
2017 State of Global Tech Salaries - tifa2up
https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017
======
Stasis5001
Every article on salaries seems to really screw up two things. One is, salary
is only a portion of total compensation. Which do they mean here? If you don't
look at equity packages, my intuition is you're going to think SF sucks, since
I think more companies there use stock incentives. I'm not sure anybody has
good data on equity packages/total comp, and at the very least, it's not
trivial even if you have that data, since for example you can't just treat an
Uber RSU the same as a Google one. So comparing total comp, which is what
matters, is a subtle issue with lots of methodological decisions to make that
will alter the results, and when articles (including the original source at
hired.com) don't even mention any of that, it's hard to take the results
seriously.

Second is, you can't just scale up salaries by the COL adjustment when the
comp is this high. If you do that, you'll think the following are equally
good:

    
    
      - monthly income 10k, 3k on rent, 2k other expenses
      - monthly income 5k, 1.5k on rent, 1k on other
    

Not all expenses scale linearly with COL, and in particular, one of the most
important imputed expenses, savings, doesn't scale that way, unless you plan
to retire with the exact same lifestyle.

~~~
bluGill
It is invalid to consider stocks, bonus, and other incentives in your
calculations. Companies take them away all the time.

You have salary, and that is it. Fringe benefits (insurance, 401k match...) is
a useful thing to get and part of the picture, but the company can change them
to your negative when they feel like it.

stocks and bonus are nice, but you dare not count on them until after you get
them. People who do otherwise find themselves broke when expected money
doesn't come in.

~~~
acchow
Actually, a company can't take away granted RSU's that are still vesting.
That's a signed agreement.

They can, however, reduce your salary at will.

~~~
bluGill
True, but there is no reason to believe that those stocks will be worth
anything when they vest.

~~~
acchow
Sure, but they can also reduce your salary at any time. So it's a bit unfair
to consider salary any "more real" than vesting RSUs.

I just mean your claim "stocks and bonus are nice, but you dare not count on
them until after you get them" is false because you can't "count on" salary
coming either.

------
kcorbitt
This analysis may be reasonable as far as it goes, but it can still make
financial sense for someone to live and work in the Bay Area. I recently took
a new job near San Francisco paying ~$160k. Living cheaply, our actual
consumption for my family of 3 is about ~50k a year. (Yes, this is possible --
and life can still be enjoyable if you like spending time in nature/other
inexpensive activities.) After taxes, that leaves me $50-60k a year to
invest/save for retirement.

Compare that with a salary of $105k in inexpensive Salt Lake City, which is
where my second-choice offer was. After taxes and consumption for a similar
lifestyle, I'd be saving somewhere around $30-40k/year, a substantial
decrease. Not to mention the fact that if the startup that made that offer
went under, it would be much harder to find another interesting job with
similar compensation in Salt Lake than San Francisco.

I don't plan on living in the Bay Area long-term, but in the early stages of
my career I can accumulate a lot more savings and also grow my skills faster
by living here than probably anywhere else in the world.

~~~
WhitneyLand
That's a tough argument to make that SF beats SLC in net savings.

You should try living with your family in a house with a backyard, it's quite
enjoyable and could be pretty cheap over time if you see any appreciation.

Secondly there are a lot more taxes on a lot more things in SF, are you
factoring that in?

Also I'd bet you are worth more than 105k in SLC if you looked around longer.

I love SF and it's great to live there for many reasons, but I don't think
"cheaper than utah" is one of them.

~~~
drstewart
>You should try living with your family in a house with a backyard, it's quite
enjoyable and could be pretty cheap over time if you see any appreciation.

You should try living in a cabin in the woods. Way cheaper plus you get fit
from chopping up firewood for the winter. Obviously only a fool would live in
a city in Utah when they could live in rural Alaska for cheaper!

~~~
DannyBee
"You should try living in a cabin in the woods."

This isn't even close to a reasonable retort.

~~~
akiselev
It is if you have a preference for urban environments and your choice is
between SF/NYC/London/etc and Salt Lake City, where it feels like every other
street is as wide as the average block in another city.

