Ask HN: How much do you earn? (feel free to use throwaway account) | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How much do you earn? (feel free to use throwaway account)

20 pointsbehnamoh42 comments

I saw this comment on another thread about Apple monitors that said people reading HN likely make +$300k. It blew my mind and made me curious.

I'm in grad school and I've heard some faculty make around $200k, but I've seen friend of mine who dropped out of PhD and his starting salary at a startup is $96k (more than x3 times as much as me, a grad student). All these figures are just too absurd for me.

Are most HN readers really earning vast amounts of money?

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I'm not going to answer this question directly, but I'll provide an anecdote.

I did a PhD over a decade ago. I was at a public R1 university in a college town in a low cost of living area. Since the school was public, anybody with a university login could see all the salaries. My PhD is not in CS or anything like CS.

I was unable to secure a desirable (for me) research or faculty job. My Spouse and I decided to move to a growing medium cost of living city with much better job options.

Due to luck and some networking (mostly luck), I landed in the consulting arm of a barely known Enterprise Software company. I definitely wasn't making FAANG money, and the stock performance of this stale Enterprise company was a joke (basically if it moved, it moved down).

My base+bonus was more than the salary head of my department. Even with the CoL adjustment, I was probably making more than them. I also worked far fewer hours and far less political BS to deal with. That was the end of Academia for me. I don't make 300K, but I make more now than I did back then.

> I'm not going to answer this question directly, but I'll provide an anecdote.

How dull.

I live in Europe and no one I know makes something close to these numbers. Some friends who read HN reach a 3 digits gross salary by working for USA companies in Europe, but they are the exception.

My income history, as a SWE/tech lead at a wide variety of different companies (FAANG, small startups, medium public companies, financial institutions). The below is the sum of vested liquid equity (liquid as in “cash received in my bank account”) + salary + bonuses:

- 2010: $18k (internship comp back in the days haha)

- 2011: $84k

- 2012: $119k

- 2013: $119k

- 2014: $99k

- 2015: $159k

- 2016: $195k

- 2017: $258k

- 2018: $715k

- 2019: $272k

- 2020: $1.2M

- 2021: $1.2M

I also have a sizable amount of illiquid pre-IPO equity from a previous employer that is currently valued at around $6M (from one of those earlier years when I was earning peanuts compared to who was already in FAANG), but clearly it could very well all go to $0 before I can tap into it (no opportunities for secondary unfortunately), so I’m not counting it anywhere.

What a jump @ 2020. What happened?

Joined FAANG and used the illiquid equity described below (the unvested and forfeited part specifically) to negotiate a good offer, and on top of that the stock market helped.

Not personal, but I hate you...

What happened in 2014?

Joined a smaller company. If the equity will ever become liquid I’ll amend the dip :-)

what happened from 2017-2019?

If you are in Academia and not a professor you are generally doing your net worth curve a huge disfavor. The story of academia in recent times is rife with people being compensated peanuts for important, _profitable_ research.

In Germany there's still a social value to having a Dr. title, but until you get there in your mid-30's or so, you are earning way under the average of someone with a similar education and work ethic in Industry.

You can actually look at the salaries of many professors (and actually anyone employed by the school, i.e. deans, football coaches, etc) at public universities. Here's University of Washington, for example: https://fiscal.wa.gov/Salaries.aspx

I love when public employees forget this and freak out that their salary is public information.

60K annually pre-tax, US, female, early 30s, work in tech but not an engineer or product manager. No one I personally know makes three figures or close to it. My circle of friends all grew up poor and a lot don’t have college education or the opportunity to focus on learning since we all started working whatever job at a young age just to get by. So even 60K is a lot compared to what we’re used to and what our parents made. I’m usually surprised by how many people make 100K and more. Where are the people who make less?! Sharing how much you make can help put things into perspective since these type of threads are usually dominated by people making 100+

170k at a tiny startup based in the Bay Area (I’m elsewhere), plus maybe a small bonus each year. I’m in an industry I love, too. I get decent benefits, but they’re basically the standard stuff (standard TriNet benefits if you’re aware of that company). The last two jobs were in the same industry at 150k and 120k. I’m a senior developer, but only been at this for about 4 years professionally so far. I have a lot of varied experience in other industries as well.

I've worked for four or five TriNet-associated companies over the years - the "standard benefits" package you mention doesn't exist. It's very possible to go from "good benefits and cheap insurance" to "bad benefits via expensive insurance" - just by hopping from one company to another. It depends on what the company you're working for is willing to select and pay out for. Take your time when considering offers and ask about these things up front.

Yea, I guess I have been lucky in that for my last ~5 jobs I have had about the same benefits and costs, so I assumed (i.e.: made an 'ass' of 'me'; not so much 'u' though) that most benefits in the Bay Area were pretty standard to what I've experienced. I definitely don't do enough due-dilligence in researching benefits before taking a job, so clearly I've gotten lucky. Thanks for the input here.

Amsterdam area

Wages are not precise.

