My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer(humanwhocodes.com)

726 points by jodooshi 7 years ago | 650 comments

These threads always invite the outliers (i.e. those who want to humble brag). Here's mine outside Washington/California/Silicon Valley/NYC:

- $40K: 2010-2013, "DevOps" at small startup. No ownership/shares.

- $45-72K: 2014-Current, Programmer (various job titles) working for state's education department

Even management here only make $90K capping out around $115K~. But cost of living is low.

These threads never have people posting their boring salaries from low cost of living areas, I'm trying to buck that trend.

scarface74 7 years ago | |

Also in an effort to counter the humble brag, here is my salary with the years changed slightly as not to dox myself. I’m also not in Washington/California/SV/NYC.

I hope this also shows that the best way to make money is by frequent job hopping.

My salary is about average for the area.

1995 - 2000 wanted to get out of the small town where I’m from and my best opportunity was based on an internship I had the year before as a computer operator. Soon they had a programming project and I was the only programmer they had. I was also in graduate school at the time - starting $10/hr - ending salaried at $35K.

2000 - 2007 Software Engineer mostly doing C/C++ — starting $52K ending $70K. The bonuses steadily were cut and the raises were abysmal

2008-2012 Software Engineer at a small company that went out of business. Mostly doing C# with a little C++. Starting $77K, Ending $84K

2012-2015 Senior Software (in reality a mid level .Net developer) - starting 90K, ending 93K

2015-2016 Full Stack Developer - mostly .Net with some Angular. Starting $115K - Ending $115K

2016-present “Architect” at a small company - starting 63hr (contract - I took it for the learning opportunity and there was a position that I was eyeing) - present $135K.

Next on my agenda is to be an overpriced “implementation consultant”/“Digital transformation consultant”, etc. after my youngest graduates in 3 years.

ddevault 7 years ago | |

I think I'm underpaid, but not grossly so. I earn $115,000/yr with 8 years of professional experience in Philadelphia. I have equity currently valued at ~$5,000. I also make an additional ~$10,000/yr in donations to my open source projects and an additional ~$5,000/yr through the occasional side gig.

https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/pennsylvania/...

I started my career at $30,000 in Colorado Springs.

https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/colorado/colo...

scarface74 7 years ago | | |

I know that I’m “underpaid” based on what I could get if I were willing to trade a relatively stress free job to either be a team lead (been there done that) or work for a consulting company.

If I made an extra 20K to 30K right now, it wouldn’t change my life significantly. I could reach a few long term goals quicker but I’m really in no rush.

jpmoyn 7 years ago | | |

Do you like your company? I'm also in philly but can't seem to find a cool company to work for (I have a software job as is but have been looking). The city feels somewhat dry of interesting software companies.

hoaw 7 years ago | | |

> I think I'm underpaid, but not grossly so.

I wouldn't necessarily call that underpaid. Being underpaid is when you have to choose between the present and the future. If you can both have good and sustainable living conditions, job security and pension with a decent margin you aren't generally underpaid as such. The exception being if your relative wage affects things worth caring about, like being valued by the people around you.

commandlinefan 7 years ago | |

> invite the outliers

Yep, reading that guy's salary history almost made me want to go jump off the roof, but I figure he lives in CA and probably went to an "upper-echelon" college. Here's mine, from somebody who went to a college that didn't make the US News top 100:

    (Georgia)
    - 1992: $25,000 (Internship), mostly Cobol
    - 1995: Graduated with BSCS, no-name college, 3.5 GPA
    (Illinois)
    - 1995: $28,000 (got a raise to $35000, the only raise I've ever gotten without switching jobs), Cobol
    - 1996: $40,000, C++
    (North Texas)
    - 1997: $50,000, C++ 
    - 1998: $60,000, C++/Java
    - 1999: $100,000, Java
    - 2002: $100,000, Web programming/Java/Javascript ("lateral" job change, old company went out of business)
    - 2008: Graduated MSCS, sort-of-name college, 3.9 GPA
    - 2011: $120,000, Objective-C, iOS
    - 2014: $120,000, Java/Javascript (another "lateral" change)
    - 2018: $140,000, Java/Javascript

jordache 7 years ago | | |

Dude you do know who Zakas is right? The guy wrote so many advanced JS books, and is essentially a rockstart in the JS world.

His compensation is actually less than I anticipated, given that he is in the bay area...

throwaway33441 7 years ago | |

My path is one of the underappreciated hybrid: started in major metro (DC/NY/Boston) and moved to small town in the south after many years, finding good gigs offering remote work for DC-, NY-, and SF-based companies. Found a nice niche in security/ops/development in gov & healthcare tech. So, here goes:

DB/Ops Engineering

1999: $60K base. Fresh out of masters program, large F50 DC gov tech firm (#1)

2001: $100K + $5K bonus. After building a successful practice area (still #1)

Independent Consulting, Security Ops & DB Architecture

2002-3: $150/hr, ~$200K/year. Small, rapid-growth Boston healthcare company (#2)

System/Security Architecture

2004-7: $150K base, $50K-$80K bonus. (full-time salaried at #2)

2008-12: $180K base, $10K bonus. Mid-sized DC gov tech firm (#3)

2012-14: $200K base, $20-40K bonus. Mid-sized DC gov tech firm (remote #4)

Security Architecture/Product Security

2015: $150K base, $20K bonus. Startup (NYC, remote #5)

2016 - 2018: $200K base, $20K bonus, $100K options. Large tech (SF, remote #6)

I know half a dozen co-workers (senior engineers or technical directors) whose net annual comp is also in the $300K range. It's not common, but if you're pulling <$100K with 6+ years experience in software or security engineering, you're getting screwed. (Throw away account, but happy to respond in thread; edited for formatting)

el_benhameen 7 years ago | | |

Thanks for sharing. After you (I assume) went remote while working for the same company, how did you go about getting new remote gigs at large tech companies? I’m remote now and would like to stay so, but I’m finding that companies that pay the sort of comp I’m looking for are often remote-averse.

lurker123 7 years ago | | |

Interesting that it's similar (lower if adjusted for inflation) level of compensation since 2002. Do you feel that your specialty is plateauing in terms of pay? What would it take for another compensation increase?

bowlich 7 years ago | |

This thread's making me feel much better about my starting salary of $35k back in 2011. It always seemed to bug me, the nagging feeling that I had way under billed myself for the first two years of my career (looking at all the big salaries everyone was always claiming).

My salary's pretty much followed the same progression that other's have posted for outside of the high-cost-of-living hubs.

wernercd 7 years ago | | |

I started at $21k in 2010 as a programmer

* 2000-2005 USMC

* 2005-2008 various (Unable to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up)

* 2008-2010 A.A.S. Computer Information Systems

* 2010-2015 Backend Developer, 21k => 50k

* 2015-2016 DevOps/System Admin, State of Delaware 60k => 68k

* 2016-2017 Backend .Net Developer, small company 70k => 85k

* 2017-Pres Backend .Net Developer, major bank 100k

I live in Delaware - in the sticks - and commute to Wilmington, DE.

I probably make under market, but I'm limited on my relocation options and don't have a 4 year degree - so I'm happy with my current position.

neogodless 7 years ago | |

Started out in a LCOL area (Central PA). Dropped out of Comp. Sci. program. ColdFusion -> ASP -> .NET (with lots of Web Development). All the different titles. But typically just a member of the team; not the team lead or architect.

All figures W2 gross pay and 40 hour / week jobs (No on call, paid OT or I didn't play!)

  1998-1999 $9/hr -> $13/hr
  2000-2003 $27k -> $33k
  2003-2006 $40k -> $50k
  2006-2011 $55k -> $63k (nice job, raises not-so-much)
  2012-2014 $75k, $72k, $80k (job hoppin' fool)

Moved to a higher COL area (closer to Philly)

  2014-2015 $88k -> $91k
  2016-2017 $100k -> $103k

Took first Corp-to-corp 1099 job

  2017+ $160k

pc86 7 years ago | |

Low cost of living checking in, primarily due to food and housing, which are ~50% and ~15-20% of the Bay Area respectively. A <$950 mortgage payment for a house with a yard is a huge QOL boost.

Started professional software dev in 2010 after freelancing for $45, raise/promotion to low $50's before getting a new job for $72, raise/promotion to high $70's before getting a new job for $98, promotion to $115 + 10% discretionary/performance bonus. All web development to start, last promotion put me in architecture/pseudo-management roles that includes more backend systems and integrations. Tech roles at my current job top out in the low to mid $130's + 10%, non-Exec management seems to be in the $125-185 range but obviously that info is pretty hard to get reliably. If you don't have any desires to be in management or architecture roles and you just want to be in your IDE coding all day, you can get to $90-100k reliably, and in this area that's enough to max out your 401k, a Roth IRA, and save.

I'd love to move to a city and get companies on my resume that people have heard of outside of a 30 mile radius, but SF/NYC are nonstarters as they'd be a 50%+ effective pay cut, and even the less mainstream ones like Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Diego would be 30% or more.

lotsofpulp 7 years ago | | |

If you think you’re better than average, especially top quintile, then moving to a big city will offer so many more opportunities it will more than make up for the temporary pay cut or hit to quality of life. Of course this all depends on your goals and situation such as having dependents and age. But it could pay off big by giving you more chances to network, start businesses, meet a high income earning spouse, etc.

kamarg 7 years ago | |

Also in a pretty LoC area.

2007: $35k (First job out of school. I didn't know to negotiate better. Also my favorite job I've had) 2008: $60k 2012-2015: $80-$115k 2016-2017: $117.5k 2018: $100k + quarterly bonus based on company profits

It's not crazy FAANG level income but the cost of living out here is low enough that I'm pretty sure I make out decently well in comparison.

braindouche 7 years ago | |

I'll go so far as to say here's my College Drop Out Self Taught In The Rust Belt Salary:

2006-2016: $25k-$45kyr, $40-$120 per hour. The first half I ran a very small agency that maxed out at 4 people and I wrote all the code, the latter half I was a PHP freelancer. Most expensive WordPress consultant in my city!

2016: $52k. Agency web dev. I've never hated a job more. Mostly wrote hacky jQuery and supported an awful laravel app the boss was enamored with.

2017: $65k. Front End Engineer. worked on converting a legacy SaaS product into Angular SPA. My boss begged me to ask for a raise (the recruiter screwed everybody), and then I got laid off two weeks later with like 25 other people. Loved that job, sad to lose it.

2018(current): $87k + bonuses. Senior Front End Developer. My job is to hack .net with javascript. I think the salary trend is moving nicely. I'm suddenly the richest person among all my friends and the third-highest earner in my extended family. (My family isn't even in the rust belt, they're from a much wealthier region in the country.)

wsc981 7 years ago | |

I'm a remote working iOS / Android dev located in the countryside of Thailand.

Currently working for 40 USD / hour for 32 hours a week, so that means around 65.000 USD per year. This year I started fully working remotely and decided to start a bit at the low end, earnings-wise. When working previously as a freelancer in The Netherlands my last rate was around 80 USD / hour.

I intend to raise my rate to at least 50 USD per hour in 2019 and perhaps working 5 days a week, which would mean earning around 100.000 USD per year.

westmichigan 7 years ago | |

Here is my list, cost of living is relatively low in west Michigan.

2004-2006 $30k->54k, company went out of business, career path was help desk to infrastructure engineering

2006-2011 $40k->50k, 45 Days PTO, public sector, little room for advancement, rewarding work, great time off, education

2011-2018 $65k->95k + 12% bonus, 20 PTO days, infrastructure engineering, private sector. 80% remote.

2018 $145k, bonus up to 20%, IT Consultant, 20 PTO days, private sector. 100% remote, 30% travel.

Never had any job offer stock options.

sanderjd 7 years ago | |

Personally neither what you call the humble brags nor your post are very useful. What is interesting is cost-of-living-adjusted salary, but nobody knows how to calculate it, so we just get a bunch of numbers without enough context to figure out what they actually mean. It's like posting a bunch of price data points from the last 500 years without any knowledge of inflation.

odorousrex 7 years ago | |

Similar - 15 years experience in DevOps, I make $100k at my current job ($20k less than my previous job which was in Los Angeles, I'm still in CA, but away from the metros.)

But...and this more than makes up for it...my hours are capped at 35 a week. (I usually work between 30-35).

And I love it. The tradeoff has been completely worth it for me.

dclowd9901 7 years ago | |

Don’t shame people for making more money than others. The idea of this is we all see what we make. The outliers are making what we should all make.

scarface74 7 years ago | | |

It's not about shaming people. HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. It's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low.

sunaurus 7 years ago |

I always wonder when I read about salaries in other countries - what do the numbers usually mean? Not sure if this is how it works everywhere, but where I live, we have 3 different ways of talking about salary:

1) What you actually get

2) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes

3) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes + what your employer pays in taxes

Usually we talk about #2 when discussing salaries. So if somebody says they make 1000€/month, it generally means that they get 871€ every month in the bank, and their employer actually needs to pay 1338€ ever month in salary + taxes.

Can anyone shed some light on whether this is the same everywhere? Like if somebody in Silicon Valley says they make $200k/year, is that their "#2" number?

Edit:

Adding my own #2 history as well (software dev in Estonia), in case anybody is interested:

2015 - junior at employer A - 12 000€

2015 - mid-level at employer A - 21 204€

2016 - mid-level at employer B - 26 400€

2017 - senior at employer B - 30 000€

2017 - senior at employer C - 48 000€

2018 - senior at employer D - 58 500€

In my experience, it's very hard to get better salary without changing jobs all the time, so if you know of a company with good perks, it's better to change your job a bunch of times before ending up there (so you can start there with a relatively good salary) - at least, that's what I ended up doing.

mysalarythrow 7 years ago |

Male, went to a top 5 CS school, US west coast

2001: BigCo $76,000/year + $20,000 signing bonus (first job out of school)

2007: Freelancing between $100-$200/hr depending on project

2012: Startup #1 $180,000/year + $75,000 signing bonus + a bit of stock that's never been worth anything (but I exercised upon leaving and paid a lot of taxes on, so I'm net negative ~$300k)

2015: Startup #2 $240,000/year + lots of stock that's never been worth anything

Some thoughts on equity and BigCos vs. Startups:

Before going to Startup #1 I rejected offer of ~$2MM RSUs at BigCo #2 (since split, now worth ~$15MM) and offer of ~$2MM RSU at BigCo #3 (now worth ~$10MM) in order to join what looked like a sure thing. Got another offer from BigCo #2 a few years later for ~$1MM RSUs (now worth $4MM).

My peers that went to BigCos have done far, far better than me financially. All are above $500k/year in total comp, and quite a few above $1MM/year due to FAANG stocks going up so much.

Startup compensation math just doesn't work when you're competing against the BigCos these days. Liquidity horizons are ~10 years for the few successes that work out, the equity portions are meager (esp after dilution). Even ignoring the risk of no liquidity event, you still come out behind what the big companies are paying these days.

I'll probably never join a startup again, but if I do, all salary assumptions assume an equity value of zero.

freditup 7 years ago |

I'm actually surprised that as a 'Principal Architect' he was only making $208,000 a year. Considering that entry-level positions at large companies which can have cash compensation of around $150,000+, it seems he may have been 'underpaid'.

Of course $208,000 is nothing to scoff at, and money is hardly the most important thing when it comes to life. Just interesting to see that a reasonably large Bay-area company would pay such a high-level engineer barely more than new grads can get.

apexalpha 7 years ago |

Very interesting thread this link has spawned. Not telling each other how much we make is only good for our employers, not us. So here we go:

The Netherlands, 26yo male:

45k ($50k) as a technical trainee. It's €3200 ($3600) pre-tax a month and €2350 ($2670) after tax with %12,5 end of year bonus.

First job here, and this is already above modal for my country. I'm very happy with it, especially seeing I don't have a formal IT education I just thought myself through hobbies and messing around. Some salaries here are insane!

Of course my cost of living is lower but rent/mortgage has gone up _a lot_ in my country since the ECB started printing money. €1500 a month in or around Amsterdam for 2 people isn't weird anymore and there are practically no houses <€250k

phyller 7 years ago | |

It boggles my mind that salaries can be so much lower in parts of Europe, while expenses are about the same as the US. Of course if you are living in New York City or San Francisco area expenses are higher, but most places they are not.

apexalpha 7 years ago | | |

As always: it's not that Black and White.

