
Compensation in 2019 – new grad tech offers - jonluca
https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/tech-offers
======
craigzucchini
I don't know why I ever bother reading things like this. On one hand, I'm not
driven by money, so it doesn't motivate me. On the other, my perspective of
having been in software for about 4-8 years depending on how you count, and
struggling to get to net zero—an amount of only about 10k cad—is just sort of
crushing when I realize someone fresh out of school can negotiate a 100k
signing bonus and more yearly salary than I've ever been offered. It's just
this sort of awful sinking feeling knowing that I'm sort of on the periphery
of an industry in which most people are making more money than they know what
to do with.

That said, I'm happy that people get paid well to do something they love, but
that can often be very depressing. Not always certainly, but damn if you've
never looked out from behind your screen at the sun shining and thought a
little less of the React component or whatever saas thing you work on.

It's easy to forget that many of these articles, and particularly posts are
Blind, are just just riddled with people posturing about the same thing.

Edit: I should add the emotional response I tend to have given my
circumstance, I do think it's way better to have transparency than not.

~~~
hellofunk
> most people are making more money than they know what to do with

Well, if they are in SF (which many of them are), they know exactly what to do
with all the money: pay the rent and share pizza with their 6 roommates.

~~~
tidepod12
The OP of this thread, who lives in SF, mentions he has about $11k left over
every _month_ after paying for rent and living expenses, _and_ after spending
$1200 a month in 'fun' expenses.

See:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20943699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20943699)

Yes SF is expensive, but these salaries are absurd.

~~~
hellofunk
But you must also look at how much space belongs to that one individual for
the rent they pay, vs elsewhere; not to mention, California's very high taxes.
It's common for those with seemingly high salaries to have very little space
or actually share it with many people, and if you lived like that in other
places you'd also end up with more leftover each month, even with a lower
salary.

~~~
filoleg
ok sure, let's imagine that this specific individual decides to spend $2k more
on rent to have a place just to himself, which would bring his net after all
expenses to over $9k. Still a lot, so the housing costs don't make that much
of a difference here.

~~~
hellofunk
But rent is just part of the picture, and 2k is a low estimate to match actual
quality of life. What about the much higher taxes, much higher prices for
other aspects of living?

~~~
heyoni
He’s gonna need that extra $2k now that the SALT deductions are gone.

------
linguae
The salaries for the FAANG companies are dramatically higher than even other
large Silicon Valley companies. Over four years ago my first job after
graduating with a MS in computer science was at an old-school Silicon Valley
giant. My offer was $100,000, roughly $2,500 of stock that vested over 3 years
(with a one-year cliff), and I negotiated a signing bonus that was a little
less than $4,000. While the salary was about at par with what FAANG companies
offered at the time to those with similar credentials, the rest of my
compensation was a far cry from the offers I've heard of from the FAANG
companies.

Given the large differences in compensation (which makes a big difference when
trying to save for a house in this area), I wonder how older Silicon Valley
giants are able to compete with FAANG companies? Startups can justify lower
compensation since there is the possibility the startup would be very
successful. I wonder for giants if the difference largely boils down to
interviewing processes? I do know that getting into a FAANG company is
difficult and requires many months of grinding LeetCode, whereas not all
Silicon Valley companies have difficult interviews.

~~~
zuhayeer
Btw, [http://levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi) for FAANG salaries

~~~
ryandrake
Why would we trust voluntary self-reported data to be representative? There’s
got to be massive sampling bias here. Wouldn’t human nature to brag and
overstate bias these averages on the high side?

~~~
bt848
Just pegging to my own personal experience, the L4, L5, and L6 total comp
amounts on levels.fyi are pretty low. I guess it is because they are blended
from many different sites. Looking at just the ones from SF, MV, and Sunnyvale
they are consistent with my own experience and the self-reported internal
salary survey Googlers conducted amongst themselves.

------
headcanon
I realize California is very expensive cost-of-living compared to the Midwest,
but as a developer in Michigan I'm shaking my head at these salaries. The low
end in Cali is high end here. Best I could hope for in Michigan even as senior
is mid-100's. the highest number I've ever seen thrown around from recruiters
was about $170k base, and pretty sure that was close to VP level. Can't
complain about the low housing costs though.