To each their own of course.

~~~
ghaff
Well, in SLC you are about an hour drive away from arguably the best skiing on
the planet.

To each their own of course.:-)

~~~
davidgay
To be fair, SF is far closer to and more practical for good skiing than London
or NYC.

And yes, living in the Bay Area, I miss (from Switzerland) skiing being an
hour's drive away. It's all relative...

------
humanrebar
The problem with straight-across cost-of-living adjustments is that they're
only relevant when you're talking about a more-or-less zero savings rate.

Assuming you can save 10% of your annual salary a year, you're better off
living in higher cost-of-living areas, assuming all other things being equal.
Then you are growing wealth (retirement funds, etc.) instead of just getting a
more expensive lease for your car or apartment.

So what you really want to measure is something closer to "savings rate" or
"disposable income" or something like that.

I'm open to thoughts on how to practically do this math. It's very relevant
when considering job offers in other cities.

~~~
sotojuan
I think the biggest problem with COL is the fact that COL is a very personal
matter.

Here in NYC, most college graduates (programmers or not) share an apartment
with flatmates. If you're a programmer, as long as at least one person in the
apartment has a non-minimum wage "office" job ($40-50k+), you can live quite
comfortably and save a lot unless you decide to live in a penthouse. An
average apartment in many areas of Brooklyn split among 2-3 employed people is
very affordable.

Even if you want to live alone it's not so bad, but my point is that before
someone can decide if NYC is too expensive for them or someone else they
should ask more than just their salary.

~~~
humanrebar
I've noticed this as well, but the flip side is that cities price out families
and people with disabilities pretty quickly.

------
w0rd-driven
As someone who's gone through hired's process last year with a close friend, I
feel this does a disservice. Primarily because COL is never 1:1 in spite of
the very best analysis available and I feel like this becomes a credible
source those in hiring positions. The train of thought goes something like
this, seemingly from anecdotal evidence from my close friend: "Oh you're
making $70K in Atlanta as a PHP developer? That's like $150K in SF!" (the SF
value was plucked out of thin air because I don't quite know the calculation).
When the reality is in Atlanta that's well below market rate for a seasoned
developer. This is also the state of their data compiled from last year but I
suspect more than most will treat it as a projection or try to run the
increase/decrease as one.

My understanding may be seriously flawed because I view salary negotiations as
nowhere close to a zero sum game it should at least attempt to aspire to be.
From the get go, everything is entirely skewed in the employer's favor and
this just feels like more ammunition.

My close friend and I shared the train of thought that if a company based in
SF has $x for developers, while they can likely get more remote developers for
the total at their COL decrease, splitting some of the difference with those
employees would go quite a long way. Employees likely wouldn't see that total
compensation range anywhere else in their current location and that difference
becomes its own motivator, at least for someone like me who has struggled to
reach market rate. It becomes a double edged sword when that offer is vastly
above market rate as finding another job in that range would be increasingly
difficult. Employees would likely be way more tempted to stay well after burn
out sets in because what should be closer to the norm becomes more of a golden
ticket.

~~~
humanrebar
> I view salary negotiations as nowhere close to a zero sum game

I think you mean "level playing field" or something. "zero sum" implies that
the employer wins when the employee loses.

But I agree with you on the above. I think the dirty little secret is that
most employers have very little clue about how much a particular skill set
(let alone a particular dev) is worth. So they tend to use previous salary as
an anchor point to make sure they're not more than 20% more crazy than the
last overpaying employer.

Cost of living adjustments is likewise a hack to help pick a number out of the
air. I really doubt employers think "hey, you can't raise a family on $130k in
downtown DC, so we'll have higher turnover when college hires reach 5-10 years
of experience".

~~~
w0rd-driven
> I think you mean "level playing field" or something. "zero sum" implies that
> the employer wins when the employee loses.

I struggled with the right way to word it in a concise manner so "level
playing field" seems more correct.

In being privy to hiring decisions for other developers, I believe your
assessment is correct. I feel like everything becomes a stab in the dark to
some degree. That my assessment of my worth and their assessment of what
they're looking for rarely match up as developers by and large seem to never
quite fit inside the job description box. I see that as a good thing but the
pattern of seemingly properly understanding your worth as you're walking out
the door becomes tiresome the third or seventh time it happens.

