Google's Engineers Are Well Paid, Not Just Well Fed 342
D H NG writes "According to a study by the career site Glassdoor, Google tops the list of tech companies in the salaries it pays to software engineers. Google paid its engineers an average base salary of $128,336, with Microsoft coming in second at $123,626. Apple, eBay, and Zynga rounded off the top 5."
$128,000? (Score:5, Funny)
Considering the amount of effort in getting a job there, the hours worked, and the cost of living in Mountain View, I think that roughly equals minimum wage. Maybe they need a software engineers' union.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Funny)
Jesus, that's roughly 3x's what I make, and I'm on call 24/7. But then I'm not a genius with 3 phd's like the people that mop floors at google.
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If you're making $40k in the US, you're not developing software like the software engineers at Google are.
Or you graduated with a 2.4 GPA.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're making $40k in the US, you're not developing software like the software engineers at Google are.
Or you graduated with a 2.4 GPA.
It varies by state. The median income can vary by more than $30,000 by state. Your income for a specific profession could vary by a much larger amount, depending on a number of factors.
Re:$128,000? (Score:4, Interesting)
I make more than $40k as a software developer, but it wasn't too long ago that I was making right around that amount.
I have an AAS (not a fancy degree, if you didn't already know), my GPA was 2.8, and I assure you that neither of those things has EVER come up in a job interview. I'm also old enough that my transcripts are gone. (Schools only keep them for about 10 years. After that, nobody's looking anyway.)
The factors that kept me from making more are:
- Timing. The dot-com "crash" of 2000 happened during my last full semester of college. I didn't land a job in the industry until 5 years later.
- Lack of experience. Since the dot-bomb dropped during my college days, nobody wanted interns either. No experience = no job.
- Lack of money. I grew up in a just-above-the-poverty-line household. I had to scrape by to even get a community college education, and that didn't get me a job once there were so many out-of-work developers on the job market after the crash.
- Location. The midwest is a "small market" even in the larger cities. You don't pay as much for housing, but you also don't make as much.
So when I did finally land a programming job, it was as a code monkey in a PHP sweatshop. The headhunter wanted a decent payout, so I started at $40k. No raises. Got laid off after a year and a half due to it being a sweatshop and I had outstayed my welcome. (Basically, I wanted more money and they didn't want to give me any more money.)
Next job was a startup. Still $40k. Over 2.5 years, I got a couple of small raises. I topped out at $45k-ish before I got laid off during the early days of the recession.
Next job was through a headhunter again. I asked for $50k, but the employer could only go $40k. After 3 years and a few raises, I'm finally at $50k.
I could probably go to the larger employers in this city and make $70k, but that's really the limit in this area. Nobody in this line of work makes more than about $80k here.
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GPA couldn't have less to do with the real world job market.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Interesting)
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PhD don't matter that much at Google. I have a BS in Math and a 2.2 GPA and I make much more than $128k working at Google. During the interview process, they don't even ask about degrees or GPA unless you are fresh out of school and they have nothing else to go by.
Re:$128,000? (Score:4, Insightful)
My thoughts exactly - they may be well educated, and they may be well paid and have an excellent compensation package... but what in the H-E-doublehockysticks are they actually *doing*? Most of Google products languish under a regime that can be charitably be described as "benign neglect" and the balance are updated only sporadically.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, I would rather earn 90k, work less, and have more free time to spend with my family.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Informative)
I work at Google and don't have long hours. I am on an on call rotation, but for a lot of teams, there are dedicated people on call, with a resulting salary bonus. (And the work load for being on call is really very minimal.)
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That is good to hear. I worked as a developer at a couple different software companies in the past, where people were constantly there past 6 or bringing their work home the entire evening. Now that I work in the IT department of a large corporate headquarters, most everyone is gone by 5. Sometimes I even work through lunch and leave at 4 and nobody seems to care as long as I get work done. I find I enjoy programming much more under these conditions.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Informative)
I work at Google and don't have long hours. I am on an on call rotation, but for a lot of teams, there are dedicated people on call, with a resulting salary bonus. (And the work load for being on call is really very minimal.)
