My somewhat complete salary history as a software engineer

These threads always invite the outliers (i.e. those who want to humble brag). Here&#x27;s mine outside Washington&#x2F;California&#x2F;Silicon Valley&#x2F;NYC:<p>- $40K: 2010-2013, &quot;DevOps&quot; at small startup. No ownership&#x2F;shares.<p>- $45-72K: 2014-Current, Programmer (various job titles) working for state&#x27;s education department<p>Even management here only make $90K capping out around $115K~. But cost of living is low.<p>These threads never have people posting their boring salaries from low cost of living areas, I&#x27;m trying to buck that trend.

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:<p>1) What you actually get<p>2) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes<p>3) What you actually get + what you pay in taxes + what your employer pays in taxes<p>Usually we talk about #2 when discussing salaries. So if somebody says they make 1000€&#x2F;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.<p>Can anyone shed some light on whether this is the same everywhere? Like if somebody in Silicon Valley says they make $200k&#x2F;year, is that their &quot;#2&quot; number?<p>Edit:<p>Adding my own #2 history as well (software dev in Estonia), in case anybody is interested:<p>2015 - junior at employer A - 12 000€<p>2015 - mid-level at employer A - 21 204€<p>2016 - mid-level at employer B - 26 400€<p>2017 - senior at employer B - 30 000€<p>2017 - senior at employer C - 48 000€<p>2018 - senior at employer D - 58 500€<p>In my experience, it&#x27;s very hard to get better salary without changing jobs all the time, so if you know of a company with good perks, it&#x27;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&#x27;s what I ended up doing.

Male, went to a top 5 CS school, US west coast<p>2001: BigCo $76,000&#x2F;year + $20,000 signing bonus (first job out of school)<p>2007: Freelancing between $100-$200&#x2F;hr depending on project<p>2012: Startup #1 $180,000&#x2F;year + $75,000 signing bonus + a bit of stock that&#x27;s never been worth anything (but I exercised upon leaving and paid a lot of taxes on, so I&#x27;m net negative ~$300k)<p>2015: Startup #2 $240,000&#x2F;year + lots of stock that&#x27;s never been worth anything<p>Some thoughts on equity and BigCos vs. Startups:<p>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).<p>My peers that went to BigCos have done far, far better than me financially. All are above $500k&#x2F;year in total comp, and quite a few above $1MM&#x2F;year due to FAANG stocks going up so much.<p>Startup compensation math just doesn&#x27;t work when you&#x27;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.<p>I&#x27;ll probably never join a startup again, but if I do, all salary assumptions assume an equity value of zero.

I&#x27;m actually surprised that as a &#x27;Principal Architect&#x27; 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 &#x27;underpaid&#x27;.<p>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.

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:<p>The Netherlands, 26yo male:<p>45k ($50k) as a technical trainee. It&#x27;s €3200 ($3600) pre-tax a month and €2350 ($2670) after tax with %12,5 end of year bonus.<p>First job here, and this is already above modal for my country. I&#x27;m very happy with it, especially seeing I don&#x27;t have a formal IT education I just thought myself through hobbies and messing around. Some salaries here are insane!<p>Of course my cost of living is lower but rent&#x2F;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&#x27;t weird anymore and there are practically no houses &lt;€250k

Burner account. All numbers adjusted to USD:<p>2007: Junior developer $25k (no bonus)<p>2008: Project manager $50k (10% bonus)<p>2009: Project Manager $65k (10% bonus)<p>2011: Senior Project Manager $92 (10% bonus)<p>2011: Product Manager $97k (Some worthless options as it turns out, and an approximately 8% bonus)<p>2012: Founded my own startup &#x2F; developer $28k that year<p>2013: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $65k<p>2014: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $150k<p>2015: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $150k<p>2016: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $250k + 10% bonus (acquired)<p>2017: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $250k + 10% bonus<p>2018: Startup founder &#x2F; CTO $325k + $100k bonus + $100k stock<p>2018: I&#x27;m now taking a break from work.

I&#x27;m currently based in Toronto<p><pre><code> 2012 - small business owner - 60k AED &#x2F; yr (no taxes) - built Wordpress websites in my spare time 2013 - technical cloud marketing intern - 60k &#x2F; yr CAD - FAANGish company 2013 - contractor - 30k &#x2F; yr CAD - Engineering consultancy 2014 - Software Dev Fullstack - 22k &#x2F; yr CAD - early stage startup 2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack &#x2F; Architect + DevOps - 55k &#x2F; yr CAD - very early stage startup 2015 - Lead Software Dev Fullstack &#x2F; Architect + DevOps - 60k &#x2F; yr CAD - very early stage startup 2016 - Software Dev - 60k &#x2F; yr CAD - medium stage startup 2016 - Techincal Consultant - 90k &#x2F; yr CAD - small public company 2017 - Software Engineer + DevOps - 99k &#x2F; yr CAD - medium public company 2018 - Senior Software Engineer + DevOps + SRE - 120k &#x2F; yr CAD - medium public company</code></pre>

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 &quot;perceived&quot; value.<p>White male born in the &#x27;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 &quot;Technical&quot; position.<p>However it&#x27;s quite common to have &quot;food stamps&quot; for lunch as benefit ( range between 5€ to 8€ )<p>2008 - 18000 €&#x2F;year - Junior Software Developer - Consulting Firm A<p>2009 - 19000 €&#x2F;year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A<p>2010 - 20000 €&#x2F;year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A<p>2011 - 21000 €&#x2F;year - Software Developer - Consulting Firm A<p>2012 - 23000 €&#x2F;year - Senior Software Developer - Online booking startup (No stock options)<p>2013 - 25000 €&#x2F;year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B<p>2014 - 25000 €&#x2F;year - Senior Software Developer - Consulting Firm B<p>2015 - 28000 €&#x2F;year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B<p>2016 - 30000 €&#x2F;year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm B<p>2017 - 32000 €&#x2F;year - Technical Lead - Consulting Firm C<p>2018 - 32000 €&#x2F;year - Technical Lead &#x2F; Solution Architect &#x2F; Whatever - Consulting Firm C

Everyone is posting salaries... How about hours worked. I sometimes feel like a frog in a pot and am in the office for 45 hours a normal week and at times 50. Once in a while a few hours of production support on nights and weekends.<p>The only time I worked 40 hours was government...<p>I realize it could also be the nature of the application. Looks like the author is mainly on UI while my application, and at my previous company, processes time sensitive data 24x7.<p>I often times I did only UI work, or QA work to not have production calls.

Nice money at those big American companies. In Australia, you have to become a plumber to get to those levels :-)

Burner account. White male working at a single US software company in the suburbs since 2007 (not anywhere near Silicon Valley). Cost of living is comparable to Minneapolis, MN.<p>Graduated college in 2007, Bachelor&#x27;s in CS, hired to a QA team, ended up building a lot of internal web apps by myself from scratch that are used by a lot of teams. There aren&#x27;t any other software companies anywhere near here, so switching companies frequently as others do to get raises isn&#x27;t an easy option.<p>--------------<p>2007: $35,000<p>-- [incremental raises, working for the same team]<p>2016: $82,000<p>-- [Hired as a senior front-end web dev for a different team in 2016]<p>2017: $97,000<p>2018: $103,000

White male, born early 90&#x27;s. Raised, live, and work in Silicon Valley.<p>2013: intern at tiny startup A, $12&#x2F;hr, no benefits. Paid for my own gas&#x2F;food<p>2014: software eng intern at large corp A. $28&#x2F;hr<p>2015: software eng intern at startup B. $40&#x2F;hr<p>2016: software developer at corp C, $105k base, $20k signing, future equity (noted below)<p>2017 - entry software engineer at corp C. $115k base, $25k bonus, $70k equity (for 2016 and 2017). Total comp about $205k-ish<p>2018.a - entry software engineer at corp C. $125k base, $27k bonus, $80k equity. Total comp around $235k<p>2018.b - mid year promotion to software engineer (non-entry level). $141k base, likely equity bump. Total comp for 2018 projects to be about $240k.<p>Current corp doesn&#x27;t negotiate, but has very solid equity.

Michigan. BS in CS.<p>2005 - $9&#x2F;hour web dev intern<p>2007 - $14&#x2F;hour part-time web developer and software engineer. (This was still in college.)<p>2010 - $60K&#x2F;year software engineer.<p>2013 - $85K&#x2F;year sr. software engineer (including bonuses).<p>2018 - $103K&#x2F;year sr. software engineer (including bonuses).<p>I feel I&#x27;ve been somewhat underpaid compared to market averages, but I have reasonable money for now. Lived super-frugally in college and paid off student debts ~1 year after graduation. Never worked crazy overtime, although some jobs were pretty stressful due to sheer bad management. Had opportunities to become manager or architect, but don&#x27;t want to move into a non-coding position.

Here was my path - first three of the below were during college, then I dropped out before number 4.<p>1) Unpaid internship (3 months)<p>2) $10 an hour assistant marketing role (1.5 years)<p>3) $14 an hour marketing role (1.5 years)<p>4) $30 an hour marketing role (8 months)<p>5) $35 an hour marketing role (Much bigger budget, lots of opportunity to learn) (1.5 years)<p>6) $50 an hour (promotion from the above role, 2 years)<p>7) Became a consultant for $150-$300 an hour, current since May 2017.<p>So my path from unpaid to $300k+ per year took like 8 years.

Montevideo, Uruguay (most expensive country in South America):<p><pre><code> 2004-2008 - Programmer at Software Factory - U$ 10.000 &#x2F; year 2008-2016 - Functional Analyst (developer really) at non-software company - U$ 30.000 2016-2018 - Programmer Analyst (still developer + pm) at U.S. company&#x27;s outsourcing center - U$ 55.000 </code></pre> Mis-spent a lot of money on an MBA (30k) which didn&#x27;t bring me any additional income, and didn&#x27;t save anything after 15 years&#x27; career :(<p>Also, over half my salary goes to taxes as I&#x27;m on the 2nd highest income bracket.<p>I&#x27;m hoping to get way more as a remote worker (and there are ways to get tax breaks that way).

Just wanted to thank all of you for posting your salaries. My biggest take away is that it takes time to develop your career. It&#x27;s so easy to become jaded after reading &#x2F;r&#x2F;cscareerquestions where it&#x27;s regular to see someone making 6 figures right out of college.

I&#x27;ll contribute. I hope it is okay to post anonymously in this case. 2007 was straight out of college and all these jobs have been in California.<p>2007 Startup A $80,000<p>2009 Startup A $90,000<p>2010 Startup B $100,000<p>2011 Startup C $100,000<p>2013 Startup C $130,000<p>2015 Startup C $150,000<p>2017 Startup D $160,000

Everyone excited about SF Bay salaries - please don&#x27;t forget how expensive is to live here. My rent is $3K&#x2F;m (half of my net salary) and that&#x27;s considered &quot;a decent rate&quot; for 3 bedrooms.<p>Simple salad or a sandwich will cost you ~$15. Round-trip fare on BART - $11. So just to get to work and eat something over lunch will cost you over $600&#x2F;m.<p>If you&#x27;re offered a job here with relocation - negotiate! If possible - better reconsider. Have a family with kids? Simply forget it. Seriously, things getting awfully expensive here. Techies are moving to other states in numbers.

I can’t help but be alarmed by the fact that his health has been on the decline for the last five years due to contracting Lyme disease.<p>I know of one person who was fine after like a month (detected early) and someone who spent the better part of a year recovering, but nothing like this!<p>Hope the blog writer gets better soon.

