
Engineering salaries at Silicon Valley startups - lukedeering
http://howtowriteabusinessplan.com/2012/12/engineering-salaries-at-silicon-valley-startups/
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quanticle
For those of you entranced by the top-line numbers here, you have to also
remember that the cost of living in San Francisco (especially with regards to
housing) is also extremely high. For example, according to Wolfram|Alpha a
$95,000 salary in Seattle is worth $137,000 in San Francisco [1].

1:
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2495%2C000+salary+in+...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%2495%2C000+salary+in+Seattle+moving+to+San+Francisco)

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pmorici
This is something I've always wondered about. If, as an example, you were
moving from Seattle to SF and you told prospective employers you were looking
for a salary of 137k from a prior salary of 95k based on cost of living data
do you have any hope of landing a job with that expectation?

I'd be interested in hearing the experiences of anyone who has made a move
like that and if they felt their increase in salary was on par, above, or
below the change in cost of living.

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prostoalex
I've made the move from Washington to Bay Area, and the salary reflected cost
of living. Was a big company, with salary bands, and all. You should consider
it for your specific case. You also don't have to live in San Francisco as
long as the office is close to public transportation.

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paulgb
I really dislike the trends I'm seeing in infographics. It's information porn
with no substance.

    
    
      - The sources are very vague, there's no way to
        verify anything for yourself.
      - There's no indication of statistical significance
      - Visualizations are not accurate, such as the
        "salary by experience" graph which even by visual
        inspection is not to scale.
      - The connected line graph from "C" to "Other" under
        salary by company stage is meaningless and misleading
      - The visualizations are for the sake of visualization,
        not for clarity. See "Average # of companies
        competing" section

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prostoalex
Riviera typically places people for senior positions - their business model is
to charge a retainer percentage (25-30%) salary for a placed candidate, so
it's not economically viable for them to deal with five-digit salaries at the
low-end.

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joonix
What's the point of talking about salaries at startups?

I don't understand why you would give priority to a salary figure at a
startup. It's largely illusory. The startup could shutdown 2 weeks from now
and nobody will pay you anything.

If you're just after a high salary, join an established corporation. If you're
after equity, or working on cutting edge stuff, join a startup.

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StavrosK
Hum, suddenly, the $80/hr I charge as a remote freelancer seems low...

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mvkel
This is like using the average rent prices in Manhattan to represent the
average rent prices of New York State.

The median prices would be much more interesting.

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herval
C# and Flex being in the top 4 "high demand" technologies is mind blowing.
Flash on 6th is also quite surprising...

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nicw
This is probably more prevalent at mega-corps than startups - and those mega-
corps are hiring more programmers than startups, adding skew.

Breaking down the "high demand" technologies by investments (Round A, Round
B...) would likely bear different results.

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cartagenam4
I'm in the wrong field..

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michaelochurch
This looks like Small Data. Here's why:

<5 years work experience:

T20 school => $102,500

non-T20 => $123,300

... which seems to be counterintuitive, with more prestigious schools
correlating to lower salaries, but stranger things have happened.

5+ years of experience:

T20 school => $128,500

non-T20 school => $123,100

In other words, the people from non-T20 schools stagnate as they cross the
5-year mark, while the T20 students improve considerably. That makes no sense,
because the effect of a T20 degree is _highest_ early in one's career.

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pmorici
I have three theories.

1\. They are taking jobs at very early stage start-ups or starting their own
companies as that culture seems to be more prevalent at many of the top
schools. On the other hand your typical university is much more focused on the
traditional get a job at mega corp scenario.

2\. In my limited experience working with recently graduated interns I've
found that the ones from "top schools" tend to be worse. They seem to have a
chip on their shoulder that certain things are beneath them, give up easier,
and are hyper sensitive to feedback. Students from more normal schools seem to
have much less mental baggage in those regards.

3\. The info graphic is BS and however they collected their numbers was
flawed.

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michaelochurch
I think these are all quite possible.

I'm not as negative as you are on top-school students. My experience is that
Harvard/MIT programmers and quants are no worse or better than anyone else.
Now, Harvard/MIT PM peoples... different story. Programming kills that
entitlement mentality because the compiler does not give a shit who you are.
Bossing people around reinforces it. After a few years, though, the effects of
whatever school the person went to are pretty much gone.

What I think you are encountering is that, at a given level, the Ivy students
who ended up there are going to be worse than the state-school kids who got to
that same place. The best Harvard students are not going to be interested in a
0.02% equity slice of a mediocre startup, because they have the connections to
be, if not Founders, VPs at least.

Speaking of equity, I'll add a 4th likely element:

4\. Salary in startups has a relatively thin band: currently, about $110-150k
in SV and $90-130k in New York. The real variation is in equity, titles, and
glory if the thing succeeds.

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pmorici
"at a given level, the Ivy students who ended up there are going to be worse
than the state-school kids who got to that same place."

Yes, I agree.

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iaw
I must say, there are a lot of presumptions being thrown around about "Top 20
School" alum. There are numerous benefits (and draw-backs) to going to such
schools but to make broad assessments about individuals who attended the
schools is asinine, like any other stereotype.

Essentially the argument here is that ivy-leaguers have better options when
leaving college so, all things being equal, with an ivy-leaguer and a lower-
tier school alum in the same job you'd expect the ivy-leaguer to be less
skilled.

The point that is neglected is that the screening process for top-tier schools
is substantially more difficult, so much so that it is feasible to see a
student from the lowest quartile of the student body at a top-tier school that
would have performed in the highest quartile at a less rigorous school. (note:
less rigorous is not meant to be a comment on educational quality, only a
comment on the intensity of the academic assignments). In this context it's
unclear to me why the above comment makes sense. Maybe there's some anecdotal
evidence that was not included but, lacking a decent sample, assertions like
this are more representative of the biases of those that post them than
reality.