+1.
I'm not on an on-call rotation at the moment (though I'm thinking about asking to get back on it, because the extra cash is quite good). I typically work 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and 6:30 AM to 5:30 PM Tuesday and Thursday(*). So, not counting lunch hours, that's 42 hours per week. On occasion I put in some extra hours during crunch time, but that's not common. For example, two weeks ago I worked a normal day, then got home, spent some time with the family and then worked from home from 10 PM until 3 AM to get some stuff done to meet a deadline before an internal release (dogfood release). That sort of thing seems to happen once per month or so, but outside of that I pretty much work a 40-hour week.
So, no, the hours at Google aren't insane. Now, *lots* of Google employees do work very long hours, but that's because they want to. I would actually like to work more myself, because I really enjoy what I do, but I also like time at home with the family and I have church responsibilities. Perhaps in a few years when my kids have all moved out I'll ramp up my hours. In the meantime, no one is putting the slightest pressure on me to work more. Now, I could probably do more if I worked more, and maybe eke out a slightly higher performance rating, which might translate into more money... but I'm already pretty comfortable with my compensation, and my manager is quite happy with my current performance.
As for cost of living... I'm at the Boulder, Colorado office (which is hiring, BTW :-)).
(*) The reason for my MWF / TTh schedule split is that I ride my bicycle to work MWF. It's a 25-mile ride so when you include showering time it takes me about 90 minutes each way. So what I actually do is leave home every day at 6:00 AM and arrive home at 6:00 PM. The days I ride that works out to a 7:30-4:30 work schedule. The days I drive, I work the two hours "saved" from my bike commute.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
I work at Google and don't have long hours. I am on an on call rotation, but for a lot of teams, there are dedicated people on call, with a resulting salary bonus. (And the work load for being on call is really very minimal.)
Google question then, how does one actually get help from Google? I like a lot of their stuff but abandon all hope if you need to talk to a human to figure out why an email isn't going through gmail or resolve issues from the Play store (see Nexus 7 preorder fiasco, "resolve issues" not just "say whatever they want to hear to get them off the phone") or report downright errors in shopping.google.com?
I can't imagine needing any on-call at all when the end-user support is basically a doormat that reads "GO AWAY"
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If your an enterprise customer - you can just call them :). They have pid key that appears in the apps control panel that changes every week.
If your a regular user - you can use this: http://support.google.com/bin/static.py?hl=en&page=portal_contact_options.cs [google.com]
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Google question then, how does one actually get help from Google? I like a lot of their stuff but abandon all hope if you need to talk to a human to figure out why an email isn't going through gmail or resolve issues from the Play store (see Nexus 7 preorder fiasco, "resolve issues" not just "say whatever they want to hear to get them off the phone") or report downright errors in shopping.google.com?
I can't imagine needing any on-call at all when the end-user support is basically a doormat that reads "GO AWAY"
At those wages they cant afford real human support. Could you imagine $100K guy sitting on irc typing "have you tried turning it off and on again"?
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Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
I work for a well-known company (which for NDA reasons must remain unnamed)
You have an NDA that you can't even name your employer?
Most of the folks who stay past 6 or 7 either REALLY love what they're doing,
I work in an office stuffed with people who love their jobs. The ones who don't aren't around long (and tend not to get hired in the first place). My boss is big on people being to work by 9, and at 5:15 the place is a ghost town.
I REALLY love what I'm doing. I also REALLY love my wife and kids and would rather be hanging out with them than pretty much anyone else.
or have no idea how to manage their time.
This. I've seen way too many people sit at work for 12 hours but only work for 6. I'd much rather work a solid 8 hours then go home, relax, rest up, and do it again the next day.
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You have an NDA that you can't even name your employer?
He could, but then he'd have to kill you.
Re:$128,000? (Score:4, Funny)
You have an NDA that you can't even name your employer?
Yes, some of us do. For example, I'm not currently allowed to mention that I work for them, and I can not do so for 1 year after I leave.
