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Comment by not_your_vase | Hacker News Reader

  > high tech salaries

Are they really high? They are not that different from UPS driver salaries.

Just the other day I clicked on the website of some random law firm's career page. I wasn't happy with what I saw (in the context of my own career). Some researchers with 1 year of experience with starting salary of 450k+... tech salaries look high as long as you don't check other professions.

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This doesn't really make sense. What is a "researcher" at a law firm? Lawyers at top firms are on fixed pay schedules, starting at 180k as a 1st year going up to something like 450k after 8yrs (?).

Tech is high earning. It gets beat out by high finance and partner-level roles in e.g. law though. If someone is earning 450k in their first year it's probably similar to a quant finance role.

I don't work at a law firm, have no idea what they really do. Based on the description, I decyphered some advanced googling, mostly background checks and precendence finding. It was like 2 or 3 weeks ago, I didn't know that it should have saved it for reference lol. But pick your favorite firm, and check the salaries. Junior roles are starting at $200k+, frequently at $300k+. And senior roles get senior salaries.

This is just one random firm that I picked from google: [0] - $235k - $365 - with 1 full year of experience, lol [1] - $310k - $390 - real estate contracts [2] - $260k - $390 - real estate contracts, with 2 years of experience

Can you get $350k+ in tech? Well, yes, but with including a lot of luck and ifs. Can you get $350k+ in tech with 1 year of experience? Realistically, only if your dad is called Nadella or Musk.

There are definitely jobs that pay much worse than tech, no question about it. And if you are happy with your salary, than good for you. But nowadays people are mostly made to believe that tech salaries are still extraordinary.

Looking at the best paying professions[3], tech makes only the very end of the list (and only manager level, not code-droid level).

[0]: https://jobs.phextranet.com/PH-Attorney/viRecruitSelfApply/R... [1]: https://jobs.phextranet.com/PH-Attorney/viRecruitSelfApply/R... [2]: https://jobs.phextranet.com/PH-Attorney/viRecruitSelfApply/R... [3]: https://www.investopedia.com/personal-finance/top-highest-pa...

You do not understand what you're reading. I told you, lawyers are on fixed pay schedules. The numbers are different from what I thought, but that doesn't really affect anything I said.

The first role is a 2nd-5th year associate. $235k is for a 2nd year associate, $365k is for a 5th year associate. Each year they get a predefined pay bump. Third role is the same kind of thing (3rd-6th year associate), second role it says mid-level so not 1 YOE.

This firm is also a Big Law firm, the equivalent of FAANG, if not harder to get into. Notice how law is not on your list of top paying professions. Most lawyers are not super well paid.

Also, being an associate is not like being fresh into tech. I don't think it's like a tech new grad role. Average TC for an entry level SWE at Google is ~$200k, and you can be making that as a new grad. Average senior comp is ~$400k, and it's possible to reach that level in 5-7yrs.

Entry level: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Senior: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/google/salaries/software-en...

Another thing to consider is hours. You will work so many more hours as a lawyer in Big Law than a SWE at FAANG.

Tech workers have it very good. Relatively high pay with relatively low hours. Higher comp professions have much higher barriers to entry and work much longer hours.

They were high in 2013.

Revisited this, and while it was tongue-in-cheek, it feels a bit ungrateful.

A lot of tech roles are intellectually stimulating and have a wage in the upper distribution of salaries. I think we have a very nice situation going for us.

Make sure you don't see the paycheck of your boss, who never wrote a single line of code, but has some bullshit MBA.

If you're always looking up but never looking down it becomes hard to appreciate things.

They are not high. But most companies have business leadership who sees software developers as annoying and weird nerds. Explains why they are spending all their money on compute so that they can replace them with machines once and for all.

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