I am 100% in the same boat. Had a recruiter reach out to me who wanted me to leave my more than comfortable six figure SV job to do cutting edge contract work in machine learning as a lead engineer for about $50/hour. I was so amused I actually spent the time listening to their pitch and eventually told them that anything less than $200/hour wouldn't even cover my current pay + benefits. Let me know if you can do better. They hung up. Lol

It's one of the (dirty?) pleasures in the work-life, isn't it? I still treasure getting to the stage in my life when I could afford to stop saying what my salary expectation was outside of "fair in relation to the market and my experience".

Recruiter H/R: "We need to hear your salary requirements to move forward with this position".

me: "I would like to hear your offer".

Recruiter / HR: "We won't be able to consider your candidacy without your salary expectations"

Me: "Then, despite my interest in this outstanding company, and the high value I believe I can contribute to it, I will be forced to go with the employers that make a salary offer first".

Best fuck I ever had.

Or, better yet, instead of sinking that negotiation 100% of the time after your last sentence, you could give obviously large sum and tell them you are open to negotiation once you had your chance to present yourself and the company present themselves.

Not only this shows a little more negotiation savvy, but once in a blue moon this could give you an offer you have not expected. For example, they could just say "OK".

If you have the luxury of affording spending time on multiple interviews, very sound point!

Who do you think you are screwing by cutting off your opportunities at the root? :)

As the other reply pointed out, you are cutting yourself (a) out of the conversation (b) out of finding out what your actual range is.

Here's a dirty secret for you - very often the recruiters don't share the range because the range is broad, they may fill the role with a mid-level or a super-senior at 2x the comp. If they tell you the range, it's likely a more cookie cutter mid-level role and you don't even get to learn where you could land (or what your level doesn't hit and maybe you want to work toward)

> because the range is broad

You make it sound like if they don't tell you what the range is, they are somehow doing you a favor. No, if they don't tell you the range it's not because they're nice or whatever, but because they're trying to get you to sign on for the lowest amount possible. If you hear the range is larger than what you were expecting, you're gonna try to hit that upper bound. Both positions are understandable from their own points of view, no hard feelings here. But, in general, the recruiter is not your friend and not there to help you. Them not disclosing information is to their advantage, not to yours.

>> But, in general, the recruiter is not your friend and not there to help you. Them not disclosing information is to their advantage, not to yours.

I think that's an unhelpful point of view in any but most commoditized-labor situation.

The more rare and hard to find your combination of skills and experience, the longer the recruiter has spent looking for you, and the more motivated they are to get you the best offer possible to get you in the door. It's not in their or your interest to lose you to save a few tens of thousands of dollars.

>> You make it sound like if they don't tell you what the range is, they are somehow doing you a favor. No, if they don't tell you the range it's not because they're nice or whatever, but because they're trying to get you to sign on for the lowest amount possible.

Again that kind of only works in the most commoditized situations (eg: "hire anyone with 6 months experience with React" or whatever.) The more specialized the recruiting search, the broader the range becomes: for example, "we need someone who knows technology X and Y, has been in industry A and has shown attributes B and C" they recognize they may end up hire a more junior or a more senior person and expect different things from them. So the role may pay 250 or it may pay 500 based on who you are. If you're in the 250-level experience range, it's meaningless for you to hear that it can go up to 500.

In California they are legally required to tell you the range if you ask.

Would you happen to know if this is a) for california-based employers, regardless of seeker status b) for california-based job seekers only?

The text of Labor Code 432.3(c) is:

An employer, upon reasonable request, shall provide the pay scale for a position to an applicant applying for employment. For purposes of this section, “pay scale” means a salary or hourly wage range. For purposes of this section “reasonable request” means a request made after an applicant has completed an initial interview with the employer.

Based on the wording, in that it appears to be addressing employers in the law's jurisdiction, I believe the answer is a).

Thank you for taking the time to look that up!

By divulging the higher end of the range, the company instantly looses with less experienced candidates that could be content with their work if not for the fact, now there are two posibilities:

1. The candidate will ask closer to the upper end of the range but will get declined. Both company and candidate lost because divulging the upper end created unrealistic expectation by the candidate.

2. The candidate will or will not ask closer to the upper end and if he asks, the company declines and proposes more realistic rate. Now, both still loose because the candidate is "tainted" by thinking the company did not think he is worth the money and that he could get so much more.

The alternative is to have very narrow range but this is also suboptimal, because it is better to be flexible and once you get to know the candidate figure out where he/she fits.

Asking for rate at the beginning also allows to fine-tune the recruitment process. The company should NEVER propose less than what the candidate stated as their minimum. That's just a way to get an unhappy employee from day one. So, by specifying your rate you also specify minimum requirements you have to pass for the company to be interested in you. If you say you are expensive, that's the standard you are going to be evaluated against.

It seems to me that knowing what a position a company looks for fetches on the market is the recruiter and HR's job. No one said it would be easy. If the range is too wide and the position can be filled by a variety of people then maybe the offer is defined and presented incorrectly.

Again, having a flexible rate but not letting the candidate know is better for the company, not for the candidate. Keeping the range a secret instead of defining the range correctly and specifying the job correctly seems like laziness on the part of recruiter/ HR.

Excellent points! A note: for some, in HR/R, there is a material incentive to get a candidate to take a lower range, i.e. the lower the one doing the value-generating job gets paid, the higher the commission bonus /imaginary career bonus points for the HR/R.

I've spoken with (drunk to be honest?) recruiters that got a lower overall commission the higher the salary for the recruited person got.

> I've spoken with (drunk to be honest?) recruiters that got a lower overall commission the higher the salary for the recruited person got.

Not to be an asshole, but that wouldn't suprise me. Maybe I got more cynical with age but anytime someone I don't know tries to tell me, implies, makes me feel that he/she is my friend and wants what's best for me, without a clear reason or incentive for it being so, I get real suspicious real fast.

As a counter example, I am working for a large bank now and I am regularly interviewing candidates. We interview candidates first and then figure out if there is a role that would feel the candidate well.

I personally like it much better than having rigid positions and have to pass on a candidate just because he/she does not fit a rigid set of requirements.

That does sound like an interesting approach but I think is only applicable in first-job or entry level positions right?

What kind of seniority are we talking about here?