White male, born and raised in the UK, lived and worked in Australia and lately, the Netherlands.<p>1999: Intern developer at investment bank, £1500&#x2F;month<p>2000: Java Developer at above, £40,000&#x2F;year<p>2004: C++ Games Developer in Australia, AU$26,000&#x2F;year<p>2006: C++ Games Developer in UK, £27,000&#x2F;year<p>2007: C++ Senior Software Engineer in UK, £31,000&#x2F;year + pension<p>2011: Java Developer in Netherlands, €44,000&#x2F;year + pension<p>2012: C# Unity Developer in Netherlands, €31,800&#x2F;year<p>2013: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, €50&#x2F;hour<p>2015: Frontend Developer in NL, €50,000&#x2F;year<p>2017: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, €75&#x2F;hour<p>2018: Contract Frontend Developer in NL, similar to above<p>Fairly obvious here is that I a) like working in the games industry, b) the pay is much worse in the games industry, and c) that I never ended up staying for long in the games industry...

I worked briefly with Nicholas at Box though we never met. I recall him being one of a handful of Principal engineers at the company when I joined and aspiring to reach that position myself. I commend Nicholas for sharing this data and for the thoughtful way in which he laid out why he felt compelled to do so.<p>I wish Nicholas health and happiness.

more data<p><pre><code> 1990 - 7.50&#x2F;hr software testing @ bigco1 1992 - $24&#x2F;hr software testing @ bigco1 1994 - $40&#x2F;hr developer @ bigco1 1996 - $54k developer @ bigco1 1997 - $58k developer @ bigco2, options-heavy comp (worth ~$400k over 9 years) 2006 - $120k developer @ startup1, options-heavy (worthless) 2008 - $120k developer @ startup2, options-heavy (worthless) 2016 - $290k developer @ bigco3 2017 - $360k developer @ bigco3 2018 - $405k developer @ bigco3 </code></pre> verdict: bigco<p>second verdict: perusing the timelines, I am old AF

For those of us in the US, you can see your complete earnings history as reported to the Social Security Administration at ssa.gov. Obviously you have to jump through some hoops to create an account. Coincidentally to this post, I just pulled my info last weekend and put it into a chart: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;LwyljAK.png" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;LwyljAK.png</a> I chopped off the actual amounts for this post but I was also mainly only interested in how things looked for the past few years in my current job.

All - Seattle, totals, including stock bonuses:<p>2012-2016 $105k-135k MSFT SDE-SDE2<p>2016-2017 $190k AMZN<p>2018 - trying to start up, $250<p>&gt; Obama Executive Order Protects Employees of Federal Contractors to Discuss Wage and Compensation<p>Fortunately, both AMZN and MSFT are government contractors

Mostly middle of America here. Not a throwaway because I think that part of American culture is negative.<p>2001 - 2003 Various intern-level roles in Kansas&#x2F;Nebraska. ~8&#x2F;hr.<p>2003 - 2005 Intern&#x2F;Part time sole developer&#x2F;IT at manufacturing company in central Kansas. ~$12&#x2F;hr.<p>2005 Graduated with Bachelor&#x27;s in Computer Systems.<p>2005 - 2007 Applications Developer (Programming, general IT, software project management) at same company above in central Kansas. Started at $42k, ended around 50k. 40hrs wk<p>2007 - 2010 IT Director at international school outside of America. 28k. Technical responsibilities about 30hrs&#x2F;wk, other work at school (substituting, student activities, etc) ~20 more.<p>2010 - 2012 Network Admin &#x2F; Developer, Omaha NE. (for MSP) 30k -&gt; 35k 45+ hrs&#x2F;wk<p>2012 - 2018 Mobile Software Developer, Omaha NE (ag-tech company) 45k -&gt; 80k. 40hrs&#x2F;wk.<p>2018 - present Senior Software Engineer 85k (in healthcare) 40hrs&#x2F;wk.

I think this is really interesting and glad OP posted it as a reference.<p>I just assumed that everyone saves their digital paystubs and calculating precise salary at any point in ones career is trivial. I was surprised when OP was unsure of salary amounts or when precisely raises went into effect.<p>While I think this is cool from a career planning perspective, I don’t think it’s very useful from OP’s aim of correcting any biases on pay based on gender. But it doesn’t hurt and is helpful just to be aware of what’s possible.<p>It’s a bit odd that Forbes and Atlantic are used as sources of pretty definitive statements of existing biases and the ability of authors ability to negotiate based on status as a “white man.” (Personally, I think that confidence may be a bit misplaced :)<p>Mostly, I’m grateful for using ESLint and it’s cool to see the career described for people who develop oss projects in addition to work.

Male, top 5 CS school, grad 2000<p>2000: $55k, non-dev role, 50k-ish options, Florida company 2000: Same role as above, given $20k raise, +25k options two months in 2000: $75k, $10k signing bonus, 30k options, junior dev, Bay Area company 2001 (crash): $40k, university, research dev, Penn 2002-2005: Freelance $80&#x2F;hr, Florida 2005-2007: Grad school, shit pay 2007-2010: Freelance, $100&#x2F;hr, Florida 2010-2012: $68k, senior dev, Florida 2012-2014: $20k, 10% equity, head of engineering, &quot;startup&quot;, Bay Area 2014-2015: $125k, 10% bonus, senior dev, Bay Area BigCo 2015-2016: $130k, 9% bonus, $20k RSU&#x2F;3 year, same co and role as above 2016-2017: $144k, 10% bonus, $20k RSU, same co and role as above 2017-2018: $155k, 16% bonus, $20k RSU, same co, eng manager<p>I&#x27;m underpaid, conservatively, by at least $70k. Will probably fix that next year.

Check out a project of mine called <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;levels.fyi" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;levels.fyi</a> for a little more volume of data. We are trying to make the industry more transparent by going into level by level granularity. Hope it helps, and we&#x27;d love for people to contribute!

I’m a bit sad about seeing some of the numbers here, and happy about seeing some others to add some perspective.<p>For me:<p>- 2010 Company A €37000 - Netherlands<p>- 2011 Freelance €21000 - Netherlands<p>- 2012 Company B €34000 - Netherlands<p>- 2013 Company C ¥2.5M (€19000) - Japan<p>- 2014 Company C ¥3.6M (€27000) - Japan<p>- 2016 Company D ¥5.0M (€38000) - Japan<p>- 2017 Company D ¥5.5M (€42000) - Japan<p>- 2018 Startup E ¥6.0M (€46000) - Japan<p>- 2018 Company F ¥8.0M (€61000) - Japan<p>All have been some form of engineering position. I’d love to break into the ridiculous compensations I see around here, but it seems the only way to get any form of raise is to move around a lot.<p>I’m fairly convinced this is because companies are unable to properly assess skill in an interview, so they use previous salary as a proxy to determine if a candidate might be worth it.<p>I’m getting to the age&#x2F;place in life where I’d prefer to stay at the same place, so I’m hoping company F is willing to see the light in that regard.

Right out of school in 2006 my first programming job started me at $20,000 a year. And I was so glad to have it! I’d been applying and interviewing for jobs for six months and this tiny shop was the only place willing to give me a chance.<p>I think people forget, but at the time it was a foregone conclusion that all programming jobs were going to go to India and you would be a fool to go into it. I was told as much by teachers before I left high school. I didn’t know anyone else getting into programming, I literally had college comp-sci classes where I was the only student.<p>After my 3 months probation they realized “he’s pretty good” and unexpectedly doubled that.<p>Worked my way up to lead developer by around 2009 at that job which basically doubled that again.<p>Pay growth since then has not been nearly as meteoric.

I&#x27;m surprised no one has mentioned that Nick Zakas is an acclaimed author in the JavaScript world. He probably makes a decent amount more from speaking and conferences, but it&#x27;s still surprising to me that in spite of having multiple books under his belt that was all he was making considering how much of a value add it is just to have his name for whatever company he was working for.

Mine for shits and giggles (USD)<p>2009 - 0 (moved and was living off savings, almost broke)<p>2010 - 150k (affiliate marketing, self, from home, 3 hours per day worked)<p>2011 - 24k (just a sliver of affiliate marketing, self, from home, not sure how many hours I worked)<p>2012 - 42k (SEO contract work, tiny company - part remote, 40 hours a week)<p>2013 - 42k (SEO contract work, tiny company - part remote, 40 hours a week)<p>2014 - 55k (marketing at small company - remote, 40 hours a week)<p>2015 - 75k + fully paid top tier health plan (marketing - large ecommerce company - remote, 40 hours a week)<p>2016 - 50k (freelance - from home, 20 hours a week)<p>2017 - 60k (freelance - from home, 20 hours a week)<p>2018 - Looks to be on track to 100k (consulting - from home, 5-8 hours a week)<p>For context, 2009 - 2015 I was living in a high cost of living location. Today I live in a very low cost of living location.

using my throwaway account but have some comment history on my career (i did a Ask HN post on pivoting my &quot;career&quot; last year). I saw someone from Sydney posting their history so I thought I add my perspective from another Australian lurker:<p>Date - Company ID | Starting Salary | Percentage Increase Role | Role<p>2005 - Company A | $20&#x2F;hour | 100%! :) | Part Time Tester<p>2007 - Company B | $48,000 annual | 20.0% | Graduate Engineer<p>2009 - Company B | $65,000 annual | 25.0% | Engineer<p>2010 - Company B | $70,000 annual | 16.7% | Consulting Engineer<p>2011 - Company B | $78,000 annual | 11.5% | Consulting Engineer<p>2011 - Company C | $120,000 annual | $53.8% | Engineering Specialist<p>2012 - Company C | $125,000 annual | 4.2% | Team Lead<p>2013 - Company C | $128,000 annual | 4.5% | Team Lead<p>2014 - Company D | $210,000 annual | 64.0% | Solutions Architect<p>2015 - Company D | $225,000 annual | 7.1% | Solutions Architect<p>2016 - Company D | $195,000 annual | -1.3% | Solutions Architect<p>2017 - Company D | $205,000 annual | 5.1% | Solutions Architect<p>2018 - Company E | $150,000 annual + bonus | -26.8% | Management Position<p>edit: took out notes since it wasn&#x27;t relevant and rearranged fields to look more uniform. If you have any questions, on each role, feel free to AMA.

Straight out of college (all Bay Area companies):<p>2015: Software Engineer (Company A) 120k + 10k signing bonus + worthless options<p>2016: Senior Software Engineer (Startup B) 145k + worthless options<p>2016: Software Engineer (Startup C) 145k + worthless options<p>2017: Software Engineer (Startup C) 150k + worthless options<p>2018: Software Engineer (Company D) 150k + 20k signing bonus + 230k RSUs&#x2F;4 years + 10% performance bonus

Throwaway account. I&#x27;m based out of a smaller town with a low cost of living in the north east.<p>2004 - first job at non tech company - $37.5k<p>2005 - switched to web design company - $40k<p>2006 - same company, minor raise - $42k<p>2007 - same company, minor raise - $44k<p>2008 - switch company, &quot;senior&quot; dev - $70k<p>2009 - same company, performance raise - $75k<p>2010 - switch companies - same pay - $75k<p>2011 - major performance bonus - $90k<p>2012 - same company - raise - $95k<p>2013 - company acquihired by BigCo - raise + bonus = $115k<p>2014 - promo&#x2F;performance bonus&#x2F;stock&#x2F;retention = $170k<p>2015 - promo&#x2F;performance bonus&#x2F;stock&#x2F;retention = $195k<p>2016 - move to new job with old friends = $140k salary + bonus<p>2017 - same job, salary bump and bonus = $140k<p>2018 - same job, more salary but less bonus. Way less stress = $130k

I wish we could offer prestige in these price &#x2F; number comparison, not only in different currency, but also the tax rate and incentives. Example in US large part of your paid isn&#x27;t really &quot;Salary&quot;, but bonus package. And if we could at least includes median rent and price of a Big Mac.<p>In location A where you earn 200K a year but requires you to paid 100K in tax, and spend 50K on rental, versus location B where you paid 20K in tax and 20K in Rental, you actually earn a little more in the 100K package.

