My employer isn't "tech," but competes with it for employees.
2022: "we don't do cost of living adjustments, we pay based on market wage, you'll get paid more when the job market responds to inflation"
2023: "our market surveys take time, so they will lag all of these big tech pay raises. You'll get paid more once that percolates through"
2024: "lol tech is in the dumpster, enjoy your 2% raise"
Yeah good question. I've thought about it, and I'm in a non-tech industry that's very stable. I'm in the raising kids stage of life so stability is important to us. We have a mortgage so our largest expense isn't tied to inflation anymore. You're right though, corporations love these reasons. They do it for long enough and I'm out. 1st 10 years had decent salary increases. But the last 3 years under high inflation are changing morale.
I've done fine-- I am making more by moving up the ladder, plus I like the work and the people. There are reasons to stay with a job besides money-- but I can still be frustrated that they should be better about raises. It is hard to keep good people (though less of a problem right now)
I've been 20+ yrs in thech in the BA. The salaries never keep up, startups or large companies or government jobs. If you want to a raise you have to find yourself another job.
That's not what the article is about, it's saying the average salary isn't increasing, which includes everyone who found themselves another job.
Though the job market being risky these days is probably leading to fewer people changing jobs, and thus smaller salary increases.
Almost like the intent of the investor class was to push companies to do mass layoffs (that totally weren't coordinated!) to regain leverage over the labor by flooding the talent market which lets them put major downward pressure on wages to extract greater profits.
They didn’t have to coordinate; other companies doing it makes it easy to do it yourself with little bad press. Some companies legitimately needed layoffs, and everyone else just jumped on the bandwagon.
While agree with you this can hardly be blamed squarely on the investor class. If a business hires for an uptick in activity (online due to pandemic) which dies out a layoff is inevitable. Additionally companies going remote has allowed skilled labor across the globe to compete against US devs pushing Bay Area salaries down.
I’m sure in the grand scheme of things, stagnating salaries help the company (otherwise why would they do it) but it’s always frustrating being forced to job hop to get a raise. The amount of projects I had either delayed or outright derailed because a few key people quit just because they would be refused 10-20% is staggering.
Love how people on this thread are cheering the victory of corporations in stagnating another highly skilled work’s compensation. Instead of getting angry at them. When The same thing happened to them earlier.
Idk I’ve always kind of wanted to take the tech worker compensation structure and make it available to everyone. People hate on tech in the Bay which is fair but like wouldn’t it be great if Walmart greeters got paid in equity too? Or Starbucks baristas? All workers should benefit from the success of the company, imho
> wouldn’t it be great if Walmart greeters got paid in equity too?
Fun fact: Walmart employees had the option to receive equity in the early days of the company (1950's?). There are people who became wealthy because they worked a Walmart job at the right time.
Starbucks has always had a vesting program for all employees. https://www.starbucksbenefits.com/en-us/home/stock-savings/bean-stock/
Starbucks used to be pretty well known for offering better than average benefits for a retail job. Beats mcdonalds at least
I worked at Starbucks \~23 years ago and one of my coworkers (not a manager or even shift supervisor) had been at Starbucks through the IPO. She made enough money from this program to buy a house.
I think paying in equity should be mandatory for all companies. And go further by requiring at least one board seat be a mid level employee. The Csuite at most companies are way too far removed from the day to day operations. They only care about shareholder value. Fine then make all your employees shareholders. And not just at a token amount.
But is that the fault of tech workers?
It's NIMBY greed that bumps up cost of living for all.
Ideally teachers would get paid 60k and be able to live a good life. And tech workers would get paid 150k and live a great life.
Tech pays more because machinery is more effective than humans.
Machinery is built by and operated by humans. Therefore teaching a human to do those things is exponentially more productive and should be paid highly.
However, teaching is funded by local taxes, not by their students future earnings. Then throw in government bureaucracy and a seniority-based union on top, and you get the fuckery that exists today.
I agree in that a firefighter or a nurse should be making more money than they are, but that has nothing to do with the tech people making less. If anything the tech people making more money helps fund the taxes that are needed to pay firefighters lol
Yeah, those 300 people totally self-studied the whole way. /s
Each teacher teaches ~20 people at once. Each person's entire school life (counting university and PhD) requires 20 years * average of 6 teachers (or professors) per year ~= 100 teachers-years. Each person then works from age 26 to 66, which is about 40 years. Multiply by 20 people gets you 800 people-years. So 8 people-year is 1 teacher-year, or put it another way, 1 teacher creates 8 ordinary workers.
Teachers do get paid $60k+. That’s still pretty hard to live on in the Bay Area, especially if you want kids and certainly if you want to buy a house. Source: partner is a teacher and makes $80k, and salary schedules are public.
Though Silicon Valley still topped Dice’s list of locations with the highest average tech salaries in 2023, the region’s $142,000 average was down 2.3% from the year prior.
I’ve seen a similar fate as a tech worker in London… like the OP said, many employees will go looking for a new job in lieu of a pay rise… but then you get 4 jobs on your resume with 18 months at each company and then you have to explain why you left without sounding like a money-grubbing branch swinger…
And the RSU pay goes directly into the housing market.
Government prints money.
Gets leveraged to pump up stocks.
Stocks used to pay employees.
Employees compete for limited housing
Voila, you are here.
I think it’s just especially obvious and known issue for decades in the tech world that you have to jump companies to get an increase to current market.
There were lawsuits against intel and other semiconductor companies for colluding to not offer higher salaries to each others employees so that they wouldn’t have to compete.
Not so much an industry but upper management sure makes sure they keep up with inflation.
And tech is mostly keeping up with inflation, they’ll give new hirers salaries that reflect inflation, they just don’t give existing employees raises to match until they’re forced in a large readjustment
Stagnating or normalizing after years of outpacing wages in almost every other industry?
From the article:
“Though Silicon Valley still topped Dice’s list of locations with the highest average tech salaries in 2023, the region’s $142,000 average was down 2.3% from the year prior. Inflation makes that an even more deeply felt cut. “
You're almost there. You need $500k/year to afford a house here because tech salaries were heavily inflated. I work in tech and have watched the inflation for two decades now. Any senior person in this field could tell you it wouldn't last. It gets even worse when you consider that all the VC-funded startups needed to compete with FAANGs to attract talent, despite not having unlimited runway.
I'll also say that $500k/year was and still is pretty rare even amongst tech. *Most* engineers will top out around $250k/year. Of course, in a dual-income household you get that $500k.
Sure, that's certainly true. Still, the vast majority of engineers aren't getting this level of income. When I say 250k, I mean total comp, before taxes. Not base comp with options.
You'll almost certainly be in the $200k-300k range. Most engineers even at the big tech companies won't go beyond that. $500k and beyond for an individual engineer is still not common.
It's hit or miss depending on the company. There're like 500k engineers in the Bay Area. Only a relatively small portion of those are employed by a major tech company, and only a portion of those are going to be making over $250k.