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I thought the CIA had a cover company for those purposes.
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Some people like to follow the rules on principle and don't care if they'll get caught or not?
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Let's see, AAPL is $638 as of this writing, so 500 RSUs would be $319,000 or so. 100 RSUs would be $63,800. With a difference like that, it could very well be worth it. If AAPL only pays you $100K, getting a stock bonus that triples it could be worthwhile.
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So would I, but unfortunately, I don't make that much, I work way too many hours, and have little time to spend with my family. But then, I am just a lowly Director of Development, not one of those fancy entry level software engineers.
Re:$128,000? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not my salary, just a number I picked. The going rate for a senior developer in my area seems to be hovering around 85-90.
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If you're really a Director of Development, then you realize there are many factors that go into salaries, and not just your title. You're also way on the bottom end of the scale...
http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/director-of-development-salary-SRCH_KO0,23.htm [glassdoor.com]
Under $100k in my area (suburban Washington DC), is barely a living wage.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
Under $100k in my area (suburban Washington DC), is barely a living wage.
It's amazing how weak people get once they get paid a good salary for any length of time. Why don't you try going to a park and finding a homeless guy that sleeps on a bench and tell him how you can barely live with less than $100k a year.
You are either exaggerating, or you have no concept of what is really needed to live and what things are luxuries.
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Let's say rent is about $3,000/mo, pretty common in areas like DC, NYC and the Bay Area. You have a student loan payment of $2,000/mo.
That's an uncommon situation. (I was about to say "You're doing it wrong," but your circumstances may be different than the average.) A study released this week showed that 2/3 of college graduates have debt upon graduation, and the average debt incurred is $26,500 (average in California is lower, $18,900). At $2000/month, that would be paid off in a year and a half even with a high interest rate. But perhaps you borrowed much more than the average. Then yes, times are tight for you personally, but the
Not accurate, smaller companies pay more (Score:4, Informative)
This survey must be only talking about companies above certain size. Our Sillicon Valley startup has about 50 employees and the average engineering salaries are north of $150,000. Large companies like Google actually don't have to pay that much, because the hours are more reasonable. I know there are other companies too that pay more than Google in the area.
Re:Not accurate, smaller companies pay more (Score:4, Interesting)
Our Sillicon Valley startup has about 50 employees and the average engineering salaries are north of $150,000.
I suppose there are some start-ups that do pay developers the value of the labor, but my own experience is a bit different in that it was more stereotypical of Silicon-Valley startup compensation packages. That is, my salary was shamefully low (I was new to the profession), just about unlivable for the Bay Area, and was offset with a very accelerated stock options plan.
Even though the company was purchased and I ended up with some real, live tradable stock, the final calculation (dividing the value of my options over the length of my employment) revealed a still cripplingly low annual salary (~75K/year). So, unless your startup is going to hit it BIG big, direct compensation may be a better deal than equity.
Good on your company for paying their workers the full(er) value of the labor in cash.
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Considering the amount of effort in getting a job there, the hours worked, and the cost of living in Mountain View, I think that roughly equals minimum wage.
You were moderated funny, but that's actually insightful. According to an online Cost of Living Comparison Tool [bestplaces.net], if I wanted to accept a job at Google they'd need to more than double my salary.
I think that their insistence on moving engineers to Mountain View is likely hurting them.
Re:$128,000? (Score:5, Insightful)
According to an online Cost of Living Comparison Tool [bestplaces.net], if I wanted to accept a job at Google they'd need to more than double my salary.
I think comparison tools are very inaccurate about what things actually cost and obscure the value of things that are usually summed up with the phrase "quality of life".
I live and work in SF after having come from Athens, OH, and your comparison tool is telling me that if I moved this year I would need need 117% more money [bestplaces.net] than I did in Athens. I actually make about fifty percent more than I did when I lived in Ohio and I have much more money than I did when I lived in Ohio.