~~~
vonmoltke
I more than tripled my total comp in three years by leaving Dallas for NYC.

~~~
mattwad
You probably tripled your living costs and taxes too. I also moved from Dallas
to NYC, so can't argue, but it's not apples to apples.

~~~
peakay
Luckily the gains from tripling compensation usually far outstrip the losses
from tripling living costs and taxes.

~~~
fjp
Yeah... there's so many obvious counterpoints to everyone's knee-jerk "well
you also upped your living costs!" reaction.

Number 1 is relevant for many many people: Any pre-existing loan. Student
loans, car loans, etc. It won't change, and you'll have more money to pay it
off.

On the same thought train, while cars sell for different prices in different
places, they do not double or triple. Not even close.

------
nylemi
In Finland the highest you can hope for as an employed software developer is
around 90,000 EUR a year, but average is less than 60k. Signing bonuses I've
never heard of and if you get stock options, you usually need to cut your
salary expectations a lot. Being freelancer you can get to around 150k-200k
though. Of course at these higher figures the effective tax rate increases to
around 50%

~~~
nugget
I’m surprised there aren’t more startups in EU countries since the opportunity
cost of lost corporate salary is lower. Or maybe there are, and we just don’t
hear about them?

~~~
adventured
The EU (Europe more widely) does have a fair share of small start-ups. There
are two primary problems however.

First is the lack of venture capital. Major economies like Germany and France
are still only typically seeing $3 or $4 billion per year in venture capital
investment (an improvement over five years ago granted). The US has averaged
around $85 billion per year over the prior six years, or over half a trillion
dollars in that time. With interest rates & yields heading permanently lower
in the US, it's likely we'll see $100+ billion routinely in annual VC in the
coming decade (outside of down blips in recessions), as capital desperately
chases returns.

The EU has typically been closer to $15 billion per year, with a few higher
years more recently. You can't compete at those levels. Countries like
Finland, Poland, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Austria, etc. are regularly seeing
only $100-$300 million per year in VC. Spain is a major economy and they
struggle to consistently attract $750m-$1b per year. Europe needs to pump up
its VC figures considerably; more start-ups, more funding, pay engineers
higher wages to retain & attract more talent (SV has been pillaging Europe for
talent for decades).

The VC funding per capita in the US - 330m people - is around $250 give or
take. For Italy it's about $3. That's obscene, Italy has a $2 trillion economy
and $34k GDP per capita. Something needs to be done to dramatically increase
such figures, probably both at the local level and the EU level.

Second is the difficulty in going from a small start-up with a small amount of
venture capital, to try to scale out rapidly across the EU, much less the
world. It's extremely difficult, versus the springboard US start-ups get to
launch from, starting with far more capital, in a richer, larger, homogeneous
economy. Canada would be the fifth largest economy in Europe, and US start-ups
get that market for basically free (so to speak; low cultural barriers,
relatively easy market access, very close geographic proximity).

Then finally to make the situation worse, large US tech companies routinely
eat the European start-ups before they grow up. That interrupts the potential
for larger exits & spread-the-wealth effects that roll/compound over decades
(helping to build sustainable funding ecosystems), like you've seen over time
in California. For US companies it's a great source of talent acquisition.

------
tidepod12
It honestly makes me feel a bit queasy when I read posts like this. 22 and 23
year olds making $200k+ a year? For doing what, exactly? Contributing 0.001%
of the codebase to an app that sells advertisements? Meanwhile teachers,
researchers, nurses etc (of which many also live in SF, by the way) are making
pennies and some literally starving to survive.

It makes it even worse to see the casualness that people in this thread are
talking about $200-300k+ salaries, as if they have no appreciation for the
fact that a $300k salary is unheard of even for most people in their 50s, let
alone a kid in his early 20s. This is the type of attitude that I fear really
makes Silicon Valley outsiders have a good amount of disdain for SVers.

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
i don't know what part of the country you live in, but this 200k to 300k is
barely scraping by with a middle class living in the bay area, especially if
you just moved here. CA and the bay area's high cost of living means most
people here with less than 200k/year are going to be really poor unless they
bought a house over 20 years ago. Your not going to be able to attract talent
to move to the bay area with sub 200K salaries. And since, Google and facebook
have money to burn, they'd rather pay those high salaries than move to a more
cost effective area.

