Also in an effort to counter the humble brag, here is my salary with the years changed slightly as not to dox myself. I’m also not in Washington/California/SV/NYC.
I hope this also shows that the best way to make money is by frequent job hopping.
My salary is about average for the area.
1995 - 2000 wanted to get out of the small town where I’m from and my best opportunity was based on an internship I had the year before as a computer operator. Soon they had a programming project and I was the only programmer they had. I was also in graduate school at the time - starting $10/hr - ending salaried at $35K.
2000 - 2007 Software Engineer mostly doing C/C++ — starting $52K ending $70K. The bonuses steadily were cut and the raises were abysmal
2008-2012 Software Engineer at a small company that went out of business. Mostly doing C# with a little C++. Starting $77K, Ending $84K
2012-2015 Senior Software (in reality a mid level .Net developer) - starting 90K, ending 93K
2015-2016 Full Stack Developer - mostly .Net with some Angular. Starting $115K - Ending $115K
2016-present “Architect” at a small company - starting 63hr (contract - I took it for the learning opportunity and there was a position that I was eyeing) - present $135K.
Next on my agenda is to be an overpriced “implementation consultant”/“Digital transformation consultant”, etc. after my youngest graduates in 3 years.
I think I'm underpaid, but not grossly so. I earn $115,000/yr with 8 years of professional experience in Philadelphia. I have equity currently valued at ~$5,000. I also make an additional ~$10,000/yr in donations to my open source projects and an additional ~$5,000/yr through the occasional side gig.
I know that I’m “underpaid” based on what I could get if I were willing to trade a relatively stress free job to either be a team lead (been there done that) or work for a consulting company.
If I made an extra 20K to 30K right now, it wouldn’t change my life significantly. I could reach a few long term goals quicker but I’m really in no rush.
Do you like your company? I'm also in philly but can't seem to find a cool company to work for (I have a software job as is but have been looking). The city feels somewhat dry of interesting software companies.
I wouldn't necessarily call that underpaid. Being underpaid is when you have to choose between the present and the future. If you can both have good and sustainable living conditions, job security and pension with a decent margin you aren't generally underpaid as such. The exception being if your relative wage affects things worth caring about, like being valued by the people around you.
Yep, reading that guy's salary history almost made me want to go jump off the roof, but I figure he lives in CA and probably went to an "upper-echelon" college. Here's mine, from somebody who went to a college that didn't make the US News top 100:
(Georgia)
- 1992: $25,000 (Internship), mostly Cobol
- 1995: Graduated with BSCS, no-name college, 3.5 GPA
(Illinois)
- 1995: $28,000 (got a raise to $35000, the only raise I've ever gotten without switching jobs), Cobol
- 1996: $40,000, C++
(North Texas)
- 1997: $50,000, C++
- 1998: $60,000, C++/Java
- 1999: $100,000, Java
- 2002: $100,000, Web programming/Java/Javascript ("lateral" job change, old company went out of business)
- 2008: Graduated MSCS, sort-of-name college, 3.9 GPA
- 2011: $120,000, Objective-C, iOS
- 2014: $120,000, Java/Javascript (another "lateral" change)
- 2018: $140,000, Java/Javascript
My path is one of the underappreciated hybrid: started in major metro (DC/NY/Boston) and moved to small town in the south after many years, finding good gigs offering remote work for DC-, NY-, and SF-based companies. Found a nice niche in security/ops/development in gov & healthcare tech. So, here goes:
DB/Ops Engineering
1999: $60K base. Fresh out of masters program, large F50 DC gov tech firm (#1)
2001: $100K + $5K bonus. After building a successful practice area (still #1)
Independent Consulting, Security Ops & DB Architecture
2002-3: $150/hr, ~$200K/year. Small, rapid-growth Boston healthcare company (#2)
System/Security Architecture
2004-7: $150K base, $50K-$80K bonus. (full-time salaried at #2)
I know half a dozen co-workers (senior engineers or technical directors) whose net annual comp is also in the $300K range. It's not common, but if you're pulling <$100K with 6+ years experience in software or security engineering, you're getting screwed. (Throw away account, but happy to respond in thread; edited for formatting)
Thanks for sharing. After you (I assume) went remote while working for the same company, how did you go about getting new remote gigs at large tech companies? I’m remote now and would like to stay so, but I’m finding that companies that pay the sort of comp I’m looking for are often remote-averse.
Interesting that it's similar (lower if adjusted for inflation) level of compensation since 2002. Do you feel that your specialty is plateauing in terms of pay? What would it take for another compensation increase?
This thread's making me feel much better about my starting salary of $35k back in 2011. It always seemed to bug me, the nagging feeling that I had way under billed myself for the first two years of my career (looking at all the big salaries everyone was always claiming).
My salary's pretty much followed the same progression that other's have posted for outside of the high-cost-of-living hubs.
Started out in a LCOL area (Central PA). Dropped out of Comp. Sci. program. ColdFusion -> ASP -> .NET (with lots of Web Development). All the different titles. But typically just a member of the team; not the team lead or architect.
All figures W2 gross pay and 40 hour / week jobs
(No on call, paid OT or I didn't play!)
Low cost of living checking in, primarily due to food and housing, which are ~50% and ~15-20% of the Bay Area respectively. A <$950 mortgage payment for a house with a yard is a huge QOL boost.
Started professional software dev in 2010 after freelancing for $45, raise/promotion to low $50's before getting a new job for $72, raise/promotion to high $70's before getting a new job for $98, promotion to $115 + 10% discretionary/performance bonus. All web development to start, last promotion put me in architecture/pseudo-management roles that includes more backend systems and integrations. Tech roles at my current job top out in the low to mid $130's + 10%, non-Exec management seems to be in the $125-185 range but obviously that info is pretty hard to get reliably. If you don't have any desires to be in management or architecture roles and you just want to be in your IDE coding all day, you can get to $90-100k reliably, and in this area that's enough to max out your 401k, a Roth IRA, and save.
