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'm not FAANG, but I am in SV, and my salary is currently around $200k/year (give or take). That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average, maybe. Most software development (where software is the product, or a critical component of the product) is a high margin endeavor. These companies can (and should) pay their development staff more.
That's low compared to FAANG, but it's much higher, even adjusting for COL, than most of the "perfectly normal" lower salaries in these comments. That's not good: those lower salaries should be considered abnormally low; mine should be considered on the high end of average
These are the "average" salaries across the industry in different metro areas:
As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV?
Anyone making at least $110K can buy that house with an FHA loan with 3.5% down.
What a company is going to pay is based on the supply and demand.
$330k gets you goody looks when considering a purchase of a home, or outright laughter. On the other hand your $330k home is not going to yield sufficient ROI to make up for the double (or more) savings and investment rate my salary affords me. I can save almost as as the $110k earner in the suburbs has as his disposable income, and I have access to a diversity of culture, well maintained parks, good (private) schools and such that the suburbanite can only dream of in most cases.
Again speaking hypothetically, using the numbers I posted earlier for what an average experienced developer can make in most metro areas - around $130K and if you’re married to a college educated spouse (statistically that would be true because of assortive mating) making an average salary of around $50K. You could easily save $70K a year.
Do you think there are only parks, “diversity of culture”, and good schools on the west coast? If someone is living in a top rated school zone where the top 20% of earners live, do you really think that the school system wouldn’t be good?
>As far as $200K being high adjusted for COLA, in the burbs where I live. $330K gets you a house - brand new build in a top rated school system with five bedrooms, 3.5 baths, 3000 square feet with a yard, two car garage, and a separate nice size office. What does that get you in SV?
Nobody actually plans on retiring in SF. When I'm done working here for 10 or 15 years I'll have enough to move and own a mansion in whatever town you live in and retire. After 2 years of working I already have $170k in savings.
I think you may find it harder to relocate after 10-15 years. Your friends and community will be in SF, and leaving that, especially in your 40s can be very hard. When I moved in my early 20s, it took between 2-3 years to re-establish my friend networks and community in a new city. I would be hesitant to do that again. Kids make it even harder, as you may be pulling them away from their closest friends.
Speaking in general, not about me in particular...
I'm going to give up 15 years of my life -- the time that most people spend getting married, having 2.5 kids, etc. to live in SV -- when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US?
Especially if you are a two parent household, the general MO is that the second smaller income can go straight to savings. It's quite easy for a dual income earning household to make 200K if one is software developer and the other just makes an average income for a college grad of $60K-$70K,
when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US?
Why would you speak "in general" about something so specific - this really isn't a goal for everyone. All the best for you making your own decisions of course. In my case I will make considerable tradeoffs to hopefully never live in a 'burb again.
It's also worth noting that cities aren't fungible.
What does that have to do with wanting/not wanting to live in the 'burbs ? Lots of "average" developers don't want to live in SV or a 'burb. You present it as some sort of weird dichotomy - reality is much more complex than that.
It’s not about living in the burbs. The average developer could also live in a smaller condo in the center of the city in most metro areas.
The point is more that it seems like people in the bubble think that a developer living in a major metro area outside of SV making in the low six figures is somehow living in squalor barely making ins meet when they can live where they want in most cities and save - especially if they are a part of a two income household.
Ok, I think you had a reasonable point that just wasn't articulated well. Somewhat separable from what that putative developer should be able to make, of course.
Not so easy anymore with student loans for a lot of people. Between the my girlfriend and I, we are currently paying $1300 a month on student loan payments. That's pretty much a mortgage payment right there (for the Midwest, where we're living).
And my student loans only got up to ~$25k. The average student loan debt per student at graduation was $37k as of a couple of years ago. Mine will be paid off within a couple of years, at least. She still has a long way to go.
I honestly don't know how most people outside of software development or other high paying jobs make ends meet, nowadays.
We're doing alright and we bought a house earlier this year, but we're still having to juggle money around during the month to make sure everything gets paid.
And yet we're in the top 10% for household income in the country, supposedly (I'm not bragging; pretty much every individual developer on Hacker News that lives in SV should be in the top 5%). It really, really doesn't feel like it.
> I'm going to give up 15 years of my life -- the time that most people spend getting married, having 2.5 kids, etc. to live in SV -- when I could spend those fifteen years living in the burbs in a big house with the white picket fence in almost any other major city in the US?
First of all I'm not "giving it up" and I have no desire for your lifestyle. It honestly sounds horrible.
I was hoping that the "2.5 kids" part would enforce that I'm not talking about me in particular since no one can have half a kid, but I was using the cliched "average number of kids per household".
> it's easy for people to feel that their perfectly normal salaries are low.
Part of a free market is realizing that, if others are earning more money for the same work, there is a good chance that you are undercharging your employer for your services.
No? Salaries ought to be compared in real values. This is econ 101. The author made no claim his figures were in real terms. He gave the nominal amounts and that is quite clear in the post. It's up to the astute reader to convert them into real values based on the purchasing power of the nominal amount provided in their locale.
Your claim was that
> HN is full of West Coast FAANG SV employees who are outliers.
There are two ways to interpret this claim. Way 1 is to assume that you are talking about West Coast 'FAANG' employees being outliers in the sense their nominal salaries are outliers. Way 2 is to assume you claim that West Coast employees are outliers in the purchasing power sense.
If I assume way 1, then your claim that 'it's easy for people to feel their salaries are low' doesn't make sense, because salaries would be compared in real terms. Moreover, the SV employees wouldn't really be outliers. They'd be perfectly average.
If I assume the latter, which is that the salaries are outliers in real terms, then what I said stands: if someone else is making more money for the same job, you're probably being underpaid.
Outside of Silicon Valley/NYC/DC, no one is going to pay your "full stack web developer", 200K. Full stack developers are a dime a dozen and you can outsource your typical CRUD Software As A Service app overseas or "rural source" it to Middle America.
Maybe not $200k, but you can at least ask for more.
Also, I'd be a little careful about out-sourcing and rural-sourcing. I've found that many high-quality remote workers charge Bay Area rates regardless of where they live. If they're not, well, that may signal a lack of quality. You can get a bit of a discount, or find a more specialized person than you might otherwise.
To those of you in low-cost-of-living areas: Consider raising your rates to signal your quality. You're worth it.
But that’s kind of the point. If all you’re doing is working on yet another software as a service CRUD app, you don’t need a team of A players. You just need halfway competent developers and one of two architect level positions to steer them.
That’s true. I’ve interviewed “full stack developers” who when you asked them to write a query they started writing C# Linq statements as if they were using Entity Framework.
It only takes one of two steps above the average “full stack developer” to be the one eyed king.