~~~
tidepod12
I see this comment a lot, but it's just not true. If $300k was "barely
scraping by", then it would be impossible for people making less than $100k to
even live _at all_ in the bay area, and yet the average income in SF is indeed
$75k.

In other parts of this thread, an SFer mentions that with a salary of $300k,
he saves $100,000 a year after paying for his 'expensive hobbies' without even
trying . Another commenter says they have ~$13,000 per month in disposable
income (after rent in a nice apartment, utilities, and food). Thats certainly
not "scraping by" to me.

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
It's different if you already live here. If you already live here probably you
have some arrangement: maybe you're in a rent protected home (75% of SF is
like that), or maybe you live with 5 other roommates or maybe live with
parents, etc.

It's different, if you're moving to here from another area you're not going to
be able to get one of those rent protected rentals.

~~~
tidepod12
I just went shopping online for apartments in SF. If I were to move there now,
a 1 BR in a very nice luxury tower in Nob Hill will run me about $3,700/mo.
And let's throw in, say, $200/mo for utilities and expenses? And let's give a
very generous $1000/mo for food expenses?

According to a tax calculator, a $200k salary in SF is about $130k/year take
home, or about $11k/month.

After rent and expenses, that's still $5,100 in disposable take-home pay every
month. That's _not_ scraping by.

------
jonluca
Apologies if this wasn't clear but these are California-centric offers (and
can probably be extended to include Seattle and New York). They are not across
the US, or across _all_ software jobs.

~~~
nayuki
I thought you were possibly Canadian because your domain name is jonlu.ca.
Then again, CA could also be interpreted as California...

~~~
jonluca
Nope, just another one of those people that accepts higher TLD risk by
locating it internationally in exchange for a cool domain. I'm actually
Italian!

~~~
davidw
And, indeed, from a region renowned for its cat recipes!

------
einpoklum
I'm fascinated by the phenomenon of the signing bonus, which in many other
countries Doesn't exist.

Do people really get a lump of money just for agreeing to come work there -
while they could just leave on day 2 (or day 1) and pocket the thing? Or - is
it like a higher first salary? Also, if the position is highly sought-after -
isn't it a bit weird that a signing bonus is offered?

~~~
JoshTriplett
Signing bonuses often have a requirement to stay for a certain amount of time
(or you have to return it).

Some signing bonuses help compensate for losing bonuses or unvested stock at a
company you're leaving.

Signing bonuses are also _great_ from a company's perspective, because they're
a one-time payment that may get you to accept a lower salary. From the
employee's perspective, they may be good or bad depending on your needs;
consider carefully if you'd rather negotiate for a higher salary instead.

~~~
sys_64738
You need to divide a signing bonus by three to average it over your average
time at the company.

------
NeptuneNancy
Make sure you understand the (at least in the US) tax implications an offer
might entail. For example, when your stock vests, you owe income tax on the
value of the stock on its vesting day, even if you don’t sell it. (Tax when
you sell is capital gains.) You will probably find yourself paying estimated
taxes as a result.