I'd love to move to a city and get companies on my resume that people have heard of outside of a 30 mile radius, but SF/NYC are nonstarters as they'd be a 50%+ effective pay cut, and even the less mainstream ones like Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Diego would be 30% or more.
If you think you’re better than average, especially top quintile, then moving to a big city will offer so many more opportunities it will more than make up for the temporary pay cut or hit to quality of life. Of course this all depends on your goals and situation such as having dependents and age. But it could pay off big by giving you more chances to network, start businesses, meet a high income earning spouse, etc.
2007: $35k (First job out of school. I didn't know to negotiate better. Also my favorite job I've had)
2008: $60k
2012-2015: $80-$115k
2016-2017: $117.5k
2018: $100k + quarterly bonus based on company profits
It's not crazy FAANG level income but the cost of living out here is low enough that I'm pretty sure I make out decently well in comparison.
I'll go so far as to say here's my College Drop Out Self Taught In The Rust Belt Salary:
2006-2016: $25k-$45kyr, $40-$120 per hour. The first half I ran a very small agency that maxed out at 4 people and I wrote all the code, the latter half I was a PHP freelancer. Most expensive WordPress consultant in my city!
2016: $52k. Agency web dev. I've never hated a job more. Mostly wrote hacky jQuery and supported an awful laravel app the boss was enamored with.
2017: $65k. Front End Engineer. worked on converting a legacy SaaS product into Angular SPA. My boss begged me to ask for a raise (the recruiter screwed everybody), and then I got laid off two weeks later with like 25 other people. Loved that job, sad to lose it.
2018(current): $87k + bonuses. Senior Front End Developer. My job is to hack .net with javascript. I think the salary trend is moving nicely. I'm suddenly the richest person among all my friends and the third-highest earner in my extended family. (My family isn't even in the rust belt, they're from a much wealthier region in the country.)
I'm a remote working iOS / Android dev located in the countryside of Thailand.
Currently working for 40 USD / hour for 32 hours a week, so that means around 65.000 USD per year. This year I started fully working remotely and decided to start a bit at the low end, earnings-wise. When working previously as a freelancer in The Netherlands my last rate was around 80 USD / hour.
I intend to raise my rate to at least 50 USD per hour in 2019 and perhaps working 5 days a week, which would mean earning around 100.000 USD per year.
Personally neither what you call the humble brags nor your post are very useful. What is interesting is cost-of-living-adjusted salary, but nobody knows how to calculate it, so we just get a bunch of numbers without enough context to figure out what they actually mean. It's like posting a bunch of price data points from the last 500 years without any knowledge of inflation.
Similar - 15 years experience in DevOps, I make $100k at my current job ($20k less than my previous job which was in Los Angeles, I'm still in CA, but away from the metros.)
But...and this more than makes up for it...my hours are capped at 35 a week. (I usually work between 30-35).
And I love it. The tradeoff has been completely worth it for me.
It's not about shaming people. HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers. It's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low.
I always wonder when I read about salaries in other countries - what do the numbers usually mean? Not sure if this is how it works everywhere, but where I live, we have 3 different ways of talking about salary:
1) What you actually get
2) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes
3) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes + what your employer pays in taxes
Usually we talk about #2 when discussing salaries. So if somebody says they make 1000€/month, it generally means that they get 871€ every month in the bank, and their employer actually needs to pay 1338€ ever month in salary + taxes.
Can anyone shed some light on whether this is the same everywhere? Like if somebody in Silicon Valley says they make $200k/year, is that their "#2" number?
Edit:
Adding my own #2 history as well (software dev in Estonia), in case anybody is interested:
2015 - junior at employer A - 12 000€
2015 - mid-level at employer A - 21 204€
2016 - mid-level at employer B - 26 400€
2017 - senior at employer B - 30 000€
2017 - senior at employer C - 48 000€
2018 - senior at employer D - 58 500€
In my experience, it's very hard to get better salary without changing jobs all the time, so if you know of a company with good perks, it's better to change your job a bunch of times before ending up there (so you can start there with a relatively good salary) - at least, that's what I ended up doing.
People in the US almost always quote salary in terms of gross amounts - so if someone makes $200k, that's before tax. But it's not including the employer taxes.
I.e. their paycheck will show $16,666 per month at the top line, a bunch of state, federal, maybe local taxes, disability and social security (also basically taxes), etc. and then roughly $10,500 at the bottom line depending on your situation.\
Edit: sometimes people include stock in their pay. This can be perfectly reasonable (guaranteed grants in a publicly traded company) or complete BS (pretending your startup will sell for 1B+ even though you might as well just buy lottery tickets)
I think most countries does this. Of course that doesn't make the amount comparable between countries. It is mainly for practical reasons since that is the salary you negotiate for i.e. the amount they pay you (though in many countries the employer would deduct income taxes). In general I think a decent starting point, for higher salaries, tends to be what one can save. Because then people will often instinctively start asking for the bigger picture.
In Russia it's always #1 discussed and negotiated, because all the taxes and payments (like the retirement fund), including those that are supposedly paid by the employee, are handled by employer's accounting. Most people don't even know how much taxes and other payments they pay to the government each month, and most people don't even care that much whether the employer actually pays it all or doesn't. Just to clarify: not paying taxes and social payments on employee salary is, obviously, illegal, and employee is aware of that, but (1) in Russia, people generally don't care about breaking the law that much and (2) people don't believe in the pension system enough to care if they're paying anything into it or not. Most feel that by the time they get to retirement, government will find some way to steal their pension money, or it will be completely eaten away by hyperinflation or some other catastrophic economic event.
