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> For those who don’t know, a new grad going into any of the BigTech companies can make around $165K straight out of college and should be making way more than me in three years.

What bubble do you live in?

"US Tech Layoffs Continue In 2025 With Big Tech Scaling Worker Counts And Fintech, E-Commerce Sectors Reporting Total Shutdowns" - https://news.crunchbase.com/startups/tech-layoffs/

"Computer science grads say the job market is rough. Some are opting for a ‘panic’ master’s degree instead." - https://www.businessinsider.nl/computer-science-grads-say-th...

https://www.reddit.com/r/csMajors/comments/1fylku5/are_most_...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/02/15/why-is-it-...

Well, he (probably not she) is describing expected earnings once hired, not chances of actually getting hired.

And more to the point, when I mentioned what I was making, I didn’t want to get the response that “you know you could make $400K+ by grinding leetCode and working for a FAANG”.

You do know that these companies still hire people don’t you?

In other Continents :-)

Like North America?

I really don't know what to tell you, it's not 2020 anymore but people are still hiring people in the same places they've always been.

"Software Development Job Postings" : https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IHLIDXUSTPSOFTDEVE

I don't see earlier than 2020 data, is there another platform like that?

Yes, but how is that 15 year old going to do the same? What about the ones who don't end up winning the career lottery?

We need this to be possible for two people making 40k a year, not 140.

A new college grad across all fields has a median earning of $65K - $75K (https://www.bankrate.com/loans/student-loans/average-college...). No you can’t buy a house straight out of school. But you move up in your career just like everyone else does.

From that same citation, look at the median starting salary in engineering disciplines - over $100K.

The median household income of homebuyers is around $110K. (https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/nar-finds-typical-home-buye...).

Most homebuyers are not single (https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/in-the-news/single-women-ar...)

"Household income" is often a joint statistic. $110K comes out to roughly 55K each. You're not making the assertions you think.

Yes I am

- the typical college grad makes $65K

- the typical homebuyer is not single.

- the typical household has two earners.

I guess I'm confused by your take then, and the evidence you use to support it. You stated "But you move up in your career just like everyone else does" from a 65-75K starting salary as a college grad, when your own figures show that the average household income is oftentimes comprised of two people making even less than that, but have reached the stage of upwards mobility to buy a house, albeit oftentimes "house-broke" and in strife to pay mortgages.

These people didn't move up, as per your assessment. Most people need to combine salaries with someone else to even have a fair chance in this system, to get any upwards mobility.

When I was single until I was 28, I didn’t even want a house. I wanted the flexibility of being able to move. In fact, I hated the maintenances of owning a single family home and as I mentioned in my first reply We downsized to a condo as soon as we could.

If you are single with no responsibilities but yourself in many major cities, you can make it off of $65K. Homeownership is not the only metric of success

People making less than that aren’t homeless and starving.

> in many major cities, you can make it off of $65K

This is certainly not true in any of the cities near me.

I bet wherever you live, people making $65K a year aren’t homeless

In my opinion there is a large gap between "not homeless" and "making it"

And the original person I replied to was in the top percentile of income according to him and considered “survival” not being able to live his current lifestyle.

What do you consider “making it” for a single person?

Not sure what it proves to say, "People who own expensive homes have high incomes". higher prices filter out potential buyers with lower incomes.

I am not doing any such thing.

$110K is not a “high income” for two college educated people. It’s actually the combined new grad income.

And because of assertive mating, most college graduates marry other college graduates.

This is the home ownership rate by age

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-house...

> For those who don’t know, a new grad going into any of the BigTech companies can make around $165K straight out of college

Maybe, if new grad is defined as:

- A remarkable programmer on their own time. i.e. Impressive Github profile, side projects, leetcode expert, etc. Just going through Comp Sci isn't going to get you hired at BigTech today.

- Someone with a fantastic network. Better hope you've got friends in high places or family with connections.

Go to salary.com and select any major city in the US and see what a senior software engineer makes.

Anecdotally, I spent my entire career between 1996- 2020 working local jobs in Atlanta. Which is not exactly a tech hub. Look at the compensation of your standard non tech well known companies that are either based in Atlanta or have a large presence like Delta, Home Depot, Coke, GE (GE Transportation), State Farm.

I’ve never studied a line of leetcode nor have I had a GitHub portfolio my entire career until 2021.

Amazon/Microsoft/Meta all hire new college grads, and all will have a total comp above 165k.

You do not need an impressive Github profile, these companies are almost entirely leetcode interview based.

Yes, why don’t you “just” get a job at BigTech?

The chances of that are approximately 0%, despite being a much better than average developer/IT person.

I did a back of the napkin estimate before from all of the sources I could find and the best numbers I could find was that the top paying tech companies employ around 10% of all developers in the US.

On the other hand, the average CRUD developer in any major city in the US can make $140K-$170K within seven years of graduating with strategic job hopping

They specifically select against folks like me (on multiple dimensions) so 0 * any-percentage still equals nada. I might be able to swing the second one when the market improves.