> Who do you think you are screwing by cutting off your opportunities at the root? :)

Which would that be, if you have multiple offers, where they name the first number, and then you offer them the opportunity to bid higher against each other?

That sounds complicated and unnecessary. I am honest with recruiters about what I make, some of them to "oh shit that's 3x what we are looking to pay" and some go "oh ok cool that's probably doable." Then you go down the road with the second set and depending on how well you interview they make you an offer you can take, negotiate or leave. So I am in a position of strictly more options than if I had a rule of not speaking to folks who didn't state a range.

I just give them the salary I want to make (which is easy because what's on my paycheck + stock opts is a good enough value) so either they go for it or they will decline. It's a good way to see if they mean it or not

So yeah sorry, not moving for a lower value

Would that strategy perhaps be excluding a higher salary with those willing to pay more than your maximum ask? (genuine question, no sarcasm)

No strategy is perfect if you have imperfect information. You just choose between different risk profiles.

Probably the simplest strategy would be to always ask for the amount you curently make, plus 30% or 50%. And keep interviewing once in a while even if you are okay with your current job. If you asked for less than you could get, the next jump will fix it.

Then don't increase your expenses, save the extra money, retire early.

Good grief do I ever work in the wrong part of the world.

I’m well established in my career (and I don’t have SV costs of living to be fair) - but anywhere even in the galaxy of $200 an hour would be life-changing for me.

Shoot, the $45 an hour mentioned up this chain would be life changing for me (yes, I live in the U.S.), after 15 years at my job I make 17.26 an hour. It's why this talk of $15 minimum wage mildly terrifies me, I know people need it but man, it suddenly thrusts me nearly to minimum wage (minimum wage is currently 7.25 here).

You can feel secure knowing if you lost your job, any other job you find would at worst pay $2.26 less than you're receiving now, so you wouldn't suffer an awful drop in living standards (and you'd hope it would also pressure your employer to give you a raise..)

You should see an increase in your wage when the minimum goes to $15. A rising tide lifts all boats. Inflation is virtually zero, so rising wages are a good thing for the vast majority of wage and salary earning employees.

I am not sure it's given that inflation will stay at zero with rising minimum wages.

I think GP is worried this may not be the case, and he would lose purchasing power.

Nothing may happen, but I think we'll have to wait and see if this is the case or not.

My annual merit based increases are often at or just below inflation levels and the cost increase of insurance, I wouldn't hold my breath on my employer upping my pay a comparable amount - shareholders aren't fond of shrinking profits.

I think the largest pay bump I've ever seen in a year was right at 2% or possibly even less.

Why would inflation stay at 0? That is extremely unlikely.

I would love to see you prove that with actual labor statistics. Employers do not do that, plus now you need to deal with higher prices.

It “suddenly thrusts” you absolutely nowhere. You still earn exactly as much as you do now, but it is interesting to observe the psychological effect of being surrounded by people who are more miserable than oneself.

>You still earn exactly as much as you do now,

And one would assume you'd see rents and housing prices very rapidly start going up, then presumably other prices over varying levels of time.

Perhaps. But why wouldn’t the same apply to salaries then?

What would happen if we were to set the minimal wage at 100K so that we eliminate the poverty in one swift move and everyone is either equally rich, or as you are worried - equally poor :)

Having people only make slightly less than you terrifies you? Why does knowing someone else might be getting a tiny raise terrify you?

The problem with minimum wages is that they don't do anything. There is a mild psychological effect that forces people below minimum wage to find a new job. However, if the economy doesn't have enough jobs above minimum wage, then it does nothing.

If the government offered jobs at the minimum wage there would be an effective price floor for wages. Better yet, if those government workers spend their income they can drive economic demand which ends up creating jobs above minimum wage. Eventually every job pays more than minimum wage and nobody is dependent on the jobs guarantee.

And if there are enough jobs, then it does something, and does it well. It forces companies to spend a bit more on their employees and in some ways, redistributes wealth.

Your solution isn’t better. The government cannot be everywhere the way that Walmart is.

I really don’t think its impact is going to be that big. Low skilled labor will still find ways to get hired for less, off the books if the need is great enough...it happens all the time.

The government is already in more places than Walmart is though?

The government already offers jobs like that too, just that it's through the prison system and the floor is much too low

Look, as much as I hate Walmart, they exist in places at levels that the federal/state does not. Either way, that's not the only thing my argument stands on. I'm as liberal as they come, and would never suggest expanding the government just to fit that capacity.

I work as a Senior Software Engineer for big international corporation in the 2nd world country and $45/hour would be life-changing for me and most of the people I know.

I live in the US in a metro of less than 2 million, and my very first contract job as a self-taught developer who barely knew JavaScript was $45/hour. The guy didn’t even blink when I asked for that much. It was life changing for me too, going from desktop support to doing dev work.

I remember meeting a taxi cab driver in the US that told me about his experience coming on a tourist visa, getting married to stay and working towards starting to work as an engineer.

There are ways to move anywhere you want, and ways to get remote work at us companies, especially now, if you don't want to move. They are not easy, but they exist.

You don't have to move to the US to make 200. That's easily available for remote people. For the big bucks, moving maybe helps but it's unlikely you make it from driving Uber to 1k/hr unless you run your own business.

> That's easily available for remote people.

Not easily at all, clients usually avoid working with offshore freelancers directly, and established freelance platforms tend to cap the overseas rates (because they want their cut and also clients expect offshore devs to cost much less)

Or am I totally wrong here?

My experience is, as I read the job ads, they want US based remoters for the easy accounting. So at the minimum, one would have to set up a US company. At the "easiest for the employer", one would have to bill/apply and work through a US resident.

If someone has other solutions for out-of-the-US, non-US-tax-reporters to applying to US remote jobs that list "US based" as a requirement I would love to hear about it.

You don’t present as a freelancer, but as a remote employee to get access to these sorts of things, for the exact reasons you correctly stated

A good idea in most parts of the world is not to measure $$$ but to measure compensation in sq. ft. of real estate per year. At my lowest-paid job (professor at top-30 school), i was paid 107 sq ft of take-home pay per year. I quit that tenure-track job @2y and took another job that paid 1800 sq. ft. per year. I currently earn about 300 sq. ft per year.

I genuinely feel bad for talented people that get suckered into deals like this. Obviously some do if recruiters try and do this.

