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Stanford Computer Science '10-'11 Salary Survey Results

180 pointsby abiover 13 years ago
I'm an undergraduate at Stanford and I recently got this mass email from the CS department. I figured it might be interesting to the Hacker News audience (with all the talk of bubble and stuff). No one said the survey results were not to be distributed so I assumed that it was okay to do this.<p>--------------------------------------------------------<p><i>CS/EE Undergrads</i><p>Data: I received 140 responses which described 360 job offers. 95% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 5% were from the Midwest and East Coast. 10% of the job offers were from start-ups.<p>Salary offers ranged from $64,400 to $100,000. The average salary offer was $79,914. The median salary offer was $ 82,200.<p>About 70% of students were offered stock options. About 80% of students were offered signing bonuses. And about 60% were offered relocation assistance and there were others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply to them. Relocation assistance ranged from $2,000 to $10,000 with an average of $3,000. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 with an average of $5,700. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.<p>Students who replied averaged about 2 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The average student who replied to the survey all had some job experience, nearly all of it through summer internships and averaged 3 summer of work.<p>Location, scope of work, salary/benefits, environment/culture, company were the important factors in accepting the offers for the undergrads.<p><i>CS/EE Masters</i><p>Data: I received 145 responses which described 330 job offers. 94% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 6% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 15% of the job offers were from start-ups.<p>Salary offers ranged from $66,000 to $120,000. The average salary offer was $94,634. The median salary offer was $93,000. The candidates who were offered $120,000 was reporting directly to the VP of his research group. Also, one of the candidates was offered $36,000 because the individual was doing an internship instead of a full-time position out of state which I did not include into the calculation.<p>About 78% of students were offered stock options. About 66% of students were offered signing bonuses. And about 43% were offered relocation assistance and there others who did not report the statistics since relocating did not apply to them. Relocation assistance ranged from $1,000 to $8,000 with an average of $1,740. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $35,000 with an average of $4,102. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.<p>Students who replied averaged about 3 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The Masters had a little more summer experience than the undergraduates, an average of 3 summer internships.<p>Like the undergrads, location, scope of work, company, and salary/benefits, and environment/culture seem to be the important factors for the MS grads.<p><i>CS/EE PhD's</i><p>Data: I received 26 responses which described 60 job offers. 79% of the job offers were primarily located in the Bay Area, 21% were in the Midwest and East Coast. 30% of the job offers were from start-ups. 5% of the job offers were from a university.<p>Salary offers ranged from $132,888 to $145,000. The average salary offer was $123,972. The median salary offer was $138,944. One of the candidates was offered $43,000 because the individual was pursuing a Post-doc at a university which I did not include into the calculation.<p>About 45% of students were offered stock options. About 45% of students were offered signing bonuses. Bonuses ranged from $5,000 to $19,600 with an average of $6,150. Relocation assistance ranged from $5,000 to $10,000 with an average of $7,500. However, they may not have reported on all the benefits they received. I did not calculate the range of stock options because stock options offered by companies are so different in their actual and potential values.<p>Students who replied averaged about 3 job offers. However, students may not have reported on all the offers they received. The PhDs had about the same amount of summer experience as the Masters, an average of 2 summer internships and with the exception of 2 full-time experience.<p>Like the undergraduates and masters, location, company, environment/culture, salary/benefits, scope of work seem to be the important factors when it came to accepting their job offer.

