LOT more. However, if I ignore the housing, the rest of the estimates are still useful, and as a result, you can still find out how much more or less you need to make to maintain what you are used to.

> That's what that calculator does, and it's deceptive and wrong.

If you look at the numbers blindly, sure. But their is value in knowing the comparative values in things besides housing. After all, it's not just giving you one single number.

My argument isn't that the calculator is completely right, only that it's not completely useless as you make it out to be.

Finally, you also talk a lot about other factors. While it's true, it's also pointless. Of course people aren't going to just look at the calculator and base everything off that. However, for many people, it's a helpful indication of what to expect. A 20% increase across the board for all expenses could mean someone moving for a job for a small pay raise might need to plan accordingly.

Basically, knowing how much things cost relative to where you are now is important. Yes, the more money you make, the less it matters, but there are far fewer people in that situation.

I think you grossly underestimate the difference in housing costs.

In the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, you can get this 1300sft house for $643/month: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/211-Barbary-Ct-Cary-NC-275...

In Palo Alto you are looking at this 1140sft house for $4922/month: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4205-Wilkie-Way-Palo-Alto-...

This is not an extreme example. Housing costs in NC are a small fraction of what they are in the valley.

Also notice that the housing prices in NC are very consistent, the bubble didn't happen there. The values in Palo Alto swing up and down 30% or more in a span of 2 years.

Obviously the job market is better in Palo Alto, but top talent can get a job anywhere.

Consider a hypothetical engineer (software developer in east coast terminology). He might make around 100k in NC, and $140k with a good gig in the bay. After taxes, 401k, etc lets say this is a take home income of 60k and 95k. The valley engineer is paying $59064 for housing, leaving him around 36k for every other expense in his life, around $3k per month.

The Raleigh engineer pays $7716 for housing, leaving him $53k, or around $4415 per month.

So after you subtract housing, assuming purchase, the Raleigh engineer is better off initially. Of course, assuming Palo Alto housing prices don't plummet, the valley engineer is putting equity into the house which he can use if he moves for retirement.

Of course, there are other benefits to living in the valley, such as not having to live in North Carolina. Weather, opportunities, schools, healthcare, and the job market are far better here.

I previously lived near the area in NC that I'm describing, and I left to come work for a startup in Palo Alto. The quality of life here is far better.

Housing is outrageous though, but that is primarily a function of geography, being in a narrow valley near the sea, there is simply no room to expand. That is why all the towns in the valley are fighting high speed rail, they know that once the pressure is released by allowing easy access to jobs in the valley, housing prices will drop shockingly.

And the NC person isn't putting equity in to a house?

The value of the house is about 1 year of salary for the engineer in NC, and about 5 years of a higher salary for the engineer in the Valley. No, its not a better deal for the valley engineer still, but at least they have something to show for all those mortgage payments that are bleeding them dry.

This is partly why lax lending standards did so much damage. Anyone spending 2/3 of a single net income on a mortgage is one minor life event away from being completely screwed, so much so that banks wouldn't even offer you that much rope until a few years ago (when they could sell it off with a bogus rating). Now it's going to be a long and reluctant price adjustment back to what the majority even here can realistically afford. In the meantime, I rent within my means as a single (about a mile away from that house), so the wage difference for being here is huge for me.

Wow. It says Palo Alto, CA is 71% MORE expensive than NYC. That result alone left me feeling that this data is not what I am looking for. I have lived in both places and disagree. I am curious about what "NYC" means to this site.

Location, location, location.

It would probably make a lot more sense to compare Palo Alto to a rich neighborhood in NYC, or even to Manhattan proper, rather than to NYC as a whole.

Compared to NYC, Palo Alto is tiny, way less populated, and way less densely populated -- and there are still plenty of dirt cheap places to live in NYC (though you might not want to live in those places, for various reasons).

Living in Palo Alto would be more like living on the Upper East Side or in the Wall St district.

I think that in addition to location, degree of expertise or years of experience are important factors which often correlate with location. For instance, if you live in the midwest and make your living tweaking wordpress themes, you may consider yourself a "programmer". However, that wouldn't fly in a major city. So I would speculate that salaries are higher in SF, for example, but the quality of the "programmer" is significantly higher than in other locations. Just my 2 cents...