------
blondie9x
A lot of the cost of living calculations are wrong. I had moved from LA paying
1400$ a month rent to Austin and paid nearly the same rent in Austin for a one
bedroom. The plus is no income tax in Washington and Texas but food costs are
more and property taxes are double in Texas when compared to California.

~~~
jly
Austin city is increasingly expensive to live in. Fortunately, the city is in
the middle of land that is open on all sides for a considerable range, and
there are very affordable options just outside the city. If planned properly,
this can result in relatively easy commutes for little cost of living. The
property tax lessens considerably in neighboring cities and counties, as well.
The lack of state income tax is also a huge boon. I also disagree that food
costs are higher in Austin.

~~~
blondie9x
you could say the same about SF and LA. but how far are you willing to go?
problem is for austin these areas are included in cost living considerations.

~~~
jly
That's true. You just don't have to go as far out in Austin or adjacent
cities. Certainly housing is affordable to buy in Austin city and surrounding,
on even one modest tech salary. I don't think the same is true in SF/bay area
or LA. Austin is very expensive in a small central core, but drops off
considerably only a small number of miles away.

------
RestlessMind
SFBA is great for (at least) the following types of people:

1\. Those who are completely happy with small apartments or long commutes.
Typically coming from populous city in a developing country, SFBA traffic was
an improvement (if not for duration, then at least for discipline and stress
levels). Also, apartments are decent sized compared to what one is used to
back home. Cheap cars are still good enough compared to what you had back
home. And savings are HUGE, especially if you carry on the frugal lifestyle.

2\. Those who are frugal. Because if you can save a higher percentage of your
salary, then SFBA savings would outpace salaries in (most) other regions even
accounting for high COL

3\. Those who seek tech opportunities to make big money - eg. getting within
top 10-15% engineers in GooSoftFaceFlix, who can easily earn >400K per year
including Salary, Bonus and RSUs. If you are decently smart (no need of Turing
Award smarts), work hard and position yourself right for growth, its not
rocket science to get promoted into top 10-15% ranks within 6-8 years. Such
opportunities in tech are relatively fewer in (most) other places.

Source: been in all 3 buckets at various points in my life; observed tons of
my friends who were in similar boats.

Edit: clarified wording

------
brilliantcode
...and Vancouver, BC doesn't even show up on the radar because our average is
roughly $53,000 USD / year.

Might wanna consider outsourcing here. Same time zone as SV, similar culture,
speaks English, tight job market means loyal workers.

source: [https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/vancouver-software-
develop...](https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/vancouver-software-developer-
salary-SRCH_IL.0,9_IM972_KO10,28.htm)

USD/CAD as of today: 1.31

~~~
Bahamut
There are some good devs there too - maybe that is what made it an attractive
choice for companies like Facebook before.

~~~
ctrl_freak
As brilliantcode mentioned, Facebook, Microsoft et al are using Vancouver as a
visa staging ground for people outside of North America. Most Canadian
software engineers can work in the US on the TN (which doesn't have a cap like
the H-1B) so they don't have visa issues. They bring them over to Vancouver,
basically training them there, and once they've worked there for a year,
they're eligible to use the L-1 visa, because it's considered an intra-company
transfer, so they can move them into the US.

The Vancouver offices are not an investment in the Canadian tech industry;
they're just taking advantage of our more lenient immigration laws and the
convenience of the city being geographically close to San Francisco. Waterloo
and Toronto seem to be taken much more seriously as remote engineering offices
for American companies (possibly because of the universities and amount of
tech talent in the region).

It's kind of a shame though. Vancouver is a beautiful city, conveniently
located, and there's no good reason why it couldn't be Silicon Valley of the
north. If they could just figure out how to make it more economical to live
there for software engineers (i.e. cheaper housing and higher salaries), it
could quickly become a booming tech hub.

------
sputknick
I think there data on Cost of Living is outdated, specifically as it regards
Seattle, which has recently seen a significant increase in COL. According to
their calculations Seattle is cheaper than DC, however the data I can find
online suggests the opposite.

[http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/seattle-
wa/washingt...](http://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/seattle-
wa/washington-dc/50000)

