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Getting FAANG salary isn’t enough?

Can people on this site please stop acting like everyone in tech (or “everyone in tech who matters”) is working for FAANG and getting a FAANG salary? Believe it or not there exist software developers who make less than $100k.

Surely tech workers at Amazon Seattle are getting FAANG salaries by definition?

Yes, but GP was referring to tech workers in general.

Correct, not everyone is fortunate to get FAANG-type compensation. But the article in question is about Amazon workers (one of the As in FAANG).

Which are the companies that have generated billions for VCs that don't pay higher end salaries? I agree many startups pay less, but I wouldn't say those have 'made it'.

No it’s not. That salary is relatively high for the US but that is only because every other industry has been eviscerated for decades. Every other industry told themselves “it’s fine, I’m being paid well so I won’t worry about it” and then their job got shipped to Shenzhen.

Why should it be when you can be laid off even when the corporation is making record breaking profits

EVERY time someone talks about ANYTHING related to benefits, someone tries to use the salary as a counterargument, as if a $250k salary means you are supposed to give up your whole life and NEVER ever complain about anything. Seriously?

Better to think in terms of percentages. Wages vs GDP has decreased while profits vs GDP has increased. Maybe tech is an outlier compared to the broader economy. Would be interesting to see the numbers.

Is a FAANG salary enough for Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk?

It would be lovely if some of the folks downvoting this could explain precisely why it is that I should accept my FAANG salary as "enough" while tech billionaires apparently shouldn't, rather than just trying to make this post disappear. It's a perfectly reasonable question -- the ownership class has never considered (and will never consider) any amount of money to be "enough," so why on earth should any of the rest of us?

It is not a reasonable question. Employee wages and founder equity are not comparable things.

What if Bezos said "y'know what, I'd good with AMZN at $10MM market cap, I'm all set"? There'd be no jobs at Amazon. And no one to complain about the jobs at Amazon.

I would venture to guess that none of your Axis of Excess is particularly motivated by money. They do what they do because they enjoy the game. The game of global corporate titan. Money is an abstract metric that lets them keep playing.

the nba player's association has secured nba players a nice share of revenue. seems to me like engineers could do something similar.

If you're one of a dozen engineers in the world who can do what you do, then sure, you can get a similar piece of the pie as NBA players.

But most tech workers aren't like that. They are relatively easily replaceable in comparison.

If US tech workers could be replaced for a tenth of the compensation they would’ve been. Maybe that will change in the future but until then the fact that there is some scarcity means unionization is possible.

Who said anything about a tenth of the wages?

There are plenty of US programmers making way less than FAANG wages happy to take those jobs.

No, it isn't.

No.

It's all relative isn't it? To some 250k+ is a dream salary. To others it's just a start.

With return to office it's nowhere near enough on the west coast. Unless you hold a top position at a large corporation on the west coast you don't even have enough money to buy a house. Considering you're helping generate billions in revenue yeah, I'd say you should be being paid more.

The only homeowners in CA, OR, and WA are top executives at large corporations?

I know probably a dozen devs that I regularly talk to from school and the only ones with their own homes have been seniors or higher positions for half a decade or longer.

I bought a million dollar home in Seattle after less than 5 years of employment out of college at a publicly traded non-FAANG company in the area. It’s doable, you just need to compromise on location or luxury

Definitely the exception to the rule

A million dollar home only requires around 200-250k of income which isn’t that much for these areas. And if your partner is employed as well it’s even easier.

I even know people that make sub 100k in the Bay Area that bought their own homes after 10-15 years of saving.

I've been in the Seattle area since graduating and hung out with people in both the tech industry and in aerospace (Boeing, etc.). Everyone who wanted a house had one within 5 years of starting work. They were smaller, older houses in trendy neighborhoods or nicer houses in further out suburbs, depending on the person's preferences. Seemed a reasonable result for young adults in their late 20s.

This isn’t true at all and paints a dangerously dystopian view of things. You could easily buy a home in Seattle or the neighboring area after 5 years of senior level employment at most publicly traded companies. It’s not going to be an amazing home and there certainly will be some sticker shock when comparing that price tag to most other cities, but it’s totally feasible. The idea that you need to have a “top position” is ludicrous

5 years at senior level means 8 plus years in industry and you actually have to be promoted to seniority and it has to be at a company that actually pays well. It is far beyond reasonable considering the value that developers provide.

So yeah, I think you're completely wrong.

If all Amazon engineers made a salary in their first year which enabled them to afford a Seattle home purchase, then home prices would rise even higher... Until you need to work for 8 years to afford one again.

Funny how senior came to be "has worked three years". Isn't it?

I also said "and you actually have to be promoted to [it]"

Apologies, this wasn't a jab directly at what you wrote. More of a general observation that there is a false understanding somewhere in this industry, that somebody who worked 3 years, realistically qualifies as a "Senior" Dev.

I have to laugh at all of you expecting to buy a house right out of school. Where you got that sense of entitlement I shall never know.

You're honestly out of touch with the software market. I earn around $110k a year after seven years of working and I'm nowhere near being able to afford a house. The fact that you think everyone is a FAANG engineer is part of the problem; the majority of us are not earning those top end salaries and the fact that you think we can buy a home after 5 years in Seattle is a massive joke.

I think houses are for the duel FAANG income, no kids crowd. Even on a senior FAANG salary, there's no knob I can turn on the calculator that ends up making sense for me to buy at these interest rates (in a part of town that doesn't leave me with a >1hr commute).

I remain a renter. Dump it all into stocks and hope for the best!

That's basically me; I keep a decent chunk in savings in case of emergency / downturn and then the rest in stocks / retirement etc. I hate having to invest in the stock market because most of it is gambling and speculation, but at least I can dump it in an index fund and it'll be fairly safe.

There's a reason why a significant number of millennials and below are cheering on for a housing bust and it's because it's possibly the only way we can afford a home.

My parents just sold their fairly nice large house for something like $170k. Of course it's not in a cool city. Living in a high cost of living area with expensive houses is voluntary consumption. If that's what you voluntarily want to spend your money on then fine, but you get just as much sympathy as the people complaining about how expensive brand new BMWs are.

How exactly is it voluntary between the high CoL cities having the major career opportunities and companies continuing to force people back in office? It's funny that you would even say like that in a thread where people are protesting having to return to the office for that reason.

I lived in Texas for four years. A house in the ass end of nowhere costs $150k-200k. It also comes with a two hour commute to get to my then-office, has literally nothing nearby and I would've been on my own during the next major freeze event.

Not if you’re getting laid off

No, we shouldn’t even have to work for nice scraps, they’re still scraps.

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