I was living in Virginia for most of the period from 2000 to 2008. I had salary jobs and I had contractor jobs. I preferred contractor jobs, since they pay better (and I thought I could get by without health insurance -- always a dicey gamble). I slowly got better as a programmer during the years I was there. During the first few gigs I got, in 2000, I was a true novice, and trying to prove myself. I would charge a low, flat rate for projects, and I doubt my hourly rate was better than $20 an hour. I slowly raised that rate to $25 an hour and then $30 an hour. These seemed like huge steps forward at the time. The country was still deep in recession, and the tech sector had been hit very hard, so it wasn't a great time to get into tech with no resume. Somewhere around 2005 it became easy to raise rates, so I raised mine to $40 an hour and then $50 an hour. (Most of the work I did at this time involved websites and used the language PHP. There were a few exceptions, like a big Rails project in 2006, but PHP was the norm.) For whatever reason, I never seemed able to get more than $50 an hour while I was in Virginia. I did start picking up some freelance gigs in New York City, for which I could work for higher rates. I worked remotely. Then, in early 2009, I moved to New York City. I was working for a startup as a freelance contractor. I charged $100 an hour. For awhile New York City seemed somewhat safe from the recession. But the recession caught up with it. The startup I was with burned out, and then I had trouble finding work. Being unemployed, I tried to work on projects of my own. This is when I started wpquestions.com. I went to a lot of job interviews, but apparently the rate I wanted was too high for recession-era New York. I cut my rate to $75, and then to $70 and then to $65 and then to $60 and then to $55. Finally, I just really wanted a gig, so I cut my rate to $50 an hour. I ended up working a contract at winespectator.com. This involved diverse technologies; I was porting a Java/Oracle app to PHP/MySql, and then later I was porting a FileMaker database to PHP/MySql. I started looking for other gigs. Things had improved economically in New York City. I found I could raise my rates again. Everything I've been offered lately has been between $60 and $70 an hour. Again, all of this is contract work, with no health insurance.

I worked independently for years and health insurance can be really expensive. I eventually discovered the health savings account (HSA) / high-deductible combo. You can find packages that you pay about $300/month for which buys you access to group pricing (so you get the $30 Advil if you go the the hospital, not the rack rate $800 Advil) of which you pay all of up to a high deductible. In the end your exposure to medical bills for an emergency end up the same as or lower than what you'd be paying for low deductible coverage - e.g. $3600 / yr for premiums plus a 5K deductible puts you in the same monthly range you'd be paying for an HMO, but only if you use all the care. Email is in my profile if you want more details.

From the author of the poll further down:

my NYC salary of $176,000

That explains (to me) a lot the choice of ranges for the poll. $176k seems to be on the high-end worldwide.

Overall, because of the buckets and the problem with the wide variations over location, the results will be mostly useless. However, it's still getting upvotes (though much less than actual votes on the poll), most probably because of the fact that most people really want to know how much others are making. Is it because they're not sure they're being taken advantage of?

The salary taboo is an odd thing if you think about it. It's really at the advantage of the employers and employees overall would most likely all benefit from knowing how much others are making. Also, they are a lot of regular people whose salaries are public (engineers, nurses, doctors… working for local governments for example) and their lives are fine :) Yet, it's hard to even ask how much somebody makes, let alone share yours.

I made the mistake of sharing my salary with a colleague many years ago - I was making almost 2x their salary with similar time and experience but was considered "high potential" ... I have not discussed salary since.

I don't understand. Why was it a mistake? What was the consequence of telling him how much you made?

I'm on my first real job. I had no idea what to ask for and what I am really worth. I wasn't really desperate for a job but I only asked for something now seems too low (feels way too low after this thread). I screwed up in salary negotiation (Actually I didn't even negotiate.)

Anyway what matters right now is I love the job and it's pretty much what I'd be doing even if I was on my own. There are times that economy gets tight. I feel bad but I always move. Perhaps I'd MOVE ON someday.

Anyway I think there should be some resources that helps a guy going for his first job have an idea what black magic salary negotiation is. Perhaps the fellow HNers have some good stuff to share.

One thing to always remember, in any negotiation (house, car, pair of socks on the market in Casablanca): always be ready to walk away. Once you've committed to the deal before the other guy has, you've lost. If you commit to the job prematurely because you're afraid nobody else will hire you, you've lost.

Apart from that:

- Always ask for more. It's never enough. - Don't let yourself be compared with others (co-workers). Make sure you have a story on why you're different from everybody else. The naive strategy, that most hiring managers nonetheless use, is to compare people with each other and say 'I can't pay you more than the others'. - The other guy dreads the discussion just as much as you do. Exploit that. Drag it out over a couple of days - make him lay awake at night for having to have another talk about the money. He'll be willing to give in if the discussion is uncomfortable for him. - Get the other guy to commit to hiring you before the discussion is over. This is turning the table on my first paragraph. Once he's decided he will hire you, he will go the extra mile to pay what you're asking (or at least closer to what you're asking - if they pay you what you're asking, you asked too little and have left money on the table).