More importantly, there are some things no amount of personal compensation could provide: ethnic diversity, world class cuisine, sublime landscape, beautiful weather year round, municipal infrastructure (no boil orders for septically contaminated water), and a dozen other things even 50 years of economic development could not deliver to places like the one I lived in in Ohio.
"Cost" of living is not just about money and direct comparisons based on money equivalence don't capture the whole picture.
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you're rated as funny... but I mean... people should keep it in perspective.
How are salaries of doctors, lawyers, teachers, fire fighters, police officers, pharmacists, accountants...
128k in the most expensive jurisdiction for a company known to hire the best and brightest with PHDs and Masters... and little to no job security and no pension.
Yeah... doesn't sound like much to me.
It's not bad by any means... but look around at what the rest of regular society earns and consider that Google is supposed to be
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Yeah, 128k/year does not
That said, you've got to consider the perks Google offers, too. I imagine they still offer stocks, which has quite a lot of value in and of itself, but it's well known that they offer their customers:
* Very generous healthcare plans
* Very high quality free cafeteria food on campus
* Flexible schedules
* Game and recreation rooms
* Exercise facilities
So it might be less than what Microsoft might pay their customers, once you adjust for the local cost of living and the suffering required
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At $2k/month for a small rental, minimum living wage ain't cheap there. God forbid you have a family.
http://www.apartments.com/California/Mountain-View [apartments.com]
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Are you claiming that salaries in Atlanta (the one in Georgia, right?) are at $228k for developers? Or are you translating it to a contracting/consulting rate? Or is that just your way to say that there are no good candidates for openings in Atlanta?
For $228k I'd probably move to Atlanta tomorrow if the job was interesting at all.
Re:$128,000? (Score:4, Funny)
For $228K, I'd move to Atlanta tomorrow even if the job was licking zits.
That's it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:That's it? (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish GlassDoor would redo their study after factoring in cost of living. Then we'd see who's *really* paying their engineers.
That's something people don't seem to get, not even economists. I'm twice as rich as someone in Chicago who earns the same salary as me, because prices up there are twice as high.
I took a required economics class as an undergrad (late 1970s), and on the first day of class the three instructors were saying that Americans made too much money, there was going to be a crash, and that we would be earning the same as someone in a third world country.
I'd been in the USAF the previous four years. In Deleware I was a pauper; they don't pay airmen jack shit. When I was stationed in Thailand (then still not developed, although it's completely different now) I lived like a king. My bungalow (including woman) was $30 per month. I could tale three ladies to a decent restaraunt and have a $1 bill. I bought a tailored shirt for $5. It cost a nickle to go anywhere in the country on a bus, a dollar for a taxi.
I raised my hand and asked about the differences in living costs and asked these three educated idiots how in the hell someone can live on $1000 a year in the US. Their answer? Live in a cardboard box and eat nothing but peanut butter.
I stood up, called them idiots to their faces, and walked out and dropped the class, and replaced it with... hell, I don't remember, some other unscientific science like sociology or something.
People just don't get it, and I suspect that someone who should but doesn't, like someone with a PhD in economics is being disingenuous for their own evil ends. I've had nothing but disdain for economists to this day, it was made even stronger when these economists espoused trickle down fairy dust.
Oh, yeah... time showed that those idiotic economists were idiots, if common sense didn't.
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Google has datacenters in Iowa, South Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Those are all cheap places to live.
The fact that Google salaries top Microsoft's on average with those locations says something.
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Datacenter technicians are not the same as software development engineers.
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No, but I know they have engineers who work in the datacenter that neighbors me (Council Bluffs, IA). And the Omaha metro area to which it belongs is routinely named one of the best cities in the country for cost of living.
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Yes, but there's many more technicians that engineers at their data centers. Opposite is true in MV, CA. Which is why the numbers skew high.
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Well unless you are one of the 1%, cost of living always equals total salary, no matter what that salary is.
Cost of living there is so high because they make so much, if google gave everyone a 10% raise cost of living would simply increase.