Many people in my country, and NW Europe in general, opt for pay in another currency: time.

Dutch people work _on average_ 350 hours less per year than their US counterparts; or about 7 weeks worth when working 40 hours a week.

It's not unheard of in my company to have between 30 and 50 paid days off per year on top of the national holidays. These days are negotiated during salary discussions and a trade off between pay and time.

https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm

Germany, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden etc... We all basically opt for more time off than more pay.

And this is possible in part due to the high taxes; we have no medical bills, no education bills, pension is taken care of, etc..

I for one, would gladly opt for a 4 day work week with 60k pay a year in stead of a 5 day workweek with 90k pay.

pavlov 7 years ago | | |

Even the big companies do this. My employer is a FANG and I'm based in London. Rents are nearly as expensive as in San Francisco... But if I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd get 40% more base pay for the same work.

The only justification for this policy is something called "cost of labor" — in other words: "We've agreed with other tech companies that nobody's going to raise salaries locally."

rewgerthgrth 7 years ago |

Burner account. All numbers adjusted to USD:

2007: Junior developer $25k (no bonus)

2008: Project manager $50k (10% bonus)

2009: Project Manager $65k (10% bonus)

2011: Senior Project Manager $92 (10% bonus)

2011: Product Manager $97k (Some worthless options as it turns out, and an approximately 8% bonus)

2012: Founded my own startup / developer $28k that year

2013: Startup founder / CTO $65k

2014: Startup founder / CTO $150k

2015: Startup founder / CTO $150k

2016: Startup founder / CTO $250k + 10% bonus (acquired)

2017: Startup founder / CTO $250k + 10% bonus

2018: Startup founder / CTO $325k + $100k bonus + $100k stock

2018: I'm now taking a break from work.

salburn008 7 years ago | |

Also a burner. All include health insurance.

2012: Graduated with CS degree from top 10 public school, 2.9 GPA

2013: Mid-sized co in Texas, Software engineer, $70k salary, $20k RSUs vesting over 4 years, ~5k/yr cash bonuses

2014: Same company, bump to $75k salary

2015: Same company, bump to $80k salary

Later 2015: Jumped to seeded startup in Texas, software engineer, $70k salary, 50-70 hours/wk, aspirational but worthless equity options

2017: Same company, bump to $90k, 60-80 hours/wk, VP title (though doing work of a CTO), aspirational but worthless equity bonuses.

2018: Same company, no salary change, could request higher salary but have not because I am using it to make myself to work smarter rather than harder. Earning equity bonuses upon achieving targets. Generally working fewer hours now and have hired in some help so while responsibilities and problems are harder, work weeks are not so long.

Expecting a salary increase to range of $110-130k within 12 months (else will quit and work on my own business ideas). I believe I could obtain a $130k salary elsewhere now but have not interviewed to to find out and am not inclined to.

arvinsim 7 years ago | |

Seems to be that you went to the management pretty soon. Seems to pay much better.

hdsrtrthrth 7 years ago | | |

Yeah i guess that's just my strong suit so i went with it.

cheez 7 years ago | |

So you had a new startup every year?

hdsrtrthrth 7 years ago | | |

Sorry, i should have been clearer. There were 2 distinct startups i founded during that time. One at the start of 2012, which died mid-2012, and the other started mid-2012 and I worked on all the way through till 2018.

I should also mention, this was in Canada. And yeah, I didn't keep the PW to my previous burner account. Not used to posting anom info :-(

throwawayosiu1 7 years ago |

I'm currently based in Toronto

    2012 - small business owner                             - 60k AED / yr (no taxes) - built Wordpress websites in my spare time
    2013 - technical cloud marketing intern                 - 60k / yr CAD            - FAANGish company
    2013 - contractor                                       - 30k / yr CAD            - Engineering consultancy
    2014 - Software Dev Fullstack                           - 22k / yr CAD            - early stage startup
    2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack / Architect + DevOps - 55k / yr CAD            - very early stage startup
    2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack / Architect + DevOps - 60k / yr CAD            - very early stage startup
    2016 - Software Dev                                     - 60k / yr CAD            - medium stage startup
    2016 - Techincal Consultant                             - 90k / yr CAD            - small public company
    2017 - Software Engineer + DevOps                       - 99k / yr CAD            - medium public company
    2018 - Senior Software Engineer + DevOps + SRE          - 120k / yr CAD           - medium public company

tdotthrowaway 7 years ago | |

I too am in Toronto and this is my career progression:

2015 - Linux System Administrator - $65k - large company 2016 - DevOps Engineer - $79k - startup 2017 - DevOps Engineer - $95k - large company 2018 - Site Reliability Engineer - $115k - medium company

digianarchist 7 years ago | | |

2015 - $110K CAD - Senior Developer

2018 - $120K CAD - Senior DevOps Engineer (+ $12K bonus).

7 years experience as of today

dmarucco 7 years ago |

This is certainly an intresting post and i likethe OP attitude. We should be totally transparent about our compensation as he did. Salary is just the result of a negotiation, nothing else, in the majority of cases it does not reflect anything more than your "perceived" value.

White male born in the '88 in Italy. I have a bachelor degree and working since 2008. Here in Italy is quite uncommon to have big jumps in salaries if you want to stay in the "Technical" position.

However it's quite common to have "food stamps" for lunch as benefit ( range between 5€ to 8€ )

2008 - 18000 €/year - Junior Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2009 - 19000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2010 - 20000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2011 - 21000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A

2012 - 23000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Online booking startup (No stock options)

2013 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B

2014 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B

2015 - 28000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B

2016 - 30000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B

2017 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm C

2018 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead / Solution Architect / Whatever - Consulting Firm C

fma 7 years ago |

Everyone is posting salaries... How about hours worked. I sometimes feel like a frog in a pot and am in the office for 45 hours a normal week and at times 50. Once in a while a few hours of production support on nights and weekends.

The only time I worked 40 hours was government...

I realize it could also be the nature of the application. Looks like the author is mainly on UI while my application, and at my previous company, processes time sensitive data 24x7.

I often times I did only UI work, or QA work to not have production calls.

cgh 7 years ago | |

I work for an American BigCo writing server-side code. I typically put in a 50 hour week. Salary: $155,000

However, I work remotely (I am not American) so I have that flexibility, and I also don't waste time commuting. To me, the extra hours in the chair are worth it.

friedman23 7 years ago | |

I work in a unicorn startup and never work more than 45 hours a week. They also give us one day a week to work remotely but I never take it because I prefer the free food.

ng12 7 years ago | |

I average 35, if that. Work in fintech. Once or twice a year there's a week where in pushing 60+ but that's usually on my own volition.

quickthrower2 7 years ago |

Nice money at those big American companies. In Australia, you have to become a plumber to get to those levels :-)

burner_121254 7 years ago |

Burner account. White male working at a single US software company in the suburbs since 2007 (not anywhere near Silicon Valley). Cost of living is comparable to Minneapolis, MN.

Graduated college in 2007, Bachelor's in CS, hired to a QA team, ended up building a lot of internal web apps by myself from scratch that are used by a lot of teams. There aren't any other software companies anywhere near here, so switching companies frequently as others do to get raises isn't an easy option.

--------------

2007: $35,000

-- [incremental raises, working for the same team]

2016: $82,000

-- [Hired as a senior front-end web dev for a different team in 2016]

2017: $97,000

2018: $103,000

zdgsg 7 years ago |

White male, born early 90's. Raised, live, and work in Silicon Valley.

2013: intern at tiny startup A, $12/hr, no benefits. Paid for my own gas/food

2014: software eng intern at large corp A. $28/hr

2015: software eng intern at startup B. $40/hr

2016: software developer at corp C, $105k base, $20k signing, future equity (noted below)

2017 - entry software engineer at corp C. $115k base, $25k bonus, $70k equity (for 2016 and 2017). Total comp about $205k-ish

2018.a - entry software engineer at corp C. $125k base, $27k bonus, $80k equity. Total comp around $235k

2018.b - mid year promotion to software engineer (non-entry level). $141k base, likely equity bump. Total comp for 2018 projects to be about $240k.

Current corp doesn't negotiate, but has very solid equity.

04-25-48-62-63 7 years ago |

Michigan. BS in CS.

2005 - $9/hour web dev intern

2007 - $14/hour part-time web developer and software engineer. (This was still in college.)

2010 - $60K/year software engineer.

2013 - $85K/year sr. software engineer (including bonuses).

2018 - $103K/year sr. software engineer (including bonuses).

I feel I've been somewhat underpaid compared to market averages, but I have reasonable money for now. Lived super-frugally in college and paid off student debts ~1 year after graduation. Never worked crazy overtime, although some jobs were pretty stressful due to sheer bad management. Had opportunities to become manager or architect, but don't want to move into a non-coding position.

cm2012 7 years ago |

Here was my path - first three of the below were during college, then I dropped out before number 4.

1) Unpaid internship (3 months)

2) $10 an hour assistant marketing role (1.5 years)

3) $14 an hour marketing role (1.5 years)

4) $30 an hour marketing role (8 months)

5) $35 an hour marketing role (Much bigger budget, lots of opportunity to learn) (1.5 years)

6) $50 an hour (promotion from the above role, 2 years)

7) Became a consultant for $150-$300 an hour, current since May 2017.

So my path from unpaid to $300k+ per year took like 8 years.

dajohnson89 7 years ago | |

Could you describe what exactly your consulting role is like?

cm2012 7 years ago | | |

Helping growth oriented companies scale sales on FB and Adwords.

ThrowawayUry 7 years ago |

Montevideo, Uruguay (most expensive country in South America):

  2004-2008 - Programmer at Software Factory - U$ 10.000 / year
  2008-2016 - Functional Analyst (developer really) at non-software company - U$ 30.000
  2016-2018 - Programmer Analyst (still developer + pm) at U.S. company's outsourcing center - U$ 55.000

Mis-spent a lot of money on an MBA (30k) which didn't bring me any additional income, and didn't save anything after 15 years' career :(

Also, over half my salary goes to taxes as I'm on the 2nd highest income bracket.

I'm hoping to get way more as a remote worker (and there are ways to get tax breaks that way).

dominotw 7 years ago | |

Its ok. You can start saving now, its not too late. Don't worry.

5vHL30WJ 7 years ago | |

Santiago Chile, gross USD/yr

2009-2010: software factory 18k

2011-2014: small startup, started at 25k, left at 40k (+ equity worth 0)

2015-2016: FAANG 75k (incl. bonuses)

2017-2018: medium-sized startup 100k

HiroshiSan 7 years ago |

Just wanted to thank all of you for posting your salaries. My biggest take away is that it takes time to develop your career. It's so easy to become jaded after reading /r/cscareerquestions where it's regular to see someone making 6 figures right out of college.

anon_9264 7 years ago |

I'll contribute. I hope it is okay to post anonymously in this case. 2007 was straight out of college and all these jobs have been in California.

2007 Startup A $80,000

2009 Startup A $90,000

2010 Startup B $100,000

2011 Startup C $100,000

2013 Startup C $130,000

2015 Startup C $150,000

2017 Startup D $160,000

hliyan 7 years ago | |

Thanks for this! It would help if you could mention the role/designation as well...

jacknews 7 years ago | |

Are these base salaries or total incl. any options, bonuses etc?

scarejunba 7 years ago | |

Put a burner email in your profile, just so people can contact you anyway.

iLemming 7 years ago |

Everyone excited about SF Bay salaries - please don't forget how expensive is to live here. My rent is $3K/m (half of my net salary) and that's considered "a decent rate" for 3 bedrooms.

Simple salad or a sandwich will cost you ~$15. Round-trip fare on BART - $11. So just to get to work and eat something over lunch will cost you over $600/m.

If you're offered a job here with relocation - negotiate! If possible - better reconsider. Have a family with kids? Simply forget it. Seriously, things getting awfully expensive here. Techies are moving to other states in numbers.

yen223 7 years ago | |

If you earn 3 times as much, but wind up spending 3 times as much, you are still saving 3 times as much.

It's almost always better to get high pay in a high CoL area, than to get low pay in a low CoL area.

iLemming 7 years ago | | |

Working from paycheck to paycheck you don't earn 3 times as much and you don't save. Most of my friends who live here can't afford to buy a house, they rent. Almost all my friends who left SF Bay were able to buy within months. Cost of living and the housing prices in SF Bay are extremely disproportionate to salaries.

closeparen 7 years ago | | |

A number on a bank statement is the map, not the territory. Money's value is what it can be exchanged for. Saving 3 times as much is merely keeping up.

sushid 7 years ago |

I can’t help but be alarmed by the fact that his health has been on the decline for the last five years due to contracting Lyme disease.

I know of one person who was fine after like a month (detected early) and someone who spent the better part of a year recovering, but nothing like this!

Hope the blog writer gets better soon.

HFE_C282Y 7 years ago | |

He remarks here (https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2014/04/02/i-have-lyme-diseas...) that his health has been poor for the last (now) 19 years. Having contracted Lyme roughly 9 years ago myself, I can empathize with him. The effects never truly go away.

phyller 7 years ago | | |

And still, many doctors even in Connecticut where it was first detected won't provide the antibiotics for it until you have a positive test, and the tests are unreliable. This is a real tragedy.

davedx 7 years ago |

White male, born and raised in the UK, lived and worked in Australia and lately, the Netherlands.

1999: Intern developer at investment bank, £1500/month

2000: Java Developer at above, £40,000/year

2004: C++ Games Developer in Australia, AU$26,000/year

2006: C++ Games Developer in UK, £27,000/year

2007: C++ Senior Software Engineer in UK, £31,000/year + pension

2011: Java Developer in Netherlands, €44,000/year + pension

2012: C# Unity Developer in Netherlands, €31,800/year

2013: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, €50/hour

2015: Frontend Developer in NL, €50,000/year

2017: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, €75/hour

2018: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, similar to above

Fairly obvious here is that I a) like working in the games industry, b) the pay is much worse in the games industry, and c) that I never ended up staying for long in the games industry...

dmourati 7 years ago |

I worked briefly with Nicholas at Box though we never met. I recall him being one of a handful of Principal engineers at the company when I joined and aspiring to reach that position myself. I commend Nicholas for sharing this data and for the thoughtful way in which he laid out why he felt compelled to do so.

I wish Nicholas health and happiness.

sokoloff 7 years ago | |

I also worked with him at Vistaprint and, to be honest, found him to be (appropriately) opinionated but not a pain in the ass. He was one of the good ones, so it's interesting to hear his own lower self-estimation of his time here.

iykwimthrowaway 7 years ago |

more data

  1990 - 7.50/hr software testing @ bigco1
  1992 - $24/hr software testing @ bigco1
  1994 - $40/hr developer @ bigco1
  1996 - $54k developer @ bigco1
  1997 - $58k developer @ bigco2, options-heavy comp (worth ~$400k over 9 years)
  2006 - $120k developer @ startup1, options-heavy (worthless)
  2008 - $120k developer @ startup2, options-heavy (worthless)
  2016 - $290k developer @ bigco3
  2017 - $360k developer @ bigco3
  2018 - $405k developer @ bigco3

verdict: bigco

second verdict: perusing the timelines, I am old AF

zdgsg 7 years ago | |

Whoa. What position for bigco3?

edit: yes, I was born after you had many years of work experience :)

iykwimthrowaway 7 years ago | | |

Basically what would be a 65 at bigco2 (MSFT)

Note that options have turned out to be pretty mediocre on average for me. $400k over 9 years at MSFT was a significant chunk of compensation, but they weren't life-changing. It's possible that startup2 can still make me a bunch of money, because I own the stock and they're profitable, but I basically count the probability as 0. Get RSUs.

mattsmith321 7 years ago |

For those of us in the US, you can see your complete earnings history as reported to the Social Security Administration at ssa.gov. Obviously you have to jump through some hoops to create an account. Coincidentally to this post, I just pulled my info last weekend and put it into a chart: https://i.imgur.com/LwyljAK.png I chopped off the actual amounts for this post but I was also mainly only interested in how things looked for the past few years in my current job.

ivalm 7 years ago | |

If you chop the y-axis entirely then the graph can be meaningless. Perhaps your salary changed from 100000/year to 100001/year and those fluctuations are all in the cent range...

lostmsu 7 years ago |

All - Seattle, totals, including stock bonuses:

2012-2016 $105k-135k MSFT SDE-SDE2

2016-2017 $190k AMZN

2018 - trying to start up, $250

> Obama Executive Order Protects Employees of Federal Contractors to Discuss Wage and Compensation

Fortunately, both AMZN and MSFT are government contractors

russnewcomer 7 years ago |

Mostly middle of America here. Not a throwaway because I think that part of American culture is negative.

