Maybe median is low? My total comp is high 2s, and where I work isn’t on the list.

My job is very easy and likely 36 hours a week. I’ve never once worked weekends or holidays, and the vacation time is better than European.

But when I started my total comp as waaaaaay lower. It took time for the money to stack.

Or they have a ton of junior engineers which brings down the median.

Maybe. But 500 is a large number of companies. And those same companies have a fair number of employees who have been there for a decade or more. I'm not sure I believe that large profitable public companies aren't in the top 500 companies in tech in compensation overall.

What do you mean? I see dell, disney, EA, oracle, walmart, all on that list. Like what companies are you thinking of?

Also big boring companies tend not to pay very well compared to more modern companies. This is just an anecdote based on my experiences with Disney.

Akamai, HP, IBM... Those are just a few I looked up. I didn't look up the ones you did. But I think you're sort of making my point. Do you believe Dell pays better than at least one or two of the companies I listed?

IBM's pay is abysmal though.

I won't argue that the bigger traditional companies are the highest-paying targets. But, again, top 500 is a big target and I'm skeptical your average small startup is a lot better. But maybe it's just that you probably won't have a job in a year.

I mean, yes? IBM is known for having absolute shit pay for engineers. I don't know anyone who has worked at HP in software either, so I'm not surprised it pays poorly. I've never even heard it brought up.