

Average Silicon Valley Tech Salary Passes $100,000 - yogrish
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204624204577179193752435590-lMyQjAxMTAyMDIwMzEyNDMyWj.html

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davidu
I'd just like to point out that this article is written by an author who
almost always "get's it wrong." I've even been in a couple of her stories.
They are always PR pitched and biased. VC funding stops. VC funding starts.
Building is hotbed for Tech Startups. Etc. Etc. So Dice pitched a story, that
doesn't make it true.

See for yourself and with the benefit of hindsight, see if you agree with her
stories: [http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=PUI-
WING+TAM...](http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=PUI-
WING+TAM&bylinesearch=true)

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nikcub
Executive and management level IT salaries along with experienced project
managers have gone through the roof. The type of jobs where positions are
filled via reference or headhunting rather than advertised.

From my experience and knowing what some friends are earning, these types of
positions are paying up to double what they were 5 years ago. A lot more stock
is also being offered in angel funded and Series A companies to attract the
right people.

I know a handful of experienced people in this field who are contracting out
at $40k+ a month. One person I know recently switched from $35k+ a month on a
contract and was poached at $90k+ a month.

~~~
donw
Were those last three numbers for technical positions, senior management, or
for sales/marketing?

~~~
nikcub
product lead or management with strong technical backgrounds, or name-brand
specialists (meaning they are 'famous' or 'known' by name) in a certain field

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itmag
Holy fuck. With the current exchange rate, this translates into a monthly
salary of 59 000 Swedish crowns. This is a VERY respectable salary here, in
any field.

Hell, I know plenty of programmers working for half that. Which is still
considered very decent pay.

How can you Americans get paid so much? Where is the imbalance? On your side?
On our side? If the latter, how can we (the rest of the world) take advantage
of this?

~~~
henrikschroder
But you're also not paying ~17000 kronor a month in rent, are you?

If you have a company in an area where the rent levels (and cost of living in
general) are high, you will have to pay high salaries if you want to have any
employees at all. But presumably having a company in the area allows you to
generate more wealth than you would in any other area, which offsets the
salaries.

The only way you can take advantage of it is by moving to such a place. But
note that companies are taking advantage of the reverse by moving their
offices to places where the cost of living is lower, which means they can
lower their salaries.

~~~
ricardobeat
Even if you pay U$3k a month in rent, that's U$64k to live on.

It's not unusual for rent/mortgages to eat up 30-50% of someone's income in
most of the world.

~~~
jbester
That's a 100k gross salary. I don't live in CA, but I'd guess about 30-40%
overall tax rate including state tax. That leaves the earner 60k-70k overall
to live on. That rent _is_ >= 50% of their income.

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WildUtah
Average Silicon Valley Tech Salary Passes $100,000.

And Silicon Valley remains the only place in the country where prices are such
that $100,000 is barely getting by.

~~~
moocow01
Thats part of the 'tragedy' of it (Ok making over a 100k isn't a tragedy) but
being that SV is so tech worker heavy the costs shoot up and quickly eat into
the salary gains. If you want to see hockey stick growth look at the rising
cost of rent.

If you can swing it the sweetest deal you can get is to work remotely for a
company in SV with the SV salary.

~~~
potatolicious
Semi-recent transplant to the Bay Area here. I honestly wish I asked for a
bigger raise, but I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I got a very
respectable raise switching jobs, but between state income tax (I came from
WA) and the _insane_ living cost, I'm actually coming out behind from where I
started.

I'm making a sum I would've thought to be astronomical a few years ago, but
yet I find myself pinching pennies in places I never had to worry about
before.

A few of my friends from back home know how much I make, and are apparently
envious, but they live better than I do on one quarter my salary.

The real "tragedy" of it is that guys like me are trapped. I've often thought
about going back to a lower salary and living better for it, but the problem
is that where I come from interesting, challenging software jobs are as
elusive as the Loch Ness Monster. It's not the pay cut, it's the loss of
challenge. Woe be unto the engineer who craves fast-paced, high-impact,
challenging work without typical corporate bureaucracy.

~~~
dasil003
Living better on a quarter of the salary? Jesus, I needed about 50% increase
moving from Santa Fe, NM to Mountain View to feel like I was on par. How cheap
is it in WA?

~~~
potatolicious
Ah no, these friends are in Vancouver, Canada, where a 1BR in the poshest,
yuppiest corner of town, in a new high-rise with a doorman, clubhouse, pool,
sauna, jacuzzi, and glorious skyline view costs about $1100 a month.
Considerably cheaper ($800?) if you take a roommate.

A similar apartment in SF (1BR, peaceful/yuppie corner of town, new building,
lots of amenities, etc) would run in the $3500-4500 range.

Of course, most software jobs in that town would probably cause me an early
death via falling off a tall building. Believe me, I've looked.

