
Tech salary insights from 1.2M foreign worker visas - kevingao1
http://www.therotationship.com/blog/salaries/is-silicon-valley-in-a-salary-bubble-3-more-insights-from-salar-lys-1-2m-foreign-work-visas/
======
simonsarris
Why are tech salaries so _low?_

Especially from these companies with large profit margins and huge revenue per
employee numbers. It seems like engineers have captured almost nothing of the
fruit of their labors.

~~~
thejdude
That's low to you? Wow. Just wow.

Over here in Europe (or at least Germany) salaries are incredibly uniform
(doesn't really matter if you suck or get as much done in a day as others in
1-2 weeks; if your bugs get constantly reopened or your code is rock-solid),
and most people seem to get maybe 35-50k€ after graduation (diploma/master's
degree).

~~~
untog
Bear in mind that the US is severely out of whack in terms of work/life
balance. It's one of the things I find most difficult about living here - when
I first arrived I had 10 days vacation a year. I currently only have 15. And
don't forget to factor in healthcare costs and the like.

Money certainly isn't everything.

~~~
alkonaut
Yeah, that _IS_ crazy. How come companies don't offer holdays as comp? Here
(Sweden) having an extra week holiday (6 rather than 5 weeks) is a common
comp.

Why aren't companies competing with that in the US? If I was offered $150k
with 10-15 days holiday and 50hr work weeks (expected), I'd immediately start
bargaining for 25-30 paid days off, and make sure I wouldn't be expected to
work more than 40h/w. Is that uncommon in the US?

Or is it common to take unpaid days off, which you can afford given the high
salaries?

~~~
untog
I suspect that, particularly in the startup arena, time is more valuable than
money. VCs are throwing cash at you, but they want you to launch yesterday.

~~~
alkonaut
Sure, and I realize good developers are hard to find, but unless you are
looking for the 23year old "ninja" type developers who like doing all
nighters, would you not need to care about work/life balance of employees too?

Startups that need to launch yesterday I realize often have young employees
without family, but these are large corps like Oracle/Yahoo/Google, these have
to employ quite a lot of engineers in their 30s, 40s and 50s? Like I said, I'd
be willing to accept a _substantially_ lower pay for a good holiday (5-6
weeks), and a good work/life balance otherwise, like good processes that
ensure there's no regular "crunch time".

~~~
nerfhammer
It's not part of the culture. People sometimes quietly grouse about the lack
of vacation time or the number of hours but no one is willing to publicly do
anything about it for whatever cultural reason.

~~~
alkonaut
So in this culture, is it common to do a few years of high-income work with
12hr days and high compensation, and then you get a "quieter" job somewhere
else when you need a job that allows you to pick the kids up at 4.30pm? Or how
does it work? Obviously children aren't unheard of in Silicon Valley, and as
far as I understand it's a pretty progressive part of the US, so I assume that
families have two careers to worry about? Something doesn't add up if long
days are norm.

~~~
nerfhammer
> is it common to do a few years of high-income work with 12hr days and high
> compensation

People working the longest hours aren't necessarily making more money because
of it. There's no overtime.

People don't want to make less as they go on in their careers, and don't want
to look like they don't want to work a lot, so if they take less time they try
not to do so overtly.

> then you get a "quieter" job somewhere else when you need a job that allows
> you to pick the kids up at 4.30pm?

Recalibrate your expectations. No one is leaving work at 4:30pm. 45 hours a
week is called "40 hours a week" and no one works just 40 hours a week. People
don't expect to do very much outside of work except on the weekends.

~~~
alkonaut
Thanks for the insights. Perhaps it is time for companies to compete for
talent on these parameters instead? I think I've seen some companies trying to
attract talent like that now that I think about it (was it stack exchange
perhaps?). I might underestimate the power of the almighty buck here, but I'd
take the employer that says "we value work/life balance, when we say 40h/week
we mean it literally, we allow remote work, and we have 5 paid weeks off".

As for my questions above, it still doesn't add upp. Either you don't have
kids as long as you hold one of these jobs or at least both parents can't have
such jobs, so it's basically a job that requires one parent to stay at home at
least part time? Or you need a nanny to pick up your kids after
school/kindergarten? My guess is that you are going to say that normally one
parent (and not a random one) just stays home for years after having kids, but
that would be a real blow to my view of SF/NYC as progressive...

It seems odd to me that people making a lot of money (which I hope these
salaries are considered), wouldn't just invest a huge chunk of it in
family/free time, by simply working less hours, e.g. 75% at 75% pay.

With my european glasses, the salaries look huge, but of course I haven't
factored the cost of living and certainly not the impact on work/life balance.
I hold a well paid (by local standards) full time dev job, and I drop off kids
at 8 and pick them up at 4.30. Every other day my wife does that so I can work
a bit longer. I never manage to do 40h at the office, but it's considered
normal for people with kids to leave early and do an hour or so of work in the
evening.

Not sure what my point is, I guess it's that I'm surprised of how a "culture
of work" can form in this way in a country that is often percieved as valuing
family quite a lot, especially in progressive regions where presumably
equality means a lot. Also I'm surprised of how employers (candidates, rather)
aren't pushing the compensation in a more work/life balance friendly
direction. Especially since these were visa applications, a lot of which I
assume come from people used to 5w holidays and actual 40h workweeks.