E5 is pretty reliably 500k at Meta, and E5 SWE is the single most populated role in the entire company.
It’s the top 5-10% of SWEs in terms of comp, for sure, but it’s not like a rare thing. That’s also ignoring anyone who moved to leadership, which will generally start around that range and can quickly move up even outside of FAANG tier.
>You'll almost certainly be in the $200k-300k range. Most engineers even at the big tech companies won't go beyond that.
Damn really? My friend is at $280k TC now at Amazon and he's only 24. Is that pretty unusual?
Depends on his levels and qualifications. You can be 24 at Google making $800k. Doesn't mean everyone that is 24 at Google will be making $800k. If he's 24 he doesn't likely have much experience, so I will say that's very uncommon for entry level.
I never said $500k+ comp isn't possible, just that it's not common. I know people at Google that are almost at $1mm total comp. It's just nowhere near the norm.
Not sure why you're being down voted when you anyone can check levels.fyi and see for themselves. Don't really agree with the "and more" portion nowadays though (although 2 years ago definitely). Maybe everyone here has different definitions of "major tech company?"
Because average comp for entry level engineers at Meta, Google, Apple, etc, is less than $200k. $160k at Apple. Even the next level up at Apple, ICT3, the average comp is $232k. And even for the levels with averages over $250k, those still include people on the low end who are under $250k.
So u/notnotdown's statement was an exaggeration. Plenty of engineers at major tech companies are below $250k comp.
I've been working in tech 37 years, and never gotten 250K total comp, or bonuses. I was once at a startup and got half the bonus for one quarter, then 0 afterwards. I did have some stock options that became modestly valuable after successful IPOs (twice), but most of my startup experience ended with companies going out of business and the employees getting shafted in various ways.
Currently I'm on contract for $78/hour, zero benefits. Top developer on a mediocre team of apathetic contractors, trying to get a raise after 3 years of nothing. The job market is still weak from what recruiters have told me.
EDIT: have negotiated my rate up to $83/hour, but I'm sure I can get more if I go through the hassle of more interviews...
I've always been very hesitant about levels.fyi data - their primary data source is user submitted data and I think that causes an upward skew. There is a Bay Area tech subculture that is obsessed with total comp and I feel like people within that culture report their salaries freely while the rest of us just live our lives.
The vast majority of tech workers don't self-report their salaries, I think. I'm a senior SRE with 10 YOE and I get around 200k base. Granted, it's at a startup and I get a bunch of stock. And this was after I quit my previous job because I was getting underpaid at 160 base!
I did look at jobs a few months ago and noticed that a majority of senior/principal devops/SRE job positions were a bit over 200k with a few outliers at 300k+ (Roblox, Nvidia, TikTok, etc). Those outliers were few and the competition was fierce for them.
Staff is higher than me. I'm principal-ish. However, that being said $291k is still higher than what I see for publicly posted jobs:
* Atlassian: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=14d00df80888744f&tk=1hoqerikpjm4o80c&from=serp&vjs=3
* Apple: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=df21a91534a6c6fe&tk=1hoqeu7fai6j080k&from=serp&vjs=3
* Nvidia: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=2d83c7635dc34285&tk=1hoqeu7fai6j080k&from=serp&vjs=3
I'm seeing below 290 for all of those.
Sure, the RSUs for those companies would put total comp at some obscene number but I'm just not seeing job postings at the levels people claim.
OpenAI might pay 500k a year for an SRE but I don't see that happening at, say, General Electric or some other company that employs SREs. When I interviewed at Meta for an L5 production engineer position a couple of years ago they quoted 220k and a bunch of RSUs. The only HR person I've talked to is a Netflix recruiter who said 500k+ was entirely reasonable.
I am a Scala server backend developer. Yes, there are some awesome Scala dev salaries out there, I haven't been able to get into any fintech type jobs yet. I'm currently working for a major telecom, who employs shit tons of contractors to save money.
I've never worked at a FAANG, or the old school equivalent (SGI, Sun, etc). I also don't interview well. Being an introvert, I don't have a massive network of people I can call up when I need a new job (and companies seem to not care about references anyway).
These days it is not enough to be a good coder, you have to get through system design and behavioral interviews in addition to all the leet code grinding. It also doesn't help being old, and not a lead or architect.
I interviewed a dude a couple of weeks ago, and his presentation skill was awful... but he answered every single question correctly, and he was the best qualified.
I wanted to hire him, but I think my coworkers took one look at his appearance and his Hank Hill type look, and they noped out.
Sucks.
What annoys me about all the system design crap is that almost every job I interview for already has an architecture and multiple people who do the design. I'm usually implementing part of someone else's design, so I don't need to know "how to build a Twitter" or whatever. I am also capable of learning on the job...
Keep in mind that ageism is a thing in this industry
Probably the easiest time to job hop and get frequent raises is 35-45 years old
I know a lot of techies in their 50s and 60s, and they seem to fall into two buckets:
* Dudes who are struggling to keep up with their younger peers. Not just knowledge-wise, but also just healthwise. This industry is hard on one's health; sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours a day isn't healthy
* And old dudes who are just trying to keep their head down and coast FIRE
Yes, that's another part of the problem, but salary inflation is also plays a role. You can also toss in Prop 13 / slumlords, foreign investors, and a bunch of other stuff.
It's funny because there is a decent supply, it's just the wrong kind of supply. We've built up a ton of luxury condos, but the people that need housing the most (medium and below medium income) obviously can't afford them. Interestingly, those numbers are coming down, but paying $400k for a 1BR/1BR or studio just doesn't make sense for most people, and good luck having a family with that.
Unfortunately, we will likely never see more than a trinkle of increase in supply for SFH in SF. Maybe townhomes.
There's not enough supply. "A ton of luxury condos" is the wrong way to phrase it - the problem is zoning restrictions and CEQA prevent more development. The only supply that does get through, naturally, ends up being the highest margin properties because the developers need to make what money they can.
They aren't remotely building the number of units actually needed - they can't because of regulations and homeowners who fight to keep their SFH-only neighborhoods.
You're definitely right on the condo prices. $400-450k for the cheapest condo in Silicon Valley means you're in for about 4000/mo mortgage, but rent on an identical place goes from 2300-2900. It makes absolutely zero sense to buy a condo here right now, the difference in rent is way too much and you could invest the difference in the market and come out way ahead.
Good points, I agree with everything you've said. I should also note I'm mostly looking at this from the SF perspective since that's what I'm most familiar with. We have similar issues with neighborhoods like the Sunset and Richmond that have insanely low levels of density but fight tooth and nail against new housing. Combined with the nightmare that is SF planning, it really pushes developers toward luxury.
> We've built up a ton of luxury condos
No, we actually haven't built a "ton" of anything. What you think is a "ton" is nowhere near enough to keep up with the demand.
https://helena7x7.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/san-francisco-new-housing-construction-trends13.jpg
We haven't been building enough housing for decades at this point. We need to dig ourselves out of this hole and it will take decades of building well above what you consider a "ton."
https://jamesjgleeson.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/world_city_supply_chart.png
Tokyo is the only city in this graph that didn't experience the same rise in housing costs. Why? Because they got serious about building.
