Software Engineer Salaries... How much do programmers make?

hey tech late here welcome back to another exciting episode with your host X Google X Facebook tech lead today we're going to be talking about money how much do software engineers really get paid and I think that there's a lot of msconfig win around here the public perception seems to be that software engineers get paid some six-figure salary even 100k whereas in reality is actually far higher than that a lot of you guys were surprised when I said that junior entry-level engineers get paid 200k at Fang companies and they do they really do by mid-career after three or four years software engineers are doing 300k razón salary by senior they're doing about 400 K my last job over at Facebook was paying 500k and if you include the sign-on bonus it was like a 600 K income for just one year of work software engineers get paid a lot and I want to explain for you how you too can achieve these levels of income because there are some tricks involved first of all you need to realize that there are two factors at play here number one is which company you work for and number two is where you do it the cream of the crop companies where you will be able to get salaries like this is Silicon Valley top-tier tech companies we're talking about Facebook Google Apple Amazon Netflix maybe Microsoft in Silicon Valley because geography really matters I've personally checked the internal compensation tables before and salaries just totally depend on location the fact is most of the world doesn't view software engineering as a white-collar job it's more like a blue-collar low-class type of labor I have a brother he was working 120k programming job in Silicon Valley moved to Japan because he wanted to be there and then he had to put up with like a 60 K job over there and that first store is like this over and over again so that's the first thing geography if you're a software engineer I recommend checking out Silicon Valley maybe just fake your address on your resume and see if you can apply and what type of offers you may be getting if you actually get something interesting take a flight over and do the interview and just move over because Silicon Valley just pays better the entire culture there respect around the profession of software engineering is just at a higher level now the other factor is which company you're working at and you really have to take a look at these top-tier tech companies it's like most companies are paying some amount pretty average above average and then you look at Facebook Google and it's like much higher than that and there's a number of reasons for this one is these top-tier tech company they can just afford to pay more because they're making so much money and they have their pick of course you have to be extremely qualified I think a lot of the numbers you generally hear about software engineers make it 75 to 85 K maybe 100 K those are usually quoted from say base salary amounts from people working in startups where the equity is worthless or from smaller software engineering firms around the country which is pretty common now Silicon Valley may be the most concentrated area for high-paying tech jobs but there's also other areas like Seattle la New York and then some areas like I hear Switzerland pays pretty well as well now if you're living in there where else I might recommend looking into these global top-tier tech companies because they still would generally pay higher because they have that culture of respect for software engineers so I'll quickly run over the salary breakdown for you software engineers they're generally categorized into levels from level two three four five six seven eight and nine level two is like interns they may get paid 85k or so and they only work three months or so you really start in that level three which is entry level software engineers a standard package may look like 110k base salary plus 15 percent performance bonus plus another 150 KS stock over four years and then maybe another 50k and sign on bonus which brings out the total compensation in the first year to about 200k and that's not even odd because you also get equity refreshers the way refreshers work is when you sign on to a company usually get stuck over four years but after four years all of that stock just dissolves there's nothing left and then you just quit the company so in order to retain people companies will usually continue to offer you about one fourth of your stock every year so after the first year usually get another 1/4 of your stock and so on and your income just bills such that by the time you get to your second or third year you're actually pulling in like two hundred fifty came even by that time you may also just get promoted to level four which is considered a solid individual contributor somebody who doesn't need any hand-holding and who can just take on tasks start to finish completely on their own this is mid-level probably the broadest range maybe 70% or so of software engineers are in here a standard package may look like 150 k pay salary 320 KS talk over four years 15 percent bone and then another 50k signing bonus or so which rounds out the package to about 300k income with the equity refreshers after a few years you could be getting into 350k and you may notice that this is a huge jump from level 3 to level 4 it's like a hundred k difference and that's why a lot of software engineers are self-motivated to get promoted is why they push themselves to work hard and I think it's overall a great system where you really give people like a carrot that's worth chasing after instead of just saying well yeah if you work really hard to get like a 5% raise 15% raise like this is actually something sizable that people would really go after from there you get to senior level which is l5 at Google or a 5 at Facebook and this is sometimes considered the terminal level you really don't need to put yourself much further than that and many people just say at the senior level for many years it's a sweet spot you have a decent amount of responsibility you lead small teams you generally have learned to multiply