>110k is double the median salary for California
This is irrelevant to the discussion. Startups aren't hiring cashiers and fry cooks. Engineers make more than the median.
This is irrelevant to the discussion. Startups aren't hiring cashiers and fry cooks. Engineers make more than the median.
SV median salary for software development jobs (loosely defined) was about $122k in 2014. SF was about $110.
Well fortunately we don't have to decide salaries based on what a founder's self-serving definition of "totally reasonable" is. Instead, we have a well functioning market that finds efficient salaries.
(That is, when large tech companies aren't colluding to artificially lower salaries through illegal no-poaching agreements).
Except that's not the case. Those numbers are what the market is signaling and apparently the OP doesn't like it. That's my point.
The OP is saying, the market isn't offering enough. I say, well apparently it is otherwise it would be higher. So it much be good enough for most people.
I work in Delaware and $110k per year salary for software engineers would be an average salary for someone with some experience. According to a cost of living calculator, someone making $110k per year in Wilmington, DE would need to make $170k per year in San Francisco for the same standard of living.
Also when it's sunny many people like to go to the beach and swim in the ocean. For water temps above 62 F, don't go to SF.
Right, and apparently it's $60-110K, which is my point.
You seem to think these are different markets - it's the same. If people are choosing them then apparently it is competitive. It may just not be what people think they should be making.
Developers should actually expect lower wages because there are more market entrants. The whole push for everyone to learn to code, almost 100% pushed for by developers, would have exactly that effect. This is why I think it's silly when the dev community pushes back on organizing as though it's going to stay a sellers market forever - especially as they push the idea (rightfully so) that being a developer/engineer is a great job and drive people into the market.
Organizing to keep new coders out would just help existing coders relative to everyone else, and as a whole we're a group that's relatively well off.
This is, by the way, why they're having such trouble filling these positions. You can't just see what salaries are offered and say "that's the market salary." Companies actually offering the market salary don't have the level of hiring difficulties that startups paying $75k in SF do.
[0] - http://time.com/76655/google-apple-settle-wage-fixing-lawsui...
Talk about myopic. Apply your calculus in year 2000 and you'll see the folly there. That is insulting to everyone else making lower wages and assumes that "value" is accurately assigned.
You telling me a Nurse or teacher provides less value than a dev working for a Startup that dispatches food quicker? Please make that argument for me because this idea is what is wrong with SV.
Don't get me wrong: I'm working on such products now. I love it. I don't have to deal with discipline problems or students' home lives. It's a different job and the products are not comparable.
[1] http://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/registered-nurse/s...
The average salary of a registered nurse working in San Francisco is $127,670
Average is often very different than median, but your point is taken. Regardless, my point stands that developers across the board provide more value than basically any other profession is shaky.
If we were talking about CEO pay or some other value that doesn't have an effective upper bound, average would be meaningless. But we're talking about salary for RNs. There aren't many RNs making more than $250k, so you wouldn't expect the average to be too far from the median.
It's how much profit your work generates for the company.
Leverage. Its all about leverage. The more people you affect, the greater the value.