I think talented people will not take it unless they're between a rock and a hard place. Sadly what this does is it attracts only the most junior or unqualified hires who (are great if you got time/budget but if not) will need to be trained by the few seniors left holding the place together.

I'm not surprised Intel does this and the telecommunications side I have seen from them in Europe was rotten to the core. I have several anecdotes here just one: A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job with great pay in a key role a lot of niche knowledge, they had to know how valuable he was, after the first week on the new job with Intel he got told that the department decided to reduce the headcount due to a restructuring and so he was the first to go.

If it sounds like "business as usual" let me add nobody else was fired, he had a 3 month long negotiation, 6 months notice period on the old job, 3 kids, and in his late 40ies in a specific market. What he was promised would have justified taking the risk. Later I heard they do this all the time from a guy who recruits for Intel. Also this was not in the enterprise market with lot of talent but telecommunications O&M (operations and maintenance plane). He eventually went to go beg to get his job back. He'll never have the same standing in the company tho.

It's not uncommon for those types of problems to be contract law violations. "Reliance" is a thing, random url: https://dictionary.law.com/Default.aspx?selected=1778

I don't understand:

> A friend got poached from Intel in a cushy job

> after the first week on the new job with Intel ... he was the first to go.

He got poached from Intel or should it be by Intel? Since his new job apparently was at Intel

> Later I heard they do this all the time

Why do they do that? Sounds like a waste of time for the recruiters (and him but apparently they don't care about that)

thanks yes should be by Intel.

Yeah, don't understand the story. He got poached from intel, or by intel? Where was he let go from? You need to.. maybe edit the story a bit.

It was by Intel, see this reply:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25872393

Being slightly underpaid is a great lifehack, but only if your bosses know it. Less stress, more work/life balance. Let people work themselves to the bone for 30% more money. That isn't for me.

Money in the bank is a great lifehack. Money in the bank is the greatest stress reliever in our society. The ability to say "this ain't for me" and walk away free of consequences. And knowing that no matter what happens next your expenses are still covered is the best hack.

This. Calculate your pay per hour of actual work. Include the hassle and costs require to recharge. Maximize total pay or pay per hour. Rarely are they the same.

Really?

If nothing else, making 30% more and saving it would allow you to retire 30 percent earlier. Is half assed slacking for 10+ extra years really that good a proposition when instead you can actually crush it now and then be fully free?

Also, to be honest I've never seen the "he's underpaid so we expect less" dynamic in management. What I see much more often is "this guy is bad, not quite so bad that we can fire him but almost. We can't justify raising his comp so let's give him shit work that others would rather not do." Maybe your situation is as you say but seems odd.

You'd be right if we aged like Benjamin Button.

But you're glossing over the downsides of trading your youth away for a hopeful payoff at a later date. Not all of us like that bargain.

I make a fraction of what people in this thread are saying they make. But what price do you put on being 30 and single on a beach in Mexico, happy, with a low stress job? You could look at it as if I paid half my salary to buy back my time.

We all value things differently, but notice that it's your youngest self that's most eager to bargain your youth away.

This is accurate, only if you're say underpaid by 20-30%. In my experience, a lot of high stress jobs pay way more than that. Otherwise attrition is a problem. Golden handcuffs aint cheap.

Some people don't care so much about the money. I'm barely over the six figure mark in the bay area. I could probably make a lot more money somewhere else, but I wouldn't get to do anything nearly as interesting as my current work.

I don't think is about not caring about the money... it seems to me that the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual, and thus a company that pays 1/3 of the industry average shows very little care for their engineers, at least in my book

The salary is the most tangible and measurable manifestation, but it's not necessarily complete. Companies can make efforts in other ways e.g. ensuring good work-life balance (which could entail hiring more people), providing allowances for mental health, parental care etc... . All these things can become relatively very valuable once the salary crosses a minimum threshold.

> the salary is just the manifestation of the value the company places in the individual

My experience confirms this. The least paid jobs I had were also the most stressful.

What if I told you that, more often than not, you could do your current work and get much more money? People, especially tech people, are quite awful at extracting their full value.

Fully agree. For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment.

This is completely false.

You get paid more when the company values you more.

The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average.

Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions.

> For some reason people assume that you get paid more in order to deal with less interesting work or a worse work environment.

> This is completely false.

I wouldn't say it's completely false. For example, I'm guessing many enterprise software developers make more than many CS professors. Said professors are obviously qualified to make CRUD apps but they would rather do research or teach curriculums based on their interests.

> The company values you more, when they make more from what you are able to contribute, on average.

Yes, this is true. But your conclusion does not follow from that:

> Highly paid engineering work environments are strongly correlated with interesting work and with good working conditions.

There is probably some correlation between interesting work for the engineer on the one hand and profitable work for the employer on the other, but it's not nearly as strong as you make it seem.

Game studios pay their developers poorly, precisely because there is a flood of people who find that type of work interesting. I'm doing a "boring" job and I get paid more than a game developer.

Thanks wikibob, somebody I know really needed to hear that.

But would you rather work 40 hours per week for €100k or 4 hours a week for €50k?

You would be wrong. The number of places you can work where your code literally goes to the moon is very, very finite.

I would say I'm in a somewhat similar boat where I believe the work and problems I get to work on are very unexplored and super interesting but the company and industry doesn't "value" software engineers at the moment. Tbh, in a capitalist society, I cannot accept that and am looking for a change. Give me cash or give me stocks in the company, neither and you just take me for a fool. I am sincerely curious what your thoughts are on this, why would you accept a massive paycut to work on something interesting for a company that makes $$ off your work?

Some things can not be easily purchased with money. Getting paid twice as much may let me retire faster. But what if I don't want to retire? What about people, who actually love their jobs?

Intel engineers design chips, used by billions of people. There is a certain value, placed on such jobs. And it appears, that Intel management is happy to exploit that value.

People agree, talented people do not.

Underpaid people aren’t talented? That’s harsh.

It happens temporarily all the time of course such that there are plenty of talented people underpaid at a given time but long term most will not be. I along with friends went through bouts of shitty jobs, but it is rare to stay that way. Hiring from the pool of low rate workers is not a suitable standard practice at a place that isn’t a shithole.. as we see here with Intel.

People get paid what they ask for. No one is underpaid or overpaid.