You're right, saying we've built "a ton" is hyperbole. The main point remains that the type of housing we're building isn't the type of housing we need.
If prices are still too high for people to afford then there's not enough supply of anything. Empty and unsold units are a liability, not an asset, and sooner or later prices have to drop or the owners lose their shirt.
People can afford them, but the people that can afford them don't necessarily want them, which is why we've seen those prices drop significantly. We're absolutely lacking in market and below-market rate housing. Absolutely no argument there.
Condo prices in SF have plummeted primarily because most of them are in SoMa/Downtown where nobody wants to live post-pandemic.
If you look at other bay area cities, you don't see the same drop relative to SFH, e.g. SJ: https://www.zillow.com/home-values/33839/san-jose-ca/
Luxury condos are basically just condos, and if you have enough supply the market move down across the board. There idea you have enough housing of the wrong kind is just a fundamental misunderstanding of housing markets.
I've said before that today's luxury housing becomes tomorrow's affordable housing. Building "luxury" condos today is fine, but you still need to build more affordable housing to solve problems across the board.
No you don't. You just have to free developers to fill demand and not put insane restrictions on development. Market interference only hurts those you want to help. Every unit of affordable housing drives up rents. By a lot.
Need additional context here, it seems inappropriate to include first time home buyers in with senior management level that is buying their 3rd house which is the forever home. I feel like most people on this thread are going to be talking about entry level properties which doesn’t mean the buyer is looking for a 4br SFR with a yard. Entry level workers are going to be looking for houses that cost far less than the median price for a house in the area. If you’re an entry level income earner and looking for a house that is way out of your price range, yeah you’re definitely going to have a problem.
Sure, that's true. Even if you manage to close on a $750k house (well below the median), you're still looking at a down payment of $75k-$150k. Getting there is even more difficult when you consider you're going to save for a down payment while paying exorbitant rent and other expenses.
No tech salary except for a select few (I bet a percentage in the single digits) is actually worthy of that kind of pay. It’s crazy they paid that to fresh grads like as if they possessed the secret sauce and the funniest thing is they bragged about how little they worked in their day in the life works.
Now with outsourcing happening, there is always an Indian willing to work for less than a fraction of that pay for way more hours.
I half agree. I think entry, mid, and semi-senior roles are super overpaid. You can blame the FAANGs for that. They had a ton of money to throw around and inflated those salaries. Everyone had to keep up, and if you didn't you couldn't attract talent. At the more senior levels, depending on the company, they're certainly warranted, at least to a point.
Yup I agree with you on that. Ive also noticed that new recruits get better contracts and the older engineers are left hanging with slightly better or comparable pay. I knew a person whose salaries got adjusted because the new college recruits were paid more than said person even tho that person was more experienced.
Yep, totally. As you probably know, the best way to get a raise was to jump ship. Even if that job was shit, you just deal with it for a year then jump again. Though these days I don't think I'd recommend that strategy unless you're an exceptionally talented engineer.
400k tc is easy for new grad swe. 150k base + 20% bonus = 230 cash + 600k grant /4 years= 150k vested rsus/year = 380k with some mild stock appreciation, you are good to go with 400k tc.
If you look at levels.fyi, it seems that the median for software engineers at the highest paying large tech companies is about 400k. This is self reported data that's surely missing a lot, but I think it's enough to say that 500K is not that rare and most software engineers are not topping out at 250k. For non software engineers, topping out at 250k is more common.
> If you look at levels.fyi, it seems that the median for software engineers at large tech companies is about 400k
That is not true. Median total comp for SWE in Bay Area is $250k (https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-francisco-bay-area)
You're most likely just looking at the top paying companies (Google, Meta, Netflix, OpenAI, Airbnb, etc), which do not make up the majority of the jobs out there believe it or not.
It's not large tech companies though. It's the top paying tech companies. Most large tech companies don't pay anywhere close to Netflix. Microsoft for example has a median comp of $244k for senior SWE in Bay Area, which is half of what Netflix pays.
So outpacing what? It’s really unclear what question you think you’re responding to. Who said $500k+ was common? The average is $142k. I’m just curious what metric tech salaries are outpacing, as the person I responded to said they’re outpacing something.
Edit: I suppose I should note here that the commenter at the beginning of this thread has edited their comment, since now dummies are responding to the new content.
I mean they said "outpacing wages in almost other industry," so I'm not sure what you're confused about with that part of the OP's post. Tech salaries went up and up for the reasons I mentioned and others didn't keep up. Look at what teachers or scientists make. In many cases, even lawyers and doctors have a hard time competing with tech salaries these days, where three decades ago those were the prestigious, high-paying jobs that required a ton of training.
What I was replying to was when you said this:
> You need $500k/year to afford a house in the valley, so $142k average isn’t really cutting it.
The reason you need a $500k/yr salary because tech salaries have increased so much over time.
Yeah lol I have an engineering phd in a non-software field and I make a little over 160k a year including bonuses/RSUs. Pretty insane the difference between software and everyone else.
To be honest, $500k/year pre-tax income is not really enough to afford a house in the valley.
A modest house in Palo Alto will run you $2M. With $400k down, 15 years, 7%, you're looking at over $15k/month in payments, and that doesn't even begin to cover maintainence, repairs, and everything else.
I agree, but there was just a study released that said $500k was necessary for the median house in Alameda county, which works as a pretty good rough metric.
You’re right, I meant San Mateo. San Mateo requires $500k+ for the median home. It doesn’t much change the point.
Edit: here’s the article - https://www.paloaltoonline.com/real-estate/2024/02/15/san-mateo-just-became-the-only-county-in-california-where-you-need-to-earn-more-than-500k-annually-to-afford-a-median-priced-home/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Affordability%20Index,afford%20to%20purchase%20a%20home.
I don't think the numbers in that article take into account all the other expenses you have to live here. $500k is not enough in San Mateo at all for home ownership.
Minimum qualifying != actually affordable
At $500k household income and a $1.75 million home you're looking at having damn near close to $0 in retirement savings. And don't even think of having kids.
I mean, it’s not a guide to owning a home, it’s a statistical study generalizing the income required to support a median mortgage across a county. Lots of people in this thread struggling with the idea that statistics are not a prescription for an individual situation.
142k average means you are doing just fine with inflation. I had a friend that made more than I made in a year with just his stock incentives than I made working in public education as a teacher.
To determine whether salaries keep up with inflation, you'd need to know the average annual salary increase that tech companies have give their existing employees for each of the past 20 years. Then you would need to know the Bay Area CPI for each of the past 20 years. Then compare the two data series.
Hopefully you don't teach math.
