Ask HN: Am I underpaid?
I'm currently living in SF and working at a fairly prolific late stage startup. I've got a Bachelor's of CS and am a Front End Engineer with roughly 5 years of engineering experience. The first half of those years was spent working full stack, and the last half working very closely with Backbone, jQuery, Require, and other modern JS frameworks. I've launched numerous very successful products, and consistently get nothing but positive remarks in annual reviews.
I make roughly 115k a year, which at first seemed like a ton after moving here from a relatively low COL area. Lately though, the combination of looking at my account balances after paying rent + seeing people talk about salaries on HN make me think that I am on the very low end of the pay scale. Combine that with the paltry amount of equity I have and the fact that my company gives absolutely zero bonuses, and it all leaves me thinking that there might be greener pastures in other companies in the Valley.
So what's your opinion HN: Are the people paid above the median the vocal minority, or should I reevaluate my situation for more fair compensation?
83 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 160 ms ] threadedit: to answer your question, I don't know. You might find this interesting though:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2763932
Am I underpaid? Or are robots really overrated in the grand scheme of things?
The worst part is that, I can't afford the plane ticket to hunt for overseas opportunities.
So yeah, I am underpaid.
If anyone is looking for an experienced software engineer from Malaysia for C# or Python development, please do let me know.
Also out of curiosity, what's the starting engineering salary at your company?
Starting salaries here are about RM2500 - RM3000. More or less standard by Malaysian standards.
I'd advise you to try applying to larger tech companies in the US if you are interested, they will fly you over for an on site interview if you do well for phone/remote interviews. Singapore also seems to have a growing startup scene, if that's what you prefer.
Arguably worse situation with cars and property, but at least you get paid.
Albiet, deeply knowing the full stack is a big plus on my resume.
Complex Backend dev, big data, iOS/Android dev all seem to offer higher salaries.
Checkout the Angelist job section, they list tons of salaries.
You can be amazing, but if you can't communicate your value and what you have done then people will undervalue you.
Honestly, I think your salary is average.
above 100k is when negotiating skills and business skill start surpassing technical skills as more important for marginal gains in salary.
I live in Seattle, where cost of living is lower (although still pretty expensive).
People I know with similar experience make less than you (3-5k less) and work for major software companies. Given the difference in the cost of living, I would say your numbers are about right. It's possible that since your company is less established (late stage startup) they might not pay quite as well as someplace like Google or Microsoft.
For 5 years of experience that seems like in the low end, but if you have only front end skills, then jobs available to you will always be lower paid than somebody that has full-stack/back-end skills. Being good in the back-end means that you have to brush your Computer Science skills. Nobody wants to trust their back-end to people that don't have their CS down, and they are willing to pay more for the people that do, Front end is seen a less mission-critical area for most tech companies. Also the entry bar is lower, which increases competition (lots of new grads, or people that don't have CS skills can apply to those jobs), which decreases salaries. That's how it works.
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Start developing your back-end skills. Python, Ruby, Java, whatever suits you. Also makes sure your Computer Science knowlede is up-to date. Buy Skieana's Algorithms book (it is a great read), and internalize the most common algos. (Not memorize, but internalize). Being full stack will dramatically increase your job opportunities and income over time.
Also, it makes you much more prepared/ready to get a startup/product going, end to end.
If you are purposely staying in this place because "the work is good", then make sure that the $10k-20k less that you're making is worth the extra goodness, whatever it is. It's always a tradeoff. Also, no harm negotiating a raise.
In the end, you are selling your services, so don't get jipped. The very fact that you are here is a strong indication that might be.
Interview at other places you'd actually consider working and get offer letters. Compare.
As an employer, I knew my employees were doing this - It's my job to keep them, not their job to forego better opportunities and pay in the name of loyalty.
That said, if you do get better offers, talk to your current employer before jumping ship. They're best positioned to know exactly how valuable you are and might work very hard to keep you.
We call it 'Passive Opportunity Awareness' and it's the core of our value proposition.
We're currently in private beta, but you sound like someone who could benefit from our service in it's current form. Feel free to write me at the address in my profile if you have private questions.
ps. We're releasing a new home page within the next day or so. The current one looks a little... startuppy :)
I feel like most career-related websites are obsessed with the past, because they're targeted toward risk-averse bean-counters because that was who one needed to impress back when people still commuted to work on the backs of pterodactyls. That's why a LinkedIn profile is a resume and the game (for those who choose to play) is about trolling for endorsements like it's Downton Abbey and one needs a formal Letter of Introduction to get a job.
What approach are you taking to this? I assume the problem is related to "hidden node discovery", i.e. taking queries like "I want to be a data scientist in 3 years" and turning them into action plans. Is this going to rely on human curation (from, e.g. employers) or will it be done with machine learning/"big data" approaches? Or do I misunderstand the problem completely?