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Indeed... $120 odd K is pretty good money for Seattle (especially if you don't insist on living in the metro core). In the SF/Bay area/Silicon Valley? Not so much unless you're willing to endure a hellish commute.
Re:That's it? (Score:4, Funny)
That's true. 640k ought to be enough for anybody though.
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Guaranteed it's based on the city. Google aren't stupid.
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I take pride on disagreeing with the majority on a regular basis.
Off Topic: Facebook?! Really?! (Score:4, Insightful)
(Rant)
So Slashdot was bought by Dice, right? Have they done ANYTHING to improve it?
I'm almost as sharp as a marble, but just look at this:
Title: Google's Engineers Are Well Paid, Not Just Well Fed
Summary: D H NG writes "According to a study by the career site Glassdoor, Google tops the list of tech companies in the salaries it pays to software engineers. Google paid its engineers an average base salary of $128,336, with Microsoft coming in second at $123,626. Apple, eBay, and Zynga rounded off the top 5."
And it has a ... wait for it ... Facebook tag?
Y'all yelled at me wen I said that Facebook is getting indirect advertising. And yet the Slashdot regulars haven't bothered to fork it since they instinctively know they can't get the critical mass to go to the forked version. So we continue to live with stuff like that.
(/Rant)
Re:Off Topic: Facebook?! Really?! (Score:4, Informative)
Not to ruin a perfectly good rant, but if you take a look at that (such as it is) you see that Facebook is mentioned as being close behind Google in terms of overall salaries (not just engineering ).
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There's this thing called the "article". It is a strange and elusive beast, and many slashdotters miss it entirely.
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You try to set up Slashcode in any reasonable way and get back to me. You know it hasn't been touched in like two years, right?
OK, but what about the hours? (Score:5, Insightful)
In Germany for a slightly lower salary (let's say 100K) you work only 37 hrs a week (for real, not only on paper), have 30 days of paid vacation a year, an extensive social security and healthcare coverage provided by the government (you don't need any private insurance), and you cannot be fired "at will", but only for a fair reason. What about google, microsoft, and the US in general?
Yesterday here on slashdot I read a scary post saying that astronomy Ph.D. students work 80 hrs a week, and reading the comments it seemed that it's considered "normal" in the US. I thought they were on another planet!
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What software companies in Germany have average salary around 100k?
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Re:OK, but what about the hours? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also common for PhD students to work 80h/wk in Germany (at least at the reputable institutions ... Excellence Universities and Max-Planck Institutes) for example. Even students doing diplomarbeit work 60+ hr/wk.
Also, one needs to compare net (netto) salaries. More the 50% of my gross (brutto) salaries is "comsumed" (for better rather than worse most of the time) in taxes (roughly 35% when income/old age/solidarity/church tax (which I opt-out of) /unemployment), mandatory health insurance (roughly 8%), mandatory pension (roughly 10%).
Also, I wouldn't directly convert €1:$1.3 because with the cost of living and the VAT ... it's much closer to €1:$1 in real terms.
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I doubt that in the US, most engineers are paying 35-40% federal income tax. In the states, the 33% bracket "starts" at $178k. Even if you factor in 7% state income tax, the 28% federal bracket starts at $85k, which means only 40k is taxed at 28% (based on the 120k median stated in the article.) I'd wager that the "average tax rate" on that income would be around 25% or so. Here, in Germany, I'm in the 42% bracket ... and pay about 35% total federal tax based on where the brackets divide. Adding the mandato
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You have to understand how billing works in the US, we're bundlers, we like to say something only costs X and then give you a bill for that thing plus
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we paid €1100 all-inclusive for 300 sq ft in Stockholm
Just FYI, you were being seriously (and illegally) gouged at that rent and you could probably win a legal process against your landlord and get something half your rent back.
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Oktoberfest is more outside Germany than in Germany itself.
Because in Germany, there is only one, the Oktoberfest in Munich. No other town would call their autumn fest "Oktoberfest", because a) they have already one with another name and b) theirs is much older than the Oktoberfest, which was practically invented yesterday (just over 200 years old!).