~~~
jstelly
They are using this data for Cost of Living according to the Hired article
this article is summarizing.

hired article: [https://hired.com/state-of-
salaries-2017](https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017)

cost of living data comes from here: [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/)

~~~
sputknick
That helps explain it, thank you. It looks like the root problem is they are
using the (excl rent) number, and the recent increase in COL is Seattle has
been driven by real estate, so the problem isn't there data, it's how they are
applying it.

------
r0m4n0
I have a much different cost of living equation supporting my decision to live
in the bay.

The big expense is obviously rent, which I'm sure they have represented... The
average 1 bedroom in Austin around $1,000 and in SF let's say $3,300.
Difference of $2,300 * 12 = $27,600. After that, that other $40,000 cost of
living difference seems a bit of a stretch.

In SF, my company buys breakfast, lunch, dinner and my transportation to/from
work (like many others in this area) so I don't have to factor that into my
cost of living. The difference between cost of living adjusted salary tilts
toward the SF bay, especially with bay area equity options over what is
competitive in Austin (I have no insight into that, I think that would be an
interesting study though).

~~~
jensvdh
SF is bad but not "average $3300 for a 1BR" bad.

~~~
colbyh
it's actually worse, sitting at ~$3,500 right now:
[http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-rent-
cos...](http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/San-Francisco-rent-cost-drop-
rental-6690357.php)

------
ronnier
Lived in Tokyo and realized it wasn't worth it after some time considering the
amount of money to be made in the states. In the states, higher salary, lower
cost of living, larger homes, more room. I miss Japan, but I don't want to
work forever and living and working there just meant I was delaying the point
at which I could stop working.

------
jonathonf
London. The city with the highest cost of living in Europe [citation needed].

Look anywhere else in the UK and it's more like £25000-£35000.

~~~
ukpaythrowaway
I think that's too pessimistic. With less than 5 years experience, and having
made some less-than-optimal career decisions, I've got about £45,000 total
compensation. (Central Belt, Scotland)

~~~
GordonS
Do you work in finance perchance? Most dev salaries in Scotland are not that
good with just 5y experience, but finance sector jobs seem to generally come
with higher salaries. I have 15y experience, working in Aberdeen (which has a
much higher CoL than the central belt) and am on 55k - which is pretty much
the top end

------
donovanm
What is interesting is looking at the actual growth rate of salaries in
software engineering. For all the talk about not being able to find qualified
people, the salary growth seems stagnant.

------
misingnoglic
I wonder what India would be like - not as high wages, but the most expensive
apartments in bangalore are like $700 a month.

~~~
geodel
In first world rents are around 7-8% annually of the price of property. In
India it is just ~2% pa. I think there is already high pressure on IT salaries
in India so there would not be much upward trend there.

------
olva22
I'm wondering why the entire southeast of the US was left out of the analysis?
I'd have imagined ATL or Miami would have enough data to add to the report and
cost of living is fairly low even in comparison to many of these other cities.

~~~
w0rd-driven
I went through a round with hired.com and I'm based in Atlanta. While you can
specify that you're not willing to relocate the selection of potential
employers looking for someone here was seemingly low. It wouldn't surprise me
if there was very little to no matches for whatever reason. I feel like
Atlanta is a tech hub but some days it doesn't want to act like it. I would
think Miami is somewhat similar with Nashville coming close behind but there
aren't any concrete explanations. All I can really do is speculate from
anecdotal evidence.

~~~
echelon
Anecdotally, Atlanta has a great tech scene. I'm earning SF salary and comp,
and my cost of living is extremely cheap. The culture here feels much more
heterogenous, too.

Atlanta has a lot of fintech and medical tech companies, and it sports a
cottage startup scene at Georgia Tech and the ATDC. We've seen a number of
local startups do really well: Airwatch, MailChimp, etc.

------
tabeth
I'm legitimately interested to see how much software engineers make if they're
not White or Asian. Given the lack of women and minorities I'd say minorities
are better off being an MD than a SE. In addition, I'm skeptical that an
average SE can get offers at places that give them this kind of compensation.