Simply ask for more in salary and benefits. When they ask why, state all the reasons why the increase is warranted. If they deny the request, look for another job that pays the higher amount.

This I can get behind (note this has nothing to do with talent).

You're assuming that markets are perfect.

The markets are never perfect. That's why you have to ask for what you want.

A lot of people do not understand their worth and let get hired/exploited for peanuts.

When I was hired for my absolute first job, over two decades ago, I was asked how much I want. I did not know how much I can ask so I asked some minimum that I thought would pay for my expenses. The guy who interviewed me, who was to be my manager, said he shouldn't be telling this but I can ask twice as much.

Then that underpaid employee gets easily poached for x3 their pay a year in, when they have all the valuable knowledge and work responsibilities.

Sounds like what happened at Intel, from the top comments.

Yes, your first job. Not your second. You need to be deeply unpleasant to work with for no one to tell you you've been exploited when you leave.

He probably told you that because that was the minimum salary range for that position.

Then, they will make the case there is a "talent shortage" and attempt to hire overseas workers at salaries that barely pay bay area living costs.

I do not live in CA and have never took any contract jobs from CA, its contract hourly rate is not competitive at all and to make it worse, its state income tax will take another cut(~13%), there is no way CA's contract rate can be competitive, CA is in decline in general as far as I can see.

$45/hr is about what I was paid as a grad-student intern at Apple ... 15 years ago.

Salaries on HN are the new penis sizes on Reddit.

Everyone is 15+ inches and making six figures minimum and if you're not, you're pathetic and are getting taken advantage of.

Well, if you live in SFBA the interns are making six figures (equivalent per hour). Everyone's still living in a studio apartment though.

Six figures, 10+ hours a day (including all meals at the FAANGPlex) but having to live in bunk beds if they want a rent under 4 digits.

Not a very healthy situation, even now with everybody WFH

Nobody is forcing you to eat at work, nor should you be working 10+ hours a day if you don't want to (it's an easy way to get overtime, though).

I know Apple pays for intern housing; I would think that most of the other large companies would too?

Well, if you subscribe to the idea that at least some of those jobs could be done remotely then it would not be that far from the truth.

I have an MSEE working as an engineer on a cutting edge physics project making the salaried equivalent of... $31/hr.

HN is great, but it really is not an accurate sample of real world wages.

I’m not an EE and I think that’s an underrepresented group on HN, but... you are surely underpaid

Oh I know. Paying off student loans or owning a house aren’t in the cards, but the work is stimulating and the colleagues are smart and open minded.

I have a salary that would work our to less than $45/hr, with extra hours dragging it down further.

Most people do - but don't hesitate to put more value in your labour and look for other career opportunities. The world is pretty unjust at a basic level and if you're waiting for someone to acknowledge your excellence and land a big payday in your lap you'll be waiting for a long time.

A big piece of career advice I have for any folks that feel like they're in dead-ends or are just getting started is that, in modern society, you should be constantly expending time and energy to ensure you're in the most personally rewarding position - the world is a cruel place where the socially awkward and introverted have a constant uphill battle to not be exploited.

Oh and we're all super lucky to be in tech because in a lot of other fields there is just no way to advance yourself.

> A big piece of career advice I have for any folks that feel like they're in dead-ends or are just getting started is that, in modern society, you should be constantly expending time and energy to ensure you're in the most personally rewarding position - the world is a cruel place where the socially awkward and introverted have a constant uphill battle to not be exploited.

This was both uplifting and an apt commentary on how to survive in the modern age.

Well said.

> Oh and we're all super lucky to be in tech because in a lot of other fields there is just no way to advance yourself.

I feel like this is a pretty cynical take. Really, what's happening is that more and more jobs are becoming tech jobs. It may not be as glamorous as going to stand-ups each morning, but there's plenty of opportunity out there and we're just in an awkward transition period where societies are trying to play catch-up with, historically-speaking, a lot of changes in a short amount of time.

Whether that transition ends with peace or chaos is going to depend on how easy the transition is made for everyone

> It may not be as glamorous as going to stand-ups each morning

I must have extremely different definition of glamorous to you.

Agreed- we don't even turn on the webcams for those

>Most people do - but don't hesitate to put more value in your labour and look for other career opportunities. The world is pretty unjust at a basic level and if you're waiting for someone to acknowledge your excellence and land a big payday in your lap you'll be waiting for a long time.

It is also economically inefficient. If you are worth $100k/y and you sell yourself for $50k/y then you are basically doing charity for your company. If you really cared about charity you would ask for the higher salary and then donate the money yourself. What really happens is that you are keeping an economically inefficient company alive. That's not just bad for you but also for the economy as a whole because your "talents" are being wasted.

>Oh and we're all super lucky to be in tech because in a lot of other fields there is just no way to advance yourself.

It's the opposite. Low skill jobs are drying up. Most of them are going overseas. Getting a high skilled job is not luck, developed countries are restructuring their economies to specialize in high skilled jobs.

If you make that while trying to live in SF/SV area, then it's probably hard to do. If you make that, and you live in nearly any where else, your money suddenly goes further. If you take it one step further, and make the same money but live in a state without state income taxes, your money goes even further. Keeping up with the Jones in the SF/SV area is quite expensive.

Just a bunch of sentences to say that $/hr isn't the end all, but a decent at-a-glance way of comparing.

Nah, you can live very comfortably in SFBA on that even now. You’re not going to own the big house in the suburbs or the penthouse apartment, but you’ll still be better off than most people, can have a nice car, go out when you like, have nice clothes and lots of books, etc.

On $45/hour? I can see not starving on that, but you're probably going to be sharing an apartment…

$45/hr full-time is $90k pre-tax, $65k after tax in CA. That’s $5400/month. If you have to pay for daycare or similar expenses, that’ll be a stretch, but you can definitely have your own pretty nice apartment and plenty left over for expenses and saving with that.

I mean that is a great salary all in all, be happy with what you have.

It's also about what a Mozilla intern would get paid ten years ago.

This is also around what an Apple intern would get today as an upperclassman in college. (Without including benefits, of course.)

Tell me if I'm calculating this incorrectly.

$45 * 8 (hours a day) * 22 (days a month) * 12 (months) = $95k

You were getting paid the equivalent of $95k/year as an intern??