~~~
cperciva
_Vancouver, Canada, where a 1BR in the poshest, yuppiest corner of town, in a
new high-rise with a doorman, clubhouse, pool, sauna, jacuzzi, and glorious
skyline view costs about $1100 a month_

Really? The cheapest 1BR I can find in Yaletown on craigslist is $1280/month
-- for 397 square feet in a building constructed in 1912. Padmapper says that
the median price for a 1BR in Yaletown is $1650/month.

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elchief
I wonder what the median salary is.

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itmag
Question: would it be possible for me (in Sweden) to get a gig in SV working
remotely, and only occasionally, if ever, flying in?

I would be willing to work for a hell of a lot less than $100k.

I'm not the greatest coder ever, but I learn fast and understand pretty much
everything I read on HN :) My written English is excellent (better than my
Swedish even) so communication should never be a problem.

What do you guys think? Should I take my dream and smoke it in a crack pipe,
or is there some non-negligible chance of this actually being possible?

Edit: realized that my ingrained Swedish self-deprecation didn't do me any
favors. s/not the greatest coder ever/a total bad ass rockstar code ninja,
bro!/ :)

~~~
vidarh
> Question: would it be possible for me (in Sweden) to get a gig in SV working
> remotely, and only occasionally, if ever, flying in?

It's possible, but outside of contracting you'd have to expect that most
companies who are prepared to outsource will want a bigger cost difference
than what you can provide and/or an office with multiple people.

If you have or acquire "special" skills that are hard to get, you might be in
luck.

Flying in regularly can be fun, but the distance sucks. I'm Norwegian, live in
London, and spent three years regularly flying in to SV, and it took me 16
hours door to door with a direct flight from London. You'd probably need to
tack on another 3 hours or so for a connecting flight most of the time...

> I would be willing to work for a hell of a lot less than $100k.

Careful. Potential currency risk. If you do, make sure your salary isn't
specified in dollars or that it's adjusted up a _lot_ to account for currency
risk.

> What do you guys think? Should I take my dream and smoke it in a crack pipe,
> or is there some non-negligible chance of this actually being possible?

Doesn't hurt to look for opportunities. In my case I did it because I joined a
startup where one founder was British and the other really love it in London
and wanted an excuse to move back, but in the end the company ended up in SV
due to VC's. I knew one of them from before (we'd worked together) and so got
in before the decision to stay in SV was made.

~~~
itmag
Very interesting! Do tell me more about your experience :)

~~~
vidarh
It was fun while it lasted, but I flew over about every 6-8 weeks, and it got
exhausting long term. I'd usually effectively lose one day to travel each way
+ one day after I returned where I'd be totally useless.

In terms of the work, it was challenging to work remotely. We spent a lot of
time on Skype, but the time difference wrecked havoc on my schedule - my
coworkers in the valley got in around 5pm-6pm London time, and would usually
still be in the office at midnight my time, so I ended up working in the
evenings a lot, often while also working a lot during the day. If it hadn't
been a startup I might've tried to keep more strictly fixed working hours with
evenings some days (to account for meetings etc) and more free time during the
day, but that wasn't really an option.

I managed a team, which was even trickier because whenever I flew out I'd
spend 2-3 days resolving whatever drama had arisen since my last trip. My
impression both from that job and others where I dealt with SV engineers is
that you're far more likely to find some real primadonnas with huge egos
amongst software engineers in SV than in most places in Europe. Most of the
guys I worked with were really nice, though, and overall it was a great
experience.

Trickiest part with the regular visits: Make sure to never, ever say the wrong
thing to immigration. If traveling under the visa waiver program, you're not
allowed to do normal work while in the US. You can receive instruction and
participate in meetings etc., but you can't do "productive work". We had an
immigration lawyer instruct me in detail on what I was and was not allowed to
do and how to address this with immigrations to mitigate the risk that I might
get turned away. This was because I was flying in often enough to get asked
extra questions now and again, though - if you fly in a couple of times a
year, there's not much scrutiny, but I had about 13-14 stamps from SFO in my
passport and none from other locations at one point...

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paulitex
$74/hour for contractors?? That seems incredibly low, especially in contrast
with the 100K+ for employees.

~~~
FaceKicker
I'm not sure if you're saying it's less than 100K or just that you'd think
contractors would make much more than regular employees, but $74 an hour works
out to roughly $150K a year if they work full time hours.

Edit: sorry, clearly I know nothing about contracting.

~~~
furyofantares
An employee with a 100k salary costs something like 200k to the employer.
Contractors also expect a bit of a premium due to getting sporadic work, if
they didn't get a premium they'd opt for stable work instead. In exchange for
this premium you get someone you can stop paying the second you don't need
them, and someone who presumably doesn't need training. A salaried employee
worth 100k salary should expect somewhere around $100/hr contracting. But the
average should be higher yet, because the average contracting job requires
more experience than the average salaried job.