Thought I&#x27;d share my experience. I went to College for Graphic Design but shifted into programming. I mainly build internal tools&#x2F;dashboards, mobile apps, training applications, website maintenance. All positions are in central New York State, US (fairly low CoL):<p><pre><code> Tiny (5 person) Company 2008 - Graphic Design &#x2F; Web Developer Intern (College) - $100 &#x2F; week 2010 - &quot;Senior&quot; Web Developer - $15 &#x2F; hr Low-Mid (120 person) Company - Relocated To Hometown, Previous Employer Closed Business 2010 - Graphic Designer - $14.86 &#x2F; hr 2013 - &quot;Senior&quot; Graphic Designer - $17.00 &#x2F; hr Mid (350+ person) Company 2014 - Graphic Designer &#x2F; Web Developer - $46,000 &#x2F; year + $8,000 bonuses 2015 - Graphic Designer &#x2F; Web Developer - $50,000 &#x2F; year + $8,000 bonuses 2016 - Software Developer - $70,000 &#x2F; year + $10,000 bonuses 2017 - Software Developer (Remote) - $75,000 &#x2F; year + $10,000 bonuses 2018 - Software Developer (Remote) - $78,000 &#x2F; year + $10,000 bonuses </code></pre> Still living a bit check-to-check due to high college bills, car payments, etc. Will be much more comfortable in a few more years after payoff.

This doesn&#x27;t appear to be inflation adjusted, at least I saw no mention of it. Quick math below based on BLS&#x27;s inflation calculator.<p>Year Starting $ Inflation Inflation adjusted to 2018<p>2000 $48,000 1.50 $67,500<p>2001 $62,500 1.44 $90,000<p>2001 $68,000? 1.44 $97,920<p>2003 ?<p>2005 $82,000? 1.32 $108,240<p>2006 $115,000 1.27 $146,050<p>2008 ?<p>2011 ?<p>2013 $175,000 1.10 $192,500<p>2014 $208,000 1.08 $237,600

Wow. It&#x27;s very interesting to see the salary numbers of the one author whose book jump-started my engineering career. Given his depth of knowledge and his penchant for imparting the said knowledge, I&#x27;m actually surprised he wasn&#x27;t making more. I guess without his health issues, the numbers would likely have been higher. Here&#x27;s hoping for his quick recovery.

Salaries all Silicon Valley, not an engineer but in technical marketing&#x2F;dev-rel (just as a point of reference)<p>* 2012 - $120,000<p>* 2014 - $140,000<p>* 2016 - $160,000<p>* 2017 - $200,000<p>* 2018 - $225,000

Burner account. Los Angeles. I&#x27;ve worked in the same large public company since college (about 15 years), but have changed roles a few times. I have a bachelor&#x27;s in Computer Engineering from a somewhat prestigious regional school. Numbers are approximate but pretty close. I left out options and RSUs because I can&#x27;t remember them all, but they were typically around $5k-$10k&#x2F;year with 4 year vesting.<p>Embedded Firmware V&amp;V:<p>2003: Software Engineer I. $62k&#x2F;yr.<p>2004: Software Engineer II. $75k&#x2F;yr.<p>2006: Sr. Software Engineer. $92k&#x2F;yr.<p>2007-2010: ?<p>Rapid prototyping role in same company:<p>2011: Principal Software Engineer. $130k&#x2F;year + 10%n bonus.<p>2012-2016: ?<p>Mostly a data science role. Company got bought by another large public company.<p>2017: Staff Software Engineer: $165k&#x2F;year + 15% bonus + $10k&#x2F;year RSUs w&#x2F; 3 year vest.<p>2018: Sr. Staff Software Engineer: $170k&#x2F;year + 15% bonus + $10k&#x2F;year RSUs w&#x2F; 3 year vest.

Dates and amounts from fallible memory, all in USA. Salary rates made a huge jump when I started changing jobs frequently (which is sad) as well as when I moved to Seattle (after an initial correction, as I came in very &quot;underpaid&quot;).<p>&#x27;95-&#x27;99: $8&#x2F;hr as Perl-based &quot;webmaster&quot; in Pennsylvania<p>&#x27;99: $27.5k&#x2F;year as Coldfusion dev (plus some very mild Oracle work) in Norfolk, VA (3 months at a startup)<p>&#x27;00-&#x27;07: Perl Contractor for state govt in Richmond, VA. Hourly, but worked out to $45k&#x2F;yr, rising to roughly $70k&#x2F;yr<p>&#x27;07-&#x27;12: Java FTE for state govt in Richmond, VA. Started at $81k&#x2F;year, ended at $90k&#x2F;yr<p>&#x27;12-&#x27;18: Moved to Seattle, WA as JS dev. Started at $90k&#x2F;yr (+ $10k signing and ~$5k&#x2F;yr bonus), ended at $187k&#x2F;yr (+ signing RSU that is probably $30k&#x2F;yr)

Meanwhile in the rest of the world outside USA...

Great article and enjoyed reading your story, but sharing compensation helps everyone who&#x27;s potentially underpaid, not just women.<p>Anyways here&#x27;s mine (non-CS STEM degree in NYC):<p>- $70k - 5 months - Software engineer (full stack engineer, more backend) at small company. They offered $60k, I asked for $70k and they gave it.<p>- $100k + 20% bonus - 1.5 years - Software Engineer (full-stack engineer, more frontend) at mid-sized corporation. They asked me what salary I wanted, I said $100k and they gave it.<p>- $140k - 1 year - Senior Frontend Engineer at startup. Offered $120k, asked for $150k and got $140k.<p>- $150k + max 15% annual bonus + stock options - 1 year - Lead Engineer, this was a promotion so same company as the last.<p>My Learnings:<p>* There are companies that value their engineers and companies that don&#x27;t (eg. my first company). If you&#x27;re working for the latter, know sense in staying there long unless you don&#x27;t mind making less than you would elsewhere. Recognize the company you&#x27;re working for and the attitude they have towards their engineers (hint: if the president says &quot;we&#x27;re a sales-driven company&quot; to you in the interview, the company probably views engineering as a cost center).<p>* Switching companies will almost always make you more money than you would if you stay at your existing company. The only exception might be if you&#x27;re at a big high-paying tech company that values its engineers (eg. Google), but I never worked at those companies so can&#x27;t comment.<p>* Negotiate that initial offer hard. I would&#x27;ve made substantially less at all of my jobs (especially the last one) had I not negotiated. At that point I knew that once I started working, it&#x27;s very difficult and time consuming to get a raise because you have very little leverage once you start employment, and if you ask for a raise it&#x27;s awkward and they&#x27;ll think you&#x27;re considering jumping ship. So make sure you&#x27;re happy with your initial offer!

Living in London just after Uni for 5 year, moved abroad.<p>2012 - £28k - Software engineer (grad, Software house)<p>2013 - £35k - Software Engineer (startup)<p>2015 - £42k - Software Engineer (startup)<p>2016 - £60k - Software Engineer (startup)<p>2018 - $66k - Software Engineer. (startup; remote work) Paying around 20% in taxes, but I live in a very low cost area(Central Europe) and my gf has a flat. I have a good quality lifestyle. Unlimited holidays (usually 30 days a year), I work 35h a week, own a new mercedes and can save $25k a year.<p>2019 - $130k - Software Engineer. (large startup; remote work; 40h&#x2F;week) (I haven&#x27;t accepted the offer yet). I have reached the maximum salary that I could get if you normalise for purchasing parity. It&#x27;s impossible for me to find another job which allow me to save up $70k&#x2F;year working 40h&#x2F;week in a low stress environment.

You all should compare these dev salaries to CS professor salaries :)<p>As a CS professor myself, it is great to know my students can go and be well paid after graduation!

Here&#x27;s my information, all jobs were in The Netherlands and were software engineering jobs. All salaries are per year, including holiday allowance:<p>June 2010 - Dec 2012: junior at company A. Started with €13 650, at age 18. By December 2012 this was €19 500<p>Dec 2012 - Oct 2015: intermediate at company B. Started with €25 805. By October 2015 this was €37 102.<p>Oct 2015 - present: Company C (GitLab). Started with €36 400 (for 4 days a week), for an intermediate position. Currently this is €58 630, for 5 days a week, for the staff engineer position.<p>Income taxes for me have always been between 30% and 35%, which today translates to receiving roughly €3000 in the bank every month. My monthly recurring costs (groceries, mortgage, etc) are around €1300 per month.

<a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;h1bme.com&#x2F;?employer=BOX%2c%20INC.&amp;job_title=&amp;page=63&amp;perpage=10&amp;exact=&amp;sort_by=prevailing_wage" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;h1bme.com&#x2F;?employer=BOX%2c%20INC.&amp;job_title=&amp;page=63&amp;...</a>

to get better numbers you can use your social security info.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ssa.gov&#x2F;myaccount&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ssa.gov&#x2F;myaccount&#x2F;</a>

No country is worse than Germany for software developers. Even the guy from India in this thread earns 2-3x more than usual senior salary in Germany, but expenses are 10x higher here. I really hate this country.

Bachelor&#x27;s degree 2012<p>1) 2012-2014: Firmware engineer in Romania for Automotive sector $14K<p>Master&#x27;s degree 2014<p>2) 2014 - 2016: Firmware engineer in Austria for Semiconductor sector $50K<p>3) 2016 - 2018: Firmware enginner in Austria for IoT in Retail electronics $59K

Throwaway.<p>2010-2014 in college. Contract work for a startup, approx 50 dollars per hour.<p>2015 worked full time for the startup, 100k salary no stock.<p>2016 moved to SV for FAANG company 1, negotiated well, 220k total comp.<p>2017 stayed at company 1. Signing bonus was very large, so total comp dropped to 190k depsite raise.<p>2018 moved to FAANG company 2. Negotiated well, total comp 300k.<p>Roughly 45% increase per year. I think I was able to negotiate well in both my job changes because I was happy with my current job and not in need of a new one. So I was able to ask for my ideal compensation, and I was not afraid to walk away.

Burner account, all in USD<p><pre><code> 1995 - $10&#x2F;hr web developer at NYC area digital agency, paid high school intern 1996 - $15&#x2F;hr - raise 1997 - $20&#x2F;hr - raise 1999 - $70k salary - web developer at NYC digital agency, sys admin 2001 - $110k salary - raise, promoted to VP engineering -- in here started doing a lot of freelance work on the side, eventually doubling my income with salary + freelance work 2005 - $250k&#x2F;yr+ in contract &#x2F; consulting work - many clients 2006 - $325k&#x2F;yr + $50k bonus + equity as CTO at startup 2007 - $340&#x2F;yr + $75k bonus - raise 2008 - Exited above at buyout incl sale of equity 2008 - $200k&#x2F;yr in contract &#x2F; consulting work, 2 main clients - partial year 2009 - $350k&#x2F;yr in contract &#x2F; consulting work, 2 main clients -- came to realize that all the hustle was not worth the dough and shifted to a balanced work&#x2F;life -- 2010 - $180k&#x2F;yr salary, VP engineering at NY media company 2011 - $140k&#x2F;yr salary + sick bonus and benefits at NY finance firm 2014 - $175k&#x2F;yr salary + variable bonus, CTO remote work at a digital agency 2015 - $180k&#x2F;yr - raise </code></pre> I worked my ass off for that 2005-2009 period, risking a lot in work-life balance. I now enjoy a very nice and even-keeled work-life balance and lifestyle with my family doing what I love.