~~~
nerfhammer
> I might underestimate the power of the almighty buck here, but I'd take the
> employer that says "we value work/life balance, when we say 40h/week we mean
> it literally, we allow remote work, and we have 5 paid weeks off".

Almost universally what you see in job ads and recruiter spam is "we offer
_exciting challenges_ " and that they've created the most fun place to work
ever and if they mention compensation at all they offer "market salary" or
"salary commensurate with experience", to the point where all these different
messages sound pretty much the same.

I get hundreds of messages on linkedin and they all sound like the above with
exciting challenges with a market salary, but I don't recall anyone attempting
to promise above-market salary or better vacation time, even once. You would
think that you could get a competitive advantage by promising tangible
benefits as you suggest, but I've never seen it.

Some do mention being more flexible with remote work though.

> so it's basically a job that requires one parent to stay at home at least
> part time?

Yes, basically.

> Or you need a nanny to pick up your kids after school/kindergarten?

In the US children are universally bussed to/from school, you don't need to
come pick them up yourself. So once they're old enough that they don't need
constant supervision they often have a couple hours to themselves at home.

> My guess is that you are going to say that normally one parent (and not a
> random one) just stays home for years after having kids, but that would be a
> real blow to my view of SF/NYC as progressive...

In terms of labor conditions? CA and NY have a handful of better labor
protections than the rest of the country, but progressive by your standards?
absolutely not.

> It seems odd to me that people making a lot of money (which I hope these
> salaries are considered), wouldn't just invest a huge chunk of it in
> family/free time, by simply working less hours, e.g. 75% at 75% pay.

That would be great. I would totally do that.

Remember, people don't get paid by the hour so there's no counterincentive to
employers using social pressure to get you to put in as much time as possible.
There is no concept of a set number of hours you're supposed to work.

> Also I'm surprised of how employers (candidates, rather) aren't pushing the
> compensation in a more work/life balance friendly direction.

Yes. People are not willing to fight for this.

> Especially since these were visa applications, a lot of which I assume come
> from people used to 5w holidays and actual 40h workweeks.

The bulk of these these are from Asia or India where the salary differential
might be very large.

~~~
alkonaut
Thanks. Remember to go work in Stockholm when you have kids ;)

------
wheaties
One confounding factor not considered here is the number of "senior" engineers
with less than 4yr work experience. Seriously, title inflation is just as
rampant if not more in the tech sector than wage inflation. So how do you
account for Senior Engineer vs here's a job we'll just add this nice title to.

~~~
suyash
I never clearly understood how many years of experience you need to become Sr.
exactly, seems like everyone follows different rules.

~~~
kin
It's all over the place. A college dropout who starts a start-up as CTO then
fails within the year will apply as a senior. But, it's one of those things
where I don't judge a book by its cover in either direction. After talking to
the person in the right context there's a certain confidence and deep level of
understanding that I expect from senior engineers and it never reflects their
years of experience.

~~~
serve_yay
Yep, I agree with all of that. A lack of a cut-and-dried definition in terms
of years or other objective measurements makes it hard to compile data, but
that is exactly how I think of a senior developer.

------
captainaj
Engineers are just middle class who didn't get screwed. The real bubble is in
the medical industry and Wall Street and it's not gonna pop any time soon.

~~~
kissickas
Some would say that the medical industry isn't seeing a bubble, as much of the
inflation in prices and salaries is going straight to the insurance companies
- so the real bubble is in Wall Street and Wall Street.

~~~
captainaj
Yes the cost of health care is extremely inflated. However, it is not just
insurance companies who benefit from this trend. Doctors' base salary is 189k
while investment bank associates (2 years experience) get paid around that
with salary and bonus. Most of the doctors I know are millionaires.

------
untog
Most interesting takeaway for me is that salaries weren't significantly higher
in SF in 2013. As someone living in NYC I always imagined moving to SF/Silicon
Valley would give me a big pay bump.