(Not an accountant, just someone who’s spent time trying to guess what the
stock in my husband’s company might be worth at vesting for the coming year in
order to figure out what we might have to pay in estimated taxes, and to
figure out where that money might come from as you might be in a position
where you can’t sell it to cover the taxes!)

~~~
dharmon
Lest anyone leave confused, this only applies for privately-held companies.

If you are entertaining an offer from Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon, etc.,
when your shares vest, the default option is usually "sell to cover", which
means they will automatically sell shares to use as a tax withholding.
Everything will be on your W-2, no estimated taxes needed.

~~~
manacit
This is dangerous advice, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone assume that
everything is 'just handled' when it involves taxes and anything more complex
than regular salary.

RSUs, bonuses, etc. will likely be withheld at the IRS supplemental rate of
22% (37% once employees receive >$1mm of it in a year), whereas your marginal
rate could easily reach above that depending on how much equity and bonus
compensation you're getting.

In your first windfall year, the IRS has rules that will prevent people from
being hit with overwitholding penalties. After that, if you don't pay at least
90% of your calculated end of year taxes, you're going to see a penalty.

My advice to _anyone_ starting off is to just talk to a professional when
equity and bonuses are involved. It is going to cost you money, but it is
going to save you money in the long run.

~~~
dharmon
I don't understand the situation you are concerned about where you don't end
up paying the minimum of 90% of your current year's tax or 110% of the
previous year's tax (these are the numbers to avoid a penalty).

Can you explain this situation?

As I see it, even in the wild case where your company's stock explodes, if
your brokerage is "selling to cover", you will more than hit 110% of your
previous year's tax bill (since you are paying 22% tax on those shares). Yes,
you will get a whopper of a tax bill, but you won't pay penalties on it.

Btw, I don't know why you quoted "just handled" when I didn't use those words.
I wanted people to recognize what "sell to cover" means, since usually when
you start with a company you have to create a brokerage account and they will
ask how you want your taxes handled.

~~~
manacit
If you're vesting enough equity, your brokerage is only holding on to 22% and
you don't have enough of your salary withheld, it's very possible to end up
with a marginal rate that is in the high 20s or low 30s, and not enough tax
paid.

This can happen without triggering the 110% of previous year portion if you're
regularly vesting a lot of equity - the more you vest, the farther 22% is
going to be from your actual marginal tax rate.

I used single quotes instead of double quotes around "just handled" to quote
the idea and summary of what you were saying - that it would be handled
automatically by the brokerage - and not as a direct quote

------
kevan
Any more context on the $275,000 offer? Did the returning intern have a PhD in
a specialized field, did their name rhyme with Midas?

~~~
jonluca
As Tyler said that's first year TC only (although with average SWE tenure
reaching ~18 months, it's not unrealistic to hop around and integrate a
signing bonus into your comp every other year - also depends what stage
company you like working at and how comfortable you are with accepting risk).
After that it's "only" around $200k, without any raises, bonuses, or stock
refreshers.

~~~
kevan
I understand that it's a one-time bonus and TC drops off after that. I'm still
curious what the circumstances were for that specific candidate and whether
they had unusual circumstances that gave them more leverage than the usual
bachelor degree new grad.

~~~
jonluca
B.Sc. from a top 20 university, 10+ competing offers from FLAAG and various
unicorns, and no doesn't rhyme with Midas

------
akhilcacharya
I should really stop reading these posts, but perhaps the worst part is people
denying these people exist.

Once someone at my undergrad didn't believe my very average new grad TC... the
information gap is insane.

------
rdtwo
It’s funny because these salaries aren’t even that unreasonable just that most
other wages have remained stagnant for 20 years in the us

------
durron
Salaries at FAANGs are hard. I received an offer (New England based) for an L6
position from one this week and was shocked at the package. After getting off
the phone and doing more research, I realized there's a chance I'm being
lowballed, and I should negotiate for more if I choose to go to said company.
I've done pretty well in my career so far, but even taking the initial offer
would almost double my salary.

