
Fresh CS graduate wages down 20 percent - jasonlbaptiste
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2008/12/03/fresh-cs-graduate-wages-down-20-percent/
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poshj
Hi guys, I want to know how much exactly do fresh CS graduate(B.Sc) gets in US
nowadays? I'm based in Japan, and we will get 2147 USD(200k yen) for base
salary only no matter how good you are. It seems very cheap :( since the high
living cost here. The yearly bonus is about 4~5 months of base salary, but you
don't usually get it unless you are really recognized by the management team.

EDIT: I must say, this is also the same for big companies like IBM Japan, SAP,
etc.

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smanek
It varies greatly on skill/pedigree (the two often, but not always,
correlate). If you are poor to average you'll start at $50K-70k/year. If
you're average to good you'll start at 70k-90k, and 90k+ if you're
particularly good (about 150K is the maximum I've heard of, and that's more in
modeling or quantitative development than straight programming). About a 10%
bonus is normal in my experience, but that obviously varies based on
skill/industry. There is also some give based on what sort of company/industry
you want (e.g., I personally know someone who just this week turned down a six
figure offer at a hedge fund for ~20k less doing AI research).

Those numbers are for a programmer in/near big cities (Boston, Silicon Valley,
NY, etc). Revise them down ~10% for more rural/suburban areas (but it's harder
to find work beyond code-monkey level at all in many of those places). And all
this is based on my anecdotal experience, so figure there is likely some
selection bias.

In my experience, between federal and state income taxes, FICA, and sales tax
you'll lose ~50% of your of your income to the government. And we have to save
for our own retirement (we expect nothing from social security) and our kids'
college education (currently ~15k-30K/year tuition).

How are your taxes/retirement/etc in Japan?

~~~
mynameishere
Don't pull numbers out of nowhere.

[http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresu...](http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_IT10000001.html)

There's no way that an "average" starting salary is 70k. Salary.com is
famously inflationary and they have the median at 54K--and that's not just
fresh grads. My guess would be more like 40K, with huge variations depending
on where you live and whether you went to a well-known school. But then,
"average" people don't go to well-known schools for the most part.

~~~
smanek
First of all, I said my numbers apply to major cites. Your own source places
the median salary in th 60K-65K range for most metros.

Second, my numbers aren't pulled out of nowhere they are based on my friends
and my experience. And they seem to be independently corroborated by litewulf.

Third, note that my poor/average/good ratings weren't based on quintiles or
anything like that - it was based on my personal characterization of
skill/pedigree (pedigree being a combination of experience, personal projects,
and school - in about that order). I incidentally think that about 90% of
programmers are crap (sturgeon's law), so it's likely that the median salary
is ~60K with everything I said being true.

~~~
lliiffee
Fourth, "average" usually refers to the mean, and for distributions with big
upper tails (like salaries), the mean is higher than median.

------
decode
Every year, the University of Michigan publishes a survey of salaries for its
Engineering graduates:

<http://career.engin.umich.edu/salary/>

Average annual full-time salaries for computer science graduates finishing in
the 2007-2008 school year, by degree:

Bachelors - $73,761

Masters - $79,762

PhD - $103,740

All of these amounts are up from the previous year.

Caveats: the sample size is small, it's a top Research I University in
Engineering, and participation is on a volunteer basis, so the participants
may self-select in certain unknown ways. Also, the most recent survey is from
the class that graduated in April, which was before many of the scary economic
things began happening.

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PStamatiou
I wouldn't put much weight on this.. it's a 3 sentence blog post without much
backing.

~~~
bd
This is from Phillip Greenspun's blog, so it has more credibility than if it
would be just some random blogger.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Greenspun>

~~~
wheels
No it doesn't. It's still just an anecdote.

~~~
bd
Credibility of the anecdote, title is a bunk.

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ig1
I've done some research in this area (my startup is dev recruitment related)
and from what I've seen that large tech companies aren't cutting fresh
graduate wages because it complicated internal politics. If you pay this years
grads less than last years, then they will find out about it and it creates
ill-will and bad politics within the company.

However the number of grad roles at the top-end are being cut, so previously
grads who could have got a high-paying job at a top-end company now have to
take a lesser paying job at a slightly worse company.

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kqr2
Employers / recruiters can use the bad economic news (Adobe layoffs, etc) in
conjunction with the "exploding offer" to drive down wages of new graduates.

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/11/26.html>

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wd40
Anyone know what yc startups like scribd pay their developers?

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aneesh
That's just one data point. I don't have any numbers, but this doesn't seem to
be the case at the big software companies.

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secorp
I mis-read this as "French" CS graduate wages down 20 percent :)

~~~
awad
same here

~~~
pietro
So did I, and it didn't make any sense. Wages don't adapt to changing market
conditions that easily in France.

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vlad
Maybe if they stop cursing and start recursing. Sorry for the worst and most
annoying joke ever.

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Dilpil
...for a sample size of one?