Anyway, cool stuff. I look forward to the next version of the home page.
I've always been a believer that if you are truly happy in your work then the pay will not matter much. If you are unhappy in what you do a little more will only make you happy for a short while.
I make roughly 115k a year, which at first seemed like a ton after moving here from a relatively low COL area. Lately though, the combination of looking at my account balances after paying rent + seeing people talk about salaries on HN make me think that I am on the very low end of the pay scale.
Financial outliers seem more common on HN than they actually are. You're probably on the low end (~30-40th percentile) compared to where you should be, but not by that much, and you're on the high end by the standard of most of the country. The delta is a rounding error compared to issues such as the quality of work you're getting and your likelihood of advancement.
Combine that with the paltry amount of equity I have and the fact that my company gives absolutely zero bonuses
That's typical. Raises are also rare in startups. If things are going well, the improvement of equity valuation is the raise. If things are going badly, that's not a time to be asking for things.
I hate to break it to you, but there are only two ways to get a serious equity slice in most startups: (1) be a founder, which probably isn't within your financial resources right now unless you have the connections to get immediate funding, or (2) become one of those god-awful executive implants that VCs shove into companies, who don't get large percentages (they might get 1-2%) but get their cut when the company's de-risked and the valuation is legitimately high, making them paper millionaires if they survive the vesting period.
Once companies take outside funding, they generally can't give real equity to non-executives even if the founders want to. The pathetic equity slices aren't because the founders are assholes, but because the employee option pool might only be 10-15 percent.
You may want to read this: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-yo... . I know nothing about your company, but there are a lot of awful startups out there built to turn clueless young talent into gold.
The real question is, though: what are you learning? If you're getting good projects and learning a lot, you should probably stick around until you stop learning or get "pigeonholed" or overlooked by management. If you're treated well and see a future at this company, then stay. $115k for a developer with 5 years experience is slightly on the low side, but I've seen numbers much lower. If your job is legitimately challenging, I don't think the difference between what you have and what you'd get at your next job (probably 10-15k) merits the risk of being "the new guy" again and getting a lesser quality of work-- unless you find something really good with people you trust.
The Bay Area and New York are disgustingly expensive. Some people our age are getting savings, and some of us are living in expensive, singular places with the hope of rapid career advancement. The career progress that comes from living in a "star city" is our "savings", for most of us. But there are a lot of good companies outside of the star cities, and that seems to be accelerating, so if you can find something great elsewhere and can get real savings and rapid career growth, obviously that's a huge win.
Could you elaborate on this a little? I realize this is a minor point of your comment, but it's not often that I hear about the financial requirements of being a founder. It's mostly "you're young and smart, you deserve to found a startup" and "follow your dreams," both of which seem fatuous to me.
What financial resources would you say are required to found a company? I'm currently in "save every penny" mode anticipating the moment when I strike out on my own, so I'm curious what people have to say on this topic.
P.S. Sorry to comment as a thowaway, but I forgot the password to this one and I'm engaging in another thread...
Either way, once you quit your job the fuse is lit and your runway is only as long as your bank account can put food on your table.
Without VC contacts, it's going to take 12+ months of bootstrapping, with substantial traction and press coverage, to get funding. They'll take forever to make decisions, dilly-dally while they compare notes with other investors, etc. So you blow a year of savings, in a high-COL area, working so hard (60 hpw is not atypical) that you'll be exhausted at the end of it, and probably need a month off before starting your next job.
With VC, if you have some genuine allies on the inside, it doesn't mean they'll fund an idea they dislike, because their job is to make money. It does mean they won't waste your time in deliberation, will treat you as more of a social equal-- making horrid liquidation preferences and management concessions less common-- and will actually say "no" if they're not interested and try to help you find a way to something they'd actually fund. Finally, having allies in VC means you get an EIR gig or an associate position to fall back into if the company doesn't pan out.
If I were him and wanted to be a founder in 5 years, I'd ask for investor contact, point-blank.
If they say no, that's fine. This is called "door in the face". People talk about getting a "foot in the door" (a small request, granted, to prime for a larger request) but, given the employer/employee power relationship, that rarely is as powerful as the "door in the face" (a large request, rejected, that leaves the person more likely to grant small favors). When you have a mutual but asymmetric power relationship, "foot in the door" makes you seem demanding while "door in the face" techniques are more natural; they have more power but you have some, so they'll deny one request but are unlikely to turn down two orthogonal requests in a row. Yes, they have more power, but they can't turn down all your requests.
He probably won't get investor contact, but then he can ask for a paltry 15k raise, more challenging assignments ("if I'm going to be making that much, I ought to be earning it; are there openings on the X team?") and possibly a more favorable reporting structure.
Could you please explain why/elaborate on this point a little?