2001 - 2003 Various intern-level roles in Kansas/Nebraska. ~8/hr.

2003 - 2005 Intern/Part time sole developer/IT at manufacturing company in central Kansas. ~$12/hr.

2005 Graduated with Bachelor's in Computer Systems.

2005 - 2007 Applications Developer (Programming, general IT, software project management) at same company above in central Kansas. Started at $42k, ended around 50k. 40hrs wk

2007 - 2010 IT Director at international school outside of America. 28k. Technical responsibilities about 30hrs/wk, other work at school (substituting, student activities, etc) ~20 more.

2010 - 2012 Network Admin / Developer, Omaha NE. (for MSP) 30k -> 35k 45+ hrs/wk

2012 - 2018 Mobile Software Developer, Omaha NE (ag-tech company) 45k -> 80k. 40hrs/wk.

2018 - present Senior Software Engineer 85k (in healthcare) 40hrs/wk.

prepend 7 years ago |

I think this is really interesting and glad OP posted it as a reference.

I just assumed that everyone saves their digital paystubs and calculating precise salary at any point in ones career is trivial. I was surprised when OP was unsure of salary amounts or when precisely raises went into effect.

While I think this is cool from a career planning perspective, I don’t think it’s very useful from OP’s aim of correcting any biases on pay based on gender. But it doesn’t hurt and is helpful just to be aware of what’s possible.

It’s a bit odd that Forbes and Atlantic are used as sources of pretty definitive statements of existing biases and the ability of authors ability to negotiate based on status as a “white man.” (Personally, I think that confidence may be a bit misplaced :)

Mostly, I’m grateful for using ESLint and it’s cool to see the career described for people who develop oss projects in addition to work.

vonmoltke 7 years ago | |

> I just assumed that everyone saves their digital paystubs and calculating precise salary at any point in ones career is trivial.

First off, not everyone gets digital paystubs. It depends on how the company manages payroll, and whether they keep it in-house or subcontract it.

Second, even if you do get a digital paystub, it is frequently a manual operation to download and save it outside of the payroll system. I personally have been bad about actually doing so.

theandrewbailey 7 years ago | | |

I don't keep paystubs, but I've kept every one of my IRS w-2 forms. It should be possible to pro-rate the total compensation from approximate hire/leave dates, if I need to.

prepend 7 years ago | | |

Good point. Years ago, I would just scan/photo and save significant stubs like new job, change, etc.

fjsolwmv 7 years ago | |

Not everyone is a digital packrat and compulsive organizer.

throwaway84493 7 years ago |

Male, top 5 CS school, grad 2000

2000: $55k, non-dev role, 50k-ish options, Florida company 2000: Same role as above, given $20k raise, +25k options two months in 2000: $75k, $10k signing bonus, 30k options, junior dev, Bay Area company 2001 (crash): $40k, university, research dev, Penn 2002-2005: Freelance $80/hr, Florida 2005-2007: Grad school, shit pay 2007-2010: Freelance, $100/hr, Florida 2010-2012: $68k, senior dev, Florida 2012-2014: $20k, 10% equity, head of engineering, "startup", Bay Area 2014-2015: $125k, 10% bonus, senior dev, Bay Area BigCo 2015-2016: $130k, 9% bonus, $20k RSU/3 year, same co and role as above 2016-2017: $144k, 10% bonus, $20k RSU, same co and role as above 2017-2018: $155k, 16% bonus, $20k RSU, same co, eng manager

I'm underpaid, conservatively, by at least $70k. Will probably fix that next year.

zuhayeer 7 years ago |

Check out a project of mine called http://levels.fyi for a little more volume of data. We are trying to make the industry more transparent by going into level by level granularity. Hope it helps, and we'd love for people to contribute!

Aeolun 7 years ago |

I’m a bit sad about seeing some of the numbers here, and happy about seeing some others to add some perspective.

For me:

- 2010 Company A €37000 - Netherlands

- 2011 Freelance €21000 - Netherlands

- 2012 Company B €34000 - Netherlands

- 2013 Company C ¥2.5M (€19000) - Japan

- 2014 Company C ¥3.6M (€27000) - Japan

- 2016 Company D ¥5.0M (€38000) - Japan

- 2017 Company D ¥5.5M (€42000) - Japan

- 2018 Startup E ¥6.0M (€46000) - Japan

- 2018 Company F ¥8.0M (€61000) - Japan

All have been some form of engineering position. I’d love to break into the ridiculous compensations I see around here, but it seems the only way to get any form of raise is to move around a lot.

I’m fairly convinced this is because companies are unable to properly assess skill in an interview, so they use previous salary as a proxy to determine if a candidate might be worth it.

I’m getting to the age/place in life where I’d prefer to stay at the same place, so I’m hoping company F is willing to see the light in that regard.

nnnate 7 years ago | |

How was your transition into a Japanese work environment? Were the raises you got working at the same company asked for or just given by the company?

Aeolun 7 years ago | | |

The first company in Japan I aaked for a raise, but more in the sense of “need more or cannot live here”.

The second time it was part of a merger and realignment of working conditions (which also increased expected hours from 7 to 7.5).

donatj 7 years ago |

Right out of school in 2006 my first programming job started me at $20,000 a year. And I was so glad to have it! I’d been applying and interviewing for jobs for six months and this tiny shop was the only place willing to give me a chance.

I think people forget, but at the time it was a foregone conclusion that all programming jobs were going to go to India and you would be a fool to go into it. I was told as much by teachers before I left high school. I didn’t know anyone else getting into programming, I literally had college comp-sci classes where I was the only student.

After my 3 months probation they realized “he’s pretty good” and unexpectedly doubled that.

Worked my way up to lead developer by around 2009 at that job which basically doubled that again.

Pay growth since then has not been nearly as meteoric.

HiroshiSan 7 years ago | |

I remember hearing this as well around the time. Books about globalization coming out left and right.

acconrad 7 years ago |

I'm surprised no one has mentioned that Nick Zakas is an acclaimed author in the JavaScript world. He probably makes a decent amount more from speaking and conferences, but it's still surprising to me that in spite of having multiple books under his belt that was all he was making considering how much of a value add it is just to have his name for whatever company he was working for.

woogiewonka 7 years ago |

Mine for shits and giggles (USD)

2009 - 0 (moved and was living off savings, almost broke)

2010 - 150k (affiliate marketing, self, from home, 3 hours per day worked)

2011 - 24k (just a sliver of affiliate marketing, self, from home, not sure how many hours I worked)

2012 - 42k (SEO contract work, tiny company - part remote, 40 hours a week)

2013 - 42k (SEO contract work, tiny company - part remote, 40 hours a week)

2014 - 55k (marketing at small company - remote, 40 hours a week)

2015 - 75k + fully paid top tier health plan (marketing - large ecommerce company - remote, 40 hours a week)

2016 - 50k (freelance - from home, 20 hours a week)

2017 - 60k (freelance - from home, 20 hours a week)

2018 - Looks to be on track to 100k (consulting - from home, 5-8 hours a week)

For context, 2009 - 2015 I was living in a high cost of living location. Today I live in a very low cost of living location.

leesec 7 years ago | |

Whoa, Can I ask what made you switch from that sick-looking 2010 gig?

woogiewonka 7 years ago | | |

Well, in 2010 I was doing affiliate marketing via Facebook & Adwords. FB made some changes during that time that made it impossible for me to continue. I ran with Adwords for a while but then Google killed of the niche too. This is basically what happens when you trust your livelihood in the hands of other companies that can turn it all off in a second. The income that year was split in half between me and my partner so in total I think we pulled in 300k. It was nice while it lasted but then the real world knocked.

innomansland 7 years ago |

using my throwaway account but have some comment history on my career (i did a Ask HN post on pivoting my "career" last year). I saw someone from Sydney posting their history so I thought I add my perspective from another Australian lurker:

Date - Company ID | Starting Salary | Percentage Increase Role | Role

2005 - Company A | $20/hour | 100%! :) | Part Time Tester

2007 - Company B | $48,000 annual | 20.0% | Graduate Engineer

2009 - Company B | $65,000 annual | 25.0% | Engineer

2010 - Company B | $70,000 annual | 16.7% | Consulting Engineer

2011 - Company B | $78,000 annual | 11.5% | Consulting Engineer

2011 - Company C | $120,000 annual | $53.8% | Engineering Specialist

2012 - Company C | $125,000 annual | 4.2% | Team Lead

2013 - Company C | $128,000 annual | 4.5% | Team Lead

2014 - Company D | $210,000 annual | 64.0% | Solutions Architect

2015 - Company D | $225,000 annual | 7.1% | Solutions Architect

2016 - Company D | $195,000 annual | -1.3% | Solutions Architect

2017 - Company D | $205,000 annual | 5.1% | Solutions Architect

2018 - Company E | $150,000 annual + bonus | -26.8% | Management Position

edit: took out notes since it wasn't relevant and rearranged fields to look more uniform. If you have any questions, on each role, feel free to AMA.

iopuy 7 years ago | |

2014 - same locale or moved to a different cost of living? Congrats, that's a very nice progression.

innomansland 7 years ago | | |

thanks! and good question - same locale but jumped ship to be a contractor.

I was a team lead prior and dealt with a lot of vendors where I was approving their time sheets so I saw how much they were being paid. Told myself.. WTF, why aren't I doing this?? Paid twice as much, way less accountability (parameters of work are all defined per project or per SoW) and I don't have to be stress out about the politics within the company. Also.. as a contractor, my schedule consist of half the time on customer's premises and the other half dealing with internal dev teams which gave me loads of flexibility of WFH.

This is the unfortunate reality for IT positions in any industry in Australia - Full time positions have not many upsides and contracting is the best way you can capture as much $$$ as you can. There are some downsides but upsides outweigh it by a mile!

adasdf_throw 7 years ago |

Straight out of college (all Bay Area companies):

2015: Software Engineer (Company A) 120k + 10k signing bonus + worthless options

2016: Senior Software Engineer (Startup B) 145k + worthless options

2016: Software Engineer (Startup C) 145k + worthless options

2017: Software Engineer (Startup C) 150k + worthless options

2018: Software Engineer (Company D) 150k + 20k signing bonus + 230k RSUs/4 years + 10% performance bonus

jammygit 7 years ago | |

Senior software engineer after one year?

falsedan 7 years ago | | |

At a startup, where the title for your position can be more or less teneously attached to the actual role (e.g. CTO at a two-person startup is more in line with a software engineer at a big company).

throw90210 7 years ago |

Throwaway account. I'm based out of a smaller town with a low cost of living in the north east.

2004 - first job at non tech company - $37.5k

2005 - switched to web design company - $40k

2006 - same company, minor raise - $42k

2007 - same company, minor raise - $44k

2008 - switch company, "senior" dev - $70k

2009 - same company, performance raise - $75k

2010 - switch companies - same pay - $75k

2011 - major performance bonus - $90k

2012 - same company - raise - $95k

2013 - company acquihired by BigCo - raise + bonus = $115k

2014 - promo/performance bonus/stock/retention = $170k

2015 - promo/performance bonus/stock/retention = $195k

2016 - move to new job with old friends = $140k salary + bonus

2017 - same job, salary bump and bonus = $140k

2018 - same job, more salary but less bonus. Way less stress = $130k

Humdeee 7 years ago | |

> Way less stress

Biggest bonus of the whole lot right there. You've done very well.

hanley 7 years ago | |

Do you mind sharing where in the North East? I dream of moving out of Boston but I don't see nearly as many jobs in the other New England towns / small cities.

ksec 7 years ago |

I wish we could offer prestige in these price / number comparison, not only in different currency, but also the tax rate and incentives. Example in US large part of your paid isn't really "Salary", but bonus package. And if we could at least includes median rent and price of a Big Mac.

In location A where you earn 200K a year but requires you to paid 100K in tax, and spend 50K on rental, versus location B where you paid 20K in tax and 20K in Rental, you actually earn a little more in the 100K package.

ivalm 7 years ago | |

At least in the US, the state tax is always relatively small (CA top marginal 13.3%, but effective CA tax will be more around 8-9%). Remember, if you make 200K, you pay as much tax on the first 100K as a person who makes only 100K, you pay more for the second 100K, but that's like icing on the cake.

ksec 7 years ago | | |

13.3% Tax? That low? Are there anything other than State Tax?

throwout31 7 years ago |

Thought I'd share my experience. I went to College for Graphic Design but shifted into programming. I mainly build internal tools/dashboards, mobile apps, training applications, website maintenance. All positions are in central New York State, US (fairly low CoL):

  Tiny (5 person) Company
  2008 - Graphic Design / Web Developer Intern (College) - $100 / week
  2010 - "Senior" Web Developer - $15 / hr

  Low-Mid (120 person) Company - Relocated To Hometown, Previous Employer Closed Business
  2010 - Graphic Designer - $14.86 / hr
  2013 - "Senior" Graphic Designer - $17.00 / hr

  Mid (350+ person) Company
  2014 - Graphic Designer / Web Developer - $46,000 / year + $8,000 bonuses
  2015 - Graphic Designer / Web Developer - $50,000 / year + $8,000 bonuses
  2016 - Software Developer - $70,000 / year + $10,000 bonuses
  2017 - Software Developer (Remote) - $75,000 / year + $10,000 bonuses
  2018 - Software Developer (Remote) - $78,000 / year + $10,000 bonuses

Still living a bit check-to-check due to high college bills, car payments, etc. Will be much more comfortable in a few more years after payoff.

cco 7 years ago |

This doesn't appear to be inflation adjusted, at least I saw no mention of it. Quick math below based on BLS's inflation calculator.

Year Starting $ Inflation Inflation adjusted to 2018

2000 $48,000 1.50 $67,500

2001 $62,500 1.44 $90,000

2001 $68,000? 1.44 $97,920

2003 ?

2005 $82,000? 1.32 $108,240

2006 $115,000 1.27 $146,050

2008 ?

2011 ?

2013 $175,000 1.10 $192,500

2014 $208,000 1.08 $237,600

jacknews 7 years ago | |

Looks like I'm currently on a salary more suited to last century. I'm not in goldrush country though.

ravenstine 7 years ago | | |

That's the thing... most of the information in this thread is useless besides when it's categorized regionally. Some of the salaries posted here appear epic, but could be not that impressive relative to the area.

twtw 7 years ago | |

> I know that my starting salary was $48,000 (about $70,284 in 2018 dollars)

cco 7 years ago | | |

I'm curious where he drew that number from.

seankimdesign 7 years ago |

Wow. It's very interesting to see the salary numbers of the one author whose book jump-started my engineering career. Given his depth of knowledge and his penchant for imparting the said knowledge, I'm actually surprised he wasn't making more. I guess without his health issues, the numbers would likely have been higher. Here's hoping for his quick recovery.

jacquesm 7 years ago | |

Lyme is a terrible disease, more so depending on how long you've had it undiagnosed. I have a case close by that is frankly disturbing to watch, can't imagine what the person is feeling like inside. It's an occupational disease for anybody in the wood processing industry in countries such as Poland.

anon98493 7 years ago |

Salaries all Silicon Valley, not an engineer but in technical marketing/dev-rel (just as a point of reference)

* 2012 - $120,000

* 2014 - $140,000

* 2016 - $160,000

* 2017 - $200,000

* 2018 - $225,000

dshderjndfkdt 7 years ago |

Burner account. Los Angeles. I've worked in the same large public company since college (about 15 years), but have changed roles a few times. I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from a somewhat prestigious regional school. Numbers are approximate but pretty close. I left out options and RSUs because I can't remember them all, but they were typically around $5k-$10k/year with 4 year vesting.

Embedded Firmware V&V:

2003: Software Engineer I. $62k/yr.

2004: Software Engineer II. $75k/yr.

2006: Sr. Software Engineer. $92k/yr.

2007-2010: ?