Yes, almost always number 2. Number 1 only when they specify "take home pay" and almost never number 3. Because the total amount your employer pays is not readily available nor easy to calculate.
Seems like it's more important to change titles than company according to your history. To be honest I'm a bit offended you consider yourself senior with 2 years of experience.
I got promoted to "senior" developer less than 6 months out of university because my employer wanted to inflate the credibility of his consulting business.
Job titles aren't standardised and can be pretty meaningless between organisations.
To be fair, I actually have around 7 years of experience total, not just the 3 I've worked full-time. It's just that most of those years I was working as a freelancer. My first employer initially thought that the freelance work didn't make me worthy of being more than a junior, and back then, I didn't really know enough about working at a company to disagree.
In those 7 years, I've built up and shipped quite a few products, so I definitely feel like I can say I have more than 2 years of useful experience. But don't feel too offended, I don't really consider myself to be senior - it's just a title that my employers offer me. I definitely know I still have a long way to go before I'm a good developer.
The "senior" title is not about the length of your tenure. It's about your ability to independently solve difficult problems and provide leadership to those around you.
Perhaps the guy is really good/ambitious? I've had to deal with the stigma of being "above average", and it bothers me when I hear stuff like this. This sort of thinking stops people who have the drive to do something, and it makes them delay their enthusiasm until others feel they deserve a chance. That's just terrible in my opinion. And it's probably part of the reason why so many young people start a startup or go and work for one; so their talent and enthusiasm can actually yield something worthwhile, rather than be hindered by various corporate paradigms.
2018 - Salary for me an expat in Germany at a fintech startup: 53k Euros a year. No signing bonus. No options. Experience: 5 years as a DBA the rest a sad self taught programmer with 6 months of prior startup experience shipping microservices in C# and Python.
Startup in logistics 2018 6 months: 48k euros.
Previous: DBA in Portland Oregon in 2013 to 2017 - 60k to 70k then as an EDW dev 78k USD.
Jesus that's horrible. I made much more than that straight out of college. But it was in NYC where cost of living is high and taxes destroy you.
The saddest part is that your salary didn't increase much in 5 years? Going from $60k to $70k to 53k euros over 5 years is pretty much tracking inflation. Over 5 years, my salary increased by more than double your entire salary.
You should ask for a raise from time to time or get a better paying job. Especially since DBA/data scientist along with computer security developer/engineer were some of the hottest fields in tech the past 10 years.
Some people can spend a month reading "SQL in 21 days" and get a higher salary than you in many places.
My #2 = €45k or so, but in my country (Netherlands) this number, usually, doesn't include pension contributions which are 6k a year in my firm. I don't actually know how much #3 is. But my #1 = (2330 * 12) * 1,125% (end of year bonus).
I have worked in Australia, Singapore and Germany. When mentioning salary, we usually qualify it with either "Gross" or "Net", which corresponds to 1) and 2) respectively on your list.
Probably also needs some kind of purchasing power parity adjustment - divide by the cost of a specified size of house within a reasonable commuting distance, for example.
I think one way of having a productive comparison is to use percentage points on wage increases; that way it doesnt matter location or currency, cost of living etc. as these can be reflected in base salary as a proxy.
In Italy, as far as I know, there's only 1) and 3). Usually If we refer to a yearly salary, it's 3), if we refer to the monthly sum, it's the take home pay, so 1).
Here in Italy we discuss #2 - For example for an annual income of 30.000€ before taxes, it will be around 1.400 - 1.500€ month after taxes.
And I had the same experience: it's almost impossible to have salaries jump without changing jobs (and from a business perspective the reasons for that are quite obvious)
2001: BigCo $76,000/year + $20,000 signing bonus (first job out of school)
2007: Freelancing between $100-$200/hr depending on project
2012: Startup #1 $180,000/year + $75,000 signing bonus + a bit of stock that's never been worth anything (but I exercised upon leaving and paid a lot of taxes on, so I'm net negative ~$300k)
2015: Startup #2 $240,000/year + lots of stock that's never been worth anything
Some thoughts on equity and BigCos vs. Startups:
Before going to Startup #1 I rejected offer of ~$2MM RSUs at BigCo #2 (since split, now worth ~$15MM) and offer of ~$2MM RSU at BigCo #3 (now worth ~$10MM) in order to join what looked like a sure thing. Got another offer from BigCo #2 a few years later for ~$1MM RSUs (now worth $4MM).
My peers that went to BigCos have done far, far better than me financially. All are above $500k/year in total comp, and quite a few above $1MM/year due to FAANG stocks going up so much.
Startup compensation math just doesn't work when you're competing against the BigCos these days. Liquidity horizons are ~10 years for the few successes that work out, the equity portions are meager (esp after dilution). Even ignoring the risk of no liquidity event, you still come out behind what the big companies are paying these days.
I'll probably never join a startup again, but if I do, all salary assumptions assume an equity value of zero.
Out of curiosity and a bit of jealousy :-) What is the programming field companies are willing to give MM of RSU to programmers? Do you really make a difference to their top line? I had the impression that it’s more the project management and business development that can justify that compensation.
Honestly, these companies just have so much money right now and their stock keeps on going up. They're competing for top talent, so bidding wars happen.
These were L6 offers at the time. Gets much more ridiculous the higher you go (over $1MM/year comp)
I'm not a super specialist or anything, just a solid developer (mostly front end, some back end)
$2MM RSU over 4 years is $500k in stock compensation. That kind of comp is less about field and more about level. You're looking at an L7+ for that kind of comp at any of the big companies (maybe L8?). So Senior Staff/Principal Engineer type of deal.
not a programmer, but product manager. I feel your pain on startup #1.