All that said, I've held the same job for 10 years, so I may be talking out of my ass. I have hired people in those 10 years though, and rather successfully 'coached' others in salary negotiations, and I know a few head hunters who I discuss this with every now and then (privately - for example my brother in law is one). So I think I do know some basics.

I still work for my first employer after I graduated from college 6 years ago. I took their first salary offer without negotiation. I thought it was a good offer and I didn't know any better. Turns out, I could have asked for 10% more and still been in their range.

In the 6 years I've been with the company, I've gotten a good number of raises. I now make 39% more than I did 6 years ago. Due to the recession, some hard work, and raise freezes for higher earners, I've now caught up to those who came in making more than me that first year out of college.

You can do the same thing I've done (stick it out and hope for raises), or now that you have a good understanding of what you think you're worth, go and ask for that. Why not just ask your boss for more money? They won't fire you for asking, worst they'll do is say no.

I've made at least 30% to 50% increases every time I jumped from job to job, and never stayed at a job more than a year.

You'll very rarely wind up getting as much in raises when you continue working for the same company year after year, unless you manage to get constantly promoted or are lucky enough to find yourself working for a startup that makes it big (and doesn't screw its shareholding employees over like Skype did).

Of course, eventually I might price myself out of the market. But I don't know when that "eventual" point will be for me, as I don't think I've yet reached the peak of my career.

I'm not willing to relocate from upstate NY (starting a family, local extended family, own a house) and my pay is already in the range I could find at other companies in the area. I could probably get a 10 to 15% bump going somewhere else but that's about it. I also get the impression that jumping from job to job every year is frowned upon locally. That may not be the case everywhere.

Getting 30% increases each year means after 6 years you're making almost 4x what you started at! Congrats! That's just not possible where I live without starting your own company and being very successful.

Here in Brazil, I get paid approximately 11k brazillian reais.. Translating to U.S. dollars that would be 7k. These numbers are really impressive to me.

Really? Less than 1k/month here in Brazil? Where do you live? Or do you mean per month?

If you consider taxes, less than 1k reais/month. I live south, Londrina - Paraná.

Good lord, man. You need to move to Rio or São Paulo or something... if you're even a half-decent programmer you make R$3K/mo without looking too hard, and make $5-8K if you're quite good. Even working from home, you should be able to find something more than R$1K/month, subcontracting work for other companies. Boa sorte, amigo!

Any tips on how to find a job in those regions?

I think you're confused... salaries in Brazil are monthly... US salaries are generally quoted yearly...

And differences are even more confusing for comparison because, beyond multiplying by 12 and converting to dollars, you need to remember that in Brazil you get a 13th salary as well, an extra 1/3 salary during your vacation month, the money put into your FGTS, and sometimes other benefits as well. In the US you don't get any of that. Although, of course, this is all only if you're CLT instead of CNPJ... (formally hired, as opposed to an independent contractor).

Nope, I not confused. Im CLT employed and you're right about FGTS.. But I don't have any benefits where I work, and the local employers don't get much better than this. A 'nice' salary in my town would get me somewhere around 21k dollars yearly.

You should consider contracting remotely for US companies (if possible)

That's actually one of my goals!

Brazilian college student here. We get a lot of job offers, and 11k is what most internships pay. Sure, my jaw dropped on the number of people earning 60k+, but R$ 11k is really low.

And I would like to point out that the consumer electronics tax is a PITA. A simple Amazon Kindle, considered extremely cheap in the US, is an internship's month salary.

I'm from Colombia, and currently I get paid around 20k USD yearly. I have more than 5 years of professional experience, and degrees in computer engineering, and a master in computer science.

For someone as me, those numbers are astounding.

These numbers would probably be much higher were not a lot of the jobs outsourced to countries where the prevailing wages were much lower.

They'd also probably be significantly higher if the computer field was strongly unionized.

The other interesting thing is that these wages pale in comparison to what the founders of an investors in successful startups make, not to mention CEOs, CTOs, various executives, members of the board, etc.

Also, if the survey had been limited to certain industries, like finance, and certain areas of the country (like Silicon Valley and Manhattan) the averages would probably be a lot higher. Though I do suspect that this survey was probably answered mostly by programmers in the technology industry in Silicon Valley.

got that right! i was wowed!

here in the philippines; we have lesser than your 7k figure! haha! and that's yearly.

above there is a discussion about living expenses; then i search for the National Statistics website and found out that australia or canada seems better.

I wish I could compare this curve to comp in finance. It seems like a lot of money until you realize PE firms/hedge funds/banks are offering fresh MBAs +$200K a year. I'm not saying finance is better, it's just a data point to put things in perspective.