What kind of work is being performed by those at the 200k level? machine learning or just like react, etc?

This kind of thread (and blog post) always intrigues me. What causes people to share their salaries like this? Your individual case is not interesting. Aggregate data is interesting.

I&#x27;ll add my salary. I am a white male. I began my first salaried position when I was 18, with an Associate&#x27;s Degree in Liberal Arts. I taught myself to write code in my teens. Prior to this position, I had worked for a fly-by-night startup remotely for $10&#x2F;hour for about 3 months. I took these jobs in the state of Michigan.<p><pre><code> 2014 - $50,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer - Company A 2015 - $72,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer - Company A (raise) 2016 - $80,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer - Company A (raise) 2016 - $88,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer II - Company B (new job; $5,000 signing bonus) 2017 - $92,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer II - Company B (raise) 2018 - $98,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer II - Company B (raise) 2018 - $110,000&#x2F;year - Software Engineer III - Company B (promotion) </code></pre> At Company A, I was offered stock options at my start date which became worthless by the time they vested. I later received RSUs in 2015 which began vesting after a 1-year cliff, to the tune of ~$10,000&#x2F;year.<p>At Company B, I was offered various stock options and RSUs pre-exit. When the company was acquired in 2018, they became worth ~$9,600&#x2F;year.<p>Additionally, Company B offered a bonus program worth approximately 10% of my salary each year.

My path:<p>2011 - $900 biweekly UX internship<p>2012 - $1200 biweekly web dev internship<p>2013 - $1700 biweekly web dev internship<p>2014 - $55k salary full time web developer<p>2015, 2016 - $65k full time web developer<p>2017 - $80k full time web developer (+ stock options)<p>2018 - raise at existing job to $84k

Wow, talk about being underpaid. $220k for principal architect at $BOX? Note that he received stock options, not RSUs, so the value of equity was very very small (strike price is necessarily very close to IPO price that close to IPO). That&#x27;s 30% less than a senior comp at FAANG, and $BOX may as well be FAANG for all the &quot;enterprisey&quot; things that would be in place at a company that size.<p>Principal anything should be in the $700k total comp range, if not more.

Throw away ID and first post. Some perspective from an old timer. All in the NYC financial disctrict. While finishing my college BS degree I was working at a major bank doing data entry, at the end supervising a night time data entry crew. This bank ran an internal training program for programmers, I applied and and started programming full time for them.<p>- 1987-1992 43k-60k programmer Bank 1 (IBM mainframe, cobol, 370 assembler, IMS, CICS)<p>- 1992-1997 60k- 80k senior programmer Bank 2 (was actually lucky enough to work in Smalltalk for the first 5 years here)<p>- 1997-2017 80k-221k various titles Bank 2 - java and the internet killed smalltalk and the project we were working on, the technology group jumped on java and we had many years of work converting mainframe apps to java apps.<p>Played many roles from leading a small team all new to java including myself, up to architecting and building the shared components and shared architecture for 45 J2EE applications. Was let go after 24 years there in yet one more reorg&#x2F;RIF 1 year after the last major mainframe app was migrated.<p>I am retired now, and feel lucky to have been able to have an interesting and challenging “normal” career with 2 large stable companies, with pensions, with matched 401k, etc.

Saint Petersburg, Russia.<p><pre><code> 2013-2014 ??? Literally pennies while doing odd jobs for random people on the internet. 2015-2016 $3600 Asp.net developer Working for a sub-sub-sub contractor on some government project. AFAIK, it has never been shipped to production. 2016-2017 $12000 Xamarin developer Small local company that went out of business due to Russian financial crisis [1] 2017-2018 $25000 .NET developer Large company(~600 franchise offices) focused on the local market 2018-now $36000 -&gt; $32000 Full stack developer Large outsourcing company, US-based customer. Salary has decreased since it&#x27;s bound to RUB and the exchange rate fell by about 10%. </code></pre> Income tax is flat 13%, most likely I&#x27;ll get it fully refunded for this year.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Russian_financial_crisis_(2014–2017)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Russian_financial_crisis_(2014...</a>

Wow, I&#x27;m actually shocked on seeing the low salaries on here. Having been on the hiring side for small projects (using mostly Upwork), I have had a really hard time finding quality for &lt; $50 &#x2F; hour for pretty basic crud development. That pencils out to ~$100k a year.<p>Maybe I&#x27;d have better luck hiring someone full time for $50k, and just fill the pipeline? Would love any thoughts on best moves here.

Is it some kind of being nice telling people they are underpaid all the time just because someone else earns more? Let&#x27;s be frank: Level of skill, experience (not just measured in years), productivity and (kinda important for salary and promotions) self-presentation vary greatly among employees. In a knowledge-based role like software engineer these make a huge impact on quality and quantity of work. Thus it&#x27;s only natural in a free market that some individuals earn more and some less.<p>Salary isn&#x27;t just a function of [years of experience] * [COL]. The majority is not skilled enough in some trait to make it into the high paying jobs or companies. It might not feel like that on HN, but this is a very selected&#x2F;biased group of people. Statistically speaking not only are 50% above the average, 50% are below. This is not only true for salary, but for everything including skill etc.<p>Let&#x27;s not forget that FAANG also make ridiculous margins and can afford to pay that well and pick every employee from hundreds of applications. That&#x27;s also impossible for most traditional companies. A lot of big companies run between 200k-300k$ revenue per employee and not 1million. It&#x27;s impossible for them to pay these wages (especially as revenue does not equal money available for salaries).<p>Am I saying that skill and productivity are always in line with salary? No. But it doesn&#x27;t help to tell everyone paid less they are underpaid. Maybe they just lack some kind of skill and even if it&#x27;s just the ability to correctly market their value, solve coding challenges in interviews or network into better positions. They might never earn the high figures and it really doesn&#x27;t help to make them feel bad about it (granted this comment also isn&#x27;t cheerful, but it&#x27;s aimed at the people calling &quot;underpaid&quot; all the time)

Burner account, obviously.<p>YOE -- Title&#x2F;Role -- Employer Designation -- Salary in USD pre-tax<p>0 -- IT Contractor -- Various&#x2F;Subbed -- $55000<p>2 -- IT Contractor -- Various&#x2F;Subbed -- $190000<p>3 -- Help Desk Tech -- Employer A -- $24000<p>5 -- Systems Admin -- Employer B -- $64000<p>7 -- Operations Engineer -- Employer B -- $83000<p>9 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer B -- $115000<p>11 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer D -- $135000<p>13 -- Senior Operations Engineer -- Employer E -- $155000<p>14 -- Product Manager -- Employer F -- $124000

Burner account<p>An ex-USSR white male moved to Prague, the Czech Republic a few years ago<p>7+ YOE as SWE<p>All numbers further are denominated in USD (they use Czech Crowns or CZK).<p>2018: $77k (current)<p>$40k&#x2F;year is my take-home<p>$57k&#x2F;year is what is negotiated and put in the contract as a monthly salary (some taxes are split between an employee and the employer)<p>$77k&#x2F;year is a total cost for the employer (includes income taxes, social security and healthcare)<p>(EDIT: formatting)

OK, I&#x27;ll do it. White male, living in Portland, Oregon. All my roles are software engineering.<p>- 2004-2006: $40-45k. Writing C in an embedded context (barcode scanners). Local company. - 2006-2011: $50k-70k. Writing C++ for device drivers and control panels. Japanese company, local subsidiary. - 2011-2012: $80k. C# and SQL Server for an FBA&#x2F;eBay selling tool, local company. - 2012-2014: $130-145k. Working remotely for an SF company, writing C. Got some stock options which were worth 2 years of salary when the company was recently acquired. - 2014-2016: $125-130k. VC-funded all-remote startup which didn&#x27;t really go anywhere. - 2016-present: $140k salary, yearly RSU grants worth about $50k at our current stock price. Public SF company.<p>None of these companies has required more than 40 hours of work each week, and starting in 2012 I&#x27;ve never had a vacation accrual or cap, and I usually take ~5 weeks off each year. I&#x27;ve been lucky.

No college, certs only.<p>2003-2006 SysAdmin $30k in FL. (No certs) as an FTE.<p>2006-2012 Netadmin $35k in FL. (a+, net+, sec+) as an FTE.<p>2012 SysEng $85k in OR. (CEH v7) as contractor at Intel.<p>2013 Pentester $110k in OR. as contractor at Intel.<p>2014 Security Analyst $150k in OR. Contractor at local power company.<p>2015 Sr. Security Analyst $120k in OR as FTE at insurance company.<p>2016 SecEng $170k in OR as FTE at aws<p>2017 SecEng $210k in OR as FTE at aws. (OSCP)<p>2018 SecEng $245k in OR as FTE at aws.

I studied at UWaterloo and had many internships from 2007-2010 for which I forget the pay I was making, but I remember all of my full-time amounts (I started with around 2 years of work experience):<p>2012-2013: RIM&#x2F;Blackberry in Waterloo, Canada: CAD 70,000, no bonus or stock, 15 days of vacation or so, 40h per week, software developer<p>2014-2016: YourGolfTravel in London, UK: GBP 41,000 first year, GBP 43,000 second year, no bonus or stock, 20 days vacation or so, 40h per week, software developer<p>2016-2017: Green Chef in Mountain View, California: USD 125,000 first year, USD 135,000 when I got promoted to team lead in mid 2017, $8k worth of stock options (post round B I believe, ~0.04%), &quot;unlimited vacation&quot;, really crap health insurance, 40h per week with some long days from being on-call with time-off-in-lieu given, software developer<p>2017-present: software developer &amp; architect at TELUS digital in Toronto, Canada, for not less than I was paid in the US

To add one more:<p>Germany, Hannover<p>Roughly two years out of university, but worked part time all the time and took a while to finish my master in CS. Lots of knowledge in ML and DL.<p>Pay is 53k for a position at the university and will be 56k with 38h weeks next year. (Don&#x27;t ask me for the hours at the university, thinking about it will make me cry) And the regular 30 vacation days.

Middle eastern male,<p>2014-2015: Consulting gig while in college, initial $10,000 bid. Signed Maintenence contract for $60&#x2F;hr ~ $125,000 &#x2F; year<p>Ended up with $34K total earned due to me studying as a full time student.<p>2015: First real job in SF California at startup. $110,000, $5K sign on.<p>2016: Promoted to $125,000<p>2018: Received offer for $180,000, counter offered to $180,000, took counter offer.