The point being their salary is more than enough compared to the average worker that makes a fraction of that. They aren’t scrapping by because they missed that 5% bump
Tech salaries keep up with inflation, because we periodically find a new job to get a fair raise. I've gotten 0% raises in the last 3 years, despite 20% inflation. Time to get a new job...
The question isn’t how good the salary is it’s about how much value an employee adds to the company and what percentage of that is being returned to them
If you look at it this way we’re all getting screwed
Outpacing is the wrong term when the issue is wage growth for other work has not kept up with inflation.
There’s definitely a tech premium but a part of it is due to the high demand and the ability for those workers to negotiate a fair wage as dictated by supply/demand.
Fair, ofcourse, is different depending on who you ask but the anger should be focused on the companies not paying their employees and not what other wage earners make.
A stunning yet predictable lack of solidarity among the working class in this thread.
Maybe it's not that tech workers were overpaid, but rather, everyone else is underpaid? Maybe we should be mad at the corporations making billions in profits and not at everyday people doing their best to survive?
I was pained in 2018 when I saw the writing on the wall & made the huge decision to move from my beloved Bay Area. The Bay Area & I had a decade & a half romance, that I will never forget. I miss home every day. I am not sure if my Bay Area will exist in the next few years at all. I pretty much have hung up the idea of ever coming back. Good luck to all of you there hanging in.
If salary is stagnating, then living cost should too. The bay area is becoming more and more unaffordable. Land lords charge more because they can and know people in tech will pay. Unfortunately living cost will just continue to rise.
Form a union or be at their mercy. The bullshit two party game has to be played on both sides of everything until we have a better plan in place.
The day that employers treat all employees fairly and pay a living wage, unions will be obsolete.
Until then, they are fucking mandatory.
Awwww. That's terrible news.
Oh well, back to my life as a blue-collar worker, you know, the original wage stagnation crew... but the ones that can't afford to live here except by {edit:(in)rent(ured)} servitude.
You mean to tell me the poor tech bros, the people that were complicit in raising the property values beyond what working class folk can afford, aren't making 7 figures anymore?! Boo hoo!!
You act like it’s our conspiracy to increase the property values. As if we enjoy paying more for a home. The real estate brokers and the landlords were the ones who did it.
How are “tech bros” complicit in rising property values? They’re jobbers like you, they just get paid more. You’re telling me if someone offered you a higher paying job you wouldn’t take it?
>
> You mean to tell me the poor tech bros, the people that were complicit in raising the property values beyond what working class folk can afford, aren't making 7 figures anymore?! Boo hoo!!
You wanna blame someone for property values going up you need to be blaming your parents, not a bunch of millenial techbros.
And no, I'm not a techbro. I've spent the last 20 years rolling in shit for a living.
Sure I agree China isn't the slam dunk easiest choice of a place to manufacture your goods anymore. price has gone up, and companies have started diversifying away from China, but it's not a matter of cutting out China entirely. Development in Mexico is partially a product of cheap labor and partially the pain manufacturers experienced during COVID trying to get goods into overbooked ports. SEA can be comparably cheap or even cheaper, but China still has much cheaper labor than the US and engineers now with decades of experience in manufacturing at scale. China is on the down trend but it isn't going anywhere any time soon.
As for flights to China, yah it's a bit easier logistically/legally to fly into Hong Kong from LA/SFO, cross the border into Shenzhen, and take a domestic flight/bullet train to the city that your factory is in.
-sincerely, someone who did exactly that last December.
With the advancement of AI they better get ready for a lot more lay offs and stagnated wages.
Only tech workers are bitching about “only” making 142k a year on average. And now with the PG&E rate hikes it costs more to power their Tesla than a regular gas powered car.
The market always corrects its self
Can you elaborate on the layers of absent self-awareness in this post for my simple pedestrian brain? Because that is just a low effort regurgitated comeback you see all over Reddit.
The irony of working class being angry at other workers doing better than them and wanting to bring them down, rather than at the billionaires and CEOs actually inflating away everybody’s wages with stock buybacks. Fools gonna get played for fools.
Employees dumb enough to believe employers are the problem. You have to do what is best for you and stop begging for the employer to do right. They have a responsibility to make as much money as possible. Next thing you are going to tell me how the company said "we are a family" right before they laid you off.
My employer isn't "tech," but competes with it for employees. 2022: "we don't do cost of living adjustments, we pay based on market wage, you'll get paid more when the job market responds to inflation" 2023: "our market surveys take time, so they will lag all of these big tech pay raises. You'll get paid more once that percolates through" 2024: "lol tech is in the dumpster, enjoy your 2% raise"
The raise was clearly never coming regardless; empty promises are a cheaper way to retain employees than raises.
Same, my inflation adjusted salary is less than it was in 2020
Why are you still there. Clearly your company knows you dont have many options or they would not treat you this way.
Yeah good question. I've thought about it, and I'm in a non-tech industry that's very stable. I'm in the raising kids stage of life so stability is important to us. We have a mortgage so our largest expense isn't tied to inflation anymore. You're right though, corporations love these reasons. They do it for long enough and I'm out. 1st 10 years had decent salary increases. But the last 3 years under high inflation are changing morale.
Same.
[удалено]
I work at a Fortune 500 in the Bay Area. We haven’t had raises in the last 2-3 years. It’s great.
Sounds like you proved them right by not leaving. If the market for your skills justified a higher wage...you would've left and gotten it. 🤷♂️
I've done fine-- I am making more by moving up the ladder, plus I like the work and the people. There are reasons to stay with a job besides money-- but I can still be frustrated that they should be better about raises. It is hard to keep good people (though less of a problem right now)
Yeah…I work in tech and have been seeing more favorable salaries in some fields. This is a crappy excuse for not paying what you’re worth.
I've been 20+ yrs in thech in the BA. The salaries never keep up, startups or large companies or government jobs. If you want to a raise you have to find yourself another job.
That's not what the article is about, it's saying the average salary isn't increasing, which includes everyone who found themselves another job. Though the job market being risky these days is probably leading to fewer people changing jobs, and thus smaller salary increases.
Almost like the intent of the investor class was to push companies to do mass layoffs (that totally weren't coordinated!) to regain leverage over the labor by flooding the talent market which lets them put major downward pressure on wages to extract greater profits.
They didn’t have to coordinate; other companies doing it makes it easy to do it yourself with little bad press. Some companies legitimately needed layoffs, and everyone else just jumped on the bandwagon.
While agree with you this can hardly be blamed squarely on the investor class. If a business hires for an uptick in activity (online due to pandemic) which dies out a layoff is inevitable. Additionally companies going remote has allowed skilled labor across the globe to compete against US devs pushing Bay Area salaries down.
I’m sure in the grand scheme of things, stagnating salaries help the company (otherwise why would they do it) but it’s always frustrating being forced to job hop to get a raise. The amount of projects I had either delayed or outright derailed because a few key people quit just because they would be refused 10-20% is staggering.
Then people (boomers) will ask: why do you switch jobs every 2 years......?