\---

Take Google for an example. [1]

The earning "likelihood" (whether this is cultural, sociopolitical,
socioeconomic, etc. is irrelevant. This is just observable fact, given
Google's data) of Blacks is 1/17s of Whites and 1/5s of Asians (Google numbers
scaled for Black representation in the US).

What I am getting with this? In this model I'm describing, you either work at
Google, making $100 or you're unemployed, making 0. This means Whites and
Asians will continue to make much more as Software Engineers, because the
average wage as White or Asian person as a software engineer is higher,
_because_ of the higher rates of them _being_ software engineers to begin
with. This results in the average reported wage for software engineering being
closer to $100 (the ceiling) even though it's more like $20 if you're a woman
or minority.

Therefore, for an article like this to be useful for minorities and women, it
would have to illustrate companies that have high (where high is equal to US
demographics) rates of employment for software engineers. Otherwise, this
might as well just read: "2017 State of Global Millionaires"

[1]

\- [http://time.com/4391031/google-diversity-
statistics-2016/](http://time.com/4391031/google-diversity-statistics-2016/)

\- [https://www.google.com/diversity/](https://www.google.com/diversity/)

~~~
rattray
While I struggle generally to discern what you're trying to say, I'm
particularly befuddled by what "MD" refers to here.

~~~
tabeth
My point is basically this: the average is being extremely skewed by
survivorship bias, namely, White and Asians who attended elite schools. I
assert that getting the salaries noted in the article is especially unlikely
if you're on the other end of the spectrum: Women and minorities from non-
elite schools.

MD means medical doctor. Wages among doctors are far more predictable.

~~~
dukeluke
Nothing is keeping women and minorities out of tech, they're just choosing
different careers.

~~~
tabeth
I'd love to see your evidence for this. Namely, you'd need to prove that for a
given educational level, geographical location and familial history, they're
more likely to choose something other than tech than white males.

~~~
dukeluke
Given the fact that every college in the country enacts affirmative action,
it's apparent that non-whites and women would have no problem getting into the
IT field. And given the fact that over 60 percent of people graduating college
today are women, that tells me that it's just not a field they're interested
in. I don't see why that's a problem.

~~~
southphillyman
You don't understand why lack of diversity in an industry is a problem? A
complaint that I often hear is that SV is full of start ups focused on "Uber
for catnip" and other unimaginative useless things. Wouldn't diversity address
this alleged homogeny of services(think Bevel)?

~~~
dukeluke
I see no merit in forced diversity. If they have the opportunity and incentive
to choose this field, yet go elsewhere, that's fine by me.

~~~
tabeth
You've yet to prove that they've had "the opportunity and incentive to choose
this field, yet go elsewhere."

~~~
dukeluke
Affirmative action means women and minorities get preferential treatment
during hiring. Given the fact that women and minorities are underrepresented
in tech, it should be obvious that they would have an incentive to join the
industry because they would have very little trouble getting hired wherever
they want. And given the fact that over 60 percent of graduates are women,
it's clear that lack of opportunity isn't a factor for women at least.

~~~
tabeth
So you basically have no evidence to back up meaningless, unsubstantiated
claims. You don't even support your statement: "affirmative action means women
and minorities get preferential treatment during hiring." Guess the discussion
is over since you refuse to provide any evidence to back up your ridiculous
claims.

~~~
obstacle1
It's really easy to plug your ears and scream that an opponent's argument is
"ridiculous" (what you are doing). It's more difficult to actually make a
counterargument yourself (what you are not doing). Try harder, maybe.

------
IshKebab
It's crazy how much more you get paid in America than elsewhere. On the other
hand, I can cycle to work, get actual holidays and actually work leave work at
5pm.