The startups are a crapshoot, they can be a great stepping stone, but assume the equity is worth zero. The right 'big company' is going to be more lucrative in most cases by a lot.
Is it any surprise that startups pay less than Google or Facebook?
I don't know anyone that thinks they'll break even vs. FAANG, and that's even when counting stock options as cash (which 99% of people will rightly tell you to ignore).
> Is it any surprise that startups pay less than Google or Facebook?
I always knew startups would pay a less, but I always thought it wasn't that much less. Turns out I vastly over-estimated the chances of liquidity in startups, and vastly under-estimated just how much the BigCos are willing to pay as you climb up the ladder.
Was a very eye opening experience when I started having frank conversations w/ peers at those BigCos
I'm actually surprised that as a 'Principal Architect' he was only making $208,000 a year. Considering that entry-level positions at large companies which can have cash compensation of around $150,000+, it seems he may have been 'underpaid'.
Of course $208,000 is nothing to scoff at, and money is hardly the most important thing when it comes to life. Just interesting to see that a reasonably large Bay-area company would pay such a high-level engineer barely more than new grads can get.
I really can't understand why they stay in the UK then, to be honest. We seem to have better salaries and generally lower cost of living across the sea...
I have no affiliation with this company but here's a recent example, quoted at 95k so you could presumably push higher:
UK salaries are dire. When I moved from the UK to Canada my salary doubled and my expenses in the UK (Brighton) were actually higher than here in Canada.
I could probably double my salary again moving to the US but I don't want to stay in a place that doesn't have a solid route to citizenship. The TN visas being temporary, non-dual intent and not allowing my spouse to work. Maybe my company will transfer me on an L1.
Also, there was as story on the BBC today about a firm that can't hire software engineers even offering 100k in compensation (which is pretty good for the UK). I rarely see postings for positions that pay this much. London salaries seem to cap out at around 60k which is peanuts considering how expensive the city is.
I am really amazed at the salaries you Brits are getting. I work in Germany and are getting headhunters calling me. When I question them about the salary, it becomes a immediately blocker as they are not able to match my German salary.
Once an engineer start working on the continent, I would imagine that it would be hard to go back to Britain solely for monetary reasons.
Depends of course where you are, but it sounds like you are getting underpaid.
In London a senior engineer will get at least £60k (depending on what 'senior' means and how many currently hot languages you list on your CV). I know people in obscure parts of the country, with next to no tech scene, who aren't far off that.
The real money in the UK is in contracting though, or go to the dark side and work in finance.
Depends a lot on whether you are in finance. Plenty of people there are on £150k or more coding for front office stuff. My LinkedIn always has someone touting 200k or more roles.
Would you be able to purchase a home or condo in the Bay area with a $208k salary? If so, what could you get (size, quality, approximity to the main tech areas)?
Yes. Well, yes if you assume decent credit and some cash saved up for a down payment. The conventional 20% wisdom can be safely ignored as a relic from the 1950s in the Bay.
It's definitely possible to buy a condo or detached house in Oakland for the 400k-700k that would likely be affordable on that salary. The condo, probably a one-bedroom might be a decade or less old, the house much more likely to be older, and probably not insanely distant from BART. This means reasonable access to SF, but annoying to get further south to the peninsula.
you were able to do it in 2014 on the $208K. The 2018 equivalent of those $208K - a principal at a hot company is $450-$550 (Google's L5-L6 medians) and it does allow to buy very nice townhouse in MV/PA/SNVL or even a modest home.
Fair points, though I don't know how high of an expected value I'd give to 50k of Box options. It's hard for me to imagine that options given that late are that valuable. I'd imagine the equity compensation at lots of other places would be better.
Don't feel bad though, these high salaries typically happen at large companies in extremely expensive areas. So, the money isn't as much as it seems, and you likely will feel like a small cog in a giant-money-making corporation. In other words, chasing the money is often not worth it.
Very interesting thread this link has spawned. Not telling each other how much we make is only good for our employers, not us. So here we go:
The Netherlands, 26yo male:
45k ($50k) as a technical trainee. It's €3200 ($3600) pre-tax a month and €2350 ($2670) after tax with %12,5 end of year bonus.
First job here, and this is already above modal for my country. I'm very happy with it, especially seeing I don't have a formal IT education I just thought myself through hobbies and messing around. Some salaries here are insane!
Of course my cost of living is lower but rent/mortgage has gone up _a lot_ in my country since the ECB started printing money. €1500 a month in or around Amsterdam for 2 people isn't weird anymore and there are practically no houses <€250k
It boggles my mind that salaries can be so much lower in parts of Europe, while expenses are about the same as the US. Of course if you are living in New York City or San Francisco area expenses are higher, but most places they are not.
Many people in my country, and NW Europe in general, opt for pay in another currency: time.
Dutch people work _on average_ 350 hours less per year than their US counterparts; or about 7 weeks worth when working 40 hours a week.
It's not unheard of in my company to have between 30 and 50 paid days off per year on top of the national holidays. These days are negotiated during salary discussions and a trade off between pay and time.
Even the big companies do this. My employer is a FANG and I'm based in London. Rents are nearly as expensive as in San Francisco... But if I moved to Silicon Valley, I'd get 40% more base pay for the same work.
The only justification for this policy is something called "cost of labor" — in other words: "We've agreed with other tech companies that nobody's going to raise salaries locally."
2012: Graduated with CS degree from top 10 public school, 2.9 GPA
2013: Mid-sized co in Texas, Software engineer, $70k salary, $20k RSUs vesting over 4 years, ~5k/yr cash bonuses
2014: Same company, bump to $75k salary
2015: Same company, bump to $80k salary
Later 2015: Jumped to seeded startup in Texas, software engineer, $70k salary, 50-70 hours/wk, aspirational but worthless equity options
2017: Same company, bump to $90k, 60-80 hours/wk, VP title (though doing work of a CTO), aspirational but worthless equity bonuses.