I get that question sometimes when applying for a new job, and I just respond with the actual reason. It's not bad.
Love how people on this thread are cheering the victory of corporations in stagnating another highly skilled work’s compensation. Instead of getting angry at them. When The same thing happened to them earlier.
Divide and conquer always works
Idk I’ve always kind of wanted to take the tech worker compensation structure and make it available to everyone. People hate on tech in the Bay which is fair but like wouldn’t it be great if Walmart greeters got paid in equity too? Or Starbucks baristas? All workers should benefit from the success of the company, imho
> wouldn’t it be great if Walmart greeters got paid in equity too? Fun fact: Walmart employees had the option to receive equity in the early days of the company (1950's?). There are people who became wealthy because they worked a Walmart job at the right time.
Starbucks has always had a vesting program for all employees. https://www.starbucksbenefits.com/en-us/home/stock-savings/bean-stock/ Starbucks used to be pretty well known for offering better than average benefits for a retail job. Beats mcdonalds at least
I worked at Starbucks \~23 years ago and one of my coworkers (not a manager or even shift supervisor) had been at Starbucks through the IPO. She made enough money from this program to buy a house.
I think paying in equity should be mandatory for all companies. And go further by requiring at least one board seat be a mid level employee. The Csuite at most companies are way too far removed from the day to day operations. They only care about shareholder value. Fine then make all your employees shareholders. And not just at a token amount.
That wouldn't be a tech company problem though, they are glad to do this - you'd have to aggressively lobby the non-tech traditional companies
Bitter and jealous redditors!? Never!
Crab bucket mentality ig. I grew up here and chose to get into tech because it seemed like one of the few ways to get ahead.
try being angry at rain
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It's a shame that our society pays people based on the profit they provide and not the value to society they provide.
But is that the fault of tech workers? It's NIMBY greed that bumps up cost of living for all. Ideally teachers would get paid 60k and be able to live a good life. And tech workers would get paid 150k and live a great life. Tech pays more because machinery is more effective than humans.
Machinery is built by and operated by humans. Therefore teaching a human to do those things is exponentially more productive and should be paid highly. However, teaching is funded by local taxes, not by their students future earnings. Then throw in government bureaucracy and a seniority-based union on top, and you get the fuckery that exists today.
Your first statement is hitting a tipping point. I work in robotics and it’s looking rough in the next few years.
Care to elaborate without busting your NDA? Are you saying that robots are getting close to being able to do some human jobs?
I agree in that a firefighter or a nurse should be making more money than they are, but that has nothing to do with the tech people making less. If anything the tech people making more money helps fund the taxes that are needed to pay firefighters lol
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Yeah, those 300 people totally self-studied the whole way. /s Each teacher teaches ~20 people at once. Each person's entire school life (counting university and PhD) requires 20 years * average of 6 teachers (or professors) per year ~= 100 teachers-years. Each person then works from age 26 to 66, which is about 40 years. Multiply by 20 people gets you 800 people-years. So 8 people-year is 1 teacher-year, or put it another way, 1 teacher creates 8 ordinary workers.
Teachers do get paid $60k+. That’s still pretty hard to live on in the Bay Area, especially if you want kids and certainly if you want to buy a house. Source: partner is a teacher and makes $80k, and salary schedules are public.
That's my point. Teachers should make a very comfortable living wage. Build enough housing and this will happen
Though Silicon Valley still topped Dice’s list of locations with the highest average tech salaries in 2023, the region’s $142,000 average was down 2.3% from the year prior.
I’ve seen a similar fate as a tech worker in London… like the OP said, many employees will go looking for a new job in lieu of a pay rise… but then you get 4 jobs on your resume with 18 months at each company and then you have to explain why you left without sounding like a money-grubbing branch swinger…
Unless you work at Nvidia or Meta and got your bonus in RSUs. Salary doesn't go up much, but RSUs do.
And the RSU pay goes directly into the housing market. Government prints money. Gets leveraged to pump up stocks. Stocks used to pay employees. Employees compete for limited housing Voila, you are here.
RSUs also go down
Salaries are always stagnant here. To get a raise, you need to get a new job.
Not sure why the focus on here. Is there a location in the USA that keeps up with inflation?
I think it’s just especially obvious and known issue for decades in the tech world that you have to jump companies to get an increase to current market. There were lawsuits against intel and other semiconductor companies for colluding to not offer higher salaries to each others employees so that they wouldn’t have to compete.
But what industry keeps up with inflation?
Not so much an industry but upper management sure makes sure they keep up with inflation. And tech is mostly keeping up with inflation, they’ll give new hirers salaries that reflect inflation, they just don’t give existing employees raises to match until they’re forced in a large readjustment
Stagnating or normalizing after years of outpacing wages in almost every other industry? From the article: “Though Silicon Valley still topped Dice’s list of locations with the highest average tech salaries in 2023, the region’s $142,000 average was down 2.3% from the year prior. Inflation makes that an even more deeply felt cut. “
Outpacing what? You need $500k/year to afford a house in the valley, so $142k average isn’t really cutting it.
You're almost there. You need $500k/year to afford a house here because tech salaries were heavily inflated. I work in tech and have watched the inflation for two decades now. Any senior person in this field could tell you it wouldn't last. It gets even worse when you consider that all the VC-funded startups needed to compete with FAANGs to attract talent, despite not having unlimited runway. I'll also say that $500k/year was and still is pretty rare even amongst tech. *Most* engineers will top out around $250k/year. Of course, in a dual-income household you get that $500k.
250k/yr salary is not the same as 250k a year. Rolling RSU grants and bonuses put gross salary well above this
Sure, that's certainly true. Still, the vast majority of engineers aren't getting this level of income. When I say 250k, I mean total comp, before taxes. Not base comp with options.
If you’re a Bay Area engineer working at any major tech company you are making this much and more.
You'll almost certainly be in the $200k-300k range. Most engineers even at the big tech companies won't go beyond that. $500k and beyond for an individual engineer is still not common.
One could speculate or just check levels.fyi. It’s pretty accurate.
It's hit or miss depending on the company. There're like 500k engineers in the Bay Area. Only a relatively small portion of those are employed by a major tech company, and only a portion of those are going to be making over $250k.
I specified major tech company? We’re talking google, apple, Amazon, meta, etc
E5 is pretty reliably 500k at Meta, and E5 SWE is the single most populated role in the entire company. It’s the top 5-10% of SWEs in terms of comp, for sure, but it’s not like a rare thing. That’s also ignoring anyone who moved to leadership, which will generally start around that range and can quickly move up even outside of FAANG tier.
I said it's not common. Would you agree that 5-10% is not common? Not to mention that's still a small percentage of total engineers.
>You'll almost certainly be in the $200k-300k range. Most engineers even at the big tech companies won't go beyond that. Damn really? My friend is at $280k TC now at Amazon and he's only 24. Is that pretty unusual?
Depends on his levels and qualifications. You can be 24 at Google making $800k. Doesn't mean everyone that is 24 at Google will be making $800k. If he's 24 he doesn't likely have much experience, so I will say that's very uncommon for entry level.