~~~
mahyarm
Is it really double? The employer's side of FICA adds ~$15k , whatever the
state adds to the employer adds a few more thousand. Lets be extravagant and
say each of these line items cost $12k/year ($1k/month):

* Office space, utilities, parking space

* Health Insurance

* Administrative Overhead

* Office Equipment

It comes out to around $168k/year. And I know almost nobody spends that much
on each of those items.

~~~
moocow01
Actually I look at some of these breakdowns for large corps. You're pretty
much spot on with your number. 100k employee is usually a line item at around
160k. Obviously depends on the org and role but thats a very safe average.

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kurtvarner
I wonder how this number compares to startups that haven't raised more than
their Series A.

It'd also be nice to see a breakdown of average salaries between engineers,
designers, and biz dev. If anyone has the info, please share.

~~~
ambertch
I think your question is more intended to ask about seed round - $500k-$1mm
ish

Rule of thumb for first round of engineer hires is $85k as of late - they get
substantial stock in return, about as much as managers hired after the A
round.

Series A you're looking at closer to market wages, with obviously less stock

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itmag
Why isn't there something like AirBnB for programmers? I imagine plenty of
people in SF could use an extra 1k a month in exchange for letting someone
sleep on their couch.

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earl
part of the reason why: Bay Area leads nation in rental price increases
[http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/01/bay-area-leads-
natio...](http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2012/01/bay-area-leads-nation-
rental-price-increases)

At a previous startup, a ceo was out drinking beers with some engineers. Now
this ceo is quite a nice person, so please don't think that I think poorly of
him. Somehow, salaries came up and the ceo mentioned that we were all
presumably doing pretty well. Then one of my engineer coworkers mentioned he
was paying $2300 or something like that in rent for a small one bedroom near
Valencia and 20th, and I said my gf and I were paying $2600 for a medium one
bedroom in upper haight. The ceo was utterly shocked at what rent prices were,
since he'd moved to the city and bought a house nearly 30 years before. It
turns out he was paying something like $1300/mo to live in a mansion in pac
heights and his mortgage was almost paid off. The thing that bugged me, in
retrospect, was his lack of awareness of one of the primary drivers of
engineering salaries: the cost of living in sf. And the impact of the city
being actively hostile to tearing down a lot of the pretty crummy housing we
have and building up.

edit: not to mention, if you perhaps want to own, $500 - $600K in most of SF
is not exactly living in luxury. If you're near real public transport, ie
bart, it's a small one bedroom and if you resign yourself to a crappy commute
or driving it's a lower end two bedroom, 700-1100 ft^2. Further, you'll pay
$1.1k per million dollars of value per month in taxes, so for a $600k house
you're giving the city nearly $700/mo for forever.

~~~
marvin
I've been looking at these posts that complain about the cost of living in
Silicon Valley for a while, and thought that things were pretty bad. But when
comparing to my home country, Norway, things don't seem very bad at all.
Granted, Oslo is supposed to be the most expensive city in the world...but
from all the complaining I hear from the tech crowd, you'd think the
difference wouldn't be large. But Wolfram Alpha reports a 45% / 37% cost of
living difference in favor of SV:

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+Mountain+Vi...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+Mountain+View+to+Oslo+salary+%24100%2C000)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+San+Fransis...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=moving+from+San+Fransisco+to+Oslo+salary+%24100%2C000)

This is on the top of the fact that we pay, in total, around 50% tax.

Housing is more expensive in SV, but everything else is much cheaper than
where I'm from. Are these numbers accurate? Because if they are, then, pardon
me for being blunt, you guys are really whining a lot. You must be living in
one of the places on Earth with the highest ratio of income to expenses. That
the cost of living is higher than in the US in general doesn't really seem
like an argument to me. You're pretty much swimming in money over there.

~~~
moocow01
Lets trade places. Seriously though SV is decent but America is not exactly
the top place to be living anymore in comparison to a place like Norway
despite all the 'USA, USA' chanting we do. I'd gladly pay a boatload in taxes
if it would genuinely get us out of our current messes.

~~~
afterburner
Good luck getting citizenship in Norway.

~~~
andreer
It's hardly impossible. You'll need to hold down a job (which provides a work
visa) for seven years, don't be convicted of a criminal offence, and attend
300 hours of tuition in the Norwegian language or have documented sufficient
skills in Norwegian or Saami. Only 20% of applications are rejected, and most
were rejected for failing to meet those conditions.

~~~
afterburner
How hard is getting the work permit (or whatever gets you in in the first
place)?

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dsolomon
Calling BS. The author cited Dice, which is questionable at best.