My history in Denmark, pre-tax converted to € per year. Titles are not really saying much. Most companies I&#x27;ve been at threw titles around.<p>2009 - Developer - 40 000€ 2010 - IT-Consultant - 56 000€ 2014 - Developer - 61 000€ 2015 - Senior Tech Lead - 67 500€ 2017 - Senior Engineer - 72 300€ 2018 - Lead Developer - 80 400€

From East Europe to Central Europe.<p><pre><code> 2012 - Junior web developer - 6k &#x2F; Year Euro - Romania (small outsourcing company) 2013 - Junior web developer - 11k &#x2F; Year Euro - Romania (same small outsourcing company) 2014 - Software Dev - 13K &#x2F; Year Euro - Romania (bigger outsourcing company) 2015 - Senior Software Dev - 15K &#x2F; Year Euro - Romania (outsourcing, the it dep of a german company) 2016 - Senior Software developer - 70k &#x2F; Year Euro - Germany, Berlin, very early stage startup 2017 - Senior Software Engineer - 70K &#x2F; Year Euro - Germany, Berlin, medium international fintech company 2018 - Senior Software Engineer - 65K &#x2F; Year Euro - Germany, Berlin, medium german company</code></pre>

After completing a CS degree from a tier 1 school:<p><pre><code> 1999 $55k Developer for Internet consulting firm $72k after promotion to Sr Developer 2000 $90k Lead developer at small SaaS startup in flyover country $100k after promotion to Technical Architect 2002 laid off during dot-com bust 2003 $90k+$20k bonus Developer at Wall St. firm 2005 $110k+$20k bonus Developer at another Wall St. firm 2006 $120k+$40k bonus Developer at another Wall St. firm 2008 $90k Sr Developer at line-of-business software company in </code></pre> flyover country, raises to $130k with promotions to Principal Software Architect over 8 years 2015 $155k Sr Data Engineer at CA-based SaaS startup 2016 $165k Sr Data Engineer at East Coast startup 2017 $185k Sr Software Engineer at CA-based software company

As a career-long deaf white male SDET &#x2F; QA Automation Engineer:<p>- 2013: $70000 + 3% bonus, freshly graduated with BS in CompSci, worked at big corporation in east coast<p>- 2014: $72000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above<p>- 2015: $74000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above<p>- 2016: $77000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above<p>- 2017: $80000 + 3% bonus (something like 2-3% raise - got max bonus+raise due to performance), same company as above<p>- 2017: $87000 + 0% bonus, moved to the midwest and worked at a startup, recruiter told me I&#x27;d get a bonus but turns out it&#x27;s only for higher-ups or something (wasn&#x27;t happy about this but still here)<p>- 2018: $90000 + 0% bonus (something like 3% raise), same company as above<p>Overall I don&#x27;t know whether I should be happy with this. It&#x27;s good pay and it&#x27;s a medium COL in both places where I lived on east coast and in the midwest and I keep my expenses low, but I frequently read huge salaries on HackerNews, CSCareerQuestions and such. I am very effective in my QA manual and automation test duties and catch nearly everything no matter how obscure, so a lot of my colleagues value me. However, the frequent low raises and low salary jumps tell me maybe I should just stop QA altogether and do development instead which would be an easy transition because I mostly work in development side for my QA test suites.<p>In summary, 5 years of my career has netted me a total raise of 28.5% from $70k to $90k with no stock options or bonus or anything. Am I doing it wrong? I&#x27;ve also never directly asked for a raise - am I supposed to do this? I asked a few colleagues and they said they never asked for a raise and were just given what they&#x27;re given. I do not know my colleague&#x27;s salaries past what&#x27;s posted on Glassdoor.

The rates in my field are pretty public.<p>2008 first “real” .net developer job after being the internal guy at several jobs. -85k Left that in 2010 for an etrm startup(though it was 15 years in business at that time) - 100k plus 1000 options. After an acquisition I got about 1.25 per share and left in 2011. Did odd senior .net dev jobs for a year at ~115k no benefits In 2012 joined etrm consulting start up for 130k. Left at ~140k.<p>Joined larger consulting company in 2014 for 160k with ~10% bonus.<p>Left and did indie etrm consulting in 2016 and bill at 140-200 per hour depending on terms. Have consistently been about 85-90% utilized on average. I feel like I am nearing the limit of what a year of working a job can generate. If I want to increase my wealth it would be via equity in a business. That’s the next goal.

I&#x27;m from South Africa. I&#x27;ve got 100% in the HackerRank test, and considered very good. My salary history is pretty depressing in comparison to others, although I was blissful in my ignorance until I met people who were open to talking about their salaries.<p>2008-1 Y0E-$12,000-Software Dev<p>2009-2 Y0E-$15,500-Software Dev<p>2010-3 Y0E-$17,000-Software Dev<p>2011-4 Y0E-$19,000-Software Dev<p>2012-5 Y0E-$23,000-Snr Software Dev<p>2013-6 Y0E-$27,500-Snr Software Dev<p>2014-7 Y0E-$31,000-Snr Software Dev<p>2015-8 Y0E-$34,000-Snr Software Dev<p>2016-9 Y0E-$43,000-Snr Software Dev<p>2017-10 Y0E-$54,000-Snr Software Dev<p>2018-11 Y0E-$63,500-Snr Software Dev<p>Average rent per year is about $8,500.<p>Average house cost is about $142,000 with interest rate of 10% pa.<p>Income tax rate is about 40%.<p>My biggest problem was working at the same company for about 9 years, cause after that my salary almost doubled. I&#x27;m seriously considering emigrating though, I&#x27;m working too hard and my savings are paltry.

I&#x27;m probably the lowest paid person in the whole thread.<p>2015 - $40,000 USD - remote for a small company<p>2017 - $32,000 USD - on-site for a tiny company<p>2018 - $33,000 USD - remote for another small company<p>I was asked what my current salary is during one of my on-site interviews at FAANG. I had to put on a poker face and lie about it.

2010-2016 Web &#x2F; Mobile app developer $35K - $47.5K<p>Living in a small Canadian city makes it hard to gauge how much I should be making.. I haven&#x27;t worked in 2yrs due to mental illnesses (mostly aspergers), I wouldn&#x27;t know how to explain my situation at interviews either..

Indian guy - currently a freelancer<p>2002 - First job about 3000$ a year<p>2005 - Started freelaicing - about 8000$ a year<p>2018 - About 42000$ a year before taxes<p>I get paid in INR, even though I contract for a small company in the US, so the inflation eats away the growth - on the other hand, I work from home, and it takes maybe 3 to 4 hours a day (at most) to complete my tasks.<p>Some weeks go by with hardly anything to do but minor bug fixes and UI tweaks. Great employers, autonomy, interesting work.<p>In terms of purchasing power I feel very blessed that I make more than an average US citizen, while living in a country where things cost 1&#x2F;5 compared to the US.<p>People of my caliber and experience make about 3 times more than me in regular 9 to 7 tech jobs. Very few remain &quot;coders&quot; after more than 10 years in the industry.

New Zealand, mixture of salary and freelance, for domestic companies. Excludes employer superannuation contributions and non-cash compensation (not high).<p>The USD comparison is not very useful as NZDUSD has varied wildly in this time, betwen 0.4 and 1.0, currently 0.65.<p>I&#x27;ve never worked more than 40 hours a week on average as an employee, the $200k+ years are where I worked more hours as a contractor usually.<p><pre><code> 2005 39k NZD 26k USD 2006 48k NZD 31k USD 2007 35k NZD 23k USD 2008 61k NZD 40k USD 2009 98k NZD 64k USD 2010 144k NZD 93k USD 2011 182k NZD 119k USD 2012 206k NZD 134k USD 2013 171k NZD 111k USD 2014 196k NZD 127k USD 2015 218k NZD 142k USD 2016 173k NZD 112k USD 2017 174k NZD 113k USD</code></pre>

I feel like something went a bit wierd with my wages compared so some people here.<p>Not level - that&#x27;s about geography and company and other factors. But in progression.<p>I have never asked for or recieved a pay rise, although I have been offered retention money.<p>That said, it might just be the industry, colleagues talked about similar numbers.<p>2008 - £24k - Junior Electronic Engineer (C++&#x2F;embeded)- Large engineering corp (2 years)<p>2010 - £20k - Software Engineer (C#&#x2F;embedded)- Small engineering firm (1 year)<p>2011 - Studied masters<p>2012 - £22k - Software engineer (C++&#x2F;C#&#x2F;web)- Small software product house (2 years)<p>2014 - £28k - Software Engineer (C++&#x2F;embedded) - large aerospace company (6 months)<p>2015 - £25k - Freelancing - Android apps<p>2016 - £30k - Software Engineer - Data proccessing<p>2017 - £52k - Data Architect - Data proccessing

Jan 2018 - First permanent job out of college: &quot;dev&#x2F;ops engineer&quot; - (Basically: help with docker stuff, manage all CI&#x2F;CD, some Linux sysadmin stuff, misc SRE stuff, and occasionally some Rails development or other web dev tasks as needed).<p>$62,000. Rarely more than 40 hours&#x2F;week, never&#x2F;rarely weekend&#x2F;evening work, and generous PTO (5+ weeks of vacation + legal holiday + sick leave).<p>Previous work was 3 years as a student linux sysadmin working for a research department on campus, and then a contract position with them after I graduated for ~6 months before I found a permanent job.<p>US - Midwest. White. Male. Born in &#x27;92. Took me a while to get through college.

I&#x27;m a front-end Dev based in FL who works 100% remote. Mostly HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and liquid. Usually nothing too crazy. Mostly making custom hand-coded brochure type sites for a smaller but growing company. Started at $60k and increased to $65k after a year. I&#x27;ve only been coding for about 3 years. No formal education. All self-taught after discovering a passion for code. After 2 years with my current company, I&#x27;ll be looking to branch out to find something more challenging (full-stack) with higher pay but I think so far where I am at is a decent place to start considering I got here without a cs degree.

Let me add to the sharing:<p>A developer, EU, central-europe country with a single room flat rent around 500$.<p>2011-2012 - 4k$&#x2F; year - QA engineer intern in fortune 500 corp (part-time) 2012-2014 - 10k$&#x2F;year - QA engineer (part-time) 2014-2016 - 20k$&#x2F;year - QA engineer 2016-2018 - 30k$&#x2F;year - Senior QA engineer 2018- - 36k$&#x2F;year - Backend engineer, 3 day weekends, but some on-call duty<p>I would like to figure out how to get to one of those 100k$&#x2F;year jobs in reasonably close future :-) Not sure how would I justify that just now with my current skill-set (unless somebody really wanted somebody specialized on QA :)

For Me It Looks like (each representing a different company)<p>98-05 - various internships over summers $10-$15&#x2F;hrish<p>2005 - $56K, employee stock purchase plan worth maybe $5K<p>2007 - $0 (try to launch startup)<p>2008 - $80Kish, no stock (Senior Software Engineer)<p>2011 - $95Kish (ended just over $100K), worthless options (Software Engineer)<p>2013 - Moved To Bay Area, $110K, worthless options, tiny startup (Software Engineer), end at $120K as Lead Software Engineer<p>2014ish - $140K, probably worthless options, slightly larger startup (Senior Software Engineer)<p>2017-present $165K-&gt;$175K, definitely larger startup, actually worth something options (at least in the money, but pre-IPO so no immediate value). ( Senior Software Engineer)

1998 - $39k - Consultant - large co<p>1999 - $60k - Sr. Consultant<p>2000 - $85k, 5k options - Sr. Consultant - startup #1<p>2001 - $90k - Sr. Engineer<p>2002 - $95k, OTE $130k - Sales engineering<p>2005 - $110k, 10k options, OTE $200k - Sales engineering mgr - startup #2<p>2007 - $80k - own startup<p>2010 - $400k - acquisition, $200&#x2F;hr consulting<p>2012 - $450k - $215&#x2F;hr consulting<p>2015 - $500k - $225&#x2F;hr consulting<p>2017 - $400k, $100k starting - eng leadership - bigco<p>2018 - $200k, $500k OTE, stock rsu - sales - bigco<p>Net - more salary growth in sales, also more risk. technical sales (sales engineering) roles are hot commodity if you can code and do devops. good intro to carrying a bag. consulting is a good option if you move from technical sales and have a good network.