2018: Same company, no salary change, could request higher salary but have not because I am using it to make myself to work smarter rather than harder. Earning equity bonuses upon achieving targets. Generally working fewer hours now and have hired in some help so while responsibilities and problems are harder, work weeks are not so long.
Expecting a salary increase to range of $110-130k within 12 months (else will quit and work on my own business ideas). I believe I could obtain a $130k salary elsewhere now but have not interviewed to to find out and am not inclined to.
Sorry, i should have been clearer. There were 2 distinct startups i founded during that time. One at the start of 2012, which died mid-2012, and the other started mid-2012 and I worked on all the way through till 2018.
I should also mention, this was in Canada. And yeah, I didn't keep the PW to my previous burner account. Not used to posting anom info :-(
2012 - small business owner - 60k AED / yr (no taxes) - built Wordpress websites in my spare time
2013 - technical cloud marketing intern - 60k / yr CAD - FAANGish company
2013 - contractor - 30k / yr CAD - Engineering consultancy
2014 - Software Dev Fullstack - 22k / yr CAD - early stage startup
2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack / Architect + DevOps - 55k / yr CAD - very early stage startup
2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack / Architect + DevOps - 60k / yr CAD - very early stage startup
2016 - Software Dev - 60k / yr CAD - medium stage startup
2016 - Techincal Consultant - 90k / yr CAD - small public company
2017 - Software Engineer + DevOps - 99k / yr CAD - medium public company
2018 - Senior Software Engineer + DevOps + SRE - 120k / yr CAD - medium public company
I too am in Toronto and this is my career progression:
2015 - Linux System Administrator - $65k - large company
2016 - DevOps Engineer - $79k - startup
2017 - DevOps Engineer - $95k - large company
2018 - Site Reliability Engineer - $115k - medium company
This is certainly an intresting post and i likethe OP attitude. We should be totally transparent about our compensation as he did. Salary is just the result of a negotiation, nothing else, in the majority of cases it does not reflect anything more than your "perceived" value.
White male born in the '88 in Italy. I have a bachelor degree and working since 2008. Here in Italy is quite uncommon to have big jumps in salaries if you want to stay in the "Technical" position.
However it's quite common to have "food stamps" for lunch as benefit ( range between 5€ to 8€ )
Is that your personal experience?
I read almost only negative opinions about Upwork, and it's seems another broken solution looking for a problem to solve.
Then I had issues paying my bills and mortgage, so I moved to Ireland
2007 - 42000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ small R&D company
2008 - 45000 €/year - Network Engineer @ large multinational
2009 - 52000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ fintech company
2010 - 65000 €/year - Senior Sysadm @ US startup based in IE
2012 - 70000 €/year - Devops Engineer @ US startup based in IE
2015 - 80000 €/year - Technical Lead @ remote job
Now - 90000 €/year as TechOps Lead for another remote position.
If I where you I'd try at least ranking up your salary moving out of Italy, then with the connections you make you can easily double or triple your salary. JM2EC.
Readit News
- $40K: 2010-2013, "DevOps" at small startup. No ownership/shares.
- $45-72K: 2014-Current, Programmer (various job titles) working for state's education department
Even management here only make $90K capping out around $115K~. But cost of living is low.
These threads never have people posting their boring salaries from low cost of living areas, I'm trying to buck that trend.
I hope this also shows that the best way to make money is by frequent job hopping.
My salary is about average for the area.
1995 - 2000 wanted to get out of the small town where I’m from and my best opportunity was based on an internship I had the year before as a computer operator. Soon they had a programming project and I was the only programmer they had. I was also in graduate school at the time - starting $10/hr - ending salaried at $35K.
2000 - 2007 Software Engineer mostly doing C/C++ — starting $52K ending $70K. The bonuses steadily were cut and the raises were abysmal
2008-2012 Software Engineer at a small company that went out of business. Mostly doing C# with a little C++. Starting $77K, Ending $84K
2012-2015 Senior Software (in reality a mid level .Net developer) - starting 90K, ending 93K
2015-2016 Full Stack Developer - mostly .Net with some Angular. Starting $115K - Ending $115K
2016-present “Architect” at a small company - starting 63hr (contract - I took it for the learning opportunity and there was a position that I was eyeing) - present $135K.
Next on my agenda is to be an overpriced “implementation consultant”/“Digital transformation consultant”, etc. after my youngest graduates in 3 years.
https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/pennsylvania/...
I started my career at $30,000 in Colorado Springs.
https://www.bestplaces.net/cost_of_living/city/colorado/colo...
If I made an extra 20K to 30K right now, it wouldn’t change my life significantly. I could reach a few long term goals quicker but I’m really in no rush.
I wouldn't necessarily call that underpaid. Being underpaid is when you have to choose between the present and the future. If you can both have good and sustainable living conditions, job security and pension with a decent margin you aren't generally underpaid as such. The exception being if your relative wage affects things worth caring about, like being valued by the people around you.
Yep, reading that guy's salary history almost made me want to go jump off the roof, but I figure he lives in CA and probably went to an "upper-echelon" college. Here's mine, from somebody who went to a college that didn't make the US News top 100:
His compensation is actually less than I anticipated, given that he is in the bay area...
