Hacker News Reader

Comment by cangeroo | Hacker News Reader

I have a similar question. It seems to me that the software engineering salary distribution is bimodal. I'm simplifying a bit here, but basically into those that make <100k USD or >200k USD a year. What makes the difference? Is it management vs codemonkey? FAANG vs "small" <10k employee corporate? I like engineering, but my impression is that management often lies to engineers saying "oh, 80k USD is a high salary", when it's clearly not. The divide seems to be between those that know, and those that don't.

View on HN

FAANG got into a bidding war when money was cheap and stocks were moving fast and turned their SWE jobs into a upper middle class vehicles like medicine, law, finance, etc

Cargo cult startups followed along by naiviete and businesses that had to compete for their same pool of talent followed along by necessity.

But those compensation packages are disconnected from the value generated by the engineers and eclipses it in almost every business and division, so it's not sustainable. The big layoffs are a first part of the correction, and a quieter adjustment will happen as non-cash compensation (options, stock grants, etc) calibrates itself into today's more grounded economy.

The managers saying "80k is a high salary" to you are give-or-take correct (assuming you're in a mid/low cost of living area). Software engineering remains a hot market with lots of money flying into it and will pay better than other engineering fields for a while longer, but ultimately pegs into the same "professional middle class" bucket as the rest.

If you want to be filthy rich, software engineering is only the right choice when you have an opportunity to ride one of the boom waves and FIRE yourself. You probably won't have that opportunity again for years if you aren't on today's cresting wave already. That's the second hill in your bimodal distribution and it's a dwindling aberration.

But if you just like writing software and being financially secure, the first hill is pretty great.

This is way off. The median US SWE makes ~$120k according to BLS (Govt data). Median. High comp is not at all disconnected from value. Revenue per head for engineers can be extremely high.

I fully expect the faang salaries to stagnate until they are back in line with most other companies.

> But those compensation packages are disconnected from the value generated by the engineers and eclipses it in almost every business and division, so it's not sustainable.

Thats incorrect. Statistics show that those who take most share out of the economic value that they generate are the higher paid tiers of engineers in Silicon Valley. And even they get at most a 10% of the actual economic value they generate.

This means that not only those engineers are already being paid WAY less than the actual economic value they generate, but also the majority of the population receive only a pittance from the economic value they generate.

You're getting to thd real root of the question here - Whst is most important to you? Is it the code, or the money?

Management earns more money. Partly because they control how the money is spent. Partly because they're a value-multiplier.

Coders get to write code.

You seldom get both [1].

So for each person, it's really important to understand your root motivation. If it's money, then climb the ladder. It's gun in a different way, and if done well, can bring satisfaction.

However, if writing code is eat gets you out of bed, if meetings are something you detest, then perhaps "enough money" is enough, and you might prefer enjoying your path through life.

[1] you seldom get both in a large company. However in very small companies, and one-man operations, you can often find a very lucrative niche. Fewer people means little management (although more time talking to customers) so you get to spend more time actually producing.

For me, it's definitely code. But only certain flavors of code.

I would choose to write C even in an oldschool world where it only paid $50k. I even do it at home for fun!

Java[Script] or C# though? Nah; I'm going back to school or something.

What a weird professional dynamic.

> my impression is that management often lies to engineers saying "oh, 80k USD is a high salary"

Cost of living always anchors these discussions. You can't compare FAANG salaries in very high cost of living areas against somewhere like the midwest.

This is also a question of leverage: they're able to find developers by paying 80k, so they continue doing that. If you had something they needed but wasn't as readily available, then you could start discussing what it looked like to be paid more.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com