Also one thing to note here: these are 'Labor Condition Applications', not
actual salaries. Often they are one and the same, but (for example) they do
not include pay rises. I've ended up being paid more than every LCA I've had
since I've been in the US.

~~~
bduerst
This is biased data. As someone who has mined the LCA data applications, I can
say you're absolutely right.

These are H1B labor applications, and salaries are carefully calculated to be
a certain margin over the average salaries for the same SOC jobs for employed
citizens in the region. These SOC classifications can be nebulous and thus not
reflective of the true market - e.g. "PROGRAMMER" could be anything from data
entry to senior software engineer.

This means that the salaries are calculated and set for a successful LCA
approval, NOT the market rate.

------
runako
According to the data here, salaries for "Senior software engineer" in both SF
and NYC are lagging rental inflation over the last 5 years.

Does this jibe with reality? Is the data bad, or are engineers losing ground?

~~~
kelukelugames
To be honest the numbers sound low. This could be because visa holders don't
have a lot of leverage when negotiating. I have seen much higher paystubs and
offer letters for the listed companies in Seattle. And I imagine the valley
and NYC pays more than Seattle despite some companies claiming they don't
change pay based on location.

~~~
fooaway
Low? They seem high! Is this total comp or just base?

~~~
potatolicious
These numbers seem low for just base. $120K in NYC for a senior engineer is
low - anecdotally I see it more at $150-170K nowadays.

I don't think there's a good reason why a capable, senior engineer would
entertain a total comp under $200K these days in NYC - and I know many
companies here that play with these numbers.

I think the fact that these are labor cert numbers definitely skews the data
downwards.

~~~
ryandrake
You know, whenever we get one of these salary articles on HN, there's always
one or two people chiming in with vague anecdotes like "That seems really low!
Most engineers I know are making $200K+!" or "Company X pays engineers $250K
LOL" despite the fact that most responses (backed up by averages from
anonymously-reported salaries like Glassdoor) seem to agree that $90-$140K is
about average in SF and NYC.

Not that I don't believe you, but I'd love to, one day, actually see a real,
specific engineering job posting with a published (or unpublished) base salary
offering over $200K. Just one.

~~~
kelukelugames
Yeah, it's tough. Especially since everyone inflates their earnings. But this
is what I surmised after researching and interviewing at a dozen companies:

 _I compared my offers with friends and concluded a mid level (non-senior, not
college hire) dev should make at least 135k for base salary and enough stocks
and bonuses to surpass 200k per year. This is for Seattle as of spring 2014.
However I followed my heart and accepted a slightly lower offer to join a
start up._

 _Caveat: never believe any compensation numbers you read online or hear in
person. People brag and exaggerate. Engineers lie to recruiters, recruiters
lie to engineers, recruiters lie to other recruiters, and engineers lie to
each other. I only believe numbers when I 1) see an offer letter, 2) see a pay
stub, or 3) hear multiple people with the same job title tell me identical
numbers._

------
agilecoder
As I've commented on other stories like this...

The biggest thing to know about these data from the US Department of Labor
(DOL) is that they DO NOT reflect visas granted. They reflect Labor Condition
Applications (LCAs) granted. denied, etc. This is only one part of the
application for a visa, and every year the DOL certifies far more LCAs than
there are available visas.

It is impossible to tell from the LCA data what companies actually followed
through with the rest of the process and fees and were able to sponsor a
foreign worker before the visa cap was hit each year. That information would
come from US Citizenship and Immigration Service, and as far as I can find
they do not release that information.

------
cagriaksay
We recently used salary prediction data to come up with salary charts and maps
as well: [https://salaryfairy.com/salary](https://salaryfairy.com/salary)

One interesting finding was that not only SF salaries are much higher compared
to rest of the US, but users from SF tend to over-estimate how much the rest
of the country is making. You can see this effect in the third map at
[https://salaryfairy.com/blog/first-10k-users-salary-maps-
and...](https://salaryfairy.com/blog/first-10k-users-salary-maps-and-charts)

~~~
madcaptenor
For what it's worth, I work for a company that has offices in both Atlanta
(which is probably a relatively low-wage market) and San Francisco. I was
given a choice between the two offices (I lived in SF at the time of the offer
but was looking to move) and was offered X in Atlanta or about 1.2X in SF.

(I took Atlanta, by the way. The cost of living difference is much larger than
20%.)

~~~
cagriaksay
No kidding! I just checked Atlanta vs SF cost of living out of curiosity. SF
cost of living is almost twice and rent cost is almost triple. Crazy!

~~~
madcaptenor
When I was thinking of moving and looking into what the tech scene was like in
Atlanta, I found this post on "startups for grownups":
[http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-
grownups/](http://academicvc.com/2013/07/05/startups-for-grownups/) .

------
kgabis
How hard is it to get a job in the US for an EU citizen? I've heard that one
could wait for up to 2 years for a visa, so most small/middle-sized companies
just don't bother and hire only US-based developers. Is it any easier for
people with degrees in compsci?

------
namenotrequired
> Marketing Director — $400,700

> Director of Marketing — $385,000

Are these different roles now?