~~~
arjie
You can do these in San Francisco, though I prefer keeping the mornings and
working the evenings. Wasting daytime sunshine is a terrible idea.

~~~
IshKebab
Really though? I thought you only something like get 10-15 holidays (including
sick days?), are expected to work really long hours, and I can't imagine the
rent within cycling distance of downtown San Francisco... Actually I don't
need to - it's pretty insane - easily triple London prices which are already
very high:

[https://www.zumper.com/blog/uploads/2016/03/SanFrancisco_Mon...](https://www.zumper.com/blog/uploads/2016/03/SanFrancisco_MonthlyPriceMedianMap_Winter20161.png)

~~~
arjie
I actually live in London right now so I can tell you that San Francisco can
be much cheaper. I had a one bedroom for $1400 there for the last three years.

Anywhere inside the city is cyclable. And because the weather is great you can
go do things in the daytime.

The vacation time thing is a problem for the rest of America. I had unlimited
vacation and took seven weeks off last year in San Francisco.

Everyone in SF wants to live at the NEMA. The NEMA costs like a NEMA would.
Don't live at the NEMA if you're price sensitive.

EDIT: Ah ha, I see. I lived in the Excelsior. On your map, I was right by the
border with Glen Park. 8 mins to BART, which is 12 mins to Montgomery St.. And
BART doesn't get anywhere near as packed as the Jubilee line does. You have to
see that SF is not very much larger than Zone 1 in London is.

------
40acres
As a black software engineer this is disturbing. What could be the cause of
the major discrepancies between black and white SWE salaries?

~~~
x1798DE
There could be a million things that would cause these discrepancies, like
differences in education and/or family background of the relevant populations.
It could even be something "positive" like if there's a perceived lack of
black engineers relative to the number of high-skilled black engineers that
are out there, companies may be more likely to hire marginal candidates or
retrain promising candidates from other fields (IT, security) - this would
skew the average salary down because they "padded" the distribution of black
engineers by hiring outside their normal candidate pool.

~~~
loco5niner
This line supports your point.

> When we look at our two largest markets on Hired’s platform, San Francisco
> and New York, the average African-American candidate on the Hired platform
> is 49 percent more likely to get hired than the average white person.

~~~
x1798DE
To be fair, you'd _also_ observe the exact same thing if black engineer
salaries were artificially depressed relative to their skill level, since if
you can get equivalent quality for less money, why not?

------
hereiam123
And here I am making $72,000 in New Hampshire...45 minutes from Boston. I have
a B.S. in computer engineering and now have 4-5 years of professional
experience in software (specializing in DevOps). Am I severely underpaid?

~~~
s4vi0r
These are the actual averages (not adjusted for SF cost of living):
[https://hired.com/assets/reports/state_of_salaries/img1@2x-2...](https://hired.com/assets/reports/state_of_salaries/img1@2x-2019388cdd8acc250c2dfd42b9b50dfb0476a617d511d8193e96e1fbb1bf1843.png)

IMO if you're happy where you are, and the cost of living is really low (e.g.
you can buy a decent house pretty easily for under 200k), no need to be
worried. Otherwise I'd probably leave and work in a big but not overly
expensive city. I've seen plenty of job listings in Chicago looking for people
with like 2-4 years experience paying 100k+, and the good parts of Chicago are
pretty damn nice plus it's a cheap city to live in for its size (e.g. Toronto
is always compared to Chicago, but rent is much more affordable in Chicago and
you get paid more)

EDIT: Just realized the 74k on Toronto is USD - these numbers seem pretty
weird. I know plenty of people making starting salaries in the ballpark of
$134k in SF, but you'd be hard pressed (maybe even impossible) to find
somebody in Toronto who'd pay you 97k for you first job out of school. I don't
know how SF salaries work though - maybe they start out higher, but they still
have the same glass ceiling where very, very few people are making >200k as a
developer?

~~~
emodendroket
He does not need to move anywhere to make a lot more money.

------
jorblumesea
It's really hard to compare real world adjusted incomes because each
government/country has varied outlooks on social benefits and safety nets. In
the US salaries are high, but the government doesn't give you anything in
terms of cheap educational, access to cheap healthcare etc.

I'd be curious to see if there's a way to factor in a global compensation
number that includes all factors like stock, education cost and so on.

Completely anecdotal, but my experience with Hired wasn't great. Didn't have
many good companies to choose from, the "hiring advocate" wasn't very helpful.