For instance, the Cranger Kirmes is more than 500 years old (starting in 1441 AD), the Rheinkirmes too (1435 AD), and the Bremer Freimarkt gets close to 1000 ye
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Yeah because the US government is soooo much better [wikipedia.org]. Only 100,000 rather than hundreds of thousands. And the US is such a great place to be in a minority group.
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I think you made up numbers. The median senior software engineer makes the equivilent of $64,000 per year. In the United States $64,000 would be below the lowest 10%.
-- MyLongNickName
(source payscale.com)
I have a difficult time believing that as a software developer working in Germany... I live in a relatively cheap city (Hannover) and the average income of my team is around 80k USD according to Google's exchange rate calculator (I know the salaries for my team since I'm the supervisor and had a hand in hiring them).
I'm also pretty certain we don't pay well for developers since we're not even a software development company.
A SENIOR software developer working for a company that actually does development as t
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That's OK, here in the U.S., the starting salary for an engineer is about $50k, but just try finding a job that will pay you that fresh out of school. There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics.
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How about $65k?
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You're oversimplifying it.
At least here in Sweden there's first and foremost a difference between being fired and being laid off. You can't just fire someone without just cause, if you do you are likely to have whatever union that employee belongs to breathing down your neck.
As for laying people off, even that isn't quite so simple. In theory it's "first in, last out" but in practice this is often negotiated away during layoffs (one way or another, sometimes the employees who are laid off despite not being
Re:OK, but what about the hours? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no point trying to have this discussion with made-up numbers. The question is whether government administration in a given sector is more or less effective and efficient than private industry, so it's all about the numbers. And not just "golly that number sounds too big!"-type numbers (which is how many people comprehend medicare fraud, for example), but how those numbers compare to the alternative.
Study Methodology Flawed? (Score:2)
I have some issues with the study; for one thing, it's worth noting they don't tell us how they actually did the study. For another, I have no idea how they came to the conclusion that $128K is A) high; and B) at the top of the scale for software engineers when their own data contradicts this.
Here, allow me to present Netflix, which happens to also be in the Bay Area, and Glassdoor's software engineer salaries for Netflix:
http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Salary/Netflix-Salaries-E11891.htm?filter.jobTitleFTS=sof [glassdoor.com]
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Or maybe they're completely morons.
Or maybe they have little prectice with maths.
Probably all of the three above.
Google Home (Score:5, Funny)
Any engineer would loved to be paid 127,001
Re:Google Home (Score:5, Funny)
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don't let on - its a super secret - but there's a new google authored RFC about being able to send ads from the 127.1 address!
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Any engineer would loved to be paid 127,001
The future is bleak, then, with IPv6 on the horizon.
Technically Microsoft offers the highest then.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's in Redmond. The other companies are in the Bay area largely, and that's the most expensive place to live per square foot in the country. Gas and everything else are more expensive too.
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A 3 Bedroom in the Bay Area (my inlaws are out there) in a reasonable neighborhood is over 700k. It's ridiculous.
Comparably, where I live, in the tristate area and working in NYC, I paid a little more than half that for a 4 bedroom house with two car garage and full basement. Taxes are higher, but with the price of the house, who cares? Plus, my schools are immensely better here as well. Cali schools suck, unless you live in Cupertino.. but the those houses are $1 million+.
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The Bay area is cheap compared to Vancouver Canada:
http://www.crackshackormansion.com/part2.html [crackshackormansion.com]
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And all of them have horrible traffic.
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Yeah, but then there's the Jersey Devil to deal with!
Nortel? (Score:2)
Are they really well paid? (Score:5, Insightful)
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A person's value increases as their capabilities become more valuable to an employer. Comparing totally unrelated jobs is not at all reasonable. Someone could be trained on emptying trash cans in a day. Nobody's going to be a good software engineer without many years of experience.