I hear the hours can get even more ridiculous in finance, and you have to live with new york weather. How do they get those offers from those firms?

The hours can get ridiculous, but they vary from company to company. Also, the hours usually get a lot better as you gain seniority.

On the other hand, you do have to put up with being surrounded by people who pretty much live to make money, and think about nothing but work and making more money.

Though that might not be so different than Silicon Valley.

Off-topic:

You've got two typos. The {first,last} option should be "{Less,More} than {6,20}0K".

I've always wondered about this particular typo. I've caught myself do it but extremely rarely. And that's just me being occasionally erratic. However, since you've got it twice, I'm wondering: do you even know that it is incorrect? I have this theory that those who learned to speak English before learning to write it never had to pay attention to this.

Hey, if you guys want to compare salaries, how about doing it via salaryshare.me?

Here is the pool I created for HN: http://salaryshare.me/1bc4550900b5d2c5f667783e3cc05818

I make 10,000 RMB per month (about $1550 USD) at a start-up in Beijing. On one hand I feel certain I could earn more in the US, but on the other hand it might be harder to get a job at a start-up as someone entering the field from the arts with a relatively modest tech background.

How much does rent/food/computers cost?

2800/3000ish/too much!

In academia, I was paid around $56k. Moving into industry I went up to $75k. I just took a new job with a big multinational and my salary popped up to $140k.

As others have pointed at, location is a big factor here. The issue I have is that it is US-centric. Has there been a poll or is there any data regarding the HN demographics (including region)?

Though I'm not really a programmer but a researcher, I voted anyway since, in practice, most of my work is programming. It probably just makes me an underpaid programmer... ;-)

Researchers in CS typically get paid quite well. Are you a student or a full-time researcher? At a University or a research lab?

60K - 100K is too wide a swath for this poll to be useful IMHO

This poll is meaningless with an international audience.

I would bet that the respondents were mostly from the US, and mostly from the technology industry in Silicon Valley.

However, it would certainly have been a much more meaningful poll were if there was some demographic information (location, sex, age) along with information on industry, experience, and job description.

It depends a lot on the domain and your expertise of the business overall. For example, working for a non-profit is completely different than working on trading algorithms for a hot hedge fund where you also partake in creating the algos.

The domain/work/location doesn't change the fact of how much you get paid...just the justification for why it is a particular amount.

I just don't think that comparing programmer salaries across the board makes much sense because of the different domains. Understanding the domain is often more difficult than understanding the programming language.

So you end up with salary data, but you have no way to analyze it in any way, for instance to answer "why do some people get paid x and other people get paid y?" So what's the point?

http://glassdoor.com

One more general question to pile onto this -- what is a 'normal' junior developer salary, for someone fresh out with a bachelor's degree? I'm thinking $60k plus options(for a startup).

Would be interested to see this broken down by country as well, if possible.

I'm not doing too badly even when currency conversion is taken into account, but the number of people on 120-150k is impressive.

Puts it a bit in perspective, our local media keeps harping on how low our salaries are, but in tech, salaries are pretty comparable with salaries outside of SF/NY, much better than Canada/Europe even, though lower than Australia.

(I'm from New Zealand).

I'm simply astounded at how many people checked "less than 60k," but I guess I've been living in a bubble. I make 80k, and I'm a 19 year-old intern.

I don't quite understand the factors involved in making salaries in SV so high compared to other locations, and I'm not having much success just googling.

Could someone please briefly explain them to me or point me towards some useful resources so I can alleviate some of my ignorance in this area?

Edit: I'm aware of the higher cost of living, but I'm thinking that's probably not the only significant factor.

Demand is astronomical, plus many funded startups have an inflated idea of how much and how quickly they will be able to make money, thus they overpay relative to the real value a programmer could bring.

Thanks!

Low supply and high demand.

I live in New Brunswick, Canada and make $45,000. Pretty decent wage around here.

RIM doubles workforce in Fredericton: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/story/2010/01/12...

"Most of the jobs are expected to be in the $60,000 to $75,000 range."

FFS, I'm getting paid £15k. I asked for £25k and was laughed out of the office.

Where are you living?

The pound sign "£" near 15k might give you an hint....

There's a heck of a difference between being in London and somewhere else within the kingdom ...

That's what I meant. Obviously I know he is living in the UK.

Newcastle. For now.

But you still took the job?

I doubt you'll stay there long knowing what you know now though! Don't make my mistake. Started on £15k, 6 years later I left... on £17.5k.

edit: To be fair I was continually promised 0.1% of the company if I worked just a little bit harder :)

How is that possible? Does an iPod cost 1/2 of a monthly wage where you live? How much does someone cleaning toilets make? Or are we talking net income here, after all taxes etc?

