It's hardly 1/5th the tech salary. in the bay area, a BART worker can earn more than a Software engineer. Crate operators in new york earn 150K+, approaching 500K with overtime and benefits. And 120K isn't 4 times more than 30K, it's more like 2.5 times more when you factor in federal and CA taxes.
this is pretty terrible compensation for such high impact work in such a high cost of living area. 150k is less than many Bart workers make a by the time they are senior level (http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area/2014). Many of these companies are making billions, further increasing the wealth gap of the founders vs. the ones who create their fortunes on the ground level.
The companies have even been proven to collude to suppress wages. Software engineers are in desperate need of unions
Last time I read on HN about the Bay Area developer salary, it seemed to me that consensus was that a $100-120k salary in the Bay Area is considered bang-on middle-income. BART technical jobs are well below that, and one can argue these are low-income. If $100-120k/year salary is middle income what's the exact issue with BART salaries?
It's all relative - the Bay Area is enormously expensive to live in compared to most other places in the USA. The apples-to-apples comparison would have to incorporate cost of living.
Which isn't saying that techies aren't paid very well, even in relation to their cost of living, but rather that absolute salary numbers mean little by themselves. A $60K salary in Manhattan for example is a tough life, whereas a $60K salary elsewhere can be very comfortable.
I hear this often. I would like to see an analysis, breakdown, or a real life comparison that suggests this, and for which tier of engineers this is true. I think two things;
1) non bay area tech workers severely underestimate the total comps that bay area workers are earning right now.
2) many renters in the Bay Area may actually have more in their pocket. If you are willing to rent a room (i.e not have a studio or 1BR apartment), you're probably paying 1-1.5k more per month. The salary delta for Bay Area techies is way more than 12months*1.5k/month per year. Have some basic financial responsibility and you can really save a lot out here.
Arguably, Bay Area tech salaries at the big employers are somewhat of an outlier. They tend to be pretty generous even when you take CoL into account. (The same could arguably be said of some areas of financial services in NYC.)
But, even historically in the Bay Area, that's not really the norm. Compensation in high CoL areas is often higher but not really equivalent with respect to housing, etc.
If you make $130k in California as a programmer, plus maybe $10k in employer health insurance contribution and another $10k in 401k matching ($150k total comp), you're in the same overall pay bracket as a "sewers supervisor" in San Rafael or a BART train operator: http://www.mercurynews.com/salaries/bay-area?appSession=8741....
"Meanwhile, tech industry execs are screaming over how high (!!) engineer salaries are..."
A couple of recent surveys were very eye-opening. Salaries seem high compared to the national average in silicon valley, but if you look at compensation in other fields in in high-cost areas like silicon valley, it doesn't appear that software developers have particularly high salaries.
The first survey is from sfgate (the sf chronicle)...
According to this survey, registered nurses in San Francisco earn $112,140 a year. "Software Developers, Applications" workers earn $110,950 a year. System software developers clock in at $112,260 a year. Lawyers earn an average of $165,740 a year.
Software Developers get the best job title on US News And World Report's rankings
But the top jobs in high paid regions tells a similar story. In San Jose, as with San Francisco, Registered Nurses outearn software developers. In San Francisco, dental hygenists earn $106,700 a year, so about 4k a year less than these wildly well paid software developers.
My point here isn't these aren't important fields worthy of good salaries. I'm really glad that nurses and dental hygienists are well paid, they absolutely deserve good compensation. But why do we talk about software developers as if they are this astoundingly well paid group of workers with runaway salaries? It seems that they make fine salaries compared to other well educated workers. More than some, less than others.
Those of us who don't live in San Francisco that have been job searching have found salaries average about $125k. Over here in the real world tech doesn't make that much money.
Also, it's crazy that anyone would complain about that salary. By any metric $125k is more than enough money for a decent living.
These are averages. SF/BOS/SEA/NYC/etc all have higher salaries. It also is a bit vague as to what a "tech worker" is, and these articles tend to include all of IT in that.
Well, all I can really say is that among my friends who I've spoken with about this, those of us out in the bay area are making (including stock and bonuses) about 40% more than those who work in tech in metro Boston. It's more than enough to compensate for the higher cost of living.
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