~~~
sys_64738
But Boston is ultra expensive. Like a mini NYC.

------
SubuSS
One counter intuitive case where quarterly vest is actually better than
monthly: tax harvesting in usa.

I am no tax expert, but my read of the IRS rules put restrictions around when
you can buy or vest the next batch after doing a harvest. This comes in very
handy if the company goes through a rough patch.

~~~
junar
The main pain is more paperwork, some of the time. It won't have an
appreciable effect on your taxes, unless you

* Sold X shares are massively underwater, and

* Within the same period, vested Y shares, where Y is a large fraction of X

------
marketing_MCS
Exploding offers (offers that expire 5 business days or less from the day you
receive them) are unfortunate but they exist, and not just from companies that
are not ideal places to work. There’s not much that can be done in these cases
besides ask for an extension, and if you don’t receive one, spend some time
figuring out whether your expected value increase from more recruiting will be
worth turning it down.

This is a pretty good summary, IMO. I hate exploding offers as a candidate,
and also dislike them as a hiring manager. Unfortunately you do get some
candidates that hum and haw, drag their feet, or shop your offer around for
something better. Which is their prerogative, but it wastes your time and
delays your hiring process.

I think honest and open communication is key here. Don’t go silent on the
offer, or be vague - tell them you have another interview, and you want to
wait to see if you get an offer. If they don’t want to give you an extension
and try to strong-arm you it’s a pretty good sign that they know they’re
under-offering (and, also, gives you some insight into the nature of the
people involved).

Still, it’s not a clear-cut signal to walk away, and I like that this section
captures that nuance.

------
siscia
Of course this will vary widely, but how much can people living in the bay
area, working for FAANGS expect to save every month?

Can somebody share an estimated figure?

~~~
jonluca
I can outline my rough budget. Rent is roughly $2400, recurring charges and
utilities is roughly $200, and then other expenses and "fun" is about $1200.
Luckily all 3 meals are paid for from my employer 5 days a week.

Once all is said and done (all stock accounted for and distributed on a weekly
basis rather than on the vesting cycle) and the expenses above are taken out,
there's ~11k left over a month. This is post tax.

~~~
bradlys
You have more leftover than I make as a senior software engineer at a unicorn
startup in Palo Alto.

lol FML...

~~~
scarejunba
I cut my total comp in half to move to a startup. That's just the price you
pay. If you've worked in both environments, you know what you prefer. I don't
think I'd go back to the other one.

The only thing I miss is that there's a lot of diversity in bigger companies
you don't find in startups. Here, everyone is like me :D

~~~
bradlys
I wasn't taking an option. I just never got an offer from a public tech
company. Not from a lack of trying - mind you!

I'm pretty confident if I was making 2-3x what I am now - I would stay with
that. As it stands - I cannot afford to continue living in silicon valley on
this current salary.

------
aluminussoma
As for the more frequent vesting (as opposed to the 1 year cliff): I heard
companies started doing that to reduce or eventually eliminate the signing
bonus. The theory being that a more frequent vesting schedule will accomplish
the same thing.

For example, one recent offer from a big tech company was for a 6 month
vesting schedule with no cliff. Most are switching to quarterly vesting
schedules with no cliffs.

~~~
jonluca
That's interesting. Yeah most of my FAANG offers had no cliff (quarterly or
monthly). All my unicorn offers were 1 year cliff though :/

I wonder if they'll bake the bonus in. Getting those $100k signing bonuses are
pretty nice, especially since some companies give 25% or 50% before you start,
which allows you to do a trip. Plus $100k added into a 4 year vesting schedule
is a pretty large opportunity cost (assuming you could grow at 7% a year,
which is admittedly aggressive, is leaving ~$30k on the table).

~~~
ska
RSU vs. option is a big difference here too, you can see shifting "signing
bonus" into RSU with quicker schedule, but if it's options you can't get out
anyway in the short term so they really are oranges vs. apples.

------
SketchySeaBeast
I had no idea FAANG offered paid overtime.