~~~
w0rd-driven
I didn't want to comment on this but my friend and I went through a batch and
we could pretty much say the exact same thing. I wouldn't say the advocate
wasn't terribly helpful. I blame it on the selection. Though my friend and I
had different advocates and I seemed to jump through more hoops likely because
I set my asking salary higher.

------
phkahler
Where's Detroit? We had a bit of an exodus back in 2008-2012 but finding
people today is like pulling teeth. I'm sure it's a way better financial deal
than the bay area.

~~~
vecinu
I think the recent crime/safety reputation its gotten is keeping people (like
me) away. I wouldn't move to Detroit even if they paid me $150k, I just don't
feel like the risk is worth it.

~~~
zip1234
I live in a Detroit suburb. Currently work there as well but know plenty of
people that work downtown. Easy drive to downtown but there are plenty of jobs
in very nice suburbs. The city is also nicer than you think. Still fairly
rough but improving every day.

~~~
JHof
Can confirm. I moved from downtown Detroit to Austin. Austin is great but the
core of Detroit is also pretty cool (except for the weather). A lot of the
popular restaurants/venues have sort of an 'underground' vibe, and typically
aren't as crowded as one might experience elsewhere. New, interesting
businesses and groups are constantly popping up downtown. I think of Detroit
when I see "keep Austin weird" signs, because Austin isn't weird, it's just
gentrification and rich white people. Weird is plentiful and welcome in
Detroit. Also, the city remains diverse, which doesn't seem to be the case in
Austin. But yeah, still lots of dangerous areas outside of downtown Detroit.

------
E6300
How is this "global" tech salaries, when it just shows data from five
different countries?

~~~
arjie
Everyone else is irrelevant.

------
toephu2
Hired is trying to present meaningful statistics while conveniently leaving
out the sample size? (although I understand for business reasons they don't
reveal it)

------
zump
The salary in Sydney seems to be anemic relative to a CoL that approaches SF.

For fucks sake.

------
nayuki
The article is misleading. The average software engineer salary in Toronto is
_not_ $197k CAD. It is closer to $80k, according to online sources like
[https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-reasonable-salary-for-a-
softwa...](https://www.quora.com/Whats-a-reasonable-salary-for-a-software-
engineer-in-Toronto) .

~~~
vmarsy
Read the map title, the real salary according to their source is $74K (CAD$
97K).

The adjustment for Cost of Living in SF is discussed in this thread, it might
not be accurate.

------
ValleyOfTheMtns
I'm unfairly critical of reports like these once I realise many y-axes don't
start at zero in their charts.

~~~
imtringued
What's the purpose of such a chart? Why not simply display a sorted table if
they can't be bothered to take advantage of the visualisation?

------
nojvek
Seattle average is 180k and Austin is 198k. That's insane. What companies are
offering this crazy salaries?

~~~
dingdongding
That is salary adjusted for cost of living.

------
encoderer
There are so many large tech companies in the Bay Area that all include stock-
based compensation as a meaningful portion of your salary.

Everybody on HN fixates on startup employment in the bay area. Sure, there are
plenty of "starving" engineers here working for $90k at a startup. But that's
a choice. Every large tech company you can think of, and many you can't, have
been hiring here non-stop for years. Within a 2 blocks of where I write this
is Yelp, Salesforce and Zillow/Trulia. These are not even the large tech
companies.

This place is not meant for everybody, but it really has not been hard to get
ahead here if you're an engineer aiming to make money.

------
Demoneeri
State of Global Tech Salaries Canada = Toronto

------
xexers
We're getting screwed here in Canada.

~~~
antoniuschan99
How are we getting screwed? (and I agree that the salaries are pretty low
compared to the other cities).

Also, the dollar being low doesn't help.

~~~
xexers
For the exact reason you said... our salaries are way lower. I should move to
the states (although I wont because immigrants don't seem to be welcome there
now).

------
longerthoughts
Would like to see distributions of desired experience levels for jobs in each
city. Unless they're fairly consistent, these numbers will all be skewed by
the relative seniority of available roles. I'm not convinced they'd be vastly
different but could imagine differences. For example, greater numbers of entry
level positions in areas with higher concentrations of industry giants who can
effectively train swarms of new grads.

------
mattbettinson
Interesting, I thought Toronto would be much lower. Does anyone have any data
on cost of living expenses compared to other major US cities?

\- A Canadian who wants to go to the states but probably won't for the time
being due to political/family/friends factors.