2018: graduated Msc. Computer Science, had a terrible job search, 0$

2019: ongoing terrible job search, 0$

2020: $40000 (36000 EUR)

2021: $60000 (53000 EUR)

2022: $64000 (56000 EUR), expected

If anyone is offering a remote position with 6 weeks vacation and 1.5x my current salary, feel free to email me ;-)

I might also be willing to relocate, depending on the country.

3 years of experience (partially obtained while studying).

Msc. Computer Science (low level security), Msc. Game Design, Bsc. Psychology, Bsc. Business Informatics

Email is in my profile. You can also read my comment history to get a feel for who I am, it’s super candid and open since this is a pseudo-anonymous account.

And while it might be cheeky to ask if anyone is hiring, the biggest reason I do it is to prove that this is my salary and would be amazingly happy with $100000 per year. I mean, the odds are quite low that this comment will result in an offer.

I can hear Dutch people sighing already :P But who knows? Maybe someone is reading this thinking: well, we actually tend to pay more than $100000, so why not interview mettamage and see if there is a fit?

Variability and luck are huge factors. The hard _employment_ offers I've declined since early 2015 fall in the range kEUR[40,500] total effective annual gross, globally. >10x! Rising trend, but mostly scattershot.

The really interesting part is that during the initial chats I have not been able to guess the offer coming at the end. The strongest correlation seems to be with location, but it is much weaker than most people seem to think it is: The same tech region brought 300k and 40k with just a year apart. Just two different companies in similar fields and roles. Another noticeable difference come from whether I reach out to them or they to me, with the latter often offering above median.

I may be blind and stupid, but from what I see, employment salary is just bizarre. If you can, I recommend running your own most of the time, and accept employment only on the most interesting projects, if required.

You get some serious selection/reporting bias when you ask a question like this. Unless you get data on everyone (or a random sample) you don't really get that much information about the population. You might get an idea if what's possible at least.

I’m going to w2 a bit over 300k this year as a senior software engineer for a quite large SaaS company in the Bay Area, and the general impression is that we’re a “tier-2” company in terms of comp behind FAANG and really top tech companies.

I just got my master's degree in Sweden, and have been living of (really cheap) state loans since 2016, so this is not representative of what kind of money I have had available for these years, rather how much income I've reported to the Swedish IRS. I also just moved to Norway (which gave me higher salary) and started working for a government agency (which is a con salary-wise, but a fantastic work environment).

    2017:   $2k
    2018:   $3k
    2019:   $7k
    2020:  $23k
    2021:  $37k
    2022: >$55k

What's the usual effective tax rate in the Nordics? And a salary for an avg senior dev?

I currently pay a flat 25 %, but depending on your situation the effective tax rate can be up to 47 %.

I don't have the statistics, but I guess the average senior dev in the private sector would get around $75-85k in Norway and a little bit less in Sweden.

Here's one example:

https://software.rajivprab.com/2021/12/26/my-path-to-financi...

And the comments:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29691039

195k base + 24.3k bonus (12.5% of base) + $191k RSU (annual) Unicorn startup, ipo soon. Remote. West coast.

Not everyone here is (actually) at faangs. Software is still a good way to secure a good living though.

As an average senior developer in tech giant but not FAANG, I make $150K. I live in Texas.

I just hired a CPA and began working on my taxes for 2021. 2021 taxable income was $430,000.

edit: As for my "job", I am self employed (run my own saas product with no employees).

I make USD $2300 per month freelance so like 28,000 USD per year. Basically living paycheck to paycheck, each year thinking I'll get my own business going.

$250Kish, heavy on the additional benefits, no stock options, but an employee stock purchasing plan at a good discount

I’m an IC in finance in architecture/cloud stuff, work remote

My per annum salary

2010-2012 - 4,600$ (India)

2012 - 2015 - 10,000$ (India)

2015 -2020 - 17,000$ (India)

2020-2020 - 24,000$ (India)

2020-2021 - 66,000 € (Germany)

Feb 2022 - 73,000€ + 60,000€( joining bonus over 2 years) + 65,000 € (In RSU over 4 years)

In local Israeli “faang” type of company - 150k salary + stock options ~45k/year at current stock prices. Senior dev

$112k this year almost all cash. American software dev, but working remotely from overseas.

India

2020 (Internship) - 7200$/yr 2020 (First Job) - 14000$/yr 2020-2021 (Big tech) - 27000$/yr

110k USD, remote and part-time. Full-time equivalent would be 183k?

I earn enough and half.

US, masters, 10 years dev experience - under $100k.

Go check out www.levels.fyi, it has a pretty accurate representation of tech company compensation. Keep in mind that salary is just one component of compensation, and at senior+ levels, not even the most significant one.

In Europe, people typically measure their income in post-tax (net) amount. While in the U.S. it is usually measured in pre-tax (gross) amount.

It is a bit misleading because salaries measured in pre-tax $ that are posted on sites like levels.fyi, can seem extremely high. However, if you live in California, where state tax is very high, your total taxes may be close to 40% of what you make, so a person making $300K ends up bringing in only $180K, which is generally higher than Europe but not significantly.

GS-15, step 8

Go to levels.fyi and you can see pay bands for the different levels at the big tech companies.

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