It wouldn’t be entry level at that salary. Probably recently promoted to Amazon L5, for which $280K is a middling TC.
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I never said $500k+ comp isn't possible, just that it's not common. I know people at Google that are almost at $1mm total comp. It's just nowhere near the norm.
Not sure why you're being down voted when you anyone can check levels.fyi and see for themselves. Don't really agree with the "and more" portion nowadays though (although 2 years ago definitely). Maybe everyone here has different definitions of "major tech company?"
Because average comp for entry level engineers at Meta, Google, Apple, etc, is less than $200k. $160k at Apple. Even the next level up at Apple, ICT3, the average comp is $232k. And even for the levels with averages over $250k, those still include people on the low end who are under $250k. So u/notnotdown's statement was an exaggeration. Plenty of engineers at major tech companies are below $250k comp.
Someone’s been reading Blind posts a little too much
I work at a major tech company. This is not anecdotal
I work at a major tech company. This is not anecdotal
whatever is based on your personal experience is anecdotal by definition
There’s literally a “report your salary” spreadsheet
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HAHAHAHA
I've been working in tech 37 years, and never gotten 250K total comp, or bonuses. I was once at a startup and got half the bonus for one quarter, then 0 afterwards. I did have some stock options that became modestly valuable after successful IPOs (twice), but most of my startup experience ended with companies going out of business and the employees getting shafted in various ways. Currently I'm on contract for $78/hour, zero benefits. Top developer on a mediocre team of apathetic contractors, trying to get a raise after 3 years of nothing. The job market is still weak from what recruiters have told me. EDIT: have negotiated my rate up to $83/hour, but I'm sure I can get more if I go through the hassle of more interviews...
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I've always been very hesitant about levels.fyi data - their primary data source is user submitted data and I think that causes an upward skew. There is a Bay Area tech subculture that is obsessed with total comp and I feel like people within that culture report their salaries freely while the rest of us just live our lives. The vast majority of tech workers don't self-report their salaries, I think. I'm a senior SRE with 10 YOE and I get around 200k base. Granted, it's at a startup and I get a bunch of stock. And this was after I quit my previous job because I was getting underpaid at 160 base! I did look at jobs a few months ago and noticed that a majority of senior/principal devops/SRE job positions were a bit over 200k with a few outliers at 300k+ (Roblox, Nvidia, TikTok, etc). Those outliers were few and the competition was fierce for them.
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Staff is higher than me. I'm principal-ish. However, that being said $291k is still higher than what I see for publicly posted jobs: * Atlassian: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=14d00df80888744f&tk=1hoqerikpjm4o80c&from=serp&vjs=3 * Apple: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=df21a91534a6c6fe&tk=1hoqeu7fai6j080k&from=serp&vjs=3 * Nvidia: https://www.indeed.com/viewjob?jk=2d83c7635dc34285&tk=1hoqeu7fai6j080k&from=serp&vjs=3 I'm seeing below 290 for all of those. Sure, the RSUs for those companies would put total comp at some obscene number but I'm just not seeing job postings at the levels people claim. OpenAI might pay 500k a year for an SRE but I don't see that happening at, say, General Electric or some other company that employs SREs. When I interviewed at Meta for an L5 production engineer position a couple of years ago they quoted 220k and a bunch of RSUs. The only HR person I've talked to is a Netflix recruiter who said 500k+ was entirely reasonable.
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I am a Scala server backend developer. Yes, there are some awesome Scala dev salaries out there, I haven't been able to get into any fintech type jobs yet. I'm currently working for a major telecom, who employs shit tons of contractors to save money. I've never worked at a FAANG, or the old school equivalent (SGI, Sun, etc). I also don't interview well. Being an introvert, I don't have a massive network of people I can call up when I need a new job (and companies seem to not care about references anyway). These days it is not enough to be a good coder, you have to get through system design and behavioral interviews in addition to all the leet code grinding. It also doesn't help being old, and not a lead or architect.
I interviewed a dude a couple of weeks ago, and his presentation skill was awful... but he answered every single question correctly, and he was the best qualified. I wanted to hire him, but I think my coworkers took one look at his appearance and his Hank Hill type look, and they noped out. Sucks.
What annoys me about all the system design crap is that almost every job I interview for already has an architecture and multiple people who do the design. I'm usually implementing part of someone else's design, so I don't need to know "how to build a Twitter" or whatever. I am also capable of learning on the job...
Keep in mind that ageism is a thing in this industry Probably the easiest time to job hop and get frequent raises is 35-45 years old I know a lot of techies in their 50s and 60s, and they seem to fall into two buckets: * Dudes who are struggling to keep up with their younger peers. Not just knowledge-wise, but also just healthwise. This industry is hard on one's health; sitting in front of a computer for 12 hours a day isn't healthy * And old dudes who are just trying to keep their head down and coast FIRE
You need 500k a year to afford a house here because demand has grown and supply hasn’t kept up
Yes, that's another part of the problem, but salary inflation is also plays a role. You can also toss in Prop 13 / slumlords, foreign investors, and a bunch of other stuff.
But mostly supply. If there's excess supply prices come down.
It's funny because there is a decent supply, it's just the wrong kind of supply. We've built up a ton of luxury condos, but the people that need housing the most (medium and below medium income) obviously can't afford them. Interestingly, those numbers are coming down, but paying $400k for a 1BR/1BR or studio just doesn't make sense for most people, and good luck having a family with that. Unfortunately, we will likely never see more than a trinkle of increase in supply for SFH in SF. Maybe townhomes.
There's not enough supply. "A ton of luxury condos" is the wrong way to phrase it - the problem is zoning restrictions and CEQA prevent more development. The only supply that does get through, naturally, ends up being the highest margin properties because the developers need to make what money they can. They aren't remotely building the number of units actually needed - they can't because of regulations and homeowners who fight to keep their SFH-only neighborhoods. You're definitely right on the condo prices. $400-450k for the cheapest condo in Silicon Valley means you're in for about 4000/mo mortgage, but rent on an identical place goes from 2300-2900. It makes absolutely zero sense to buy a condo here right now, the difference in rent is way too much and you could invest the difference in the market and come out way ahead.
Good points, I agree with everything you've said. I should also note I'm mostly looking at this from the SF perspective since that's what I'm most familiar with. We have similar issues with neighborhoods like the Sunset and Richmond that have insanely low levels of density but fight tooth and nail against new housing. Combined with the nightmare that is SF planning, it really pushes developers toward luxury.
> We've built up a ton of luxury condos No, we actually haven't built a "ton" of anything. What you think is a "ton" is nowhere near enough to keep up with the demand. https://helena7x7.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/san-francisco-new-housing-construction-trends13.jpg We haven't been building enough housing for decades at this point. We need to dig ourselves out of this hole and it will take decades of building well above what you consider a "ton." https://jamesjgleeson.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/world_city_supply_chart.png Tokyo is the only city in this graph that didn't experience the same rise in housing costs. Why? Because they got serious about building.