DB/Ops Engineering
1999: $60K base. Fresh out of masters program, large F50 DC gov tech firm (#1)
2001: $100K + $5K bonus. After building a successful practice area (still #1)
Independent Consulting, Security Ops & DB Architecture
2002-3: $150/hr, ~$200K/year. Small, rapid-growth Boston healthcare company (#2)
System/Security Architecture
2004-7: $150K base, $50K-$80K bonus. (full-time salaried at #2)
2008-12: $180K base, $10K bonus. Mid-sized DC gov tech firm (#3)
2012-14: $200K base, $20-40K bonus. Mid-sized DC gov tech firm (remote #4)
Security Architecture/Product Security
2015: $150K base, $20K bonus. Startup (NYC, remote #5)
2016 - 2018: $200K base, $20K bonus, $100K options. Large tech (SF, remote #6)
I know half a dozen co-workers (senior engineers or technical directors) whose net annual comp is also in the $300K range. It's not common, but if you're pulling <$100K with 6+ years experience in software or security engineering, you're getting screwed. (Throw away account, but happy to respond in thread; edited for formatting)
My salary's pretty much followed the same progression that other's have posted for outside of the high-cost-of-living hubs.
* 2000-2005 USMC
* 2005-2008 various (Unable to decide what I wanted to do when I grew up)
* 2008-2010 A.A.S. Computer Information Systems
* 2010-2015 Backend Developer, 21k => 50k
* 2015-2016 DevOps/System Admin, State of Delaware 60k => 68k
* 2016-2017 Backend .Net Developer, small company 70k => 85k
* 2017-Pres Backend .Net Developer, major bank 100k
I live in Delaware - in the sticks - and commute to Wilmington, DE.
I probably make under market, but I'm limited on my relocation options and don't have a 4 year degree - so I'm happy with my current position.
All figures W2 gross pay and 40 hour / week jobs (No on call, paid OT or I didn't play!)
Moved to a higher COL area (closer to Philly) Took first Corp-to-corp 1099 jobStarted professional software dev in 2010 after freelancing for $45, raise/promotion to low $50's before getting a new job for $72, raise/promotion to high $70's before getting a new job for $98, promotion to $115 + 10% discretionary/performance bonus. All web development to start, last promotion put me in architecture/pseudo-management roles that includes more backend systems and integrations. Tech roles at my current job top out in the low to mid $130's + 10%, non-Exec management seems to be in the $125-185 range but obviously that info is pretty hard to get reliably. If you don't have any desires to be in management or architecture roles and you just want to be in your IDE coding all day, you can get to $90-100k reliably, and in this area that's enough to max out your 401k, a Roth IRA, and save.
I'd love to move to a city and get companies on my resume that people have heard of outside of a 30 mile radius, but SF/NYC are nonstarters as they'd be a 50%+ effective pay cut, and even the less mainstream ones like Chicago, Boston, Dallas, San Diego would be 30% or more.
2007: $35k (First job out of school. I didn't know to negotiate better. Also my favorite job I've had) 2008: $60k 2012-2015: $80-$115k 2016-2017: $117.5k 2018: $100k + quarterly bonus based on company profits
It's not crazy FAANG level income but the cost of living out here is low enough that I'm pretty sure I make out decently well in comparison.
2006-2016: $25k-$45kyr, $40-$120 per hour. The first half I ran a very small agency that maxed out at 4 people and I wrote all the code, the latter half I was a PHP freelancer. Most expensive WordPress consultant in my city!
2016: $52k. Agency web dev. I've never hated a job more. Mostly wrote hacky jQuery and supported an awful laravel app the boss was enamored with.
2017: $65k. Front End Engineer. worked on converting a legacy SaaS product into Angular SPA. My boss begged me to ask for a raise (the recruiter screwed everybody), and then I got laid off two weeks later with like 25 other people. Loved that job, sad to lose it.
2018(current): $87k + bonuses. Senior Front End Developer. My job is to hack .net with javascript. I think the salary trend is moving nicely. I'm suddenly the richest person among all my friends and the third-highest earner in my extended family. (My family isn't even in the rust belt, they're from a much wealthier region in the country.)
Currently working for 40 USD / hour for 32 hours a week, so that means around 65.000 USD per year. This year I started fully working remotely and decided to start a bit at the low end, earnings-wise. When working previously as a freelancer in The Netherlands my last rate was around 80 USD / hour.
I intend to raise my rate to at least 50 USD per hour in 2019 and perhaps working 5 days a week, which would mean earning around 100.000 USD per year.
2004-2006 $30k->54k, company went out of business, career path was help desk to infrastructure engineering
2006-2011 $40k->50k, 45 Days PTO, public sector, little room for advancement, rewarding work, great time off, education
2011-2018 $65k->95k + 12% bonus, 20 PTO days, infrastructure engineering, private sector. 80% remote.
2018 $145k, bonus up to 20%, IT Consultant, 20 PTO days, private sector. 100% remote, 30% travel.
Never had any job offer stock options.
Deleted Comment
But...and this more than makes up for it...my hours are capped at 35 a week. (I usually work between 30-35).
And I love it. The tradeoff has been completely worth it for me.
1) What you actually get
2) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes
3) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes + what your employer pays in taxes
Usually we talk about #2 when discussing salaries. So if somebody says they make 1000€/month, it generally means that they get 871€ every month in the bank, and their employer actually needs to pay 1338€ ever month in salary + taxes.
Can anyone shed some light on whether this is the same everywhere? Like if somebody in Silicon Valley says they make $200k/year, is that their "#2" number?
Edit:
Adding my own #2 history as well (software dev in Estonia), in case anybody is interested:
2015 - junior at employer A - 12 000€
2015 - mid-level at employer A - 21 204€
2016 - mid-level at employer B - 26 400€
2017 - senior at employer B - 30 000€
2017 - senior at employer C - 48 000€
2018 - senior at employer D - 58 500€
In my experience, it's very hard to get better salary without changing jobs all the time, so if you know of a company with good perks, it's better to change your job a bunch of times before ending up there (so you can start there with a relatively good salary) - at least, that's what I ended up doing.