Fun fact you can approximate hourly rate to yearly salary roughly just by multiplying by two. $45/hr roughly 90k ish

Silicon Valley salaries are something else. ARM in Cambridge paid their interns something like £20-22K around 5 years ago. No wonder almost none of them stayed on as graduates.

Interns don't stay for a whole year, but yeah, this is typical internship salary (it might have gone to 55+ now) at FAANG.

Yes, that’s correct. Of course, interns don’t generally work 40 hour weeks for a full year, so in practice my W2 income was more like $55k.

I was originally hired for the summer at $35/hr or so, and then got a raise at the end of the summer when they asked me to stay on part-time during the school year.

It's way less than I made working in the IT departments of medium-size non-tech companies.

You were just the "proof" they needed that there were no domestic engineers with the right skillset for the job they had so they could hire a H1B replacement for that salary.

There have been reasonable minimum salary requirements for H1Bs for a few years now: https://redbus2us.com/h1b-minimum-wage-or-lca-prevailing-wag...

$45/hr|$90K would be too low nowadays. GP's experience could have been more than a few years ago.

Yes, this is probably it, they might already have the H1B person lined up, but they've got to offer the job to citizens/permanent residents. They often do this in a way that guarantees that they will get no takers.

The immigrant will agree to a low salary because the alternative is getting deported.

Headhunters for contract work at one FAANG company offer me $50 an hour for gigs utilizing the same skill set I’ve billed them $500 an hour for in the past.

"I’ve billed them $500 an hour for in the past"

!!!...

For unsteady contracted project work, this doesn't sound off the mark for high-value niche skillsets at a senior or principal level. I wouldn't expect FAANGs to pay it for steady work, though.

Well, Netflix might come close. I can count two principal-level architects pulling north of 700k/y, but I doubt they work just 40 hours a week.

I just have trouble wrapping my head around how someone can be that valuable. I'll never even hit $75/hr (excluding inflation).

Their labour can absolutely be that valuable due to how many customers you are effecting with a single hour of work - it's sort of the same principle as athletic stars - paying outrageous salaries to athletes is probably the least bad way to do things (it's certainly better than the companies just pocketing lots of cash).

That said, I think this is only achievable because of how relatively young and greenfield software is - the industry hasn't existed for more than a eighty years in any real sense (and arguably didn't really begin until things moved from academic to commercial in the seventies or so) and thus a lot of software can add massive value to society while doing relatively simple things. I think in a few hundred years all the low hanging fruit will be gone and software development will be extremely different from these wild-west days but right now yea - the value you can produce for a business can absolutely justify pretty ridiculous salaries.

I think the important counter point for humility here is that those folks aren't particularly special, maybe a 700k architect is a literal genius at the peak of their career, but there are other folks out there that are just as creative and making 80k. Maybe we just need to think of the strange wage imbalance in development as being as fickle and arbitrary as celebrity - could that actor at the local playhouse have been the next Jennifer Lawrence if only they'd gotten cast for the role? Quite possibly, but luck wasn't on their side and passed them over.

I'd say that people that command such high salaries are certainly worth it (in the cases I've seen at least) but they have also benefited from some fantastic luck in their career progression - they could've been someone else and be earning far less for the same set of skills.

It’s not about skills, it’s about the value those skills provide.

If you write a webapp to solve a $5000/day problem, that’s worth $X. If your company sells that to 10 companies, your work is worth 10X. But if it’s sold to 10000, wow.

Think of your work in terms of value provided to the buyer, not in terms of cost to yourself. Thus you unlock career potential

It is a little bit more complicated than that.

If the webapp can solve $5000/day problem but there is literally millions of people that can do this, you are certainly not getting a share of that. Somebody else is maybe going to be rewarded for spotting an opportunity but the most you get is a "market rate".

The only way you can get paid proportionally is if you are literally the only one that can solve the problem and you know it and they know you know it.

Yes but that’s for the company to argue. Why would you help them lower your compensation?

Your goal is to maximize the value delivered. Their goal is to minimize how much of the value you capture.

You’ll find balance somewhere in the middle.

And ultimately there’s only so much a company will pay if they can’t extract value out of your work. Regardless of how good you are.

I think this is where society comes into play - Ideally I'd like to see the company expend a large amount of that value into wages with only a proportion of that going to developers and the rest being eaten off as taxes that can be put toward social programs to help the less well off.

We are in agreement. But if companies pay just market salary with no regard to value created, then they are not expending a large amount of value on wages :)

I absolutely agree and that's where the price differential is coming in, but it causes some perverse effects to the wage market. Is the work of the person solving that 5k/day problem that's then sold to ten clients worth ten times as much as the work of the person who's work is only sold to one client?

I think it's important to recognize the semi-arbitrary source of where this value is coming from and understand that while employees impacting a lot of customers are indeed creating a lot of value the work they are doing isn't significantly different from the work made by folks with more modest salaries.

Basically, at the core, I think there's a significant ethical question here and I would highlight the relative infancy of the industry. It's likely that in a few hundred years all this incredible value creation will be highly commoditized and that innovative development will be relegated to academic pursuits that companies only adopt and bring to market after a lot of investigation and research.

Uh hrm - as another parallel you might compare this to speed running. Right now we can do relatively simple things to dramatically create value (time saved off the run) but as time goes on and the run gets more "perfected" then the ability to shave time off the run (or create value for the business) will require a lot more investment of effort. I'm not certain if this will happen since everything in how development works points to this being a really hard state of the industry to accomplish - but looking at economic trends it feels inevitable that eventually it will be more profitable to, for instance, produce a cheaper better whatsapp then being the first market entrent into the coveted Deciduous Tree Vlog Platform market.

Question then becomes: can YOU sell that work to 10,000? and how many can make what is sold?

I worked at a startup, became amazed at the sales crew’s ability to find buyers. I could make the app (and Co. could find few willing & capable to), but in no way could find anyone to fork over that much for it.

Yes. Point is the company with a good sales force gets more value out of your work and can pay you more. Not 1000 times more, but 5x sounds possible.

Google for example makes about 7-figures per employee. That’s a loooot of room to negotiate.

The problem I have with that is - where is the team? It probably not a single person writing that app. It's likely a whole team of people.

In non-tech companies, IT is seen as a cost. Half the time your contribution is just saving the company from hiring x number of people to do the work manually.

You can start by taking value provided and dividing by number of people involved. I can almost promise the number you get is higher than people’s existing salary. Even after accounting for overhead.