Rapid prototyping role in same company:

2011: Principal Software Engineer. $130k/year + 10%n bonus.

2012-2016: ?

Mostly a data science role. Company got bought by another large public company.

2017: Staff Software Engineer: $165k/year + 15% bonus + $10k/year RSUs w/ 3 year vest.

2018: Sr. Staff Software Engineer: $170k/year + 15% bonus + $10k/year RSUs w/ 3 year vest.

thundergolfer 7 years ago | |

I might be under a misapprehension, but a 5-6k pay bump for getting to Senior Staff seems low. Isn't it exponentially harder to keep going up levels, but your rate of pay increase went down.

drhfdjdtrjh 7 years ago | | |

(Me again under a different throwaway.)

It was actually a 0% raise when I got my promotion. The $5k was from an annual merit increase beforehand. I'm not complaining too much because I like my work, and as far as I can tell my total compensation is on the far upper end for companies within commuting distance.

ChuckNorris89 7 years ago | |

How did you move from embedded to data science if I may ask. I know it's a urner account but hey :)

drhfdjdtrjh 7 years ago | | |

Me again. Different burner. I doubt you'll read this, but hey. :)

When I was in an embedded role, I had a few years to gain expertise in our product space. Then when I switched to a prototyping role, I had an opportunity to learn all about the so-called "big data" technologies. Over the years I just kept teaching myself more stats and ML, and here I am.

To be honest, I'm trying to shift away from it. Data science seems to be past peak hype, and much of the work tends to be less challenging than more conventional software engineering.

I'm not sure I'd be able to get a data science job outside of the company. I have no academic background in it, and that seems to be a prerequisite for most places. It's a pity, because most of the credentialed data scientists I've worked with have tended to be underwhelming.

ergothus 7 years ago |

Dates and amounts from fallible memory, all in USA. Salary rates made a huge jump when I started changing jobs frequently (which is sad) as well as when I moved to Seattle (after an initial correction, as I came in very "underpaid").

'95-'99: $8/hr as Perl-based "webmaster" in Pennsylvania

'99: $27.5k/year as Coldfusion dev (plus some very mild Oracle work) in Norfolk, VA (3 months at a startup)

'00-'07: Perl Contractor for state govt in Richmond, VA. Hourly, but worked out to $45k/yr, rising to roughly $70k/yr

'07-'12: Java FTE for state govt in Richmond, VA. Started at $81k/year, ended at $90k/yr

'12-'18: Moved to Seattle, WA as JS dev. Started at $90k/yr (+ $10k signing and ~$5k/yr bonus), ended at $187k/yr (+ signing RSU that is probably $30k/yr)

EZ-E 7 years ago |

Meanwhile in the rest of the world outside USA...

burner1 7 years ago | |

14 yrs exp working in same company earning about 21.5k(India) working both front-end and back-end. Still good considering India. But when you see freshers getting 60K plus ...hmm.

JDiculous 7 years ago |

Great article and enjoyed reading your story, but sharing compensation helps everyone who's potentially underpaid, not just women.

Anyways here's mine (non-CS STEM degree in NYC):

- $70k - 5 months - Software engineer (full stack engineer, more backend) at small company. They offered $60k, I asked for $70k and they gave it.

- $100k + 20% bonus - 1.5 years - Software Engineer (full-stack engineer, more frontend) at mid-sized corporation. They asked me what salary I wanted, I said $100k and they gave it.

- $140k - 1 year - Senior Frontend Engineer at startup. Offered $120k, asked for $150k and got $140k.

- $150k + max 15% annual bonus + stock options - 1 year - Lead Engineer, this was a promotion so same company as the last.

My Learnings:

* There are companies that value their engineers and companies that don't (eg. my first company). If you're working for the latter, know sense in staying there long unless you don't mind making less than you would elsewhere. Recognize the company you're working for and the attitude they have towards their engineers (hint: if the president says "we're a sales-driven company" to you in the interview, the company probably views engineering as a cost center).

* Switching companies will almost always make you more money than you would if you stay at your existing company. The only exception might be if you're at a big high-paying tech company that values its engineers (eg. Google), but I never worked at those companies so can't comment.

* Negotiate that initial offer hard. I would've made substantially less at all of my jobs (especially the last one) had I not negotiated. At that point I knew that once I started working, it's very difficult and time consuming to get a raise because you have very little leverage once you start employment, and if you ask for a raise it's awkward and they'll think you're considering jumping ship. So make sure you're happy with your initial offer!

thrawaysarayly 7 years ago |

Living in London just after Uni for 5 year, moved abroad.

2012 - £28k - Software engineer (grad, Software house)

2013 - £35k - Software Engineer (startup)

2015 - £42k - Software Engineer (startup)

2016 - £60k - Software Engineer (startup)

2018 - $66k - Software Engineer. (startup; remote work) Paying around 20% in taxes, but I live in a very low cost area(Central Europe) and my gf has a flat. I have a good quality lifestyle. Unlimited holidays (usually 30 days a year), I work 35h a week, own a new mercedes and can save $25k a year.

2019 - $130k - Software Engineer. (large startup; remote work; 40h/week) (I haven't accepted the offer yet). I have reached the maximum salary that I could get if you normalise for purchasing parity. It's impossible for me to find another job which allow me to save up $70k/year working 40h/week in a low stress environment.

azhenley 7 years ago |

You all should compare these dev salaries to CS professor salaries :)

As a CS professor myself, it is great to know my students can go and be well paid after graduation!

skj 7 years ago | |

You could reveal a sample of CS professor salaries :)

azhenley 7 years ago | | |

In the US, the salaries of most state universities are public (for profs, it will show 9 month salaries). Here is what I found when surveying ~15 states:

A typical salary (9 month appointment + 2 months of summer salary) is 110k-140k. Summer salary is dependent on getting grants though. Plus you get a “startup account” to cover travel, equipment, and student salaries. State workers may also get nice benefits like a pension.

So, as a CS prof you actually live quite well except in big cities. From my survey, prof salaries don’t scale with expensive cost of living areas.

YorickPeterse 7 years ago |

Here's my information, all jobs were in The Netherlands and were software engineering jobs. All salaries are per year, including holiday allowance:

June 2010 - Dec 2012: junior at company A. Started with €13 650, at age 18. By December 2012 this was €19 500

Dec 2012 - Oct 2015: intermediate at company B. Started with €25 805. By October 2015 this was €37 102.

Oct 2015 - present: Company C (GitLab). Started with €36 400 (for 4 days a week), for an intermediate position. Currently this is €58 630, for 5 days a week, for the staff engineer position.

Income taxes for me have always been between 30% and 35%, which today translates to receiving roughly €3000 in the bank every month. My monthly recurring costs (groceries, mortgage, etc) are around €1300 per month.

andrewdon 7 years ago |

http://h1bme.com/?employer=BOX%2c%20INC.&job_title=&page=63&...

shawndumas 7 years ago |

to get better numbers you can use your social security info.

https://www.ssa.gov/myaccount/

germanyhater 7 years ago |

No country is worse than Germany for software developers. Even the guy from India in this thread earns 2-3x more than usual senior salary in Germany, but expenses are 10x higher here. I really hate this country.

_petronius 7 years ago | |

Don't get too wowed by lots of zeroes without context. When I moved from London to Berlin, my salary barely changed on paper (45k GBP to 47k EUR), but my quality of life went way up and cost of living way down.

The best thing these salary comparisons are for are with reference to the same country/city; otherwise you have to account for thinks like healthcare costs, differences in rent, expected working hours, holiday time, etc etc.

I seriously doubt that 100k USD in the Bay Area is significantly better than 50-60k in Berlin.

sumedh 7 years ago | |

> Even the guy from India in this thread earns 2-3x more than usual senior salary

To be fair that guy is like the 1% of IT in India, majority of Indians working in IT (most of them in IT outsourcing companies) dont make high salaries.

BigJono 7 years ago | |

From one of the other comments it sounds like the UK is much worse.

Aeolun 7 years ago | |

Move to India?

romanovcode 7 years ago | |

Why don't you leave then?

germanyhater 7 years ago | | |

I will leave in 6 months.

ChuckNorris89 7 years ago |

Bachelor's degree 2012

1) 2012-2014: Firmware engineer in Romania for Automotive sector $14K

Master's degree 2014

2) 2014 - 2016: Firmware engineer in Austria for Semiconductor sector $50K

3) 2016 - 2018: Firmware enginner in Austria for IoT in Retail electronics $59K

tasuki 7 years ago | |

Before taxes? Vienna or a smaller city? Austria seems not so great for software devs...

thereauaway 7 years ago |

Throwaway.

2010-2014 in college. Contract work for a startup, approx 50 dollars per hour.

2015 worked full time for the startup, 100k salary no stock.

2016 moved to SV for FAANG company 1, negotiated well, 220k total comp.

2017 stayed at company 1. Signing bonus was very large, so total comp dropped to 190k depsite raise.

2018 moved to FAANG company 2. Negotiated well, total comp 300k.

Roughly 45% increase per year. I think I was able to negotiate well in both my job changes because I was happy with my current job and not in need of a new one. So I was able to ask for my ideal compensation, and I was not afraid to walk away.

zdgsg 7 years ago | |

Any tips on negotiation at FANG corps?

thereauaway 7 years ago | | |

I don't consider myself an expert at all, but the way I approached it is that I went in knowing roughly what it would take for me to move, and expecting that they wouldn't match it. So I was comfortable asking for that amount even expecting them to not be able to meet it, and I was comfortable rejecting offers that didn't meet it. And so then when they did meet it, it was a pleasant surprise.

I think most of what people talk about "negotiating skills" or "driving a hard bargain" is pretending to be in this situation despite it not being true. But in my case I genuinely was in this situation, so I did not have to use a lot of skill (besides the mental aspect of being confident in how I felt)

throwaway487548 7 years ago | |

Which language(s)?

thereauaway 7 years ago | | |

Java at startup. C++ and python at bigcorps.

fwiwsalary 7 years ago |

Burner account, all in USD

  1995 - $10/hr web developer at NYC area digital agency, paid high school intern
  1996 - $15/hr - raise
  1997 - $20/hr - raise
  1999 - $70k salary - web developer at NYC digital agency, sys admin
  2001 - $110k salary - raise, promoted to VP engineering
  -- in here started doing a lot of freelance work on the side, eventually doubling my income with salary + freelance work
  2005 - $250k/yr+ in contract / consulting work - many clients
  2006 - $325k/yr + $50k bonus + equity as CTO at startup
  2007 - $340/yr + $75k bonus - raise
  2008 - Exited above at buyout incl sale of equity
  2008 - $200k/yr in contract / consulting work, 2 main clients - partial year
  2009 - $350k/yr in contract / consulting work, 2 main clients
  -- came to realize that all the hustle was not worth the dough and shifted to a balanced work/life --
  2010 - $180k/yr salary, VP engineering at NY media company
  2011 - $140k/yr salary + sick bonus and benefits at NY finance firm
  2014 - $175k/yr salary + variable bonus, CTO remote work at a digital agency
  2015 - $180k/yr - raise

I worked my ass off for that 2005-2009 period, risking a lot in work-life balance. I now enjoy a very nice and even-keeled work-life balance and lifestyle with my family doing what I love.

coding123 7 years ago |

What kind of work is being performed by those at the 200k level? machine learning or just like react, etc?

marcell 7 years ago | |

I'd look at it from a different perspective. A low-level SWE salary might be $120k, and the all-in cost of employment might be $160k (benefits, taxes, office space, lunches, etc.). For a senior person, the base salary might be $200k, and the all-in cost might be $260k. So how does the senior person justify that extra $100k?

Well, they just have to output about 2x more impact. In my experience, it is not very hard to be 2x more impactful than a junior engineer. This is not meant to be arrogant, just that it's very easy for a junior engineer to waste time on useless stuff. In some cases junior (or bad) engineers will be 10x or 50x slower than they should be. I've seen some really bad examples in my 10 year career.

For example at my last job, a team of 2 engineers was using the wrong tool for a task, and this resulted in them taking 5x longer to deliver a worse product than alternates. I was able to do the same thing as them, but deliver much faster and at lower cost.

In other cases, junior engineers will make poor decisions, or write bad code that needs to be refactored later. This can be simple things like thinking on the wrong layer of abstraction. Refactoring the bad code is effectively 10x slower than doing it right the first time.

In all, I think paying an extra $100k for a good engineer is a real bargain for companies, because the impact can be so huge. The real challenge is figuring out who is a legit senior engineer.

trolleyhacker 7 years ago | | |

Thanks to you, I've learned that I don't suffer from imposter syndrome. I just suck.

chx 7 years ago | |

I summarize my extra value succintly: I have already made the mistake you are about to make.

akhilcacharya 7 years ago | |

My friend is making about that as a new grad at a trading company.

He writes performant React code for high-speed table rendering. I know another guy making about that much at FB as a new grad. He works on Messenger games.

jiveturkey 7 years ago |

This kind of thread (and blog post) always intrigues me. What causes people to share their salaries like this? Your individual case is not interesting. Aggregate data is interesting.

mysalaryhere 7 years ago |

I'll add my salary. I am a white male. I began my first salaried position when I was 18, with an Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts. I taught myself to write code in my teens. Prior to this position, I had worked for a fly-by-night startup remotely for $10/hour for about 3 months. I took these jobs in the state of Michigan.

  2014 - $50,000/year  - Software Engineer     - Company A
  2015 - $72,000/year  - Software Engineer     - Company A (raise)
  2016 - $80,000/year  - Software Engineer     - Company A (raise)
  2016 - $88,000/year  - Software Engineer II  - Company B (new job; $5,000 signing bonus)
  2017 - $92,000/year  - Software Engineer II  - Company B (raise)
  2018 - $98,000/year  - Software Engineer II  - Company B (raise)
  2018 - $110,000/year - Software Engineer III - Company B (promotion)

At Company A, I was offered stock options at my start date which became worthless by the time they vested. I later received RSUs in 2015 which began vesting after a 1-year cliff, to the tune of ~$10,000/year.

At Company B, I was offered various stock options and RSUs pre-exit. When the company was acquired in 2018, they became worth ~$9,600/year.

Additionally, Company B offered a bonus program worth approximately 10% of my salary each year.

inlineformodel3 7 years ago |

My path:

2011 - $900 biweekly UX internship

2012 - $1200 biweekly web dev internship

2013 - $1700 biweekly web dev internship

2014 - $55k salary full time web developer

2015, 2016 - $65k full time web developer

2017 - $80k full time web developer (+ stock options)

2018 - raise at existing job to $84k

jiveturkey 7 years ago |

Wow, talk about being underpaid. $220k for principal architect at $BOX? Note that he received stock options, not RSUs, so the value of equity was very very small (strike price is necessarily very close to IPO price that close to IPO). That's 30% less than a senior comp at FAANG, and $BOX may as well be FAANG for all the "enterprisey" things that would be in place at a company that size.

Principal anything should be in the $700k total comp range, if not more.

laluser 7 years ago | |

Titles are not standard across the industry. Also, comparing Box, which has had a mostly flat stock price, to FAANG is a bit unfair. Most of the FAANGs have done really well over the past few years, so when you hear about compensation, people will often quote you their expected comp. Netflix and Facebook are probably the only true outliers though.

jiveturkey 7 years ago | | |

The base comp at FAANG for principal is double his total comp.

TheHegemon 7 years ago | |

That was definitely surprising to me. Also, after checking his about me I realized it Nicholas Zakas! I learned so much about giant Javascript apps because of his books!

It really shows how much negotiation actually does matter.

throwawayForMe2 7 years ago |

Throw away ID and first post. Some perspective from an old timer. All in the NYC financial disctrict. While finishing my college BS degree I was working at a major bank doing data entry, at the end supervising a night time data entry crew. This bank ran an internal training program for programmers, I applied and and started programming full time for them.

- 1987-1992 43k-60k programmer Bank 1 (IBM mainframe, cobol, 370 assembler, IMS, CICS)

- 1992-1997 60k- 80k senior programmer Bank 2 (was actually lucky enough to work in Smalltalk for the first 5 years here)

- 1997-2017 80k-221k various titles Bank 2 - java and the internet killed smalltalk and the project we were working on, the technology group jumped on java and we had many years of work converting mainframe apps to java apps.