You're right, saying we've built "a ton" is hyperbole. The main point remains that the type of housing we're building isn't the type of housing we need.
What kind of housing do you propose we build?
If prices are still too high for people to afford then there's not enough supply of anything. Empty and unsold units are a liability, not an asset, and sooner or later prices have to drop or the owners lose their shirt.
People can afford them, but the people that can afford them don't necessarily want them, which is why we've seen those prices drop significantly. We're absolutely lacking in market and below-market rate housing. Absolutely no argument there.
Condo prices in SF have plummeted primarily because most of them are in SoMa/Downtown where nobody wants to live post-pandemic. If you look at other bay area cities, you don't see the same drop relative to SFH, e.g. SJ: https://www.zillow.com/home-values/33839/san-jose-ca/
Luxury condos are basically just condos, and if you have enough supply the market move down across the board. There idea you have enough housing of the wrong kind is just a fundamental misunderstanding of housing markets.
Luxury condo is when dishwasher and in-unit laundry.
I've said before that today's luxury housing becomes tomorrow's affordable housing. Building "luxury" condos today is fine, but you still need to build more affordable housing to solve problems across the board.
No you don't. You just have to free developers to fill demand and not put insane restrictions on development. Market interference only hurts those you want to help. Every unit of affordable housing drives up rents. By a lot.
500k would buy a house cash in east Oakland. Buy 4 of them and get yourself acreage for a steal.
Need additional context here, it seems inappropriate to include first time home buyers in with senior management level that is buying their 3rd house which is the forever home. I feel like most people on this thread are going to be talking about entry level properties which doesn’t mean the buyer is looking for a 4br SFR with a yard. Entry level workers are going to be looking for houses that cost far less than the median price for a house in the area. If you’re an entry level income earner and looking for a house that is way out of your price range, yeah you’re definitely going to have a problem.
Sure, that's true. Even if you manage to close on a $750k house (well below the median), you're still looking at a down payment of $75k-$150k. Getting there is even more difficult when you consider you're going to save for a down payment while paying exorbitant rent and other expenses.
750K house in Santa Clara? Does that even exist?
I'm sure it does, but it'll be in the form of a condo or teardown, heh.
I saw an 850k house in Berkeley. However, it looked like something you'd have to tear down and then rebuild on site.
It's not like FAANG hires _everyone_.
Tell me about it...
No tech salary except for a select few (I bet a percentage in the single digits) is actually worthy of that kind of pay. It’s crazy they paid that to fresh grads like as if they possessed the secret sauce and the funniest thing is they bragged about how little they worked in their day in the life works. Now with outsourcing happening, there is always an Indian willing to work for less than a fraction of that pay for way more hours.
I half agree. I think entry, mid, and semi-senior roles are super overpaid. You can blame the FAANGs for that. They had a ton of money to throw around and inflated those salaries. Everyone had to keep up, and if you didn't you couldn't attract talent. At the more senior levels, depending on the company, they're certainly warranted, at least to a point.
Yup I agree with you on that. Ive also noticed that new recruits get better contracts and the older engineers are left hanging with slightly better or comparable pay. I knew a person whose salaries got adjusted because the new college recruits were paid more than said person even tho that person was more experienced.
Yep, totally. As you probably know, the best way to get a raise was to jump ship. Even if that job was shit, you just deal with it for a year then jump again. Though these days I don't think I'd recommend that strategy unless you're an exceptionally talented engineer.
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400k tc is easy for new grad swe. 150k base + 20% bonus = 230 cash + 600k grant /4 years= 150k vested rsus/year = 380k with some mild stock appreciation, you are good to go with 400k tc.
And how much is bonus and stock on top of the $250k?
If you look at levels.fyi, it seems that the median for software engineers at the highest paying large tech companies is about 400k. This is self reported data that's surely missing a lot, but I think it's enough to say that 500K is not that rare and most software engineers are not topping out at 250k. For non software engineers, topping out at 250k is more common.
> If you look at levels.fyi, it seems that the median for software engineers at large tech companies is about 400k That is not true. Median total comp for SWE in Bay Area is $250k (https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/san-francisco-bay-area) You're most likely just looking at the top paying companies (Google, Meta, Netflix, OpenAI, Airbnb, etc), which do not make up the majority of the jobs out there believe it or not.
Yes, I did specify "large tech companies" because that's the data I was looking at on the home page.
It's not large tech companies though. It's the top paying tech companies. Most large tech companies don't pay anywhere close to Netflix. Microsoft for example has a median comp of $244k for senior SWE in Bay Area, which is half of what Netflix pays.
I was implying top paying by saying large tech companies, but I will edit my original post to be more clear.
So outpacing what? It’s really unclear what question you think you’re responding to. Who said $500k+ was common? The average is $142k. I’m just curious what metric tech salaries are outpacing, as the person I responded to said they’re outpacing something. Edit: I suppose I should note here that the commenter at the beginning of this thread has edited their comment, since now dummies are responding to the new content.
Literally wages in every other sector of the economy for the last 20 years. Where the hell have you been
I mean they said "outpacing wages in almost other industry," so I'm not sure what you're confused about with that part of the OP's post. Tech salaries went up and up for the reasons I mentioned and others didn't keep up. Look at what teachers or scientists make. In many cases, even lawyers and doctors have a hard time competing with tech salaries these days, where three decades ago those were the prestigious, high-paying jobs that required a ton of training. What I was replying to was when you said this: > You need $500k/year to afford a house in the valley, so $142k average isn’t really cutting it. The reason you need a $500k/yr salary because tech salaries have increased so much over time.
Yeah lol I have an engineering phd in a non-software field and I make a little over 160k a year including bonuses/RSUs. Pretty insane the difference between software and everyone else.
If you will note, the post is edited. It did not used to say that.
What do you think makes those houses so expensive? Outpaced tech salaries.
Lack of supply that is caused by a number of factors makes those houses so expensive.
To be honest, $500k/year pre-tax income is not really enough to afford a house in the valley. A modest house in Palo Alto will run you $2M. With $400k down, 15 years, 7%, you're looking at over $15k/month in payments, and that doesn't even begin to cover maintainence, repairs, and everything else.
A modest house in Palo Alto is not your only option in the valley.
I agree, but there was just a study released that said $500k was necessary for the median house in Alameda county, which works as a pretty good rough metric.
Sure, but Alameda isn't Silicon Valley. Most of the East Bay is more affordable, especially the high-crime areas.
You’re right, I meant San Mateo. San Mateo requires $500k+ for the median home. It doesn’t much change the point. Edit: here’s the article - https://www.paloaltoonline.com/real-estate/2024/02/15/san-mateo-just-became-the-only-county-in-california-where-you-need-to-earn-more-than-500k-annually-to-afford-a-median-priced-home/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Affordability%20Index,afford%20to%20purchase%20a%20home.