~~~
jonluca
Quite a few friends at Apple have offers that were paid hourly for the first
year, and switched to salaried after that.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
So it was an hourly probationary period? I can't see why one would opt for
salaried if hourly was on the table - in my experience I never work less than
the assumed salary hours.

~~~
jonluca
I'm actually not that sure about the rationale. It wasn't optional - their
offer said "$52.88/hr for the first 12 months, $110,000 a year after the first
year". I'm not sure if it's to incentivize working more the first year,
whether it's "probationary" (in case the person doesn't work at all?) or if
there is some other form of logic to it.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
Bizarre. Maybe it was encouragement to get the employee up to spend as much
time as possible to get up to speed? But then again, that's incentivizing
burning the candle at both ends when you're the least equipped and familiar
with everything to really take advantage of it.

------
bfrog
Yes, the geolocal hotspots of the west coast and east coast offer significant
pay bumps just to be geolocal. No I don't care. No I don't want to live there,
where the Car is King or where you can't own/rent anything bigger than a
closet for any sensible amount of expenses. Where the next significant
disaster is a big question of "when" not "if".

Hire me where I live already, with my network of friends and loved ones. Where
my cost of living is low and my lifestyle is easy going. Guess what, I work
better when I'm in my home office. I get stuff done.

Put me in the most depressing cubicle farm or highly distracting shared space
and its a lot less likely.

I really don't understand the "you need to go to the office" mentality
anymore, especially with how easy it is to have a video meeting.

~~~
ClumsyPilot
In my experience, you have to make remote working a high priority in order for
it to work well, otherwise remote employees end up treated as second-class
citizen. People have to actually base their workflows around it, and not the
office. So I can understand if smaller companies can't accommodate it - after
all a lot of business simply isn;t managed that well. Large ones definitely
should.

------
gigatexal
Given how expensive college is these days you’d almost have to get such a role
to pay you a bonus and a high six figure income and stock options to have a
chance of paying it all off.

------
probinso
Its depressing that companies would rather ratchet up pay than give better
vacation, family care packages, or flexible schedule / location policies.

~~~
mav3rick
I'd rather take the money and so would many others.

~~~
probinso
thats nice, not me.

------
abledon
based upon some of the work you've shown on your blog
[https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/illegal-
streams](https://blog.jonlu.ca/posts/illegal-streams) I'm glad they are
compensating you fairly.

Most people could not do this type of mental work.

------
q2ctf
Who is the L in FLAAMG? And why is there no N?

Facebook L? Amazon Apple Microsoft Google Netflix

~~~
Adisuki
LinkedIn I guess, but that's Microsoft already. Redundant.

~~~
opportune
LinkedIn has an entirely different pay scale from Microsoft

------
reallydude
I have never seen a signing bonus. Options, yearly bonus, even rev-share,
sure.

> There can be other facets of a company that should influence your decision,
> such as what type of healthcare they offer,

Almost universally, company health care SUCKS. Look for major medical. If it's
not there, don't bother. Save yourself the 7$ a month they will rebate you, if
you opt-out. JPMorgan? Trash. Experian? Trash. etc

> What the 401k matching looks like

This is important. Generally % of paycheck up to a limit. It does take a chunk
from your paycheck, which is you saving for yourself.

> whether they offer a mega backdoor Roth, whether they allow auto-sell of
> your vested stocks, whether there’s an employee stock purchase plan, and
> whether they offer free food or gym.

This is all marginal and rare in my experience. Other than a little gym you
can pay for or some snacks (which will eventually be abused and changed if the
company is growing) or Kombucha on tap or whatever is not a consideration for
me.

~~~
headcanon
I've worked at startups in Michigan my whole career and have not seen a
signing bonus either. Are these typically exclusive to FAANG companies?