The salaries are somewhat reflective of where you work and how good was your interview. And of course you have to love what you do. 2010 . 72 . (East Coast) 2011 . 78 . (East Coast) 2012 . 84 (East Coast) 2013 . 88 . (East Coast) 2014 . 96 . (East Coast) 2014 . 135 . CA 2017 . 210 + 20 CA 2018 . 185 + 30 + 60 CA 2018 . 195 +25 + ? CA<p>I try not to work more than 40 hrs a week. Ironically people are more happy when I am working lesser cause it seems to ease everyone. I have been able to get offers as high as 350K for base salary but honestly they scare me.

I don&#x27;t remember my total history exactly (yearly increments especially), but it went something like this...<p>- 1999: 32K, sysadmin, tiny ISP<p>- 2000: 48K, sysadmin, small telecom co<p>- 2002-2013: 65K-&gt;105K, sysadmin-&gt;developer, small telecom<p>- 2014-2018: 120K-&gt;140K, developer, medium sized co<p>This is all in Portland Oregon, and does not include bonus or stock numbers. Having recently been a manager for a while, I&#x27;m paid slightly higher than average for an experienced developer at my company. I&#x27;m in the process of looking for my next gig. Mostly because I&#x27;m bored, not because I&#x27;m looking for more money.

White male, middling state university CS, Software Engineer track, US east coast HCOL cities. Never more than a straight 40h&#x2F;wk.<p><pre><code> 2006-2009 - small co - 40k -&gt; 50k 2009 - took a year off to travel - 0k 2009-2011 - small co - 65k -&gt; 80k 2011-2012 - stereotypical startup - 100k 2012 - Tried to start a software co - 0k 2013-2018 - non-unicorn medium co - 105k -&gt; 175k</code></pre>

Not many ops or 40+ answers. White male only high school educated. Self taught CS.<p>Here is mine from an ops management perspective. Missouri.<p>$30K 88-89 - Progress database developer Insurance $50K 89-94 - Citi started as technical support ended up LAN Manager $60K 94-96 - Independent Consultant for PC sellers doing LAN&#x2F;WAN installations $65K 96-97 - National reseller as Systems Engineer Manager $100K - 99-09 National telecom company as international call center technical manager $150K - 09 to current VP of IT for legal software company responsible for ops and development

White male, graduated from quite a good school in France in 2006. Wages in gross, 33% tax on it. And the employer also pays 33% tax on gross, for social insurances.<p>- 2006: 36k€, Java&#x2F;js dev in Luxembourg&#x2F;banking<p>- 2007-2010: 35k€, Java dev in France, service company,<p>- 2011-2013: 70k$, Java dev in Australia<p>- 2014: Startup founder (France), 30k€<p>- 2015: Startup founder, 50k€,<p>- 2016: Startup founder, 60k€<p>- 2017: Startup founder, 70k€<p>I feel like a failure, compared to all my friends and people on HN who show high salaries for engineers, but I suppose we only see wages of the successful ones, and I reckon I’m super angry with life which is a vicious circle for employers.

Also a white male.<p>2012-2016: Grad student $23k<p>2017: Data scientist $110k (very low COL)<p>2018: Data scientist $250k (very high COL)<p>Weirdly enough, I only save slightly more after all expenses at my new job than I did at my previous job because of tax and COL differences.

U.S., Michigan based, white male, late twenties, began programming as a teen, no college education.<p>2009: $25k - Junior web developer at A - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2010: $40k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2011: $50k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2012: $50k - Junior web developer at B - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2013: $60k - Web developer at C - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2014: $70k - Web developer at C - 40hr&#x2F;wk<p>2015: $80k + $5k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr&#x2F;wk, on-call<p>2016: $90k + $10k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr&#x2F;wk, on-call<p>2017: $100k + $15k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr&#x2F;wk, on-call<p>2018: $110k + $15k bonus - Lead web developer at C - 40-45hr&#x2F;wk, on-call

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;bimodal-compensation" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;danluu.com&#x2F;bimodal-compensation</a> is a pretty interesting read, I think.<p>It does seem to me based on reading these topics that there&#x27;s a set of developers that think anything above X is crazy, and a set of developers that think anything below X is crazy, and they don&#x27;t really overlap.<p>That&#x27;s the case across all disciplines&#x2F;people, of course (I guess you&#x27;d call it... the class system?) but I think it&#x27;s a lot less discrete.

HN could have anonymous, expiring accounts.<p>Italy. I am 30 now.<p>2012 €500&#x2F;mo, €1000&#x2F;mo after 6 months &quot;body rental&quot;<p>2013 €25k + car associate consultant in IT company<p>2014 €30k + car consultant in same IT company<p>2015 €37k IT business analyst in large manufacturing company<p>2016 €40k same<p>2017 €42k same<p>2018 €42k same

28, software engineer in the US.<p>2011-2014: $32,000. Montana Started as an internship, turned into a full time job with a $1&#x2F;hour raise. More IT than software dev.<p>2014-2015: $48,000. Montana. Moved with a contract, last company went under.<p>2015: $70,000. Seattle. First &quot;real&quot; software job. Left 3 months later.<p>2015-2016: $85,000-$100,000. 20% bonus. Seattle. Series C startup.<p>2016-2017: $85,000. No bonus. Seattle. Seed funded startup. Took a pay cut because I thought they had something. They still might.<p>2017-2018: $120,000. 20% bonus. Seattle. Fortune 500. Great work&#x2F;life balance.

Graduted in NZ with a Bachelor in Computer Science in 2007<p>(never worked anywhere that has paid a bonus)<p>2007 - 2008 - 38.5K - grad position, web dev 2009 - 2011 - 55K NZD - new job, web dev 2011 - £60K - web dev contracting in London 2012 - £84K - web dev contracting in London 2013 - 150-180K NZD - remote senior web dev contracting from NZ<p>Tax in the UK was somewhere between 20-30%. Tax in NZ works out ~30% roughly.<p>Cost of living in the UK was expensive. In comparison I own my own house in NZ and my mortgage repayments are less than we were paying in rent in the UK.

San Francisco<p>2013 - $82,000 - Software Engineer, Startup<p>2014 - $117,000 - Software Engineer, Startup<p>2015 - $144,000 - Software Engineer, Startup<p>2016 - $153,000 - Software Engineer, Bigco<p>2017 - $176,000 - Senior Software Engineer, Bigco<p>2018 - $187,000 - Senior Software Engineer, Bigco

Using a throwaway (all normalised to GBP):<p>2005-2007 - London, UK - Cofounder of consultancy - £40k base, £100-120k dividends 2007-2009 - San Francisco - Principal SDE @ FAANG - £90,000, £20,000 signing bonus 2009-2011 - London - Senior Engineering Manager @ FAANG - £100,000, £20,000 bonus 2011-2013 - London - Start-up co-founder - [It&#x27;s complicated] about £70,000 all in yearly, exited and made up for shortfall 2013-Present - London - Partner @ Large Consultancy - £250,000 base, £200,000 bonus

Texas:<p>01-03: McDonald&#x27;s $11,000 - $31,000<p>04-10 USAF $38,000 for a while, then lower for a long time, ultimately $42,000 I think<p>10-13 Fortune 500 Gov Contracter, $60,000 - $65,000 (rent 800-900, then 30 yr mortgage + taxes $1500 for ~2000 sqft 10 acres)<p>13-15 Fortune 500 Gov Contractor, $66,000 - $69,000<p>in 14: Graduated with B.S. in C.S. from crappy military-heavy college<p>15-17 Same job, different contractor $69,000 - $72,000<p>17-18 Same job, different contractor $82,000<p>I work in IT, occasional programming duties. All jobs strictly limited to 40 hrs&#x2F;week or 80 hrs&#x2F;pay period. USAF was even 40 hrs.

Male, USA, college is nothing special (sometimes get laughs), other defining aspects I dont want to reveal here that probably matter and to make sense of multiple job changes. Not sure how I stand compared to others my age&#x2F;skill-set. idk. I&#x27;ve made a name and strong connections in my industry... outlook looks decent.<p>2015 - mid-level at employer A - $80k<p>2016 - Sr Y at employer A - $95k<p>2017 - Sr Y at employer B - $105k<p>2018 - Sr Y at employer C - $130k base, $60k bonus plan, $100k RSU<p>2018 - Sr X at employer D - $190k base, 15% bonus plan, $100k RSU

To add another &quot;boring&quot; salary data point:<p>- $56-70K USD - 2013-2015 - Software developer at a big corporation in the midwest.<p>- $90K USD - 2015 - Same company, new department. Unusually good pay for the area.<p>- $41-45K USD ($54-60K CAD) - 2016-current - Moved to Prince Edward Island, Canada (to marry my wife) and took a job as a software developer at one of the very few software companies here. The paycut was brutal, but all things considered, one of the best decisions I&#x27;ve ever made!

Excellent coverage od an important topic. Glad he is sharing.

Work history is probably going to out who I am to someone, but:<p>- $50k-$80k(?) - 2012-2014 - Mobile game company (gameplay\engine)<p>- $85k - 2014-2015 - AAA games company (gameplay\ai)<p>- $105k-$135k(?) - 2015-2017 - Technically a VR company (engine)<p>- $175k-$183k(?) + ~$95k yearly PSU + ~$60k other bonuses - 2017-2018 - Self Driving Car company<p>On the one hand I&#x27;m a huge outlier who got in something at the right time. On the other hand I&#x27;m really good at my job...but probably overpaid.

8 years in same company at Waltham, MA (Revenue~700Million)<p>2010 - Junior software developer - $89000 ($10000 signing) 2011 - Software developer - $92000 2012 - Software developer - $95000 2013 - Software developer - $98000 2014 - Software developer - $104000 2015 - Software developer - $118000 2016 - Senior software developer - $128000 2017 - Senior software developer - $134000 2018 - Senior software developer - $138000

Spent my career in SoCal, mostly working full-time in developer and PM roles at financial firms. Changed jobs 7-8 times. All numbers are approximate.<p>1998: $46K + 3K bonus<p>1999: $55K + 4K bonus<p>2000: $67K + 5K bonus<p>2001: $85K + 15K bonus (new job)<p>2002: $90K + 20K bonus<p>2003: $95K + 20K bonus<p>2004: $110K + 45K bonus (big jump when I threatened to quit)<p>2005: $115K + 65K bonus<p>2006: $115K + 65K bonus<p>2007: $150K + 50K bonus<p>2008: $150K + 50K bonus<p>2009: $150K + 50K bonus<p>2010: $150K + 75K bonus<p>2011: $50K (took an 18 mo sabbatical because I was burned the eff out)<p>2012: $100K (worked for only the last half of the year)<p>2013: $275K (consultant)<p>2014: $275K (consultant)<p>2015: $275K (consultant)<p>2016: $275K (consultant)<p>2017: $175K + 175K bonus<p>2018: $175K + ??? bonus

I&#x27;m from the Midwest, not Chicago. These values don&#x27;t include bonuses or other compensation, just annual salary. I&#x27;m in my upper 20&#x27;s.<p>2011 - $ 12&#x2F;hour - web dev intern - company 1<p>2012 - $45K&#x2F;year - web developer - company 1<p>2012 - $55K&#x2F;year - software engineer - company 2<p>2016 - $68K&#x2F;year - software engineer - company 2<p>2016 - $80K&#x2F;year - senior dev - company 3<p>2017 - $85K&#x2F;year - senior dev - company 3<p>2018 - $110K&#x2F;year - lead dev - company 4 (anticipated offer)

I&#x27;m always shocked by the difference in pay in the tech industry between US and UK.<p>For similar career path, my pay has consistently been significantly behind this based on a pure currency conversion.<p>And also I&#x27;m sure our living expenses are higher. Most hardware I buy seems to be priced the same or very similar in $ and £ so effectively charging a premium to UK buyers.<p>Am I comparing wrong, or are US tech works really so well played?