Played many roles from leading a small team all new to java including myself, up to architecting and building the shared components and shared architecture for 45 J2EE applications. Was let go after 24 years there in yet one more reorg/RIF 1 year after the last major mainframe app was migrated.

I am retired now, and feel lucky to have been able to have an interesting and challenging “normal” career with 2 large stable companies, with pensions, with matched 401k, etc.

throw20181031 7 years ago |

Saint Petersburg, Russia.

  2013-2014     ???                                       Literally pennies while doing odd jobs for random people on the internet.
  2015-2016     $3600             Asp.net developer       Working for a sub-sub-sub contractor on some government project. AFAIK, it has never been shipped to production.
  2016-2017     $12000            Xamarin developer       Small local company that went out of business due to Russian financial crisis [1]
  2017-2018     $25000            .NET developer          Large company(~600 franchise offices) focused on the local market
  2018-now      $36000 -> $32000  Full stack developer    Large outsourcing company, US-based customer.
                                                          Salary has decreased since it's bound to RUB and the exchange rate fell by about 10%.

Income tax is flat 13%, most likely I'll get it fully refunded for this year.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_financial_crisis_(2014...

milliondollar 7 years ago |

Wow, I'm actually shocked on seeing the low salaries on here. Having been on the hiring side for small projects (using mostly Upwork), I have had a really hard time finding quality for < $50 / hour for pretty basic crud development. That pencils out to ~$100k a year.

Maybe I'd have better luck hiring someone full time for $50k, and just fill the pipeline? Would love any thoughts on best moves here.

nathancanine 7 years ago | |

Here's a thought. I'm interested in picking up some contracting work again and my recurring work rate is $50/hr. I'm a senior developer who currently does Sysadmin, dbadmin, and leads development and architecture of our start up's software.

Oh I just realized ycomb doesn't have plans capability. Could you PM me on Reddit where my username is homebrewingcoder .

eximius 7 years ago | | |

You should probably quadruple that rate, my friend. Contracting should not be at the same rate as salaried.

ascar 7 years ago |

Is it some kind of being nice telling people they are underpaid all the time just because someone else earns more? Let's be frank: Level of skill, experience (not just measured in years), productivity and (kinda important for salary and promotions) self-presentation vary greatly among employees. In a knowledge-based role like software engineer these make a huge impact on quality and quantity of work. Thus it's only natural in a free market that some individuals earn more and some less.

Salary isn't just a function of [years of experience] * [COL]. The majority is not skilled enough in some trait to make it into the high paying jobs or companies. It might not feel like that on HN, but this is a very selected/biased group of people. Statistically speaking not only are 50% above the average, 50% are below. This is not only true for salary, but for everything including skill etc.

Let's not forget that FAANG also make ridiculous margins and can afford to pay that well and pick every employee from hundreds of applications. That's also impossible for most traditional companies. A lot of big companies run between 200k-300k$ revenue per employee and not 1million. It's impossible for them to pay these wages (especially as revenue does not equal money available for salaries).

Am I saying that skill and productivity are always in line with salary? No. But it doesn't help to tell everyone paid less they are underpaid. Maybe they just lack some kind of skill and even if it's just the ability to correctly market their value, solve coding challenges in interviews or network into better positions. They might never earn the high figures and it really doesn't help to make them feel bad about it (granted this comment also isn't cheerful, but it's aimed at the people calling "underpaid" all the time)

MbjE4VdAecL 7 years ago |

Burner account, obviously.

YOE -- Title/Role -- Employer Designation -- Salary in USD pre-tax

0 -- IT Contractor -- Various/Subbed -- $55000

2 -- IT Contractor -- Various/Subbed -- $190000

3 -- Help Desk Tech -- Employer A -- $24000

5 -- Systems Admin -- Employer B -- $64000

7 -- Operations Engineer -- Employer B -- $83000

9 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer B -- $115000

11 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer D -- $135000

13 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer E -- $155000

14 -- Product Manager -- Employer F -- $124000

czguy 7 years ago |

Burner account

An ex-USSR white male moved to Prague, the Czech Republic a few years ago

7+ YOE as SWE

All numbers further are denominated in USD (they use Czech Crowns or CZK).

2018: $77k (current)

$40k/year is my take-home

$57k/year is what is negotiated and put in the contract as a monthly salary (some taxes are split between an employee and the employer)

$77k/year is a total cost for the employer (includes income taxes, social security and healthcare)

(EDIT: formatting)

ben_straub 7 years ago |

OK, I'll do it. White male, living in Portland, Oregon. All my roles are software engineering.

- 2004-2006: $40-45k. Writing C in an embedded context (barcode scanners). Local company. - 2006-2011: $50k-70k. Writing C++ for device drivers and control panels. Japanese company, local subsidiary. - 2011-2012: $80k. C# and SQL Server for an FBA/eBay selling tool, local company. - 2012-2014: $130-145k. Working remotely for an SF company, writing C. Got some stock options which were worth 2 years of salary when the company was recently acquired. - 2014-2016: $125-130k. VC-funded all-remote startup which didn't really go anywhere. - 2016-present: $140k salary, yearly RSU grants worth about $50k at our current stock price. Public SF company.

None of these companies has required more than 40 hours of work each week, and starting in 2012 I've never had a vacation accrual or cap, and I usually take ~5 weeks off each year. I've been lucky.

ben_straub 7 years ago | |

Whoops, terrible formatting.

- 2004-2006: $40-45k. Writing C in an embedded context (barcode scanners). Local company.

- 2006-2011: $50k-70k. Writing C++ for device drivers and control panels. Japanese company, local subsidiary.

- 2011-2012: $80k. C# and SQL Server for an FBA/eBay selling tool, local company.

- 2012-2014: $130-145k. Working remotely for an SF company, writing C. Got some stock options which were worth 2 years of salary when the company was recently acquired.

- 2014-2016: $125-130k. VC-funded all-remote startup which didn't really go anywhere.

- 2016-present: $140k salary, yearly RSU grants worth about $50k at our current stock price. Public SF company.

x90byte 7 years ago |

No college, certs only.

2003-2006 SysAdmin $30k in FL. (No certs) as an FTE.

2006-2012 Netadmin $35k in FL. (a+, net+, sec+) as an FTE.

2012 SysEng $85k in OR. (CEH v7) as contractor at Intel.

2013 Pentester $110k in OR. as contractor at Intel.

2014 Security Analyst $150k in OR. Contractor at local power company.

2015 Sr. Security Analyst $120k in OR as FTE at insurance company.

2016 SecEng $170k in OR as FTE at aws

2017 SecEng $210k in OR as FTE at aws. (OSCP)

2018 SecEng $245k in OR as FTE at aws.

sjg007 7 years ago | |

How do you like AWS? You seem to have done really well there recently.

kspaans 7 years ago |

I studied at UWaterloo and had many internships from 2007-2010 for which I forget the pay I was making, but I remember all of my full-time amounts (I started with around 2 years of work experience):

2012-2013: RIM/Blackberry in Waterloo, Canada: CAD 70,000, no bonus or stock, 15 days of vacation or so, 40h per week, software developer

2014-2016: YourGolfTravel in London, UK: GBP 41,000 first year, GBP 43,000 second year, no bonus or stock, 20 days vacation or so, 40h per week, software developer

2016-2017: Green Chef in Mountain View, California: USD 125,000 first year, USD 135,000 when I got promoted to team lead in mid 2017, $8k worth of stock options (post round B I believe, ~0.04%), "unlimited vacation", really crap health insurance, 40h per week with some long days from being on-call with time-off-in-lieu given, software developer

2017-present: software developer & architect at TELUS digital in Toronto, Canada, for not less than I was paid in the US

grecy 7 years ago | |

> 2017-present: software developer & architect at TELUS digital in Toronto, Canada, for not less than I was paid in the US

Huh, it's good to know Telcos in Canada will pay Software People well.

I worked in Software for a wholly owned subsidiary of Bell and the IT staff were paid a tiny fraction of your US salary.

WhatTelcoWages 7 years ago | | |

Unfortunately, it depends where in said telco you're working. As someone who works for the same telco as GP but in a different (non-telecom related) branch, people here get paid peanuts. TELUS Digital is an interesting case, since it's smaller, has more autonomy and is better-funded (when you divide by the number of employees, of course) than most other parts of the company. Want to work for any other branch? You're back to bottom-of-the-barrel salaries (not quite offset by other compensation), BigCo bureaucracy and a velocity rivaling that of molasses.

I happen to live in an only moderately-high CoL area too, not sure how people make ends meet in Vancouver, Toronto etc. on similar salaries. It's saying something when government orgs in the same industry are paying more (with better benefits to boot!)

CanadaThrow87 7 years ago | | |

Burner accnt.

I worked in software in the media arm of Rogers (Toronto downtown HQ) and was also paid about half of what OP is getting at Telus...

No bonus. 2% increase a year pending a good review.

kspaans 7 years ago | | |

TELUS digital is hiring! https://labs.telus.com/careers

hiker512 7 years ago |

To add one more:

Germany, Hannover

Roughly two years out of university, but worked part time all the time and took a while to finish my master in CS. Lots of knowledge in ML and DL.

Pay is 53k for a position at the university and will be 56k with 38h weeks next year. (Don't ask me for the hours at the university, thinking about it will make me cry) And the regular 30 vacation days.

hiker512 7 years ago | |

Forgot to mention. That is before taxes and in euro.

Roughly 2450 euro per month each. One with having 12.6 and the other 14 payments over the year

julius_set 7 years ago |

Middle eastern male,

2014-2015: Consulting gig while in college, initial $10,000 bid. Signed Maintenence contract for $60/hr ~ $125,000 / year

Ended up with $34K total earned due to me studying as a full time student.

2015: First real job in SF California at startup. $110,000, $5K sign on.

2016: Promoted to $125,000

2018: Received offer for $180,000, counter offered to $180,000, took counter offer.

denmark_throw 7 years ago |

My history in Denmark, pre-tax converted to € per year. Titles are not really saying much. Most companies I've been at threw titles around.

2009 - Developer - 40 000€ 2010 - IT-Consultant - 56 000€ 2014 - Developer - 61 000€ 2015 - Senior Tech Lead - 67 500€ 2017 - Senior Engineer - 72 300€ 2018 - Lead Developer - 80 400€

roadkill149 7 years ago |

From East Europe to Central Europe.

  2012 - Junior web developer         - 6k  / Year Euro       - Romania (small outsourcing company)
  2013 - Junior web developer         - 11k / Year Euro       - Romania (same small outsourcing company)
  2014 - Software Dev                 - 13K / Year Euro       - Romania (bigger outsourcing company)
  2015 - Senior Software Dev          - 15K / Year Euro       - Romania (outsourcing, the it dep of a german company)
  2016 - Senior Software developer    - 70k / Year Euro       - Germany, Berlin, very early stage startup
  2017 - Senior Software Engineer     - 70K / Year Euro       - Germany, Berlin, medium international fintech company
  2018 - Senior Software Engineer     - 65K / Year Euro       - Germany, Berlin, medium german company

anon8056 7 years ago |

After completing a CS degree from a tier 1 school:

  1999 $55k  Developer for Internet consulting firm
       $72k  after promotion to Sr Developer
  2000 $90k  Lead developer at small SaaS startup in flyover country
       $100k after promotion to Technical Architect
  2002       laid off during dot-com bust
  2003 $90k+$20k bonus Developer at Wall St. firm
  2005 $110k+$20k bonus Developer at another Wall St. firm 
  2006 $120k+$40k bonus Developer at another Wall St. firm
  2008 $90k  Sr Developer at line-of-business software company in

flyover country, raises to $130k with promotions to Principal Software Architect over 8 years 2015 $155k Sr Data Engineer at CA-based SaaS startup 2016 $165k Sr Data Engineer at East Coast startup 2017 $185k Sr Software Engineer at CA-based software company

qa_guy 7 years ago |

As a career-long deaf white male SDET / QA Automation Engineer:

- 2013: $70000 + 3% bonus, freshly graduated with BS in CompSci, worked at big corporation in east coast

- 2014: $72000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above

- 2015: $74000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above

- 2016: $77000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above

- 2017: $80000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above

- 2017: $87000 + 0% bonus, moved to the midwest and worked at a startup, recruiter told me I'd get a bonus but turns out it's only for higher-ups or something (wasn't happy about this but still here)

- 2018: $90000 + 0% bonus (something like 3% raise), same company as above

Overall I don't know whether I should be happy with this. It's good pay and it's a medium COL in both places where I lived on east coast and in the midwest and I keep my expenses low, but I frequently read huge salaries on HackerNews, CSCareerQuestions and such. I am very effective in my QA manual and automation test duties and catch nearly everything no matter how obscure, so a lot of my colleagues value me. However, the frequent low raises and low salary jumps tell me maybe I should just stop QA altogether and do development instead which would be an easy transition because I mostly work in development side for my QA test suites.

In summary, 5 years of my career has netted me a total raise of 28.5% from $70k to $90k with no stock options or bonus or anything. Am I doing it wrong? I've also never directly asked for a raise - am I supposed to do this? I asked a few colleagues and they said they never asked for a raise and were just given what they're given. I do not know my colleague's salaries past what's posted on Glassdoor.

S_A_P 7 years ago |

The rates in my field are pretty public.

2008 first “real” .net developer job after being the internal guy at several jobs. -85k Left that in 2010 for an etrm startup(though it was 15 years in business at that time) - 100k plus 1000 options. After an acquisition I got about 1.25 per share and left in 2011. Did odd senior .net dev jobs for a year at ~115k no benefits In 2012 joined etrm consulting start up for 130k. Left at ~140k.

Joined larger consulting company in 2014 for 160k with ~10% bonus.

Left and did indie etrm consulting in 2016 and bill at 140-200 per hour depending on terms. Have consistently been about 85-90% utilized on average. I feel like I am nearing the limit of what a year of working a job can generate. If I want to increase my wealth it would be via equity in a business. That’s the next goal.

throwaway19435 7 years ago |

I'm from South Africa. I've got 100% in the HackerRank test, and considered very good. My salary history is pretty depressing in comparison to others, although I was blissful in my ignorance until I met people who were open to talking about their salaries.

2008-1 Y0E-$12,000-Software Dev

2009-2 Y0E-$15,500-Software Dev

2010-3 Y0E-$17,000-Software Dev

2011-4 Y0E-$19,000-Software Dev

2012-5 Y0E-$23,000-Snr Software Dev

2013-6 Y0E-$27,500-Snr Software Dev

2014-7 Y0E-$31,000-Snr Software Dev

2015-8 Y0E-$34,000-Snr Software Dev

2016-9 Y0E-$43,000-Snr Software Dev

2017-10 Y0E-$54,000-Snr Software Dev

2018-11 Y0E-$63,500-Snr Software Dev

Average rent per year is about $8,500.

Average house cost is about $142,000 with interest rate of 10% pa.

Income tax rate is about 40%.

My biggest problem was working at the same company for about 9 years, cause after that my salary almost doubled. I'm seriously considering emigrating though, I'm working too hard and my savings are paltry.

mistermann 7 years ago | |

This may cheer you up a bit, your salary vs cost-of-living ratios are far better a typical senior dev would enjoy in Vancouver or Toronto Canada, people here would love to be able to buy the average house outright for 3.7x after tax income. It would take you something like 6x or 7x after tax income just to get a 500 sqft bachelor suite.

Choose where you immigrate to carefully!

codemonkeythrow 7 years ago |

I'm probably the lowest paid person in the whole thread.

2015 - $40,000 USD - remote for a small company

2017 - $32,000 USD - on-site for a tiny company

2018 - $33,000 USD - remote for another small company

I was asked what my current salary is during one of my on-site interviews at FAANG. I had to put on a poker face and lie about it.

adarsh_thampy 7 years ago | |

Curious to know why you decided to take a pay cut.

And you mentioned that you lied during the interview regarding your salary. In India, companies usually ask for 3 months salary slip as proof. Does it not happen in the country where you work?

codemonkeythrow 7 years ago | | |

I was laid off from the $40,000 job due to downsizing, then I spent a few months job hunting, so I was extremely happy about getting a new job, regardless of the salary.