A software engineer would never be able to make what a CEO makes without learning to smile while lying and stabbing people in the back. Most software engineers I know/am would prefer to not be a total douche bag, and aren't su
Not the whole story... (Score:4, Informative)
The article doesn't mention but I suspect that is base salary only. Google is known to have a very good benefits package (at least by today's standards). There may be a stock and/or bonus component that is not included. I find it hard to believe that 128K is the total comp for an engineer at Google.
Having said all that, my experience is that salaries in CA are far too low given the cost of living there. Where I live (it's a large city, not out in the sticks) you can buy a nice house for 250-300K. Same house in Silicon Valley or LA? Well over a million and that's being conservative. Taxes are also much higher in CA. So you would think that salaries are 4x as high there as they are here but they are almost the same.
Sure, CA is really nice. I love going there. Great weather, all that. But living there? Forget it.
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it was 80degrees yesterday in the bay area.
I think its worth it. for lots of reasons. I don't love the high cost but there really is a lot to love about this area and its culture/style.
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It's fall. 80 degrees sounds too damn hot for October.
Re: (Score:2)
It was 80 degrees in Podunk, AR yesterday. Course we had a cold front come through last night and the high is closer to 60 degrees today. The cost of living is low, and I love the "culture/style".
That sounds about normal (Score:5, Interesting)
$128,336 in San Francisco equates to about $65k when cost of living is adjusted to the US average (specifically Raleigh, NC...it was the most average I could think of and is pretty close). I'm sure there is some flexibility in those numbers, but I don't know of anywhere in the bay area that isn't well above the national average.
Re:That sounds about normal (Score:4, Insightful)
That only makes sense if you assume that Google engineers live paycheck to paycheck.
What's more likely is that they save a certain percentage of their $128k, and spend it in a lower cost area once they've left their job in Mountain View.
PhD's Google Employs (Score:5, Insightful)
When the median home price in Mountain View is over a million and the cost for a decent 2 bed/bath apartment is 3k/month, your dollar doesn't go to far.
still not bad same as the 1990's (Score:3)
Oh please, even for California that is a lot of money. With taxes taken out you get about $5700 a month, about $66.80 an hour gross $35.62 an hour net. Your telling me you can't find an apartment for $1400 - $2000 anywhere in California. The highest I ever got was $18(working 9-5, actually 7-6, 7-9, 7-12, 6-9, time and half only) an hour gross comes to about $11.63 an hour net, $1860 a month. NY taxes are freaking high. You can get a shitty roach infested single apartment here in ny queens, brooklyn, bronx for $1100-1300 no utilities included, 2 bedroom $1800-$2000 in queens. Basement apartments are now $900 a month and still rising. Yes, expenses are up, wages and salaries are down. In the 1990's an engineer with a E.E. got started with $120k a year. These days hard work and experience means shit, but if you have a degree with no experience and not a very hard worker you get paid like a king.
Re: (Score:2)
Hooray! (Score:2)
So, what is Google's diversity rate, anyway?
Salary Inflation (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a very important caveat here is that Glassdoor is a job search site. And like every job search site I've ever seen who posts average or median salaries they tend to inflate them. They'll claim the average income for a designer in NYC, for example, is $100k a year. Then you look at the job listings for the same position and you're lucky if they break $70k.
Their entire business model is based on getting people to look for work, so of course they're going to do whatever they can to make you believe everyone is earning more than you are.
What about the non-employees that work there? (Score:2)
If you think the 128K is low, then the amount paid to the other workers must be even more dismal. Read this:
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2012/10/15/the-billionaires-next-door/ [reuters.com]
The writer quotes Google ex-CEO Eric Schmidt with regard the income "polarization" at top IT companies: "Many tech companies solved this problem by having the lowest-paid workers not actually be employees. They're contracted out."
So, basically, these "cool" companies are income-wise pretty much like the Greek democracies of an
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Technically, you don't understand the use of "rounded" here.
Re:Filter error: You can type more than that for y (Score:5, Funny)
2 is more rounded than 5, which is actually kind of squarish at the top. Yes, it is round at the bottom, but 2 has more rounding overall than the bottom of 5.
Excuse me, time for another Vicodin.