Throwaway account. Mid-30s male born in Eastern Europe, working in the USA.<p>Washington DC area:<p>2005-2009 - ~ $25K (grad school; part-time research assistant, code monkey, and sysadmin)<p>2010-2011 - 0 (bad things happened)<p>2012 - $56K (software developer, remote contractor for a Canadian company)<p>2013-2016 - $74-82K (software developer, contractor at a government facility)<p>2017 - $90K (software developer, contractor at a government facility)<p>NYC<p>2018 - $150K salary, $275K incl. stock and bonus (software engineer, FAANG)

As a younger developer 58k Junior Web Developer - St. Louis, Startup (2016 - 2018) 75k Web Developer - New Mexico, Mid sized company (2018 -)

Burner account. Software engineer, C, C++, Assembler, Java, LUA, python, perl, bash, objc, swift, COBOL, Pascal, EJB, Linux, Windows, Mac, BSD.<p>1996: 28k<p>1998: 40k<p>2000: 65k<p>2003: 70k<p>2004: 72k<p>2009: Startup founder in San Francisco, 40k<p>2011: Startup founter same company: 85k<p>2014: Startup founder same company, 115k<p>2016: Freelancer, effectively 50k due to lack of contracts<p>2018: bbigco, 90k<p>Dunno what I&#x27;m doing wrong... I&#x27;ve got a few github&#x2F;sf projects I started with 1000+ stars and over 10mb of open source code. I guess I suck at negotiation?

Graduated College 1992 Information Systems Drexel University All jobs in around Philadelphia (except 95-97) 1992 - 24k 1994 - 32k 1995 - 33k (but in Wyoming) 1997 - 80k 1999 - 95k 2000 - 84k 2003 - 110k 2006 - 150k (contracting) 2010 - 115k (converted to salary) 2012 - 155k (back to contacting) 2013 - 110k (back to salary) 2018 - 120k (same job, small increases)

<p><pre><code> 2007 bigco1 74000 base, $30000 stock [fired performance] 2010 startup 85000 base, 1000x stock 2011 fired for performance (company later went public, and stock was &gt;$100 so that cost me 100k) 2015 govt 56000 after 4 years unemployed (basically drinking and getting high everyday on savings) 2018 bigco2 100000 (sober now)</code></pre>

This is the crazy part for me:<p><i>They suggested that she contact human rights organisations, so Julie rang up and left messages with several - but she never received a reply.</i><p>What is up with non-replies from organizations? She reaches out and nothing. It&#x27;s not a Facebook Ad Request appeal (an aside, is crazy how non-responsive they can be and get away with it) it&#x27;s human rights!

2015 - IT Support - 50000 AUD Base - 1000 AUD Profit share<p>2016 - IT Support - 60000 AUD - Merit increase - 1200 AUD Profit share<p>2017 - Software Engineer - 65000 AUD - New role, New team same company - 1500 AUD Profit share<p>2018 - Software Engineer - 80000 AUD - Pay match job offer - 2500 AUD Profit share<p>Some rough numbers from Australia, these are all pre-tax which is roughly 3572$ + 33% of (Pay - 37000$)

- 2013-2015 student - 2013-2014 $25&#x2F;hr internship 20 hours&#x2F;week - 2015 50k internship converted to full time - 2016 105k software engineer at startup - 2017 130k software engineer at same startup - 2018 145k lead software engineer at same startup<p>all of these are in low cost southwest (not Phoenix, think mountains)

Fort Lauderdale, FL<p>2011-2012 Intern test engineer at a small software shop, $15&#x2F;hr<p>2013-2014 Full time test engineer at same small software shop. Starting $45k, ending $50k<p>2014-2018 Full time software engineer at a larger corporate place, starting 82k currently 105k<p>All of the above doing systems programming with c&#x2F;c++ mostly and a drop of powershell and C#

I&#x27;m an extreme outlier. No degree. Started coding as a child. Dropped out of college. United States (not in SV).<p>2000-2002 - 25k hardware technician &#x2F; repair<p>2003-2005 - 45k web developer<p>2006 70k - biometrics&#x2F;vision developer<p>2007 - 100k - &#x27;Enterprise&#x27; developer<p>2008 - 105k<p>2010 - 120k<p>2011 - 190k - F500 developer (base+bonus)<p>2012 - 200k<p>2013 - 215k<p>2014 - 220k<p>2015 - 225k<p>2016 - 160k - restart in another field (passion)<p>2017 - 180k - try yet another passion field<p>2018 - 280k - (base) returned to enterprise-y work

Black Male here.<p>2014 - 58,000 -&gt; 62000 Entry Level Dev at Fin Company X<p>2015 - 62000 -&gt; 65000 Entry Level Dev at Fin Company X<p>2016 - 65000 -&gt; 70000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X<p>2017 - 70000 -&gt; 74000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X<p>2018 to mid 2018 74000 -&gt; 84000 Intermediate Dev at Fin Company X<p>mid 2018 to end 2018 84000 -&gt; 95000 Senior Engineer at Consulting Company X

I&#x27;ve never really had a proper job title. Graduated in 2013. Currently in London, UK.<p>2013, £20,000, Web Design studio in Oxford A<p>2014, £28,000, London startup B<p>2015, £35,000, London startup B<p>2016, £45,000, London startup B<p>2017, £55,000, London small software company C<p>2018, £60,000 + £15k bonus, London small software company C<p>Negotiation pending, I am hoping for £75,000 base next year at company C.<p>I work 7 hours a day.

I think the author is in fact unhumble bragging. I have been in IT for 26 years, have managed IT teams, every boss I have had would hire me back. I live in a mid sized city. I don&#x27;t make close to half those numbers. I have no idea how these people get these crazy high salary jobs.

Here&#x27;s another data point. Quantitative science B.S. from low-tier UC. Data analyst&#x2F;engineer&#x2F;data scientist. Silicon valley. Non FAANG.<p>Mix of promotions and job changes:<p>2009 $55k + worthless stock<p>2012 $80k + $10k or 15k signing<p>2013 $100k + $100k worthless stock<p>2014 $115k + $200k worthless stock<p>2015 $150k + $20k signing + $50-$100k stock<p>2017 $190k + $100k-$150k stock<p>2018 $260k + $200k-$300k stock

In the UK, in Bristol;<p>2009 - exploited minion for a US corp; £22k<p>2010 - junior at a SME; £30k. By the time I left I&#x27;d got to £40k<p>2014 - mid-level for a US corp: £45k. Up to £51k when I quit.<p>2018 - seniorish at another SME, £60k<p>All of the above are with 3-5% pension contributions + rubbish health care. I do a mixture of embedded, devops and back-end web.

Just to add a China-based data point working for an overseas R&amp;D lab of a big American company (not a FANG, but close). I started in 2007 at around 36K RMB&#x2F;month, and ended in 2016 at around 60K RMB&#x2F;month, not including stock or bonuses, which were substantial.

Living in Spain (per year):<p>2013-2015: 7.200€ - 9.600€ (Internship, never full time, around 30 hours per week. Company A)<p>2015 graduated on computer science<p>2015: 18.000€ (working on a research group on the university. Company B)<p>2016: 25.000€ - 29.000€ (My salary was increased on september. Company C)<p>2017: 29.000€ (Company C)<p>2018: 29.000€ (Company C)<p>I move to Germany on October:<p>2018: 70.000€ (Company D)

How is he &quot;senior&quot; after only 5 YOE? In my company senior developer is more like 15 years

Salary isn&#x27;t everything. I&#x27;m more interested in your monthly expenses, your vacation days, your parental leave options and flexible work hours.<p>200k USD a year is just shocking to me living in Swedens 3rd largest city, ca. 300k inhabitants.<p>But I live well and I feel good from my work.

Nick is a very nice guy. I recall chatting with him back in his MatrixOne days. Great coder too.

My history from Midwest to Mountain West<p>2004-2014 53K - 85K at the same company ( Had a shit ton of extracurricular pursuits.. didn&#x27;t really focus on software engineer growth)<p>2015-2017 95K - 107K different company<p>2018 contracting 170K contractor at different company<p>2018 FTE 140K + bonus + benefits at different company

SF 30 year old Indian guy, first year of first job out of grad school<p>251k = 145k salary + 40k bonus (30 signing and 10 end of year) + 66k (RSU per year)<p>This was possible due to unique nature of the role, grad school and internship that got converted into a return offer.

In our country where I am based on, the salary is pretty much less. Also, the living standard is also low.<p>2014-2016: Junior web developer. starting $1.2k (annual) ending $3.6k (annual)<p>2017-present: Software Engineer. starting $5k (annual), current $7k (annual)

So the guy went in 14 years from zero to &quot;principal architect&quot; ?<p>Can someone explain to me is this based on technical merit or is it just networking&#x2F;office politics&#x2F;bullying&#x2F;elbow tactics&#x2F;ass kissing&#x2F;luck?

Germany.<p>At the end we compare numbers as life itself can´t be compared. Living in a certain town and certain country. Costs of living vary from country to region. I choose to freelance as it means more income and less social security. I´m not having paid vacations plus the bonuses of an employee.<p>I never worked more than 40 hours&#x2F;week though. Not as a freelancer, not as an employee. This is not game development. Nonetheless I worked for a agency recently where the employees got jobs like: here are 30 layouts for a Magento shop (by a designer who neither knows responsive design nor shop systems) and the template needs to be done by the end of the week. I´m not making this up. Companies like this are not running sustainable and you IMHO you should get out there as quickly as possible.<p>I started developing ecommerce sites back in 2008. Worked for a specialised web agency (size: around 20 people) back then and got around 1600 Euros&#x2F;month net, after taxes. I don´t remember the precise numbers any more.<p>I started freelancing in 2011 and got a higher income (not in the first year though). I served mainly small businesses. I still have the numbers. They are net, post taxes and health insurance already paid.<p>2011 15045 Euros  2012 34826 Euros 2013 28320 Euros 2014 46582 Euros<p>Decided to travel afterwards and give a regular job a try when I came back. Got a position as PHP &#x2F; Web developer at a small agency (size: 10-15 people). Now relocated to the south of Germany. That would have been<p>2016 48000 Euros pre-tax or 25560 Euros net<p>Probably a small bonus added at the end of the year as well. I never found. I quit after a few months as I figured out that being employed is not my cup of tea. I earned about 30.800 Euros pre-tax. You can get some of your taxes back if you don´t work a full year as an employee.<p>Fast forward: back to freelancing again. Earning between 65 and 80 Euros per hour now, pre taxes Can´t say how much I will earn this year cause I didn´t work last year at all and only a few months this year. Which is sufficient to pay rent (and have enough time to witness the first months on earth of my son).<p>Developing applications with PHP and JavaScript frameworks. No more small customers, working on full-time project for a couple of months.<p>There have been studies posted at German portal heise.de in the last months claiming software freelancers in Germany make an average of 91 Euros&#x2F;hour. I somehow doubt that. Or: depends who you ask and how big your sample is.<p>Not me and I´m fine with what I make. Demand for freelance developers is high right now, I get lots of requests. How about you guys? :)

Nashville. Econ Degree minor in Comp Sci.<p>Jun 2017 - Automated QA 22&#x2F;hr<p>Feb 2018 - Junior Dev 50k &#x2F; yr<p>Looking to make a move to Denver &#x2F; San Diego. Anyone have an idea what compensation would look like for someone with 1.5 yr experience?