That's logical for any profitable company. The question is whether or not the amount is reasonable.

It's not unheard of to give people who were party to the creation of some critical thing the company does pay that simply can't be matched elsewhere in order to make them stick around. Usually you pair it with a fancy title like "global architect" or some other mumbo jumbo like that. Pretty much any time you hear about someone making 500k+ without being personally responsible for the success or failure of a heck of a lot of stuff it's a role like that.

Think of it as a $200k salary with $500k of "just to ensure you won't find a better offer elsewhere" on top.

These aren't the kind of roles you can work your way into. You have to be in the right place at the right time and be there for a long time.

That's not true at all. Tons of people in Bay Area/NYC/Seattle are making $500k+ just for being relatively good at their jobs at a company that values software engineers. That's a typical Staff+ comp at a FAANG or similar company. You don't have to be some mythical engineering genius or be in the right place at the right time (to make it to $1MM+ probably does though).

> These aren't the kind of roles you can work your way into. You have to be in the right place at the right time and be there for a long time

Sorry for grammar. On mobile but wanted to quickly contribute.

I was incredibly lucky in my last role. Something I don't think I'll ever be able to match again.

When I joined the company as a sysadmin there were 30 staff, and they really liked the work I did and eventually they put me on this innovation incentive scheme that basically said "If you keep delivering innovative solutions and driving the technology direction in the way that you are, we will pay you a bonus of 1.5% of the profit made from e-commerce sales every 4"

At the time sales profit from e-commerce channels was about 250k for each period, so a very nice $3500~ bonus every 4 months.

When I left the company ~15 years later:

- 5000+ staff

- Had moved into a role managing a large team of sysadmins and was responsible for the technical innovation strategy/direction of the business overall.

- Same CEO and and my original "IT manager" was now the CTO who I still reported into.

- They kept me on the same bonus scheme for my whole time at the company.

- By the time I left online sales profit for each 4 month period was $50,000,000.

Right place, right time, right people.

:-)

I gave up a lot for that job and worked damn hard though. I let it consume me and ended up very unhealthy.

A solution expert usually brings a baggage of knowledge of previously working solutions in the problem space, knowledge that has been acquired over many months of hard work

Short gigs where you being in a solution, point a team/company on the right direction and then jump off compensate for the accrued knowledge transfer more than for the hour worked

Think of it like a top end athlete, they aren't paid for the few hours of play, but for the years of training that keep them competitive

Here in Boulder $100/hr is the cheapest you can find for a freelance developer worth their salt.

As open-source developer, I make $0/hr :/

And I was considering myself unlucky with $1/week I make.

Aka "hobby".

I'm just worthless

You are not. You're just poorly compensated and that doesn't say a damn about your personal worth.

Eh, everything in life is about money, so I think it does.

Well, honestly, if that's your opinion then change your circumstances - work on your resume and get a job with higher compensation, they certainly exist and the requirements for them and expectations on them are far lower than you think... And, most importantly, the price for failure is negligible. If you're a wiz with databases in your current position and are considering moving to a fancy silicon valley job with high compensation the worst that can happen is you'll fail your probationary period and still make a fair amount of money.

There really aren't many FileNet or Neoxam options out there. My wife refuses to relocate, so I'm stuck where I am.

Oh but right now we've got a pandemic on - assuming everybody is onboard with the risk of changing jobs a lot of folks are hiring remote employees.

I still don't see many. There's a contract Filenet job with a contract rate of $60/hr. I don't think it's worth it to trade a fulltime job for that. Not to mention, I'm starting to work with AWS now (sort of, they switch me all the time) so that would be the better longterm option.

I find that to be highly unlikely seeing that you’ve been a part of the HN community for under 2 years and have nearly the same karma as me after 7. You clearly have something interesting to say! My email is in my profile. Hit me up to chat if you’d like :). Maybe I can help you somehow.

That's very kind of you.

I'm nowhere near $75/h. A couple of years ago I built a solution for the company I work for that heavily contributed getting hundreds of thousands in revenue( and continues to do so). All it took was a few weeks. Didn't even get a bonus or something and this is a tiny company. Right work can be worth millions,so even $2000/h may not look high enough.

Yeah, but like your example, the company keeps the money.

For 1099 contract work, $200/Hour is the sweet spot for in demand fields, javascript, React, FE, etc.

What’s 1099?

New grads in SFBA make well north of $75/hr. Sometimes it's all about geo.

Your comparing apples and oranges - when you take a salary you take a lower hourly wage to eliminate volume risk, works in the spot market get compensated for taking the volume risk

When I was an analyst we'd get paid $10K+ per day for speaking/consulting (not including travel time) and the one expert witness job I did was about $500/hour. But for the bulk of the 200ish workdays a year, we were earning much less or nothing at all.

$500/h for a one day/week contract compares to stuff like $80/h for a 6 month contract.

There are vanishingly few people getting $500/h and getting 40 hours worth of contract a week, 50 weeks a year. I don't think I've ever heard of one.

I know someone who (CTO) Billed several k for an hours consultation on 4G

$500/hr is usually reserved for work done for lawyers ;)

Yeah to be fair I have a lot of specialized knowledge and experience around the high paying work. But under the hood the approach, methods, tools, and way of thinking are fundamentally identical. I get hired for the high paying stuff in part due to the domain expertise, but really I command that price because I’m $450 an hour better at the $50 an hour work than most other people with the domain expertise. Or maybe I just want to believe that.

Old southern joke:

An oil man had a pump on the fritz and needed someone to fix it, fast. He sought the advice of the best expert he could find, and luckily when the expert listened to the problem he said, "let me spend a day with it and see what I can do."

The old expert pulls up in an empty pickup with only a hammer and nail in hand, calmly walks over to the pump, places the nail on the side, and taps it. Then, the expert dusts himself off and hands the oil man a slip of paper that reads,

"Total $1,000. Nail $1. Where to place the nail $999"

I knew I had heard another version of this story, but it was about Charles Proteus Steinmetz. Found it on the smithsonian website.

Ford, whose electrical engineers couldn’t solve some problems they were having with a gigantic generator, called Steinmetz in to the plant. Upon arriving, Steinmetz rejected all assistance and asked only for a notebook, pencil and cot. According to Scott, Steinmetz listened to the generator and scribbled computations on the notepad for two straight days and nights. On the second night, he asked for a ladder, climbed up the generator and made a chalk mark on its side. Then he told Ford’s skeptical engineers to remove a plate at the mark and replace sixteen windings from the field coil. They did, and the generator performed to perfection.