I.e. their paycheck will show $16,666 per month at the top line, a bunch of state, federal, maybe local taxes, disability and social security (also basically taxes), etc. and then roughly $10,500 at the bottom line depending on your situation.\
Edit: sometimes people include stock in their pay. This can be perfectly reasonable (guaranteed grants in a publicly traded company) or complete BS (pretending your startup will sell for 1B+ even though you might as well just buy lottery tickets)
Deleted Comment
EDIT: Though, come to think of it, that number doesn't include some employer paid payroll taxes. But it's simple enough to multiply by 1.N
Job titles aren't standardised and can be pretty meaningless between organisations.
In those 7 years, I've built up and shipped quite a few products, so I definitely feel like I can say I have more than 2 years of useful experience. But don't feel too offended, I don't really consider myself to be senior - it's just a title that my employers offer me. I definitely know I still have a long way to go before I'm a good developer.
Startup in logistics 2018 6 months: 48k euros.
Previous: DBA in Portland Oregon in 2013 to 2017 - 60k to 70k then as an EDW dev 78k USD.
The saddest part is that your salary didn't increase much in 5 years? Going from $60k to $70k to 53k euros over 5 years is pretty much tracking inflation. Over 5 years, my salary increased by more than double your entire salary.
You should ask for a raise from time to time or get a better paying job. Especially since DBA/data scientist along with computer security developer/engineer were some of the hottest fields in tech the past 10 years.
Some people can spend a month reading "SQL in 21 days" and get a higher salary than you in many places.
1) What you get in the bank -> Net salary
2) What you get in the bank + what you pay in taxes -> Gross salary
And I had the same experience: it's almost impossible to have salaries jump without changing jobs (and from a business perspective the reasons for that are quite obvious)
Dead Comment
2001: BigCo $76,000/year + $20,000 signing bonus (first job out of school)
2007: Freelancing between $100-$200/hr depending on project
2012: Startup #1 $180,000/year + $75,000 signing bonus + a bit of stock that's never been worth anything (but I exercised upon leaving and paid a lot of taxes on, so I'm net negative ~$300k)
2015: Startup #2 $240,000/year + lots of stock that's never been worth anything
Some thoughts on equity and BigCos vs. Startups:
Before going to Startup #1 I rejected offer of ~$2MM RSUs at BigCo #2 (since split, now worth ~$15MM) and offer of ~$2MM RSU at BigCo #3 (now worth ~$10MM) in order to join what looked like a sure thing. Got another offer from BigCo #2 a few years later for ~$1MM RSUs (now worth $4MM).
My peers that went to BigCos have done far, far better than me financially. All are above $500k/year in total comp, and quite a few above $1MM/year due to FAANG stocks going up so much.
Startup compensation math just doesn't work when you're competing against the BigCos these days. Liquidity horizons are ~10 years for the few successes that work out, the equity portions are meager (esp after dilution). Even ignoring the risk of no liquidity event, you still come out behind what the big companies are paying these days.
I'll probably never join a startup again, but if I do, all salary assumptions assume an equity value of zero.
These were L6 offers at the time. Gets much more ridiculous the higher you go (over $1MM/year comp)
I'm not a super specialist or anything, just a solid developer (mostly front end, some back end)
The startups are a crapshoot, they can be a great stepping stone, but assume the equity is worth zero. The right 'big company' is going to be more lucrative in most cases by a lot.
I don't know anyone that thinks they'll break even vs. FAANG, and that's even when counting stock options as cash (which 99% of people will rightly tell you to ignore).
I always knew startups would pay a less, but I always thought it wasn't that much less. Turns out I vastly over-estimated the chances of liquidity in startups, and vastly under-estimated just how much the BigCos are willing to pay as you climb up the ladder.
Was a very eye opening experience when I started having frank conversations w/ peers at those BigCos
Of course $208,000 is nothing to scoff at, and money is hardly the most important thing when it comes to life. Just interesting to see that a reasonably large Bay-area company would pay such a high-level engineer barely more than new grads can get.
In other countries like the UK, a principal architect is probably not getting half that.
I would guess from a quick google that an architect in the UK is on around £50k to £70k. Which is $63k to $90k.
I'm a senior software engineer with around 10years experience. I'm on £38k ($48k) plus a very small bonus, maybe £2 to £3k if I'm lucky.
Last job was a mid-level engineer on £28k. I've seen junior developers as low as £20k and senior engineers on as low as £35k.
I have no affiliation with this company but here's a recent example, quoted at 95k so you could presumably push higher:
https://www.ninedots.io/job/lead-react-engineer/
I could probably double my salary again moving to the US but I don't want to stay in a place that doesn't have a solid route to citizenship. The TN visas being temporary, non-dual intent and not allowing my spouse to work. Maybe my company will transfer me on an L1.
Also, there was as story on the BBC today about a firm that can't hire software engineers even offering 100k in compensation (which is pretty good for the UK). I rarely see postings for positions that pay this much. London salaries seem to cap out at around 60k which is peanuts considering how expensive the city is.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-45891002
Once an engineer start working on the continent, I would imagine that it would be hard to go back to Britain solely for monetary reasons.
In London a senior engineer will get at least £60k (depending on what 'senior' means and how many currently hot languages you list on your CV). I know people in obscure parts of the country, with next to no tech scene, who aren't far off that.
The real money in the UK is in contracting though, or go to the dark side and work in finance.
Deleted Comment
Principle architect on £150-200k is entirely usual in the smoker.
You can get lead roles for 100k+ at least in London without having to go to finance.
I've seen most mid level roles in London go for between 50-60k.
Outside of the capital is very different.
Source: I'm a junior engineer being paid in the mid 30s, most of the seniors I know make well north of £60-70k.