In the UK<p>* Industrial Placement (1 year):Developer&#x2F;Administrator £18,500<p>* First job after graduation (2 Years):PHP Developer £20,000<p>* Second job (3 1&#x2F;2 years): Magento&#x2F;PHP Developer £28,500<p>* Third (current - 10 months):PHP Developer £50,000

It amazes me that someone as intelligent as this guy can say something asinine as “as a white man I know I can negotiate without backlash.” Not only is there no evidence to support this, he seems completely oblivious to the fact that he is not a representative white man at all. He has written widely used books on JavaScript! Don’t you think THAT might be the reason he can negotiate without backlash rather than his race and sex which he has in common with probably half of all applicants? Please don’t paint all of us just average, struggling white men as undeserving and privileged just because you have been extremely fortunate and successful.

San fran vs other places in cali also make a huge difference

Here&#x27;s my pay history: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jefftk.com&#x2F;money" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jefftk.com&#x2F;money</a>

Burner account :) All amounts in AUD and all jobs based in Sydney and I am yet another white male.<p><pre><code> 1999 $27,000 Tech Support at an ISP 40 hour week. 1999 $29,000 Tech Support at a different ISP 32 hour week (graveyard shift) then Linux Engineer. $20k Stock that I never took because dot.com :( 2000 $30,000 House Gamer at a net cafe (Oh god I miss those days). 40 hours a week graveyard shift. 2001-2 Unemployed, occasional work still at the $30k mark. 2003 $30,000 Tech Support at a hosting company, 40 hour week. 2005 $95,000 Tech Support at a global storage giant with 3% pay rises year on year until I left. 40 hour week, 1 weekend a month. 2009 $110,000 Team Lead at a small IT Managed Service Provider, 40-60 hours a week. Outages all the time. 2010 $115,000 Senior Backup Engineer at global MSP, 60 hour week with lots of weekend work and 2am calls. 2011 $120,000 Consultant at a small company, 5% pay rises every year. Didn&#x27;t know how good it was until I let. 2014 $140,000 plus $45k commission Sales Engineer at a US based Startup. Varied hours lots of travel. Usually 40 hours a week. $40k USD stock options vested over 5 years, when I left I elected to not take them because of Australia&#x27;s dumb tax laws that were changed a year later. Also the startup didn&#x27;t look like it was going to IPO anytime soon (and still hasn&#x27;t). 2016 $900&#x2F;d ($240k&#x2F;y) consultant (This was Melbourne based so I was paying $500&#x2F;w in travel costs). 40 hours a week. 2016 $165,000 Software architect at a global MSP 40-50 hour weeks. 2017 $180,000 Director at a big Consulting firm. 60+ hours every single week. 2018 $210,000 Director at a smaller firm that treats people a lot better. 40 hour week with lots of flexibility. </code></pre> In total an 11.4% year on year increase since I left high school. Sometimes dumb luck, sometimes backwards to get a job that meant less travel or less shit environments. I am not the worlds best negotiator, I tend to ask high and if they push back I retreat quickly, so it only works when I&#x27;m up against someone worse.<p>Yes I&#x27;ve had jobs fall through because the number I asked was way higher than they were prepared to pay and they didn&#x27;t see any point negotiating.<p>I don&#x27;t change jobs for money. The only time I&#x27;ve ever done that was the move in 2005 because they almost tripled my salary overnight. I change jobs because I get bored and want a new challenge. I stayed in the 2005 job for 4 years not because of the pay, but because the sheer number of products and platforms available meant I was always challenged and learning.<p>I have a family situation that requires me to keep earning lots of money for a few more years as I support others. Once that passes I intend to cut back to 3 days per week work and complete a PHD or similar.

Anyone know how are glassdoor, stackoverflow, etc salary estimates, for a given candidate profile and geographic location?

DC<p>- $42k-55k: 2013-2015, Manual Testing@Big Consulting<p>- $70k-105k: 2015-2017, Lead QA Eng &gt; Dev Team Mgr@Small Niche Consulting<p>- $110k: 2017-current, Software Eng@Startup

Yahoo was paying engineers half or less compared to FAANG. It illustrates that by that time (2011), Yahoo was on hospice.

US Male, MechE degree doing CS, Denver:<p>2017: 75k<p>2018: $45&#x2F;hr (~93k. no benefits, but still on parent&#x27;s healthcare)

In the Midwest without a college degree: 2015-2016: 40K 2017-2018: 80K Current: 115K

Normalized to some baseline effective USD? It needs to be adjusted for CPI.

all figures are total comp<p>&#x27;05-&#x27;07 - software engineer, midwest - $54k -&gt; $68k<p>&#x27;08-&#x27;14 - software enginner, east coast non-profit - $70k -&gt; $90k<p>&#x27;15-&#x27;17 - swe III, google - $200k -&gt; $260k

- $38k Entry level dev<p>- $65k Lead developer<p>- $125k Director of development<p>- $180k Product director

As a white man I&#x27;ve gotten backlash for asking for a raise.

I grew up in Moscow, Russia; but have lived my entire adult life in NYC. I&#x27;m a US citizen. No education.<p>2002-2005: As a teenager, I&#x27;ve done odd jobs here and there, never adding up to more than a few thousand per year. Built some websites, set up some networks. Nothing serious.<p>2005: My first real job at a startup that sold whitelabel music stores to radio stations paid me $40k&#x2F;year. No benefits, no bonuses, no equity.<p>2006: My second real job at the technology arm of a major sports league paid me $60k&#x2F;year + benefits + a nominal annual bonus. There was a good pension plan too.<p>2009: After becoming a father, I begged for a pay increase to account for the costs of raising a kid in NYC. Got raised from $60k to $90k. Management called it a &quot;salary correction&quot;.<p>2010: I left the sports league at $112k and joined a fintech startup where my salary went up to $120k.<p>2014: The fintech startup was amounting to nothing. My &quot;very generous&quot; option grants were turning out to be worth zero. There were occasional end-of-year cash bonuses that after taxes paid single-digit thousands. I left the company at a base salary of $140k and took three months off.<p>2014: Joined a major financial&#x2F;media firm owned by a certain former NYC mayor. They paid me $150k in base salary, full benefits, and a promised annual bonus of $35k. I joined in September, so I got a teeny tiny prorated bonus for that year, but the following year I was forced to leave in December and wasn&#x27;t paid the annual bonus.<p>2016: Joined a boring Canadian investment bank here in NYC at a base salary of $160k. No bonus, no equity. Terrible benefits. Stayed there for 4 months and didn&#x27;t write a line of code for work because they didn&#x27;t know what they wanted me to work on.<p>2016: Joined a startup that sold home security cameras. I ran a team of a dozen people there, and got paid $170k in base salary. Lots of equity was promised, but they never wrote my equity grant. Great benefits though. After a year at this company I had been forced to lay off some people from my team and had to help some others to find new jobs because they were worried about job security. The company was doing very poorly, so I left too because I have bills to pay.<p>2017: Joined a $20B hedge fund at base salary of $200k, promised annual bonus of $100k. After two months, the fund began a scary nosedive, and laid off myself and my boss and two other engineers.<p>2017: After a frantic job search I joined the adtech firm where I currently work. I get paid $180k in base salary, okay benefits, and an annual bonus of about $20k before taxes. I work mostly from home and really like it. I&#x27;ve been here for a year and don&#x27;t plan to leave.

I am a brown male working in India. The salaries are rounded to the nearest 100000 INR. USD values are rounded to the nearest 1000 USD. These are salaries <i>per year</i>. Need to emphasize this because when you see numbers like 3000 USD you may think this is per month. No it is indeed 3000 USD per year. When there are stocks involved, only the stocks that vest per year is included as part of the yearly salary.<p><pre><code> 2003 - 0 YOE - 200000 INR ( 3000 USD) - Software Engineer - One of the very popular Indian IT firms 2005 - 2 YOE - 300000 INR ( 4000 USD) - Senior Engineer - Same as above 2007 - 4 YOE - 1000000 INR ( 14000 USD) - Software Engineer - A small American company with their office in India 2009 - 6 YOE - 1500000 INR ( 20000 USD) - Senior Engineer - Another small American company with their office in India 2011 - 8 YOE - 2000000 INR ( 28000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above 2013 - 10 YOE - 3500000 INR ( 47000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India 2015 - 12 YOE - 7000000 INR ( 95000 USD) - Principal Engineer - A big American company with their office in India 2017 - 14 YOE - 9500000 INR (128000 USD) - Principal Engineer - Same as above</code></pre>

I don’t know if I’m misreading it but did OP include the value of the options or did they just leave them unexercised? Box did IPO, and obviously Yahoo was liquid the entire time.<p>What was the total compensation be like with these numbers?

I think it is good point to include a brief description of what people are coding.<p>I could understand that someone, who are writing, say, FoundationDB or some Scala for inhouse finance processing could get ~$200k, but my mind absolutely refuses to accept the fact that Javascript coding is being paid this way.

There are literally millions of people who could work remotely for 30k, being not necessarily worse than these valley&#x27;s hotshots.<p>Yeah, MIT&#x2F;Stanford&#x2F;CMU degree pays back.

Indian IT firms make money by selling software engineers, not software;

Mine:<p>2011 - 20K USD<p>2012 - 20K USD<p>2014 - 20K USD (burned out working for the startup founder)<p>2015 - 50K USD (ranted at a club about my founder while drunk and another founder offered to pay double)<p>2016 - 150K USD (interviewed at established tech company)<p>2017 - 200K USD ( same company promoted me to project manager)<p>2018 - 500K USD (finally became executive)

Cool, I want to be woman in America, because as man in Central Europe, it takes me almost three years to get 48000$.

Yet another White Male. Salaries are actually from multiple different countries, but I&#x27;ve converted all to GBP (as that&#x27;s what I think in, mostly). Which has varied in value a lot over the years, so probably take it with a grain of salt.<p><pre><code> 1997 £18k First real web-dev work 1999 £60k Contract developer making the most of the dotcom boom 2000 £45k First attempt at running my own business (didn&#x27;t go well) 2002 £28k Took a job that seemed stable and came with visa 2006 £40k Last permanent job 2008 £90k Working for myself part 2 - much improved 2014 £10k Had daughter - buttoned off work big time for a couple of years 2016 £50k Still doing my own gig, but better work-life balance 2018 £115k Working much harder than I’d planned. But enjoying it. Combo contract&#x2F;own gig</code></pre>

I had to edit the CSS of that page just to read the important data. In particular, the table is too narrow and therefore has a horizontal scroll. Then important data (start and end salary) is to the right of the scroll. And then the dates are to the left of the scroll!<p>The author brags that although he is currently out of work, as a white male he should have no problem finding work when he is ready (health-wise). I wonder if he is white enough and male enough to compensate for his horrible page presentation, which interestingly enough seems to be his profession.