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Comment by mgraczyk | Hacker News Reader

Starting compensation at competitive tech companies is already higher than 150% of airline pilot compensation. Looks like a pilot with 10 years experience at AA makes 120k. An engineer with 10 years experience at Google makes around 300k. There are also far more engineers at competitive tech companies than there are airline pilots.

I'd gladly trade an occasional 1.5x hourly bonus for a 2.5x salary.

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Just a reminder that most software engineers don't work for one of the big five, and don't get compensated in the region of 300k.

Most pilots don't work at a major airline, and don't make 120k.

Source? I'm pretty sure this isn't true. I worked in aviation for a while and you either work commercial, military, or private and there aren't a lot of private jobs.

Edit: BLS says average pilot salary is 126k[2] and majority are employed by airlines. [1] You're wrong.

1: http://work.chron.com/average-commercial-airline-pilots-sala... 2: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/a...

I don't think you read the BLS page correctly. The 126k figure is for a subset of pilots. Read the next sentence to see what the rest make. The page also doesn't give a figure for the proportion of airline pilots, only "pilots, copilot'slls, and flight engineers". I also said "major airline" to specifically make the apology with "big 5 software companies".

126 is for airline pilots. Barely any modern aircraft flies with an actual flight engineer. There are probably less than 100 flight engineers in service at the airlines. The BLS page clearly state the difference b/t the two. BLS also has 105 for 'airline and commercial pilots', but a big gotcha here is that the commercial jobs they included are typically the low paying jobs that pilots take to build hours in order to get an airline job (i.e. crop dusting, sightseeing, air tours, oil and gas flights). Think of them as internships. So, you're going to see a disproportionate number of <1-2 year pilots in the commercial group who are still trying to get their first actual pilot job. Regardless, the numbers clearly indicate that more pilots are airline pilots than not and that the average salary of an airline pilot was 126k in 2016. The BLS numbers also note that they don't include pilots' per diem. For every day away from home, a pilot receives a stipend to cover their expenses. Considering that all of their work is away from home, this is a not insignificant amount of untaxed additional income. A final big hidden value is the low end of the airline pilot spectrum. New airline pilots need what is called a type rating in order to pilot a specific aircraft. These are expensive and a source of income for pilots. So, new pilots at airlines are again taking low salaries for other forms of value. I don't know if all airlines do, but some definitely offer new pilots type ratings as part of their salary. This, again, would lead to a $20,000 salary but closer to $40-50,000 in benefit received.

The hours are a bit different too. I don't think many people working at Google making 300k per year are working only 900 hours per year.

http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/2016/03/09/airline-pi...

"Pilots at US carriers can work up to 100 hours per month and up to 1,000 hours per year, though in practice most pilots are going to fly closer to 900 hours per year.

For example, a 12th year captain on the 777, 787, or A330, is making $293 per hour. At 900 hours per year, that’s ~$264,000 per year. That doesn’t include things like their flight benefits and per diem pay (~$2.80 for every hour they’re gone on an international trip)."

I can see this devolving though. They're really apples and oranges industries; there are too many differences for a straight comparison.

Aircrew are only technically "working" once the cabin doors are locked and the plane is taxiing to the runway, until the doors unlock at the other end. That's why the hours look low. But obviously there is a lot to be done outside of those times.

900 "block hours" are far more than 900 working hours.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/block_hour

Not sure where you got your numbers from. An AA pilot with 10 years experience makes a minimum of $159,000. That’s the absolute bare minimum. I do not have the data of what aircraft many 10 year pilots fly or which seat they’re in but I would imagine the mean of all 10 year pilots at AA is closer to $200,000.

Plus pension probably which is a lot of money.

Fortunately pensions are gone. Defined 401k contributions are the new norm.

The big variable is profit sharing which I know to have been 17% of annual gross in 2016 at one airline.

Here are AA’s current pay rates - https://www.airlinepilotcentral.com/airlines/legacy/american...

Multiply the rate by 1,100 for a ballpark annual salary. This doesn’t include per diem or benefits, which can be quite good. Delta, for example, puts a 16 percent match, based on total salary, into the pilot’s retirement account with no contribution from them.

>people in their mid 30s actually getting hired in SV

lol good one

Would you mind posting substantively?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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