I myself didn’t get in through the front door. I got in via the consulting division at AWS (Professional Services). Yes it was a full time direct hire under Amazons usual 4 year offer with base + large signing bonus + RSUs. I am no longer there.

There are all sorts of non tech white collar jobs at all of the BigTech companies that pay top of market. My best friend was hired in the finance department at Amazon Retail. He is now a director at a smaller place and is just now matching the comp of an L6 at Amazon five years later.

There is a better than 50% chance I could get into Google (GCP) doing similar work if I put in the work and learned and could speak about the GCP equivalent of the AWS tech that I know well and where I lead large implementations.

But they only do hybrid and I have no desire to work in an office.

Warning, just kind of rat-holing on terminology a little. You've used the phrase "can make" twice now. I've always found that way of expressing it kind of weasel-y. Yes, a software developer "can make" $140-170K, by the definition of "can" meaning a non-zero possibility. A new grad "can make" $100K+. A senior software engineer "can make" $1M/yr. All these things are true. I "can win" the lottery, too, and my kid "can be" president of the USA one day. Also technically true. It's more interesting to talk about typical cases, rather than best-case aspirational ones, which I see you are doing in other parts of the thread (great!). I think HN very often mistakes the best case for the typical case, especially when we talk about salaries.

Even using typical case, salary means and medians don't tell the whole story, as the distributions can be wild.

I posted sources at salary.com where you can filter by city and is more applicable to most developers than levels.fyi. I also mentioned what non tech companies are paying like Coke, Delta, Home Depot , etc in non tech hubs.

Median is not “best case”. I’m also well aware of the bi modal distribution of comp in the industry where a “senior” enterprise dev tops out at around what an entry level developer makes at BigTech.

Before the current shit show of the last couple of years in the industry, as a senior enterprise CRUD developer, I could throw my resume in the air and get a “full stack developer” job in Atlanta making $150k within a couple of weeks. This was the norm in Atlanta.

I’ve moved on since then. But the last time I was looking last year, my old recruiters were still saying if I lived in Atlanta I could make around that as just a C# developer. None of those jobs required any more than 5-7 years of experience.

“Enterprise CRUD developer” was my plan B.

I’m probably one of the few people commenting here who has been in both worlds recently and now purposefully on the tip top end of “enterprise” dev and still on the low end of BigTech.

Making $140K to $170k as a senior CRUD/franework enterprise “full stack developer” is the norm. I’ve moved to strategic cloud consulting now making more.

I am in a similar boat. Many of us in similar boats would be very thankful if you can expand on what are the names of these consulting companies and how can we breakthrough?

Honestly, there is no easy way. It was partially strategic and partially luck. I started down this path in 2016. The only actionable advice I can give is start taking on projects with greater scope, impact and that is closer to dealing with the “business”. Work on your soft skills and presentation skills.

My favorite book is “The Geek Leaders Handbook”

2016 - I chose a job that would give me a chance to lead my first green field major implementation from scratch over one that paid more. But I would have just been pulling tickets off the board. I was first exposed to AWS here. But “consultants” did all of the AWS setup. After I started learning AWS, I realized that they were just a bunch of old school operations people. I thought I could be a better consultant since I knew software development and could learn cloud.

2018 - this happened

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37446115

2020 - a job at AWS ProServe fell into my lap

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38474212

2023 - After getting Amazoned, I got a full time job at a 3rd party consulting company doing the same thing.

2024 - left there and got another job as a “staff software architect” at another consulting company.

And this is what I do now.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42709059

This is hugely helpful and one of the most helpful things I read. Thanks for your kindness. This is a very good blueprint on how to think about career advancement at our age. Thanks again

No problem

“People who get to work in the highly coveted, rather small, highest revenue-per-employee sector in human history should be just fine!”

Uhh yeah…

Well, first, the reply was to someone who doesn’t know how they will survive probably making five or six times what the median income is.

Second, I posted statistics where even the average college grad can still make it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42794546

"survive" typically means "maintain this quality of life".

If I were to be displaced by AI, I'm not sure how I'd the mortgage and two kids (that an average college grad doesn't have).

I could sell the house and net several hundred thousand dollars, but if I want to keep the kids in the same district, it's a wash because the township has been fervently fighting fair-value housing.

So your complaint is that because of AI, you might not be able to maintain the lifestyle that puts you in I assume at least the top 5% of earners and make around $350K (https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/)?

The average household is making less than $100k a year (same source) and are somehow surviving, you might have to make different life choices.

I hate to say but that's a 'boomer take' but you sound like a parody of a tiktok skit.

Are my statistics off? I quoted both the comp at BigTech and enterprise dev where most developers work.

And how many “boomers” have any clue about BigTech comp?

Are people who graduate from college who are “only” making 75K on average going homeless and hungry?