Henry Ford was thrilled until he got an invoice from General Electric in the amount of $10,000. Ford acknowledged Steinmetz’s success but balked at the figure. He asked for an itemized bill.

Steinmetz, Scott wrote, responded personally to Ford’s request with the following:

Making chalk mark on generator $1. Knowing where to make mark $9,999.

Ford paid the bill.

They were paying Eclipse and Java UI contractors a little less than that about 7-8 years ago. Maybe the MBAs have them all in the same bucket

Wow. I make less than $45/hr (salary with extra hours dragging it down further, but with benefits).

Edit for background: I have 9 years experience, an MSIS working at a financial company.

Financial companies, pharmaceutical companies, automotive companies, aircraft (component or manufacturing) companies. They all fail to understand the criticality of software and IT to their long term objectives, and greatly undervalue people in those fields.

A recurring issue I've found is, "Jack the EE picked up programming in a week, why are you worth as much or more than him when you aren't even a 'real' engineer?" Substitute another field for EE based on industry. Software is simultaneously too easy for them to take seriously, and too hard for them to fathom its depths.

I disagree - non-software companies feel entitled to price employees based in relation to their peers rather than in relation to the value they add to the business (and possibly misuse their tech labour because they never hired an architect that could actually steer it to be as valuable as it could be) but Jack the EE might be a perfectly servicable developer. There's a lot of theory we learn in school that Jack would need to pick up himself but don't assume you're imbued with a special skill that sets you apart from the rest of the employees.

The company should definitely be paying more out of their pocket to employ good tech talent, but I'm not so certain whether it's good for society for all that created value to be given to the developer who happened to create it. I think there is a big value gap in how much developers can produce with relatively little labour compared to, say, a car mechanic - but I think that it might be best for everyone if a really big proportion of that value gap was sliced up and distributed more evenly across society in the form of social programs to benefit us all.

I don't see how you're disagreeing with me. I didn't say that Jack the EE couldn't be a perfectly serviceable developer. I've worked with a number who are (and a few who excelled). My point is that the management teams (with no one with software experience) perceive one specific person's relative ease at picking up programming as the general case for programming. This causes them to underestimate what it takes to actually build up the software portion of their business. This happens especially for non-software companies in the same way that software companies might underestimate the difficulty of other fields (how many startups have we seen posted here on HN that are composed of primarily programmers and think they'll revolutionize the fashion industry, the car audio industry, or the banking industry?).

And since management teams in large companies tend to grow out of whichever departments are the primary domains, if software is always seen as tertiary then managers with software background are consistently absent or too few to clear up this confusion.

If Jack can teach himself how to program competently, you’ve just made a great argument for him to stop fucking around being an EE and switch to a software job where he can make a ton more money.

Just because an arbitrary person can learn how to do X, it doesn’t change the fact that there is a huge shortage of people who can competently X. The price paid for software development is a product of supply and demand, not how “special” software developers are.

They value people based on 'visibility' at my place. Unfortunately, some people who get that visibility are just putting out their own fires. I had a tech lead that was not very good in my opinion, but the business and management loved him.

Sometimes I think about becoming a mechanic. They make good money.

Having worked at a car dealership- don't work at one of those, at the very least. Like many established industries, being a car mechanic doesn't have too many ways up from there- you can get all the certs you want, but you'll never be management- and compensation increases are based more on tenure than anything else. If you can teach yourself and then get into a performance garage or something like that, go for it! You'll likely wind up better off buying a project car to learn on or going to a technical school in off time than going full-tilt into mechanicary- and you'll have a chance to see if it's right for you before you switch. Also, if you like that stuff, and want to create things, consider mechanical engineering of some flavor.

I had a 25-30 year old Caprice and then tracked a new Camaro. I have a bit of mechanical experience with all the work that comes with those. Of course electric vehicles will be the next big thing.

I definitely would not work at a dealer or chain. Being part of a small company or your own would be great. Not moving up wouldn't be a big deal in that kind of role.

On a side note, I'm confused why everyone is obsessed with moving up. Can't people just be happy where they are? I really don't see much difference in my company between the various levels, nor is it a very big promotion at 7%.

Electrical engineering is a nightmare compared to software engineering. It also involves a lot of programming. It's just that hardware businesses don't give a damn about the software.

I'm in the same boat. The way some people here talk about making $200/hour makes me think how out of touch some HN'ers are with the average worker.

$200/hour rate is median for developers with in demand skills. Many companies will gladly pay this and higher rates to fill positions with qualified candidates.

Software engineering and development field is extremely difficult. There are many opportunities in this field, because there are so few candidates that can do the work. HN is self selected group of people with experience in the field. But they are actually very few in number.

The average worker does not have in demand skills in tech sector.

I think this is still an oversimplification of what's actually going on.

Its not so much that the skills themselves are in demand, its the enormous experience that someone who can command that kind of fee has. The skill set you're talking about can be learned probably in a year or two of 8-5, M-F self-guided learning from Udemy / Coursera / YouTube, but its the experience of using those skills to build something of value that is driving that hourly rate, not so much the skills themselves.

If you feel I'm missing something here, please go into more depth, because I find this all quite fascinating. :)

I think the part that you’re missing is that understanding programming language syntax and some algos/datastructures is just a tiny piece of what makes software engineering. Having those skills + the ability to convert them into useful software is what is rare/difficult.

Yeah, that's part of it that I was having trouble putting into words.

US salaries/rates are nuts.

$200/hr in the UK would put you in the top 1% of earners.

A 200USD/hr person would make before lunch, what I get paid in a month. This thread makes me want to kill myself.

People love bragging. Don't take it too seriously. Yes there are a bunch of these in certain places but certainly not everywhere.

The remote option has always been available for in demand tech people. Now it's available for most people in the tech field. So it's available "everywhere" people can do the work.

You're out of touch because this doesn't apply to the entirety of the US.

It's interesting that people think $200/hour rate, for in demand software engineer/developer, is out of touch.