Lying about my salary was a huge gamble, I guess. But since the FAANGs are based in the US and I wasn't, I was counting on them not asking for the IRS tax returns since I obviously didn't have one.

dbetteridge 7 years ago | | |

Don't know about elsewhere but that's a huuuuge no-no in Australia.

theandrewbailey 7 years ago | |

> I'm probably the lowest paid person in the whole thread.

Maybe. Where do you live?

codemonkeythrow 7 years ago | | |

Turns our I'm not the lowest. This Indian guy got me beat: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18343659

>Where do you live?

Southeast Asia where my total annual expenditure is less than $10k USD. Thanks to this I'm putting more than 50% of my gross salary into my retirement savings. Despite my low salary I probably have higher net worth than most HNers.

cananon 7 years ago |

2010-2016 Web / Mobile app developer $35K - $47.5K

Living in a small Canadian city makes it hard to gauge how much I should be making.. I haven't worked in 2yrs due to mental illnesses (mostly aspergers), I wouldn't know how to explain my situation at interviews either..

anonnybonny 7 years ago |

Indian guy - currently a freelancer

2002 - First job about 3000$ a year

2005 - Started freelaicing - about 8000$ a year

2018 - About 42000$ a year before taxes

I get paid in INR, even though I contract for a small company in the US, so the inflation eats away the growth - on the other hand, I work from home, and it takes maybe 3 to 4 hours a day (at most) to complete my tasks.

Some weeks go by with hardly anything to do but minor bug fixes and UI tweaks. Great employers, autonomy, interesting work.

In terms of purchasing power I feel very blessed that I make more than an average US citizen, while living in a country where things cost 1/5 compared to the US.

People of my caliber and experience make about 3 times more than me in regular 9 to 7 tech jobs. Very few remain "coders" after more than 10 years in the industry.

curtain_length 7 years ago |

New Zealand, mixture of salary and freelance, for domestic companies. Excludes employer superannuation contributions and non-cash compensation (not high).

The USD comparison is not very useful as NZDUSD has varied wildly in this time, betwen 0.4 and 1.0, currently 0.65.

I've never worked more than 40 hours a week on average as an employee, the $200k+ years are where I worked more hours as a contractor usually.

  2005	39k NZD		26k USD   
  2006	48k NZD		31k USD  
  2007	35k NZD		23k USD
  2008	61k NZD		40k USD
  2009	98k NZD		64k USD
  2010	144k NZD	93k USD
  2011	182k NZD	119k USD
  2012	206k NZD	134k USD
  2013	171k NZD	111k USD
  2014	196k NZD	127k USD
  2015	218k NZD	142k USD
  2016	173k NZD	112k USD
  2017	174k NZD	113k USD

shubb 7 years ago |

I feel like something went a bit wierd with my wages compared so some people here.

Not level - that's about geography and company and other factors. But in progression.

I have never asked for or recieved a pay rise, although I have been offered retention money.

That said, it might just be the industry, colleagues talked about similar numbers.

2008 - £24k - Junior Electronic Engineer (C++/embeded)- Large engineering corp (2 years)

2010 - £20k - Software Engineer (C#/embedded)- Small engineering firm (1 year)

2011 - Studied masters

2012 - £22k - Software engineer (C++/C#/web)- Small software product house (2 years)

2014 - £28k - Software Engineer (C++/embedded) - large aerospace company (6 months)

2015 - £25k - Freelancing - Android apps

2016 - £30k - Software Engineer - Data proccessing

2017 - £52k - Data Architect - Data proccessing

jacknews 7 years ago | |

Even 8 years ago, £20k ($26k ish) seems extremely low for a developer in a "rich" western nation.

Is embedded development really that poorly paid? I'm quite interested in it myself, but not for that kind of money.

roel_v 7 years ago | | |

"Is embedded development really that poorly paid?"

At least in Belgium and the Netherlands it is, yes. I've interviewed a few times for roles like that, and they were always poorly paid and very depressing looking (like one guy beaming 'this will be your workspace!', pointing to an ancient pc on the edge of a lab table with a chair with holes in it. I think since the electronics guys didn't have chairs, that was the comfy position in the company?)

Rinzler89 7 years ago | |

If I may ask, how did you move from embedded to data processing? I'm interested in doing a similar move since the market for embedded is really poor in Europe and shows no signs of getting better.

shubb 7 years ago | | |

Kinda late but maybe you'll read it - I went back to uni and did a masters in medical data, and I ended up doing that. The first job I took was a poorly paid government statistics job, and I went in as a junior after like 5 years programming, so it wasn't an easy decision.

throwawaydevops 7 years ago |

Jan 2018 - First permanent job out of college: "dev/ops engineer" - (Basically: help with docker stuff, manage all CI/CD, some Linux sysadmin stuff, misc SRE stuff, and occasionally some Rails development or other web dev tasks as needed).

$62,000. Rarely more than 40 hours/week, never/rarely weekend/evening work, and generous PTO (5+ weeks of vacation + legal holiday + sick leave).

Previous work was 3 years as a student linux sysadmin working for a research department on campus, and then a contract position with them after I graduated for ~6 months before I found a permanent job.

US - Midwest. White. Male. Born in '92. Took me a while to get through college.

fractal_rose 7 years ago |

I'm a front-end Dev based in FL who works 100% remote. Mostly HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and liquid. Usually nothing too crazy. Mostly making custom hand-coded brochure type sites for a smaller but growing company. Started at $60k and increased to $65k after a year. I've only been coding for about 3 years. No formal education. All self-taught after discovering a passion for code. After 2 years with my current company, I'll be looking to branch out to find something more challenging (full-stack) with higher pay but I think so far where I am at is a decent place to start considering I got here without a cs degree.

burn1540907206 7 years ago |

Let me add to the sharing:

A developer, EU, central-europe country with a single room flat rent around 500$.

2011-2012 - 4k$/ year - QA engineer intern in fortune 500 corp (part-time) 2012-2014 - 10k$/year - QA engineer (part-time) 2014-2016 - 20k$/year - QA engineer 2016-2018 - 30k$/year - Senior QA engineer 2018- - 36k$/year - Backend engineer, 3 day weekends, but some on-call duty

I would like to figure out how to get to one of those 100k$/year jobs in reasonably close future :-) Not sure how would I justify that just now with my current skill-set (unless somebody really wanted somebody specialized on QA :)

JimboOmega 7 years ago |

For Me It Looks like (each representing a different company)

98-05 - various internships over summers $10-$15/hrish

2005 - $56K, employee stock purchase plan worth maybe $5K

2007 - $0 (try to launch startup)

2008 - $80Kish, no stock (Senior Software Engineer)

2011 - $95Kish (ended just over $100K), worthless options (Software Engineer)

2013 - Moved To Bay Area, $110K, worthless options, tiny startup (Software Engineer), end at $120K as Lead Software Engineer

2014ish - $140K, probably worthless options, slightly larger startup (Senior Software Engineer)

2017-present $165K->$175K, definitely larger startup, actually worth something options (at least in the money, but pre-IPO so no immediate value). ( Senior Software Engineer)

c20181031 7 years ago |

1998 - $39k - Consultant - large co

1999 - $60k - Sr. Consultant

2000 - $85k, 5k options - Sr. Consultant - startup #1

2001 - $90k - Sr. Engineer

2002 - $95k, OTE $130k - Sales engineering

2005 - $110k, 10k options, OTE $200k - Sales engineering mgr - startup #2

2007 - $80k - own startup

2010 - $400k - acquisition, $200/hr consulting

2012 - $450k - $215/hr consulting

2015 - $500k - $225/hr consulting

2017 - $400k, $100k starting - eng leadership - bigco

2018 - $200k, $500k OTE, stock rsu - sales - bigco

Net - more salary growth in sales, also more risk. technical sales (sales engineering) roles are hot commodity if you can code and do devops. good intro to carrying a bag. consulting is a good option if you move from technical sales and have a good network.

regular_dev34 7 years ago |

The salaries are somewhat reflective of where you work and how good was your interview. And of course you have to love what you do. 2010 . 72 . (East Coast) 2011 . 78 . (East Coast) 2012 . 84 (East Coast) 2013 . 88 . (East Coast) 2014 . 96 . (East Coast) 2014 . 135 . CA 2017 . 210 + 20 CA 2018 . 185 + 30 + 60 CA 2018 . 195 +25 + ? CA

I try not to work more than 40 hrs a week. Ironically people are more happy when I am working lesser cause it seems to ease everyone. I have been able to get offers as high as 350K for base salary but honestly they scare me.

rootusrootus 7 years ago |

I don't remember my total history exactly (yearly increments especially), but it went something like this...

- 1999: 32K, sysadmin, tiny ISP

- 2000: 48K, sysadmin, small telecom co

- 2002-2013: 65K->105K, sysadmin->developer, small telecom

- 2014-2018: 120K->140K, developer, medium sized co

This is all in Portland Oregon, and does not include bonus or stock numbers. Having recently been a manager for a while, I'm paid slightly higher than average for an experienced developer at my company. I'm in the process of looking for my next gig. Mostly because I'm bored, not because I'm looking for more money.

anonymousJim12 7 years ago |

White male, middling state university CS, Software Engineer track, US east coast HCOL cities. Never more than a straight 40h/wk.

    2006-2009 - small co                                  - 40k -> 50k
    2009      - took a year off to travel                 - 0k
    2009-2011 - small co                                  - 65k -> 80k
    2011-2012 - stereotypical startup                     - 100k
    2012      - Tried to start a software co              - 0k
    2013-2018 - non-unicorn medium co                     - 105k -> 175k

memyselfi66 7 years ago |

Not many ops or 40+ answers. White male only high school educated. Self taught CS.

Here is mine from an ops management perspective. Missouri.

$30K 88-89 - Progress database developer Insurance $50K 89-94 - Citi started as technical support ended up LAN Manager $60K 94-96 - Independent Consultant for PC sellers doing LAN/WAN installations $65K 96-97 - National reseller as Systems Engineer Manager $100K - 99-09 National telecom company as international call center technical manager $150K - 09 to current VP of IT for legal software company responsible for ops and development

alexis_fr 7 years ago |

White male, graduated from quite a good school in France in 2006. Wages in gross, 33% tax on it. And the employer also pays 33% tax on gross, for social insurances.

- 2006: 36k€, Java/js dev in Luxembourg/banking

- 2007-2010: 35k€, Java dev in France, service company,

- 2011-2013: 70k$, Java dev in Australia

- 2014: Startup founder (France), 30k€

- 2015: Startup founder, 50k€,

- 2016: Startup founder, 60k€

- 2017: Startup founder, 70k€

I feel like a failure, compared to all my friends and people on HN who show high salaries for engineers, but I suppose we only see wages of the successful ones, and I reckon I’m super angry with life which is a vicious circle for employers.

awefoijwefwaof 7 years ago |

Also a white male.

2012-2016: Grad student $23k

2017: Data scientist $110k (very low COL)

2018: Data scientist $250k (very high COL)

Weirdly enough, I only save slightly more after all expenses at my new job than I did at my previous job because of tax and COL differences.

RightMillennial 7 years ago |

U.S., Michigan based, white male, late twenties, began programming as a teen, no college education.

2009: $25k - Junior web developer at A - 40hr/wk

2010: $40k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr/wk

2011: $50k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr/wk

2012: $50k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr/wk

2013: $60k - Web developer at C - 40hr/wk

2014: $70k - Web developer at C - 40hr/wk

2015: $80k + $5k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr/wk, on-call

2016: $90k + $10k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr/wk, on-call

2017: $100k + $15k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr/wk, on-call

2018: $110k + $15k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr/wk, on-call

esotericn 7 years ago |

https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation is a pretty interesting read, I think.

It does seem to me based on reading these topics that there's a set of developers that think anything above X is crazy, and a set of developers that think anything below X is crazy, and they don't really overlap.

That's the case across all disciplines/people, of course (I guess you'd call it... the class system?) but I think it's a lot less discrete.

gettalo 7 years ago |

HN could have anonymous, expiring accounts.

Italy. I am 30 now.

2012 €500/mo, €1000/mo after 6 months "body rental"

2013 €25k + car associate consultant in IT company

2014 €30k + car consultant in same IT company

2015 €37k IT business analyst in large manufacturing company

2016 €40k same

2017 €42k same

2018 €42k same

dmarucco 7 years ago | |

Care to explain why you would like to have "anonymous" accounts? I'm also from Italy and I know that for us, as italians, salary is a taboo that must be overcome.

In which position you are currently?

gettalo 7 years ago | | |

In threads such as this one, everyone creates a new, throwaway account, possibly with a password that will never be reused. It looks like a waste to me. There could be the possibility of logging in as “guests” with temporary account in order to post anonymously.

I work as an IT business analyst / Project Manager in a large Italian company.

zifnab06 7 years ago |

28, software engineer in the US.

2011-2014: $32,000. Montana Started as an internship, turned into a full time job with a $1/hour raise. More IT than software dev.

2014-2015: $48,000. Montana. Moved with a contract, last company went under.

2015: $70,000. Seattle. First "real" software job. Left 3 months later.

2015-2016: $85,000-$100,000. 20% bonus. Seattle. Series C startup.

2016-2017: $85,000. No bonus. Seattle. Seed funded startup. Took a pay cut because I thought they had something. They still might.

2017-2018: $120,000. 20% bonus. Seattle. Fortune 500. Great work/life balance.

NZThrowaway 7 years ago |

Graduted in NZ with a Bachelor in Computer Science in 2007

(never worked anywhere that has paid a bonus)

2007 - 2008 - 38.5K - grad position, web dev 2009 - 2011 - 55K NZD - new job, web dev 2011 - £60K - web dev contracting in London 2012 - £84K - web dev contracting in London 2013 - 150-180K NZD - remote senior web dev contracting from NZ

Tax in the UK was somewhere between 20-30%. Tax in NZ works out ~30% roughly.

Cost of living in the UK was expensive. In comparison I own my own house in NZ and my mortgage repayments are less than we were paying in rent in the UK.

greenleafjacob 7 years ago |

San Francisco

2013 - $82,000 - Software Engineer, Startup

2014 - $117,000 - Software Engineer, Startup

2015 - $144,000 - Software Engineer, Startup

2016 - $153,000 - Software Engineer, Bigco

2017 - $176,000 - Senior Software Engineer, Bigco

2018 - $187,000 - Senior Software Engineer, Bigco

UKSalaryPoster 7 years ago |

Using a throwaway (all normalised to GBP):

2005-2007 - London, UK - Cofounder of consultancy - £40k base, £100-120k dividends 2007-2009 - San Francisco - Principal SDE @ FAANG - £90,000, £20,000 signing bonus 2009-2011 - London - Senior Engineering Manager @ FAANG - £100,000, £20,000 bonus 2011-2013 - London - Start-up co-founder - [It's complicated] about £70,000 all in yearly, exited and made up for shortfall 2013-Present - London - Partner @ Large Consultancy - £250,000 base, £200,000 bonus

rancherbill 7 years ago |

Texas:

01-03: McDonald's $11,000 - $31,000

04-10 USAF $38,000 for a while, then lower for a long time, ultimately $42,000 I think

10-13 Fortune 500 Gov Contracter, $60,000 - $65,000 (rent 800-900, then 30 yr mortgage + taxes $1500 for ~2000 sqft 10 acres)

13-15 Fortune 500 Gov Contractor, $66,000 - $69,000

in 14: Graduated with B.S. in C.S. from crappy military-heavy college

15-17 Same job, different contractor $69,000 - $72,000

17-18 Same job, different contractor $82,000

I work in IT, occasional programming duties. All jobs strictly limited to 40 hrs/week or 80 hrs/pay period. USAF was even 40 hrs.

throwmoneyatme 7 years ago |

Male, USA, college is nothing special (sometimes get laughs), other defining aspects I dont want to reveal here that probably matter and to make sense of multiple job changes. Not sure how I stand compared to others my age/skill-set. idk. I've made a name and strong connections in my industry... outlook looks decent.

2015 - mid-level at employer A - $80k

2016 - Sr Y at employer A - $95k

2017 - Sr Y at employer B - $105k

2018 - Sr Y at employer C - $130k base, $60k bonus plan, $100k RSU

2018 - Sr X at employer D - $190k base, 15% bonus plan, $100k RSU

throwaway23897 7 years ago |

To add another "boring" salary data point:

- $56-70K USD - 2013-2015 - Software developer at a big corporation in the midwest.

