Hacker News Reader

Comment by pedrosorio | Hacker News Reader

> It does, I did the math when I was offered a 100k+ position in the US.

100k+ has been close to the floor for entry level for a while now. Did you do the math on how much you'd earn over 10 years?

View on HN

100k is the floor? Where do you live? I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.

It would be unusual for a new college grad at any well-known tech company in Seattle to make less than $150k right now. Large companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google dominate the market here. If you were starting a software company in Seattle, $100k would probably be enough to interest only the most inexperienced and unqualified candidates.

New York City and San Francisco Bay Area are similar or higher. I don't have much experience with the rest of the US.

Not just Seattle, I am seeing tech salaries in Denver, SLC, Austin, etc starting from 120-30k nowadays (and growing VERY fast if you stick around for a few years because the smaller cities have trouble keeping experienced engineers from taking a 700k offer from some FAANG company.)

Who's getting the 700K FAANG offers? I say this as someone who just took an offer with ~390K TC for an Amazon SDE III or Meta E5 equivalent at FAANG. 10 YoE. Aside from equity value increasing, I don't think 700K without factoring in rising stock prices is common, outside of niche in demand roles.

Meta E5 (~4 yoe) is 520k, and E6 is 760k (~7-8 yoe) according to levels.fyi

Seems close to what I have seen offered there.

> Meta E5 (~4 yoe) is 520k, and E6 is 760k (~7-8 yoe) according to levels.fyi

It depends.

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/facebook/salaries/software-...

Taking a close look at the data provided in this page, beyond merely considering seniority level and years of experience, reveals a noteworthy trend at Facebook. Many individuals are being hired at level E5 (Senior) with 6-8 years of "relevant" experience, and some even with 10 or more.

Some candidates with fewer years of experience, such as the 4 years you mentioned in your comment, are joining Facebook with PhD or Master degrees, which significantly bolsters their overall qualifications.

We’re not talking about just any programmer with 4 years of experience in web design straight out of a Bootcamp. These individuals are typically Ivy League graduate students with PhDs or Masters, and approximately 4 years of experience at Tier-1, or at the very least, Tier-2 companies (Fortune 500’s).

To illustrate, consider a recent data point submitted to Level/FYI on March 26th, 2024. This individual has been working at Facebook for 4 years and has accumulated a total of 10 years of work experience. Currently specializing in ML/AI, their total compensation amounts to $410,000 (comprising $230,000 in cash per year, along with $180,000 in RSUs per year).

Point taken, you cherry-picked a particular low number from the chart though, you could easily do it the other way and find a E5 making 600k at Meta.

Apple pays a bit below the silicon valley average, I am not quite I understand sure why---they sure have the money. I had a conversation with an Apple recruiter a couple of years ago who assured me this was not the case, and then eventually their offer was ~25% below my contemporary TC.

Also Canada tech salaries are quite a bit below US west coast levels.

I think Jobs once said that they're not willing to pay top market rates because they don't want to attract people strongly and primarily motivated by money.

That's an interesting philosophy that seems to have worked out for them, except maybe in the last few years where they have struggled to get AI talent.

700k is deep into staff+ territory. One needs to complete something unusually noteworthy to cross that line, years of experience alone is not sufficient.

Entry level for my job in the Bay Area was 110K salary an about a other 70K in RSUs. This was 2015. Granted this was probably above average, as it was a medium sized but highly regarded company.

In socal, the dev interns I was managing a couple years ago were paid $50/hr. That is a bit over $100k/yr

Eh, I would have agreed maybe a decade ago, but the past years have seriously eroded USD buying power[1]. For example, for that 100k in 2014 to be equivalent in 2024, you would need 133k or that your adjusted for inflation dollars are 76K ( and that is BLS ).

100k is the floor, because 100k used to actually mean real money. I no longer think it is. I earn more than that and I believe we are struggling. I don't know how other people manage.

[1]https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=100%2C000.00&y...

> 100k is the floor, because 100k used to actually mean real money. I no longer think it is. I earn more than that and I believe we are struggling. I don't know how other people manage.

I don't think that can be anything but 'lifestyle inflation'? Even if that's one income, supporting spouse and children.

'Lifestyle inflation' is a fascinating phrase and I may need to borrow it for future discussions. I think I strongly disagree, but I am open to convincing. Would you be willing to elaborate?

"had their brains addled"... no need to be mean

https://tomazweiss.github.io/blog/so_2023_compensation/

>I swear most devs on HN have had their brains addled by inflated salaries.

Are you sure it's not just a coping mechanism (I can't find the right word, sorry), for those who didn't get those salaries to say this line?

Even in PHX my company offers 95k as starting base for junior devs.

I am seriously getting shafted then. That is more than I make currently as a developer, and I have almost 8 years of experience (I also live in the US).

This sounds like starting up in the USA becomes less viable. And this begs the question why VC is still focused on the USA. 2-3 million dollars in seed money allow me to scale much faster in Europe (and much much faster elsewhere), if only for the fact that the same money I have to pay for an entry level developer in the USA will get me a very senior developer in Europe. Or two, maybe three, juniors.... what do you think?

A cynical take is that VCs still focus on the USA because the environment is far more lax and/or easy to take advantage of.

That’s not an easy scenario for other countries that care to counter.

Employee 'rights' are often much stronger outside the USA and so whilst you potentially pay more, you can 'downscale' much quicker as well. Look where most of the tech layoffs happen.

Floor’s around $70k-80k for a new grad in my 3rd-tier (but still a couple million population) non-coastal US city. A couple major tech firms you’ve surely heard of are based here, plus some other really big ones you definitely know of if you work in the industries they serve. Not just offices—headquarters.

The benefits will be decent, but nothing special, at a big place and dogshit anywhere smaller, so it’s not made up there. You’ll probably have 10 vacation days, maybe like 14 if they pool vacation and sick leave.

$100 is floor?! Here I am at $36 in Socal! I'm in the wrong line of work...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com