~~~
vecinu
Here's a comparison between SF and TO: [https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_cities.jsp?cou...](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Canada&country2=United+States&city1=Toronto&city2=San+Francisco%2C+CA&tracking=getDispatchComparison)

------
brwnll
Is there any sense of how corporate benefits effect the real cost of living?

Meaning, companies which offer free food, transportation, even limited
housing, the net effect of cost of living increases could be somewhat offset?

~~~
troels
Housing would make a difference in high cost-of-living areas, such as SF, but
the others are probably rounding errors with what is, after all, fairly high
salaries.

------
acchow
I bet the percentage (and the distribution) of engineers using something like
hired.com to find a job is way lower in the hyper-fast-paced Bay Area than
anywhere else.

------
totalperspectiv
Out of curiosity, where does biotech, or specifically bioinformatics fall on a
scale like this?

------
rihegher
It would be interesting to compare this with fully remote position salaries

------
walshemj
84k in London dam I am underpaid

~~~
Calcite
The average salary is 73k£. 84k£ is adjusted to the cost of living in SF.

~~~
j4_james
Actually I think it's only 56K in pounds - 73K is the dollar value. It's
confusing because the order of those values is swapped between the two maps.
On the first map they have $73K (£56K), i.e. the dollar value is first. On the
second map (adjusted for cost of living) they have £84K ($104K), i.e. the
pound value is first.

------
corobo
Hah, I'm actually somewhat disappointed. I read "making" as "creating" \- as
in what people are making app-wise around the world right now.

Free idea if anyone fancies it (I wish I had the time!) - a live update map
that sources geo-tagged tweets with a specific hashtag (#ShowHN?)

~~~
clarkmoody
Would be more clear with "earning" instead of "making," wouldn't it?

~~~
corobo
Aye, I'd have likely not clicked had it been "earning". Love to see what
people are creating, not really fussed about what they're earning

------
fbernier
What the fuck @ the section "North America", and then right under all there is
is a map of the US...

~~~
davidw
You must have missed this morning's Executive Order from the White House...

------
jlarocco
It's utterly stupid that the link goes to TechCrunch instead of the actual
study itself: [https://hired.com/state-of-
salaries-2017](https://hired.com/state-of-salaries-2017)

The hired.com page gives a lot more information, including baseline numbers
before cost of living adjustments, and doesn't have such a click bait title.

~~~
dang
> _utterly stupid_

We appreciate your concern for the quality of HN (and frustration at linkbait
etc.) but please don't do this here. The HN guidelines do say to post original
sources, but also say not to call names in comments
([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)).

Users submit articles from various sources of varying quality. Moderators
routinely change urls to better sources when we find them, and edit titles
accordingly. No one would love it better than we if users would just follow
the site guidelines and we didn't need to do those things, but to try to make
it otherwise would be like Canute commanding the waves.

We changed the URL from [https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/09/what-software-
engineers-ar...](https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/09/what-software-engineers-
are-making-around-the-world-right-now/) to the original report it's cribbed
from.

------
pinnbert
Money is a systematic lack of empathy.

~~~
xatan_dank
Feel free to develop a flawless system to allocate resources among billions of
organisms and implement it. I welcome your efforts.

------
EGreg
Austin and Seattle _average_ salaries of $190K for developers?

And yet SF and NYC are still stuck around $130K, which is only 20% higher than
what it was 10 years ago, and these cities are far more expensive to live in?

What's the draw, why don't more developers move to Austin or Seattle?

~~~
nkassis
This isn't the raw numbers. It's based on cost of living adjustment to give
what the equivalent would be in SF (at least that's what I understood from the
article).

It would have been useful to show the raw numbers next to the adjusted numbers
in the image.

~~~
arielweisberg
Yeah it makes it hard to compare how you personally are doing.