22 comments

aelambover 13 years ago
I'm curious how well the study results reflect actual numbers of offers, salaries, and benefits. I would expect that since it's a voluntary survey, there would be some amount of the 'high school reunion effect' going on here and that the survey results would skew higher than the actual. In the same way that those who look good and have done well are more likely to attend a high school reunion, I would assume that those students who have had relatively successful job searches would be more likely to respond to the survey.
droithommeover 13 years ago
This is very interesting, thank you so much for posting. I must say that I cringe when I see "Low numbers were discarded because of X" in surveys. There is always a reason for X, but if possibilities for X are not determined and justified prior to examining the data, then we are cherry picking.* I am glad though that the elimination of numbers was at least disclosed.<p>* People graduating with a degree from Stanford can be presumed to look for full time work at a salary sufficient to pay off student loans and live in a reasonable shelter and buy food and health care. Earning less than a restaurant manager as an intern is not what people choose, it's what they take when there are no better options. Discarding it as invalid salary information is not well justified ex post facto. If we decide in advance of gathering data to discard people doing internships because these are unfavorable situations and not average ones, why not also discard all the favorable situations that are not average ones as well, such as high salaries received in offers where the student has a relative or friend who helped him find an especially favorable position. Or any other arbitrary criteria chosen after the fact upon examination of the data.
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hugh3over 13 years ago
<i>Salary offers ranged from $132,888 to $145,000. The average salary offer was $123,972. The median salary offer was $138,944. One of the candidates was offered $43,000 because the individual was pursuing a Post-doc at a university which I did not include into the calculation.</i><p>This makes me sad.
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ricwover 13 years ago
Wow. Very high salaries indeed. What I find particularly interesting is that the PhD's clearly have absolutely no incentive of staying in academia. I wonder how bad an effect this has on academia..
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pagefruitover 13 years ago
One thing I'm curious about is: at a larger software company like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Microsoft, how much of a raise do you typically get every year?<p>Also, does Google's 10% across-the-board raise last year not apply to new hires?
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orijingover 13 years ago
&#62; The candidates who were offered $120,000 was reporting directly to the VP of his research group<p>The candidates or the candidate? It seems like this candidate is easily identifiable... How many masters' grads from Stanford (145 responses) was offered 120,000 and reports to the VP of his research group?<p>This makes me wonder: How taboo is it to talk about your offers/comp details? When I get offers, I'm told to keep them confidential, but everyone knows that the numbers are openly discussed between friends.
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apaprockiover 13 years ago
I would be interested to know what % of students would state if asked whether they would prefer to stay in the Bay Area vs. relocate (assuming assistance) to another city. I know some companies on the East-coast don't focus too much energy on recruiting in West-coast schools because it is assumed there will already be a much lower % which would be willing to relocate in the first place. I'm just wondering what the actual survey #s would say and how tied the students are to the Bay Area tech culture.
orijingover 13 years ago
&#62; Salary offers ranged from $132,888 to $145,000. The average salary offer was $123,972. The median salary offer was $138,944.<p>How can the average be that much lower than the min?
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metraover 13 years ago
abi, sounds like all of these responses are for fresh grads (be it BS, MS, or Phd). It would be interesting to see the stats for offers after 1, 2, up to 10 years in industry. There was some element of 'hockey stick growth' for me from the year I graduated (unemployed for some months), to my first job (nothing to brag about, salary wise), to my second job (which is much better). I wonder if it will be the same for Stanford grads since they're already starting relatively high.
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eelover 13 years ago
Bay Area, Midwest, and East Coast are the three locations for each option, and they all add up to 100%. What about Southern Cali or the Pacific Northwest, both of which have at least some amounts of demand for CS graduates? I can't imagine they are 0%, so I'm guessing they are clumped with the Bay Area.
phamiltonover 13 years ago
"Salary offers ranged from $64,400 to $100,000. The average salary offer was $79,914. The median salary offer was $ 82,200."<p>Friends of mine got offers for 64k in Boise, ID. 64k seems low for the bay area. Or is 64k in a place like Boise, ID just a really good offer?
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stfuover 13 years ago
The question is also how this data was "collected". I once was asked to fill out some survey of my school were I had to enter a salary number.<p>Knowing that this is going to be used most likely for some inter-school benchmark it is making very tempting to polish up the numbers.
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felipepiresxover 13 years ago
damn, i dropped out, so i guess this make me unemployable.
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agilebyteover 13 years ago
If anyone is interested for UK data, then the UK government has a neat table here: <a href="http://data.gov.uk/appathon-2011" rel="nofollow">http://data.gov.uk/appathon-2011</a><p>It is called "Salary of graduates by course topic (National Student Survey)"
Shengsterover 13 years ago
Average starting salaries for the "top" universities in California (not arranged by degree): <a href="http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/best-schools-in-california.asp" rel="nofollow">http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/best-schools-in-califo...</a>
strathmeyerover 13 years ago
"I received 140 responses"<p>Uh... how many did you send out? How many people are unemployed? I had similar issues with my university, where I and everyone I knew made less than half the lowest quoted value, but had never received such a survey.
lakex24over 13 years ago
For PhD's: "Salary offers ranged from $132,888 to $145,000. The average salary offer was $123,972."<p>how can the average be lower than $132,888?
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scatterover 13 years ago
Thanks a lot, its very useful information. I wish I had this kind of information when I graduated.
ashitvoraover 13 years ago
It would be interesting to see how many started their own startup.
GuySenseiover 13 years ago
would be interesting to know how many graduates would be willing to join very early stage startups. humble salary, good equity, great idea, great work.
pitdesiover 13 years ago
Carnegie Mellon CS undergrad stats: <a href="http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/Students/gps1/explore/survey/pdf/scs.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.studentaffairs.cmu.edu/career/Students/gps1/explo...</a><p>Max $120k, Min $45k, Mean $85k, Median $87k<p>Much more diverse by region (39% CA, 21% WA, 17% NE)<p>MIT's is more difficult to parse: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation10.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation10.pdf</a>
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teflonhookover 13 years ago
You have an error with your PhD stats.