It's definitely possible to buy a condo or detached house in Oakland for the 400k-700k that would likely be affordable on that salary. The condo, probably a one-bedroom might be a decade or less old, the house much more likely to be older, and probably not insanely distant from BART. This means reasonable access to SF, but annoying to get further south to the peninsula.
I agree with your point though, no matter how bad it makes me feel :(
Don't feel bad though, these high salaries typically happen at large companies in extremely expensive areas. So, the money isn't as much as it seems, and you likely will feel like a small cog in a giant-money-making corporation. In other words, chasing the money is often not worth it.
Deleted Comment
This could be a title for guy who decides whether to use React or Vue, webpack or whatever.
The Netherlands, 26yo male:
45k ($50k) as a technical trainee. It's €3200 ($3600) pre-tax a month and €2350 ($2670) after tax with %12,5 end of year bonus.
First job here, and this is already above modal for my country. I'm very happy with it, especially seeing I don't have a formal IT education I just thought myself through hobbies and messing around. Some salaries here are insane!
Of course my cost of living is lower but rent/mortgage has gone up _a lot_ in my country since the ECB started printing money. €1500 a month in or around Amsterdam for 2 people isn't weird anymore and there are practically no houses <€250k
Many people in my country, and NW Europe in general, opt for pay in another currency: time.
Dutch people work _on average_ 350 hours less per year than their US counterparts; or about 7 weeks worth when working 40 hours a week.
It's not unheard of in my company to have between 30 and 50 paid days off per year on top of the national holidays. These days are negotiated during salary discussions and a trade off between pay and time.
https://data.oecd.org/emp/hours-worked.htm
Germany, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden etc... We all basically opt for more time off than more pay.
And this is possible in part due to the high taxes; we have no medical bills, no education bills, pension is taken care of, etc..
I for one, would gladly opt for a 4 day work week with 60k pay a year in stead of a 5 day workweek with 90k pay.
The only justification for this policy is something called "cost of labor" — in other words: "We've agreed with other tech companies that nobody's going to raise salaries locally."
2007: Junior developer $25k (no bonus)
2008: Project manager $50k (10% bonus)
2009: Project Manager $65k (10% bonus)
2011: Senior Project Manager $92 (10% bonus)
2011: Product Manager $97k (Some worthless options as it turns out, and an approximately 8% bonus)
2012: Founded my own startup / developer $28k that year
2013: Startup founder / CTO $65k
2014: Startup founder / CTO $150k
2015: Startup founder / CTO $150k
2016: Startup founder / CTO $250k + 10% bonus (acquired)
2017: Startup founder / CTO $250k + 10% bonus
2018: Startup founder / CTO $325k + $100k bonus + $100k stock
2018: I'm now taking a break from work.
2012: Graduated with CS degree from top 10 public school, 2.9 GPA
2013: Mid-sized co in Texas, Software engineer, $70k salary, $20k RSUs vesting over 4 years, ~5k/yr cash bonuses
2014: Same company, bump to $75k salary
2015: Same company, bump to $80k salary
Later 2015: Jumped to seeded startup in Texas, software engineer, $70k salary, 50-70 hours/wk, aspirational but worthless equity options
2017: Same company, bump to $90k, 60-80 hours/wk, VP title (though doing work of a CTO), aspirational but worthless equity bonuses.
2018: Same company, no salary change, could request higher salary but have not because I am using it to make myself to work smarter rather than harder. Earning equity bonuses upon achieving targets. Generally working fewer hours now and have hired in some help so while responsibilities and problems are harder, work weeks are not so long.
Expecting a salary increase to range of $110-130k within 12 months (else will quit and work on my own business ideas). I believe I could obtain a $130k salary elsewhere now but have not interviewed to to find out and am not inclined to.
Deleted Comment
I should also mention, this was in Canada. And yeah, I didn't keep the PW to my previous burner account. Not used to posting anom info :-(
2015 - Linux System Administrator - $65k - large company 2016 - DevOps Engineer - $79k - startup 2017 - DevOps Engineer - $95k - large company 2018 - Site Reliability Engineer - $115k - medium company
2018 - $120K CAD - Senior DevOps Engineer (+ $12K bonus).
7 years experience as of today
White male born in the '88 in Italy. I have a bachelor degree and working since 2008. Here in Italy is quite uncommon to have big jumps in salaries if you want to stay in the "Technical" position.
However it's quite common to have "food stamps" for lunch as benefit ( range between 5€ to 8€ )
2008 - 18000 €/year - Junior Software Developer - Consulting Firm A
2009 - 19000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A
2010 - 20000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A
2011 - 21000 €/year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A
2012 - 23000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Online booking startup (No stock options)
2013 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B
2014 - 25000 €/year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B
2015 - 28000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B
2016 - 30000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B
2017 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm C
2018 - 32000 €/year - Technical Lead / Solution Architect / Whatever - Consulting Firm C
https://www.hays.it/cs/groups/hays_common/@it/@content/docum...
Dead Comment
1999 - 12000 €/year - Junior sysadm @ ISP (startup)
2002 - 19000 €/year - Sysadmin @ large ISP
Then I had issues paying my bills and mortgage, so I moved to Ireland
2007 - 42000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ small R&D company
2008 - 45000 €/year - Network Engineer @ large multinational
2009 - 52000 €/year - Senior Sysadmin @ fintech company
2010 - 65000 €/year - Senior Sysadm @ US startup based in IE
2012 - 70000 €/year - Devops Engineer @ US startup based in IE
2015 - 80000 €/year - Technical Lead @ remote job
Now - 90000 €/year as TechOps Lead for another remote position.
If I where you I'd try at least ranking up your salary moving out of Italy, then with the connections you make you can easily double or triple your salary. JM2EC.