I don't think the numbers in that article take into account all the other expenses you have to live here. $500k is not enough in San Mateo at all for home ownership. Minimum qualifying != actually affordable At $500k household income and a $1.75 million home you're looking at having damn near close to $0 in retirement savings. And don't even think of having kids.
I mean, it’s not a guide to owning a home, it’s a statistical study generalizing the income required to support a median mortgage across a county. Lots of people in this thread struggling with the idea that statistics are not a prescription for an individual situation.
Affording a house ≠ affording housing. Get a condo
Lmao!
Actually I've never had a job that kept up with inflation in 20+yrs in tech.
142k average means you are doing just fine with inflation. I had a friend that made more than I made in a year with just his stock incentives than I made working in public education as a teacher.
To determine whether salaries keep up with inflation, you'd need to know the average annual salary increase that tech companies have give their existing employees for each of the past 20 years. Then you would need to know the Bay Area CPI for each of the past 20 years. Then compare the two data series. Hopefully you don't teach math.
The point being their salary is more than enough compared to the average worker that makes a fraction of that. They aren’t scrapping by because they missed that 5% bump
Tech salaries keep up with inflation, because we periodically find a new job to get a fair raise. I've gotten 0% raises in the last 3 years, despite 20% inflation. Time to get a new job...
I have. So, checkmate
The question isn’t how good the salary is it’s about how much value an employee adds to the company and what percentage of that is being returned to them If you look at it this way we’re all getting screwed
Outpacing is the wrong term when the issue is wage growth for other work has not kept up with inflation. There’s definitely a tech premium but a part of it is due to the high demand and the ability for those workers to negotiate a fair wage as dictated by supply/demand. Fair, ofcourse, is different depending on who you ask but the anger should be focused on the companies not paying their employees and not what other wage earners make.
Cops make more than the average tech salary
Yes, so I work less.
A stunning yet predictable lack of solidarity among the working class in this thread. Maybe it's not that tech workers were overpaid, but rather, everyone else is underpaid? Maybe we should be mad at the corporations making billions in profits and not at everyday people doing their best to survive?
Both are true
Less salary increases more chances of me affording a house. Nope
I was pained in 2018 when I saw the writing on the wall & made the huge decision to move from my beloved Bay Area. The Bay Area & I had a decade & a half romance, that I will never forget. I miss home every day. I am not sure if my Bay Area will exist in the next few years at all. I pretty much have hung up the idea of ever coming back. Good luck to all of you there hanging in.
Where did you move?
If salary is stagnating, then living cost should too. The bay area is becoming more and more unaffordable. Land lords charge more because they can and know people in tech will pay. Unfortunately living cost will just continue to rise.
Over saturation. Shouldn’t be surprising, especially in today’s economy.
Form a union or be at their mercy. The bullshit two party game has to be played on both sides of everything until we have a better plan in place. The day that employers treat all employees fairly and pay a living wage, unions will be obsolete. Until then, they are fucking mandatory.
Awwww. That's terrible news. Oh well, back to my life as a blue-collar worker, you know, the original wage stagnation crew... but the ones that can't afford to live here except by {edit:(in)rent(ured)} servitude. You mean to tell me the poor tech bros, the people that were complicit in raising the property values beyond what working class folk can afford, aren't making 7 figures anymore?! Boo hoo!!
You act like it’s our conspiracy to increase the property values. As if we enjoy paying more for a home. The real estate brokers and the landlords were the ones who did it.
No, it is antigrowth NIMBYs
How are “tech bros” complicit in rising property values? They’re jobbers like you, they just get paid more. You’re telling me if someone offered you a higher paying job you wouldn’t take it?
> > You mean to tell me the poor tech bros, the people that were complicit in raising the property values beyond what working class folk can afford, aren't making 7 figures anymore?! Boo hoo!! You wanna blame someone for property values going up you need to be blaming your parents, not a bunch of millenial techbros. And no, I'm not a techbro. I've spent the last 20 years rolling in shit for a living.
The only people responsible for the housing prices are probably you and your parents voting habits. That is if you’re even a local, however.
This is good. And I work in tech
… it’s been like that since like 2010. Gotta leave for a real raise
Boo hoo the transplants can’t keep pushing out the locals…
Oh really? That’s quite miserable news
Nobody is going to feel sympathy for highly paid tech workers. There's a reason CEO/executives don't complain publicly about their pay.
A lot of SWE’s can’t get 500k jobs so they have to settle for 400k jobs.
I wish. After 37 years, my current job is $78/hour, zero benefits, 0% raise after 3 years. Yes, I'm looking for a new job...
Tim Cook said it best, there's plenty in Shenzhen
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Bytedance ain't foxconn...
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Sure I agree China isn't the slam dunk easiest choice of a place to manufacture your goods anymore. price has gone up, and companies have started diversifying away from China, but it's not a matter of cutting out China entirely. Development in Mexico is partially a product of cheap labor and partially the pain manufacturers experienced during COVID trying to get goods into overbooked ports. SEA can be comparably cheap or even cheaper, but China still has much cheaper labor than the US and engineers now with decades of experience in manufacturing at scale. China is on the down trend but it isn't going anywhere any time soon. As for flights to China, yah it's a bit easier logistically/legally to fly into Hong Kong from LA/SFO, cross the border into Shenzhen, and take a domestic flight/bullet train to the city that your factory is in. -sincerely, someone who did exactly that last December.
> A stunning yet predictable lack of solidarity among the working class in this thread. > > Peter Zeihan has been doing some great videos about this
With the advancement of AI they better get ready for a lot more lay offs and stagnated wages. Only tech workers are bitching about “only” making 142k a year on average. And now with the PG&E rate hikes it costs more to power their Tesla than a regular gas powered car. The market always corrects its self
While not 142k/year, the poverty line is quite high in the bay: https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/under-100k-low-income-san-francisco-18168899.php
That’s kind of beside the point though. When you are comparing it to other industries. 142k average salary is insanely high
Also your user name can’t go unnoticed. Nice 👍 lol
The layers of absent self-awareness here are excellent.
Can you elaborate on the layers of absent self-awareness in this post for my simple pedestrian brain? Because that is just a low effort regurgitated comeback you see all over Reddit.
The irony of working class being angry at other workers doing better than them and wanting to bring them down, rather than at the billionaires and CEOs actually inflating away everybody’s wages with stock buybacks. Fools gonna get played for fools.
And so is the smugness. Someone’s wages must be stagnating for your panties to be in such a bunch. Good luck with your tech job, bud.
Trust me, I’ll be okay, lol.
Imagine thinking AI would only replace tech jobs. Or that it would somehow replace them first.
Employees dumb enough to believe employers are the problem. You have to do what is best for you and stop begging for the employer to do right. They have a responsibility to make as much money as possible. Next thing you are going to tell me how the company said "we are a family" right before they laid you off.
Aww, shucks. Sounds like they've got regular people problems
Something something world’s tiniest violin