Someone cleaning toilets full-time would make around £10k. This is income before taxes.

No iPads for me.

How long have you been working and what part of the UK? You can get paid a lot more if you move to London.

It might be more accurate to ask what the hourly salary is (and for full time employees, factor in benefits). I have (almost) never worked full time in my life, so for me at least, this poll is not accurate.

Comparing salaries can be useful, but how about also comapring quality of life at work, at home?, work for someone else?, are you happy earning that amount? So obviously higher is not better in some cases.

The 0-60k range seems quite large, maybe should of had a 0-30k option too.

An interesting poll might be how much you feel that you under (or over!) paid. Voting for percentage difference would remove concerns about absolute salaries reflecting cost of location.

Not nearly enough, but that is what I get for joining a young startup.

Are we talking dollars paid or adding up all the benefits?

Suppose my salary consists of base, bonuses, social (retirement and savings funds, medical insurance), and stocks. Which do you count to get to this number?

What about $1M+? I want to see the votes on that option.

Including things like stock options? Certainly for companies like FB, etc. this would add significantly to the value of the package.

What if you're a salaried contractor? Meaning you work at a contracting firm as a salaried employee, but go to clients?

by contractor I meant an individual that bills by the hour

Although I'm just a student doing programming work for a summer job, I can't complain with the pay! (Less then 60K)

Damn, I'm average. Does the 101K+ crowd care to share what industry/stack/niche you work with? Hints acceptable :)

The bay area.

Finance, particularly in Manhattan, and technology in Silicon Valley. Also, independent consultants frequently make far more money than employees.

I chose less than 60K because my coding is a side business. I run a successful IT business as the main course.

As an intern, my real yearly salary is less than 60k, but I voted for the yearly extrapolation in 60-100k.

Front-end dev, Just below 60, I got the feeling taht even for back-end salary are much lower in Canada

Yeah the sort of places that split dev into front end and back end will pay less. Kind of like the places that split software development into analysis, design and typing in. The typists always get paid less, that is why I always insist on being involved in every step of the process from the customer's concept through to turning the software into money.

Given equal talent and level of skill, do backend developers really make more than frontend? I used to think this, but now I think there are simply a lot more marginal programmers doing frontend programming (ease of entry) that bring the average down. My company recently bumped up the referral bonus for frontend developers to $10k, twice as high as the referral rate for developers in general.

Yes they are. Hop across the border to Seattle or NYC with a TN visa if you want to stay close to home and your salary will literally double. Don't worry about health insurance since if your not employed, you not allowed to be in the USA for long anyways. And seattle is half price compared to vancouver. You'll bitch about the $200+ border penalty for flights although.

Really depends on the location, even within the United States, much more so abroad.

Are salaries generally higher at big companies (google/twitter/fb) or at startups?

statistically bigger companies will pay bigger salaries. Personally I am appalled at many of the SF startup salaries

Appalled in what sense? That they offer you to little or that engineers there are making way too much?

I'd guess the former, but I'd say it could go both ways…

You'd expect salaries at startups to be lower, but they often include equity.

Thanks for the clarification.

Equity which has a pretty good chance of being totally worthless, even if you're lucky enough not to work for a company that will screw over its shareholding employees, like Skype did.

6k/year 5yrs experience... please add a 0-10k category? haha

A typical senior Indian programmer earns $ 16k per year

Programmer, Developer or Architect? They're very different paradigms. I'd bet your 200k range is mostly Architects. The Developers and Engineers in the middle, with "Programmers" at the bottom.

Those are labels with barely any fixed meaning. I will always call myself a programmer since programming is what I do. Architect as a named position mostly exists in companies that embrace Moses-from-the-mountain software development with a musty smell of IBM from the 1960s. Fortunately there are plenty of ways to make good money as a programmer without working at places like that.

Architects design systems of systems, developers build systems, programmers write code. While it may be true that the former can do the job of all their successors, it is not true in the reverse. I won't disagree that programming is what we do, but every time I see a position for a "Programmer" there is a distinct lack of respect for the trade behind it.

Now, I have to ask, why the down votes? This is supposed to be a place for constructive commentary. This has been happening more and more lately.

What is this "K"? The prefix for thousand is "k" and if asking about money it would be nice to specify the currency.

It's careless, but the currency is almost certainly USD.

K for clams, perhaps? :)

Are those pre-tax salaries ?

20K, Russia, Izhevsk

80k

Where is "less then 15K"??? =P

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