That roughly equates to $400,000 a year. Which may seem like a lot, until people actually see what the market rates are in west coast tech hubs.

https://www.levels.fyi/

Also, Mark Zuckerberg is worth $100 Billion, for creating basically a CRUD app in php.

You can't really fairly compare 1099 to W2 hours without subtracting for holidays, vacation, self-employment taxes, benefits, capacity/downtime, etc. The math might easily work out to a 30%-40% difference.

That may be median for your area and you may be happy with it.

In west coast tech hubs, that's about half of median salary alone. If you factor in bonus, stock options, etc. That's about 1/3 or 1/4 of total comp.

https://www.levels.fyi/

I hate my job for reasons other than the pay. I just have to except that I'm worthless.

Noooooooo! You may be undervalued, or in the wrong field. Einstein was not an accomplished baker- you might just not have found something you feel you fit into. It might also be impostor syndrome- please don't devalue yourself because you don't like your job or what you do there. Your job doesn't define you.

It might not define me, but it greatly defines the options of my life (time, money, etc).

It means your job is worthless and by extent your company as well. People aren't jobs. Get a different one.

If that's as a developer in a US city that's pretty underpaid

Note he's salaried, that's not contract rates. Salaried employees also get health, 401k, ESPP, and other benefits that contract workers have to cover themselves - not to mention self employment taxes etc.

He may still be underpaid, but it's not apples/apples.

It's in the suburbs of an east coast city. I don't really see higher paying intermediate jobs (switched stacks a few times).

Sometimes recruiters get things wrong, mix things up. That might have been for a different position that got redefined without commensurate pay adjustment.

That said, 45 is really low for any position in an engineering company, unless it’s ancillary support services that get farmed out. Something like ‘Lab Admin’ type of thing.

This happened more than once over the last few years. If it was a mistake I could see it happening once. But not three times.

I don't think it is. I got approached by consulting companies and recruiters to work on embedded development for Intel, including on-site work in Santa Clara, CA and travel to Asia. The hourly rate was 60 and days in Asia were 250 each plus accommodations. I've never done a trip to Asia were I was working less than 10 hours per day.

Amazon software development interns (undergrad) in SF get $65/hr + a housing stipend. 60/hr seems far too low

That's what I make at my full time job in NJ with 7 years of experience. Damn.

You have to ask yourself if the raise is worth the COLA as well as quality of life in the Bay Area which include housing stock quality per dollar as well as nuisance crimes you have to deal with (garage, car break ins and dealing people suffering metal health issues in the street, etc.)

It works out for some people but it will not work out for everyone.

Although right now the math is rather different - you can easily remain living in NJ with all your nice local things while switching employers to someone in CA - most people are hiring fully remote people though you may be required to work west coast hours.

And, honestly, I think that after the pandemic companies are going to have a lot of trouble trying to pull employees back into in-office full time work.

Yeah it's nothing. I'm at staff level, 15 years experience, and owned whole boards and projects from product requirements to final assembly and testing for at least five years. I don't know how they get people for that money unless it's some kind of shady situation where they are not actually living in the bay area.

I have 9 years experience, an MSIS, and make a salary that works out to less than $45/hr, but of course there are benefits.

That's cheap 20 years ago I looked at a secondment in Malaysia and that was full ride tax free expat - house and servants! provided.

A quick search shows average US software engineer's salary is $92,046 / yr. Divide that by 251 working days and 8 hours to arrive at $45/h.

I am guessing it is very location specific.

I don't think they got it wrong. A recruiter contacted me for a contractor position in Amazon. It involved Perl coding (I'm guessing some legacy SW they have). They said the max they can pay is $50/hr.

A friend of mine was a professor at a US university in ML and came home to NED to work in medical ML and makes about that. I was amazed he wasn't at FAANG and his simple response was "My wife and I agreed that we would raise our children near their grandparents." There's perhaps more diversity in preferences than we can imagine.

What is NED?

Nederlandse = The Netherlands

Ah, that's what I thought. There are FAANG offices in neighboring countries of course.

Netherlands

That kind of positions are usually filled by H1 B contractors - primarily from smaller consulting companies. Usually Intel and other companies pay ~100-125 per hour but then the middlemen keep the rest.

Wow, $45/hr is just laughtable. I know many freelance web developers from ex-USSR countries who charge more and their effective tax rate is below 10%.

Or did you mean this is $45/hr post-tax rate?

Ugh, I make less.

Ditto. This whole thread makes me feel out of touch.

$45 is well beyond a median ex-USSR freelancer, although there have to be outliers.

$50/hr for Ukrainian/Russian dev on upwork is reasonable. Ofc they make less since upwork takes a cut.

47

I worked as a contract employee in Santa Clara about 20 years ago. What do I remember? The corporate infighting and the corporate paranoia (examining the contents of your briefcase and backpacks) and the IT department sniffing your internet use.

You won't be able to get someone to fix your car for $45/hr.

Mechanics work on your car for a few hours and the job is done forever.

Haaaaa story time.

Had a flat. Not a big deal; got the spare on, schedule some time at the mechanics to get a new tire. Tire gets put on, everything is great, time passes.

Later, come back for a regularly scheduled tire rotation. "We can't get the lug nuts off. They've been over tightened." the mechanic says. "Well, how do you suppose that happened?" I ask. Of course, it goes a. completely over that their head, (they were the last ones to touch the lug nuts) and of course, b., it's my wallet that pays for their error.

They were not the mechanic for a while after that. Aside from that gaffe they did good work, and everybody else I tried for a while was all around worse. Eventually returned to them, and that was really the only problem I ever had…

...unless it's a GM

If you'd be working for a contract firm and not directly for intel, they often take a huge what-the-market-will-bear percentage. Right now there's a lot of uncertainty in the job market.

Having contracted a lot in the past, the fact that Intel is hiring contractors signals a hiring crisis.

Either nobody wants to work there, or work is ramping up. But a company full of contractors might not be too healthy.

Yikes. As part of my company's (F500) DS group, I'm at < $40/hour. Granted, I'm essentially doing software dev, which is a little out of my wheelhouse, and I was just a technical BSA before this, but still... To be fair, I also have a lot of latitude and was able to work remote prior to covid. Once the vaccines are rolled out and I can find someone for some of my caretaking role, looking elsewhere is a priority.

I’d laugh at triple that. This is a strong indicator Intel will not be turning things around.

Christ I get more than that as a front end dev in Australia