Stanford Computer Science '11-'12 Salary Survey Results | Hacker News Reader

Stanford Computer Science '11-'12 Salary Survey Results

12 pointsronyeh10 comments

CS/EE Undergrads (135 responses; 380 job offers)

95% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 5% were from the Midwest and East Coast. 10% of the job offers were from start-ups.

Offers ranged from $65,500 to $92,000. AVG: $79,360. MEDIAN: $ 78,750.

~70% of students were offered stock options. ~80% of students were offered signing bonuses. ~60% were offered relocation assistance and there were others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply. Relocation assistance ranged from $3,000 to $10,000 with an average of $3,500. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 with an average of $5,700.

CS/EE Masters (150 responses; 345 job offers)

94% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 6% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 15% of the job offers were from start-ups.

Offers ranged from $70,000 to $105,300. AVG: $98,246. MEDIAN: $87,650.

~78% of students were offered stock options. ~66% of students were offered signing bonuses. ~43% were offered relocation assistance and there others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply. Relocation assistance ranged from $3,000 to $8,000 with an average of $2,500. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $35,000 with an average of $6,325.

CS/EE PhDs (30 responses; 75 job offers)

80% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 20% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 30% of the job offers were from start-ups. 5% of the job offers were from a university.

Offers ranged from $133,250 to $146,980. AVG: $143,083. MEDIAN: $140,115.

~50% of students were offered stock options. ~50% of students were offered signing bonuses. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $19,500 with an average of $7,200. Relocation assistance ranged from $5,000 to $10,000 with an average of $6,500. However, they may not have reported on all the benefits they received.

Compare with the previous year's survey: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3141716

Glad to see salaries are going up for new grads (at least for Stanford grads with ludicrous offers from Google and Facebook). Pushing salaries up across the industry can only be a good thing for pretty much everybody here.

Definitely a refreshing change from the GlassDoor surveys we keep seeing here telling people to hold on tight to that $70k salary you deserve from your 7-10 years of experience.

All that's missing now is the obligitory dismissive comment from that DC government contractor guy who thinks we're all really making $30k/year and lying about it (and says as much on every single discussion about salary that comes through this site).

I've held a perception that Stanford students have ludicrous offers from Bay Area companies, and I definitely expected the average to be higher due to cost of living.

However, these numbers really are similar to Georgia Tech's CS numbers for 2012, and I know there's a lot of east coast companies that pull GT graduates.

http://www.adors.gatech.edu/commencement/salary_report_resul...

The College of Computing has better numbers (including relocation and stock option numbers), but that link is the rollup for the school. I can't find the CoC specific ones.

I'm assuming these are jobs offered straight after graduating.

I wonder what the trend looks like 5 - 10 years post graduation and whether experience in the field will ever close the gap between an undergraduate and a postgraduate. An extra $60K a year is a huge incentive to undertake a PhD.

I wonder what the level of employment is between different groups.

A trend graph would definitely be interesting.

Though, during the 6 years in which he/she could have been getting a PhD, the Stanford undergrad earns $480K pre-tax. And ideally you get a raise or two along the way to close the gap.

I had the opposite thought: a PhD might be worthwhile if you really love research, but it's hard to imagine making up the opportunity cost.

What's the normal time to PhD? 5-7 years? Five years out of school, my base salary was barely below the range, and salary + bonus was just a bit above the top end of the range. Seven years out of school (without a PhD), my base salary is in the range, and my salary + bonus is substantially above the range. In the meantime, I've been making a six figure salary instead of a grad student stipend.

I sometimes regret not doing a PhD, but it's definitely not because of the money.

Doing a phd with the hope of improving your salary is one of the worst ideas ever.

What does "offered stock options" mean? I'd like to have a complete understanding to total average comp, but I need to know the total present value of these stock options.

The Computer Forum doesn't calculate stats on stock options, because "stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values."

So it just means that they were offered options as part of their compensation package.

Damn.. I am getting paid less than that :(

No mention of the average number of job offers? From last year: "Students who replied averaged about 2 job offers."

Undergrads: ~2 offers

MS: ~3 offers

PhD: ~3 offers

I edited the original report to fit it into 2K chars. The report is compiled by the Stanford Computer Forum, and sent out to the jobs mailing list each year.

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