~~~
dpritchett
There are actual reported data points underlying this. Likely they are just
two similar jobs (maybe even the same one in different time frames) that were
reported differently.

~~~
kevingao1
agreed -- there's no uniformity in how companies fill out these apps; for
example, as I briefly mentioned in the post but didn't look far into, even the
company name "Google" was typed in 3 or 4 ways

------
smrtinsert
If Yahoos engineering salaries are so great, why do we never hear about them?
How's their worklife balance?

~~~
shawndumas
As a Yahoo I'd have to say that I am loving it over here... (obviously this is
purely anecdotal).

------
ErikRogneby
It looks like Microsoft is the only product company in the top 10 for VISAs.
All of the rest are essentially work for hire (and offshore) dev/consulting
companies. [http://www.salar.ly/statistics](http://www.salar.ly/statistics)

------
zx33
Here is some detailed analysis on H1b visa app (it does not seem to be current
year)

[http://www.infocaptor.com/dashboard/what-will-america-pay-
to...](http://www.infocaptor.com/dashboard/what-will-america-pay-to-h1b-job-
candidates)

------
bfrog
Salary bubble? More like a Salary deficit compared to the cost of living
increases. Housing, Health, and Education have all nearly doubled in the last
15 years. My wages certainly didn't double.

------
dalek2point3
" salary data from more than 1.2 million work visa applications the US
Department of Labor has received between 2009 and 2013."

this seems like a treasure trove. any links to the raw data?

~~~
sratner
A bunch of data here, and not just for H-1Bs:
[http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#d...](http://www.foreignlaborcert.doleta.gov/performancedata.cfm#dis)

[edit: for a searchable interface to this data, as well as complete approved
applications, check out [http://dolstats.com/](http://dolstats.com/)]

------
michaelochurch
We're not in a salary bubble. If anything, it's the opposite.

I've analyzed the hell out of this "salary bubble" issue (or non-issue,
because there is no such thing) at length.

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/whats-a-
mid-c...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2014/05/24/whats-a-mid-career-
software-engineer-actually-worth-try-779000-per-year-as-a-lower-bound/)

[http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/software-
engi...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/software-engineer-
salaries-arent-inflated-at-least-not-for-the-99/)

~~~
nostrademons
Your first article is based on faulty economics. When productivity increases
are shared across an industry, nobody in the industry benefits. Instead, the
benefits accrue to the customers and complements of the industry. There's a
long historical precedent for that - productivity improvements in textile
manufacturing destroyed the textile industry, productivity improvements in
farming destroyed the small farmer, productivity improvements in fishing
destroyed the individual fisherman.

Applied to software, the reason engineers aren't capturing most of that value
is because _all_ engineers are getting more productive. The benefit is
accruing instead to those who employ engineers and those who use & purchase
software. The exceptions are those fields where there are still significant
barriers to entry and effective techniques are not widespread - isn't this why
you want to become a data scientist?

I might buy that we're not in a salary bubble, but not for the reasons you
propose. Rather, I'd say that the existence of a thriving market for startup
founders is a market inefficiency. When engineers top out at $200K at a
corporate job (and they don't always...I know some engineers with multi-
million-$ stock grants) but can quit their job and instantly get millions in
seed funding, that indicates that salaries should rise and seed funding
availability should fall to bring those options back to equilibrium.

~~~
michaelochurch
_Your first article is based on faulty economics._

No. I'm not saying that software engineers _should_ earn $700,000+ or that any
reasonable economic model would have them at that level-- because never in the
history of economics has one's labor being worth something to the employer
been, alone, enough to justify floating it to that rate. I'm only saying that
their value to the businesses that employ them is at least that high.

 _Applied to software, the reason engineers aren 't capturing most of that
value is because all engineers are getting more productive. The benefit is
accruing instead to those who employ engineers and those who use & purchase
software._

Then it seems like software engineers should unionize or professionalize. If
there's no other way for them to get even a small fraction of their value to
the business, then collective action is the best approach.

~~~
nostrademons
I doubt a union would get much traction as long as the software industry is in
as much flux as it is in, and boundaries between engineers, entrepreneurs, and
financiers are as porous as they are. It's not uncommon for someone to be an
engineer for a few years, a technical cofounder for a few more years, and then
a venture capitalist later on. Many, many people in tech (Andreesen, PG, John
Doerr, Eugene Kleiner, Bill Joy) have sat in all 3 seats.

~~~
sawthat
Actually it's incredibly uncommon. There are hundreds of thousands of
engineers, far fewer "technical cofounders" and even fewer venture
capitalists.

------
kuni-toko-tachi
Salary work is a dead end path. The only way to capture your economic value is
to put it on the market as a business. I've taken too long to learn this. At a
certain point you say to yourself that making the same thing week after week
is foolish and you throw yourself into the fire to make it on your own.