- $90K USD - 2015 - Same company, new department. Unusually good pay for the area.

- $41-45K USD ($54-60K CAD) - 2016-current - Moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada (to marry my wife) and took a job as a software developer at one of the very few software companies here. The paycut was brutal, but all things considered, one of the best decisions I've ever made!

mooreds 7 years ago |

Excellent coverage od an important topic. Glad he is sharing.

a_t48 7 years ago |

Work history is probably going to out who I am to someone, but:

- $50k-$80k(?) - 2012-2014 - Mobile game company (gameplay\engine)

- $85k - 2014-2015 - AAA games company (gameplay\ai)

- $105k-$135k(?) - 2015-2017 - Technically a VR company (engine)

- $175k-$183k(?) + ~$95k yearly PSU + ~$60k other bonuses - 2017-2018 - Self Driving Car company

On the one hand I'm a huge outlier who got in something at the right time. On the other hand I'm really good at my job...but probably overpaid.

blizzard8 7 years ago |

8 years in same company at Waltham, MA (Revenue~700Million)

2010 - Junior software developer - $89000 ($10000 signing) 2011 - Software developer - $92000 2012 - Software developer - $95000 2013 - Software developer - $98000 2014 - Software developer - $104000 2015 - Software developer - $118000 2016 - Senior software developer - $128000 2017 - Senior software developer - $134000 2018 - Senior software developer - $138000

aNoob7000 7 years ago | |

Sorry for asking, but do you get a bonus?

blizzard8 7 years ago | | |

The figures are including bonus. And, forgot to mention that I am getting 700 stock options each year from past 3 years.

luckyornot 7 years ago |

Spent my career in SoCal, mostly working full-time in developer and PM roles at financial firms. Changed jobs 7-8 times. All numbers are approximate.

1998: $46K + 3K bonus

1999: $55K + 4K bonus

2000: $67K + 5K bonus

2001: $85K + 15K bonus (new job)

2002: $90K + 20K bonus

2003: $95K + 20K bonus

2004: $110K + 45K bonus (big jump when I threatened to quit)

2005: $115K + 65K bonus

2006: $115K + 65K bonus

2007: $150K + 50K bonus

2008: $150K + 50K bonus

2009: $150K + 50K bonus

2010: $150K + 75K bonus

2011: $50K (took an 18 mo sabbatical because I was burned the eff out)

2012: $100K (worked for only the last half of the year)

2013: $275K (consultant)

2014: $275K (consultant)

2015: $275K (consultant)

2016: $275K (consultant)

2017: $175K + 175K bonus

2018: $175K + ??? bonus

burner_1078 7 years ago |

I'm from the Midwest, not Chicago. These values don't include bonuses or other compensation, just annual salary. I'm in my upper 20's.

2011 - $ 12/hour - web dev intern - company 1

2012 - $45K/year - web developer - company 1

2012 - $55K/year - software engineer - company 2

2016 - $68K/year - software engineer - company 2

2016 - $80K/year - senior dev - company 3

2017 - $85K/year - senior dev - company 3

2018 - $110K/year - lead dev - company 4 (anticipated offer)

SimonPStevens 7 years ago |

I'm always shocked by the difference in pay in the tech industry between US and UK.

For similar career path, my pay has consistently been significantly behind this based on a pure currency conversion.

And also I'm sure our living expenses are higher. Most hardware I buy seems to be priced the same or very similar in $ and £ so effectively charging a premium to UK buyers.

Am I comparing wrong, or are US tech works really so well played?

ivalm 7 years ago | |

US tech workers in HCOL areas (esp Bay Area/Seattle/NYC) are very well paid.

throwawayacct92 7 years ago |

Throwaway account. Mid-30s male born in Eastern Europe, working in the USA.

Washington DC area:

2005-2009 - ~ $25K (grad school; part-time research assistant, code monkey, and sysadmin)

2010-2011 - 0 (bad things happened)

2012 - $56K (software developer, remote contractor for a Canadian company)

2013-2016 - $74-82K (software developer, contractor at a government facility)

2017 - $90K (software developer, contractor at a government facility)

NYC

2018 - $150K salary, $275K incl. stock and bonus (software engineer, FAANG)

wafflesraccoon 7 years ago |

As a younger developer 58k Junior Web Developer - St. Louis, Startup (2016 - 2018) 75k Web Developer - New Mexico, Mid sized company (2018 -)

salaryburner 7 years ago |

Burner account. Software engineer, C, C++, Assembler, Java, LUA, python, perl, bash, objc, swift, COBOL, Pascal, EJB, Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD.

1996: 28k

1998: 40k

2000: 65k

2003: 70k

2004: 72k

2009: Startup founder in San Francisco, 40k

2011: Startup founter same company: 85k

2014: Startup founder same company, 115k

2016: Freelancer, effectively 50k due to lack of contracts

2018: bbigco, 90k

Dunno what I'm doing wrong... I've got a few github/sf projects I started with 1000+ stars and over 10mb of open source code. I guess I suck at negotiation?

phendrenad2 7 years ago | |

Baseless speculatiin on my part, but maybe your work history doesn't have a clearly-defined specialization? COBOL and assembler are at opposite ends of the software world, for instance.

markwusinich 7 years ago |

Graduated College 1992 Information Systems Drexel University All jobs in around Philadelphia (except 95-97) 1992 - 24k 1994 - 32k 1995 - 33k (but in Wyoming) 1997 - 80k 1999 - 95k 2000 - 84k 2003 - 110k 2006 - 150k (contracting) 2010 - 115k (converted to salary) 2012 - 155k (back to contacting) 2013 - 110k (back to salary) 2018 - 120k (same job, small increases)

dispose928374 7 years ago |

    2007 bigco1  74000 base, $30000 stock [fired performance]
    2010 startup 85000 base, 1000x stock 
    2011         fired for performance (company later went public, and stock was >$100 so that cost me 100k)
    2015 govt    56000 after 4 years unemployed (basically drinking and getting high everyday on savings)
    2018 bigco2  100000 (sober now)

zdgsg 7 years ago | |

Congrats on being sober!

asnyder 7 years ago |

This is the crazy part for me:

They suggested that she contact human rights organisations, so Julie rang up and left messages with several - but she never received a reply.

What is up with non-replies from organizations? She reaches out and nothing. It's not a Facebook Ad Request appeal (an aside, is crazy how non-responsive they can be and get away with it) it's human rights!

beaconstudios 7 years ago | |

did you mean to comment on this other post? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18341572

asnyder 7 years ago | | |

Yes, thanks!

marsrover 7 years ago | |

Wrong thread.

dbetteridge 7 years ago |

2015 - IT Support - 50000 AUD Base - 1000 AUD Profit share

2016 - IT Support - 60000 AUD - Merit increase - 1200 AUD Profit share

2017 - Software Engineer - 65000 AUD - New role, New team same company - 1500 AUD Profit share

2018 - Software Engineer - 80000 AUD - Pay match job offer - 2500 AUD Profit share

Some rough numbers from Australia, these are all pre-tax which is roughly 3572$ + 33% of (Pay - 37000$)

throwaway_sw_12 7 years ago |

- 2013-2015 student - 2013-2014 $25/hr internship 20 hours/week - 2015 50k internship converted to full time - 2016 105k software engineer at startup - 2017 130k software engineer at same startup - 2018 145k lead software engineer at same startup

all of these are in low cost southwest (not Phoenix, think mountains)

robohydrate 7 years ago |

Fort Lauderdale, FL

2011-2012 Intern test engineer at a small software shop, $15/hr

2013-2014 Full time test engineer at same small software shop. Starting $45k, ending $50k

2014-2018 Full time software engineer at a larger corporate place, starting 82k currently 105k

All of the above doing systems programming with c/c++ mostly and a drop of powershell and C#

rbx800 7 years ago |

I'm an extreme outlier. No degree. Started coding as a child. Dropped out of college. United States (not in SV).

2000-2002 - 25k hardware technician / repair

2003-2005 - 45k web developer

2006 70k - biometrics/vision developer

2007 - 100k - 'Enterprise' developer

2008 - 105k

2010 - 120k

2011 - 190k - F500 developer (base+bonus)

2012 - 200k

2013 - 215k

2014 - 220k

2015 - 225k

2016 - 160k - restart in another field (passion)

2017 - 180k - try yet another passion field

2018 - 280k - (base) returned to enterprise-y work

Tehchops 7 years ago | |

> 2018 - 280k

Well done. When I hear "enterprise", I'm assuming C#/Java?

rbx800 7 years ago | | |

Thanks. Yes indeed, C# with a dash of cloud/big data.

jlthornton 7 years ago |

Black Male here.

2014 - 58,000 -> 62000 Entry Level Dev at Fin Company X

2015 - 62000 -> 65000 Entry Level Dev at Fin Company X

2016 - 65000 -> 70000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X

2017 - 70000 -> 74000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X

2018 to mid 2018 74000 -> 84000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X

mid 2018 to end 2018 84000 -> 95000 Senior Engineer at Consulting Company X

adevinlondonuk 7 years ago |

I've never really had a proper job title. Graduated in 2013. Currently in London, UK.

2013, £20,000, Web Design studio in Oxford A

2014, £28,000, London startup B

2015, £35,000, London startup B

2016, £45,000, London startup B

2017, £55,000, London small software company C

2018, £60,000 + £15k bonus, London small software company C

Negotiation pending, I am hoping for £75,000 base next year at company C.

I work 7 hours a day.

readingnews 7 years ago |

I think the author is in fact unhumble bragging. I have been in IT for 26 years, have managed IT teams, every boss I have had would hire me back. I live in a mid sized city. I don't make close to half those numbers. I have no idea how these people get these crazy high salary jobs.

bronxbomber92 7 years ago | |

If you describe yourself as being in IT, I suspect that means your job description is very different from that of the author’s. Comparing salaries across different types of job doesn’t make much sense.

Bahamut 7 years ago | |

These numbers are out there - a cursory look at https://www.levels.fyi for example should open your eyes to some of the numbers big companies pay, that I can confirm with my own comp info for my company (a FAANG).

Also it should be noted that the author has some fame in the frontend web world, and is a fairly well known name.

2spicy_thrwaway 7 years ago |

Here's another data point. Quantitative science B.S. from low-tier UC. Data analyst/engineer/data scientist. Silicon valley. Non FAANG.

Mix of promotions and job changes:

2009 $55k + worthless stock

2012 $80k + $10k or 15k signing

2013 $100k + $100k worthless stock

2014 $115k + $200k worthless stock

2015 $150k + $20k signing + $50-$100k stock

2017 $190k + $100k-$150k stock

2018 $260k + $200k-$300k stock

thrown_aN8pz 7 years ago |

In the UK, in Bristol;

2009 - exploited minion for a US corp; £22k

2010 - junior at a SME; £30k. By the time I left I'd got to £40k

2014 - mid-level for a US corp: £45k. Up to £51k when I quit.

2018 - seniorish at another SME, £60k

All of the above are with 3-5% pension contributions + rubbish health care. I do a mixture of embedded, devops and back-end web.

seanmcdirmid 7 years ago |

Just to add a China-based data point working for an overseas R&D lab of a big American company (not a FANG, but close). I started in 2007 at around 36K RMB/month, and ended in 2016 at around 60K RMB/month, not including stock or bonuses, which were substantial.

Drazul 7 years ago |

Living in Spain (per year):

2013-2015: 7.200€ - 9.600€ (Internship, never full time, around 30 hours per week. Company A)

2015 graduated on computer science

2015: 18.000€ (working on a research group on the university. Company B)

2016: 25.000€ - 29.000€ (My salary was increased on september. Company C)

2017: 29.000€ (Company C)

2018: 29.000€ (Company C)

I move to Germany on October:

2018: 70.000€ (Company D)

umvi 7 years ago |

How is he "senior" after only 5 YOE? In my company senior developer is more like 15 years

INTPenis 7 years ago |

Salary isn't everything. I'm more interested in your monthly expenses, your vacation days, your parental leave options and flexible work hours.

200k USD a year is just shocking to me living in Swedens 3rd largest city, ca. 300k inhabitants.

But I live well and I feel good from my work.

jhall1468 7 years ago | |

I don't know how expensive Sweeden is, but that $200k salary generally comes with rent of $2000-$3000 for a small one bedroom. Large swaths of Silicon Valley have average home prices well over $1 million USD.

And the tech sector here has excellent benefits relative to non-tech, but they still probably don't even come close to your country. 3-4 weeks paid vacation a year plus a few national holidays, 6-8 weeks paid parental leave. There are outliers that offer more, but generally aren't common.

INTPenis 7 years ago | | |

Yes that was my point. Just move to Swedens largest city, Stockholm, and cost of living goes up significantly. But nowhere near the 200k/year salary range.

Yet here I have what is called the Øresund region, with Copenhagen across the bridge. So I still much prefer to live down here.

Timothycquinn 7 years ago |

Nick is a very nice guy. I recall chatting with him back in his MatrixOne days. Great coder too.

lurker123 7 years ago |

My history from Midwest to Mountain West

2004-2014 53K - 85K at the same company ( Had a shit ton of extracurricular pursuits.. didn't really focus on software engineer growth)

2015-2017 95K - 107K different company

2018 contracting 170K contractor at different company

2018 FTE 140K + bonus + benefits at different company

throwsalary 7 years ago |

SF 30 year old Indian guy, first year of first job out of grad school

251k = 145k salary + 40k bonus (30 signing and 10 end of year) + 66k (RSU per year)

This was possible due to unique nature of the role, grad school and internship that got converted into a return offer.

puncoz 7 years ago |

In our country where I am based on, the salary is pretty much less. Also, the living standard is also low.

2014-2016: Junior web developer. starting $1.2k (annual) ending $3.6k (annual)

2017-present: Software Engineer. starting $5k (annual), current $7k (annual)

ensiferum 7 years ago |

So the guy went in 14 years from zero to "principal architect" ?

Can someone explain to me is this based on technical merit or is it just networking/office politics/bullying/elbow tactics/ass kissing/luck?

badpun 7 years ago | |

Principal Architect can mean literally anything, and in many more enterprisey places guys with such titles are often basically wankers who don't contribute much or are even a net negative for the company. And yes, in such cases getting to this role is all about appearances and politics. This is confirmed by the market when such guy has to leave the company for whatever reason and cannot get another job that is even remotely close in pay and ostensible responsibility.

A good rule of thumb on the value of the architect is IMO whether they can even check out, build and run the code. The kind of people I'm talking about often didn't even bother to get privileges to version control; they reside strictly in email&powerpoint land.

pjc50 7 years ago | |

That seems perfectly reasonable to me and a good place to end up in one's mid-30s. He'd already been a Lead before then. It sounds like he was hired almost directly into the position given the mention of discussion with the VP of engineering before hiring. That was probably critical so would count as "networking", but it sounds like the guy had a speaking and consulting business before then.

Technical merit is very hard to assess, and it gets harder at the senior level, but having a public speaking profile makes it much easier for people to see someone's talent.

subsnub 7 years ago |

Germany.

At the end we compare numbers as life itself can´t be compared. Living in a certain town and certain country. Costs of living vary from country to region. I choose to freelance as it means more income and less social security. I´m not having paid vacations plus the bonuses of an employee.

I never worked more than 40 hours/week though. Not as a freelancer, not as an employee. This is not game development. Nonetheless I worked for a agency recently where the employees got jobs like: here are 30 layouts for a Magento shop (by a designer who neither knows responsive design nor shop systems) and the template needs to be done by the end of the week. I´m not making this up. Companies like this are not running sustainable and you IMHO you should get out there as quickly as possible.

I started developing ecommerce sites back in 2008. Worked for a specialised web agency (size: around 20 people) back then and got around 1600 Euros/month net, after taxes. I don´t remember the precise numbers any more.

I started freelancing in 2011 and got a higher income (not in the first year though). I served mainly small businesses. I still have the numbers. They are net, post taxes and health insurance already paid.

2011 15045 Euros 2012 34826 Euros 2013 28320 Euros 2014 46582 Euros

Decided to travel afterwards and give a regular job a try when I came back. Got a position as PHP / Web developer at a small agency (size: 10-15 people). Now relocated to the south of Germany. That would have been

2016 48000 Euros pre-tax or 25560 Euros net

Probably a small bonus added at the end of the year as well. I never found. I quit after a few months as I figured out that being employed is not my cup of tea. I earned about 30.800 Euros pre-tax. You can get some of your taxes back if you don´t work a full year as an employee.