~~~
reallydude
Not just specific companies, but largely specific areas (which have to compete
with specific companies). New grads will, statistically, never see signing
bonuses in their career, much less out of school. People paying bonuses for
new grads is a sunk opportunity cost and a company should never do it unless
it hurts them in some measurable way (cost-benefit analyses are important).

I've interviewed hundreds of people in Southern California, some who came out
of google (does give signing bonuses) or Amazon (rarely signing bonus) and it
has happened that Blizzard tempted some people with a little bonus...but these
are uncommon.

People who jump company to company (google to amazon and back) don't get
bonuses (as rehires), although that's outside the topic of "new grads".

~~~
bluedevilzn
I joined Amazon as a new grad. Signing bonus was part of the standard new grad
offer.

> People paying bonuses for new grads is a sunk opportunity cost

Sure but FAAMG aren't really trying to pinch pennies. Signing bonuses also
usually have a clause where you have to return it, if you don't at least stay
a year. Signing bonus as a new grad is a HUGE help to the new grad. When
you're competing between FAAMNG, that signing bonus can sway what offer a new
grad would accept.

> google (does give signing bonuses)

I'm currently at Google but I had to negotiate the signing bonus. It wasn't
part of my original offer.

> People who jump company to company...

They absolutely do.

------
njn
lol I'm a senior developer, been in the industry since I graduated with a BS
in 2010. I'm in NYC. My salary is currently $82k. I'm not doing anything wrong
here - the numbers in the article are way exaggerated.

~~~
bluedevilzn
I have no idea how you live with that salary in NYC. Maybe go to a bar and
meet some people in tech/finance, they'd paint you a better picture of
reality.

~~~
akavi
Post tax, that's ~5 k$/mo, which is (by choice) roughly my monthly spending as
a single/no kids 28-year-old in NYC. It's not a bad lifestyle at all. I
personally would feel uncomfortable spending that much if I wasn't also able
to save on top of it, but if you disregard that, it's 100% doable

~~~
njn
Yeah, in general I find people to be excessive with their spending. $5k a
month sounds like an insane waste to me. I'm pretty thrifty. I feel like tech
workers are living in a different world than me.

My direct deposit income is something like $2400 every two weeks. That's after
my IRA investments, monthly health insurance cost, metro card cost through my
job, etc. I work at Columbia University, by the way.

I live in a rent stabilized 1br apartment in west Harlem: $1500/mo rent. After
that I have no major expenses other than food, and I shop at local grocery
stores and cook at home a lot. I make my own bread, because I like to, not
because I have to. I always feel like I have more than enough money. I put
around $800 a month into savings and investments.

I'm even able to travel frequently to Europe, Latin America, and to see my
parents in Seattle. I agree with Bradley Kuhn on this one: in general, tech
workers are wayyy overpaid.

~~~
yowlingcat
You are being paid well under market by a very wide margin. Check out
[https://www.levels.fyi/](https://www.levels.fyi/) for supporting data. It's
possible you believe that tech workers are overpaid rather than believing you
are underpaid because of psychological factors, such as the cognitive
dissonance of having to face the unfortunate reality that you've been leaving
money on the table for at least 7 years, and you've probably left over half a
million dollars on the table due to your inability to properly understand and
measure market compensation. That's unfortunate, but it probably makes sense
for you to face that if you don't want to miss out on another few million over
the course of your career due to a fear of revising your thinking and
admitting you were wrong.

Your call.

~~~
njn
I wouldn't work at any of those companies as long as I have the choice not to:
they all make money off of proprietary software.

~~~
yowlingcat
You have made a choice to not work at companies that make money off of
proprietary software, then you exclude the vast majority of the market of
commercial software engineering, but that also means you have no idea of or
don't care market rates are. So, you really shouldn't comment on that unless
you figure that out, and it's a little disingenuous to do so this way.