Fast forward: back to freelancing again. Earning between 65 and 80 Euros per hour now, pre taxes Can´t say how much I will earn this year cause I didn´t work last year at all and only a few months this year. Which is sufficient to pay rent (and have enough time to witness the first months on earth of my son).

Developing applications with PHP and JavaScript frameworks. No more small customers, working on full-time project for a couple of months.

There have been studies posted at German portal heise.de in the last months claiming software freelancers in Germany make an average of 91 Euros/hour. I somehow doubt that. Or: depends who you ask and how big your sample is.

Not me and I´m fine with what I make. Demand for freelance developers is high right now, I get lots of requests. How about you guys? :)

bongo662 7 years ago |

Nashville. Econ Degree minor in Comp Sci.

Jun 2017 - Automated QA 22/hr

Feb 2018 - Junior Dev 50k / yr

Looking to make a move to Denver / San Diego. Anyone have an idea what compensation would look like for someone with 1.5 yr experience?

jirenandcell 7 years ago |

In the UK

* Industrial Placement (1 year):Developer/Administrator £18,500

* First job after graduation (2 Years):PHP Developer £20,000

* Second job (3 1/2 years): Magento/PHP Developer £28,500

* Third (current - 10 months):PHP Developer £50,000

bambamb 7 years ago |

It amazes me that someone as intelligent as this guy can say something asinine as “as a white man I know I can negotiate without backlash.” Not only is there no evidence to support this, he seems completely oblivious to the fact that he is not a representative white man at all. He has written widely used books on JavaScript! Don’t you think THAT might be the reason he can negotiate without backlash rather than his race and sex which he has in common with probably half of all applicants? Please don’t paint all of us just average, struggling white men as undeserving and privileged just because you have been extremely fortunate and successful.

BowBun 7 years ago | |

At the risk of opening a can of worms, I think the author is right and you are contributing to the systemic issue by trying to deflect their mention of privilege. If you are a white male, you have privilege. I don't think OP would ever say that's the only factor to their success, but recognizing privilege and where you have taken advantage of it in life is healthy progress towards equality.

http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-13393-007 is a study that indicates that women tend to not negotiate as much for fear of reprisal. Not having to face that inequality as a man who is expected to be 'assertive' and to 'tell it straight' is the definition of privilege.

hudon 7 years ago | | |

Anecdotal but at my previous employer, women and some racial minorities were given a higher score during interviews because of their gender or race (this was explicit) and white men were de-prioritized. It was actually a disadvantage to be white.

swat535 7 years ago | |

Please do not derail yet another discussion by posting a flaming comment. Not everything has to be related to sex, gender, equality and so on.

I wholeheartedly agree that they are critical issues, but that being said, there is a time and place and those are important issues but really..

This is not it.

ApolloRising 7 years ago |

San fran vs other places in cali also make a huge difference

jefftk 7 years ago |

Here's my pay history: https://www.jefftk.com/money

sydneyburner 7 years ago |

Burner account :) All amounts in AUD and all jobs based in Sydney and I am yet another white male.

  1999 $27,000 Tech Support at an ISP 40 hour week.
  1999 $29,000 Tech Support at a different ISP 32 hour week (graveyard shift) then Linux Engineer. $20k Stock that I never took because dot.com :( 
  2000 $30,000 House Gamer at a net cafe (Oh god I miss those days). 40 hours a week graveyard shift.
  2001-2 Unemployed, occasional work still at the $30k mark.
  2003 $30,000 Tech Support at a hosting company, 40 hour week.
  2005 $95,000 Tech Support at a global storage giant with 3% pay rises year on year until I left. 40 hour week, 1 weekend a month.
  2009 $110,000 Team Lead at a small IT Managed Service Provider, 40-60 hours a week. Outages all the time.
  2010 $115,000 Senior Backup Engineer at global MSP, 60 hour week with lots of weekend work and 2am calls.
  2011 $120,000 Consultant at a small company, 5% pay rises every year. Didn't know how good it was until I let.
  2014 $140,000 plus $45k commission Sales Engineer at a US based Startup. Varied hours lots of travel. Usually 40 hours a week. $40k USD stock options vested over 5 years, when I left I elected to not take them because of Australia's dumb tax laws that were changed a year later. Also the startup didn't look like it was going to IPO anytime soon (and still hasn't).
  2016 $900/d ($240k/y) consultant (This was Melbourne based so I was paying $500/w in travel costs). 40 hours a week.
  2016 $165,000 Software architect at a global MSP 40-50 hour weeks.
  2017 $180,000 Director at a big Consulting firm. 60+ hours every single week.
  2018 $210,000 Director at a smaller firm that treats people a lot better. 40 hour week with lots of flexibility.

In total an 11.4% year on year increase since I left high school. Sometimes dumb luck, sometimes backwards to get a job that meant less travel or less shit environments. I am not the worlds best negotiator, I tend to ask high and if they push back I retreat quickly, so it only works when I'm up against someone worse.

Yes I've had jobs fall through because the number I asked was way higher than they were prepared to pay and they didn't see any point negotiating.

I don't change jobs for money. The only time I've ever done that was the move in 2005 because they almost tripled my salary overnight. I change jobs because I get bored and want a new challenge. I stayed in the 2005 job for 4 years not because of the pay, but because the sheer number of products and platforms available meant I was always challenged and learning.

I have a family situation that requires me to keep earning lots of money for a few more years as I support others. Once that passes I intend to cut back to 3 days per week work and complete a PHD or similar.

jordache 7 years ago |

Anyone know how are glassdoor, stackoverflow, etc salary estimates, for a given candidate profile and geographic location?

_drFaust 7 years ago |

- $42k-55k: 2013-2015, Manual Testing@Big Consulting

- $70k-105k: 2015-2017, Lead QA Eng > Dev Team Mgr@Small Niche Consulting

- $110k: 2017-current, Software Eng@Startup

fjsolwmv 7 years ago |

Yahoo was paying engineers half or less compared to FAANG. It illustrates that by that time (2011), Yahoo was on hospice.

the_jeremy 7 years ago |

US Male, MechE degree doing CS, Denver:

2017: 75k

2018: $45/hr (~93k. no benefits, but still on parent's healthcare)

jrs95 7 years ago |

In the Midwest without a college degree: 2015-2016: 40K 2017-2018: 80K Current: 115K

ggm 7 years ago |

Normalized to some baseline effective USD? It needs to be adjusted for CPI.

throwaway477920 7 years ago |

all figures are total comp

'05-'07 - software engineer, midwest - $54k -> $68k

'08-'14 - software enginner, east coast non-profit - $70k -> $90k

'15-'17 - swe III, google - $200k -> $260k

coolyd 7 years ago |

- $38k Entry level dev

- $65k Lead developer

- $125k Director of development

- $180k Product director

daveheq 7 years ago |

As a white man I've gotten backlash for asking for a raise.

megustapaycheck 7 years ago |

I grew up in Moscow, Russia; but have lived my entire adult life in NYC. I'm a US citizen. No education.

2002-2005: As a teenager, I've done odd jobs here and there, never adding up to more than a few thousand per year. Built some websites, set up some networks. Nothing serious.

2005: My first real job at a startup that sold whitelabel music stores to radio stations paid me $40k/year. No benefits, no bonuses, no equity.

2006: My second real job at the technology arm of a major sports league paid me $60k/year + benefits + a nominal annual bonus. There was a good pension plan too.

2009: After becoming a father, I begged for a pay increase to account for the costs of raising a kid in NYC. Got raised from $60k to $90k. Management called it a "salary correction".

2010: I left the sports league at $112k and joined a fintech startup where my salary went up to $120k.

2014: The fintech startup was amounting to nothing. My "very generous" option grants were turning out to be worth zero. There were occasional end-of-year cash bonuses that after taxes paid single-digit thousands. I left the company at a base salary of $140k and took three months off.

2014: Joined a major financial/media firm owned by a certain former NYC mayor. They paid me $150k in base salary, full benefits, and a promised annual bonus of $35k. I joined in September, so I got a teeny tiny prorated bonus for that year, but the following year I was forced to leave in December and wasn't paid the annual bonus.

2016: Joined a boring Canadian investment bank here in NYC at a base salary of $160k. No bonus, no equity. Terrible benefits. Stayed there for 4 months and didn't write a line of code for work because they didn't know what they wanted me to work on.

2016: Joined a startup that sold home security cameras. I ran a team of a dozen people there, and got paid $170k in base salary. Lots of equity was promised, but they never wrote my equity grant. Great benefits though. After a year at this company I had been forced to lay off some people from my team and had to help some others to find new jobs because they were worried about job security. The company was doing very poorly, so I left too because I have bills to pay.

2017: Joined a $20B hedge fund at base salary of $200k, promised annual bonus of $100k. After two months, the fund began a scary nosedive, and laid off myself and my boss and two other engineers.

2017: After a frantic job search I joined the adtech firm where I currently work. I get paid $180k in base salary, okay benefits, and an annual bonus of about $20k before taxes. I work mostly from home and really like it. I've been here for a year and don't plan to leave.

sures 7 years ago |

I am a brown male working in India. The salaries are rounded to the nearest 100000 INR. USD values are rounded to the nearest 1000 USD. These are salaries per year. Need to emphasize this because when you see numbers like 3000 USD you may think this is per month. No it is indeed 3000 USD per year. When there are stocks involved, only the stocks that vest per year is included as part of the yearly salary.

  2003 -  0 YOE -  200000 INR (  3000 USD) - Software Engineer  - One of the very popular Indian IT firms
  2005 -  2 YOE -  300000 INR (  4000 USD) - Senior Engineer    - Same as above
  2007 -  4 YOE - 1000000 INR ( 14000 USD) - Software Engineer  - A small American company with their office in India
  2009 -  6 YOE - 1500000 INR ( 20000 USD) - Senior Engineer    - Another small American company with their office in India
  2011 -  8 YOE - 2000000 INR ( 28000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above
  2013 - 10 YOE - 3500000 INR ( 47000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India
  2015 - 12 YOE - 7000000 INR ( 95000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India
  2017 - 14 YOE - 9500000 INR (128000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above

akhilcacharya 7 years ago |

I don’t know if I’m misreading it but did OP include the value of the options or did they just leave them unexercised? Box did IPO, and obviously Yahoo was liquid the entire time.

What was the total compensation be like with these numbers?

ethikal 7 years ago | |

Box IPOed at $14/share but spiked to $23/share on the first day of trading. Assuming 50K shares (and ignoring the strike price / any upfront cost he might have paid), total additional compensation was ~$700K to $1.150M.

nostrademons 7 years ago | | |

You can make a pretty good guess at strike price from Box's financing history. They raised a Series F in 2013 at $2B post. There are currently 141M shares outstanding, of which 12.5M were offered in the IPO and roughly 10% of the company (13M) shares was sold in the Series F & Series G, so figure 120M shares outstanding at the time of his option grant. That implies a strike price between about $10 (@ the $1.225 Jul 2012 Series E valuation) and $17 (@ the Dec 2013 Series F valuation).

At the end of the 6-month lockup Box's shares were worth $17, so that would imply his options were anywhere from +$175K (he'd only have vested half of them, with standard 4-year grants) to just slightly underwater. If he held to the $28 peak this May, he'd be anywhere from +$500K -> +$900K, but if he kept holding them, he could potentially be underwater today. It's a nice additional bonus (particularly if he got in at the Series E valuation), but not enough to make one rich.

dmitrygr 7 years ago | | |

first day of trading makes no difference whatsoever. Employees are usually locked in for about 6 months, by which point the stock will have probably crashed to below IPO levels

sethammons 7 years ago | | |

why assume 50k shares?

jacquesm 7 years ago | |

The message buried is: stock options, even of large companies are most of the time worthless. The exceptions are a position at a company that strikes it big, or safe bets such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Apple, etc. The latter also have the advantage that once you do have stock you can relatively easily dispose of it if you want to.

Other than that is a complete lottery.

C1sc0cat 7 years ago | | |

For the FSTE 350 and up in the UK the common share save's are a one way bet in favour of the employee

The problem with share options is the vicious way the IRS taxes them its almost like the USA isn't set up to support individual's getting rich.

We are just getting an EMI where I now work will be interesting to see how that plays out.

throwaway487548 7 years ago |

I think it is good point to include a brief description of what people are coding.

I could understand that someone, who are writing, say, FoundationDB or some Scala for inhouse finance processing could get ~$200k, but my mind absolutely refuses to accept the fact that Javascript coding is being paid this way.

throwaway487548 7 years ago |

There are literally millions of people who could work remotely for 30k, being not necessarily worse than these valley's hotshots.

Yeah, MIT/Stanford/CMU degree pays back.

known 7 years ago |

Indian IT firms make money by selling software engineers, not software;

choot 7 years ago |

Mine:

2011 - 20K USD

2012 - 20K USD

2014 - 20K USD (burned out working for the startup founder)

2015 - 50K USD (ranted at a club about my founder while drunk and another founder offered to pay double)

2016 - 150K USD (interviewed at established tech company)

2017 - 200K USD ( same company promoted me to project manager)

2018 - 500K USD (finally became executive)

rebolek 7 years ago |

Cool, I want to be woman in America, because as man in Central Europe, it takes me almost three years to get 48000$.

yetanotherburnr 7 years ago |

Yet another White Male. Salaries are actually from multiple different countries, but I've converted all to GBP (as that's what I think in, mostly). Which has varied in value a lot over the years, so probably take it with a grain of salt.

  1997 £18k First real web-dev work
  1999 £60k Contract developer making the most of the dotcom boom
  2000 £45k First attempt at running my own business (didn't go well)
  2002 £28k Took a job that seemed stable and came with visa
  2006 £40k Last permanent job
  2008 £90k Working for myself part 2 - much improved
  2014 £10k Had daughter - buttoned off work big time for a couple of years
  2016 £50k Still doing my own gig, but better work-life balance
  2018 £115k Working much harder than I’d planned. But enjoying it. Combo contract/own gig

C1sc0cat 7 years ago | |

For a data point when I started in 1979 at a world leading R&D organisation in the UK I was on £1620pa :-) about a 1/3 of the rate the scientific civil service was paying.

Though my first job at 15 was working in the local library as a shelver for 35p an hour

dotancohen 7 years ago |

I had to edit the CSS of that page just to read the important data. In particular, the table is too narrow and therefore has a horizontal scroll. Then important data (start and end salary) is to the right of the scroll. And then the dates are to the left of the scroll!

The author brags that although he is currently out of work, as a white male he should have no problem finding work when he is ready (health-wise). I wonder if he is white enough and male enough to compensate for his horrible page presentation, which interestingly enough seems to be his profession.

dotancohen 7 years ago | |

To those downvoting: I'm not adding the white male part. That is the author of the fine article's argument!

2007 - 0 YOE - 350000 INR ( 4600 USD) - Software Engineer - American company (indian office) 2010 - 3 YOE - 900000 INR ( 12000 USD) - Senior Software Engineer - Small indian company 2012 - 5 YOE - 1200000 INR ( 16000 USD) - Lead Engineer - Korean company (indian office) 2014 - 7 YOE - 2900000 INR ( 38000 USD) - Staff Engineer - American company (indian office) 2017 - 10 YOE - 5400000 INR ( 72000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Small American company (indian office) 2018 - 11 YOE - 6200000 INR ( 82000 USD) - Dev Manager - MNC

2003 - 0 YOE - 200,000( 3,000 USD) - Software Engineer - One of the very popular Indian IT firms 2005 - 2 YOE - 300,000 ( 4,000 USD) - Senior Engineer - Same as above 2007 - 4 YOE - 1,000,000 INR ( 14,000 USD) - Software Engineer - A small American company with their office in India 2009 - 6 YOE - 1,500,000 INR ( 20,000 USD) - Senior Engineer - Another small American company with their office in India 2011 - 8 YOE - 2,000,000 INR ( 28,000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above 2013 - 10 YOE - 3,500,000 INR ( 47,000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India 2015 - 12 YOE - 7,000,000 INR ( 95,000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India 2017 - 14 YOE - 9,500,000 INR (128,000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above