your impact beyond yourself a standard compensation package is 180 K pays 20% bonus target 500k and stock thrown some equity refreshers put in a signing bonus and you're looking at 400 to 450 K in total comp and then if you wanted to push it some more you can get to level 6 which is where I was at staff software engineer and you really need an excellent opportunity for this sometimes opportunities just don't exist you just can't make enough impact generally though you need to be leading teams of people down complete projects that are impactful that are delivering results that impact the company's bottom line you're responsible for coordinating the success of a project cross team collaboration and coding while it is still important begins to take a bit of a backseat people may do it say 20 to 30 percent their time only or even less I know some level 6 engineers they barely even code anymore most of the time they're just right in design Docs they're still responsible for understanding the technical design and architecture and implementation of a project they're not necessarily a people manager but they do a lot more delegation a typical salary here is 220 K base salary 20% bonus a million in stock over four years 75 K signed on thrown some equity refreshers you're looking at 500 K to 600 que todo comp when you get to level seven or eight these are usually distinguished software engineers well-respected in their industry is well known I've met a few of them myself and they're generally impressive all-around great technical skills and communication skills so I hope that rundown gave you an idea of what it takes to succeed in software engineering it's not just all about coding in fact coding ability pretty much peaks at about level four and then after that is really about multiplying their impact leading people mentoring cross team collaboration taking the initiative leading projects to success and this doesn't even include all the other perks and benefits you might get like 401k matching health insurance medical dental vision computer equipment free food parties and offsites and best of all free coffee okay so let's take a step back I remember when I used to be running my own apps and websites I would think that software engineers are making about 100k and if I could only be a hundred K then I would be good and I'd be happy and that served me well for a few years until I realized later on when I got into Google that most engineers there are making 200k if not way more than that and now I realize and my overall recommendation is that most software engineers try to land the job at one of these top-tier tech companies it's like a marathon and it's something that you might try year after year honing your interview skills so overall the biggest mistake I see a lot of software engineers doing is that they somehow convince themselves that they don't need to work in Silicon Valley at the top-tier tech company they'll say things like oh the cost of living is too high there or yeah I don't want to work at the corrupt company like Facebook these are just giant monopolies I'm good with my current job I like my co-workers and that's all good that's great and quite frankly I used to be like this as well I would be jaded and bitter at those Googlers writing their Google their buzzes and I still kind of am but overall I would still recommend that you give it a shot because it's going to change your life it's going to open so many doors and you can still quit after say a year or two and just be on your merry way with that brand name equity on your resume the last thing I want to know is I think a lot of us are focusing too much on salary and what we're really choosing is a lifestyle because no matter how much you're getting paid if you're working in a company no matter if you're junior mid-level senior staff or the CEO you're all living a very similar lifestyle you live in the same city you're eating the same food to go into the same bathrooms drinking the same coffee go into the same company events living in the same city working in the same office under the same working and the for the same eight to twelve hours a day that you may be there and the higher paid people are actually working even harder and maybe they just have a nicer car or a nicer house or family vacations and that's pretty much about it at the salary range everybody can have organized things anybody can go buy a Porsche everyone can go out to nice restaurants everyone can take nice vacations taxes eat up half their salaries and everybody is still chained to their jobs for health insurance because health insurance is so ridiculously expensive in our country that if you decide to quit you just be paying through the nose for some pretty poor week coverage retirement is just pretty difficult in this country and the funny thing is any additional income you make it may not even be for yourself right it may just go into your house with your pass on to your kids and into your kids kids will just squander over in Vegas so that's the funny thing a lot of us are busy working away our lives in our nine-to-five jobs to save up to buy a bigger house which is just going to be passed on to somebody who we don't even know and my piece of advice here is to just remember to enjoy that journey pick a lifestyle that you enjoy don't work yourself to death over a job it's not all about the money because that game of chasing money it's always going to be there there's no end even today I continue to chase it so they'll do for me over I just hope I inspired you to continue applying to these top-tier tech companies I think it's going to be a worthwhile move especially for software engineers to think a little bit about your lifestyle to enjoy your journey if you liked the video give it a like and subscribe and I'll see you next time thanks bye

Channel: TechLead

Views: 1,067,540

Rating: 4.8726916 out of 5

Keywords: how much do software developers make, programmer salary, coding salary, techlead, software engineer salary, software developer, software engineer, software developer salary, software engineering salary, how much money, how much do software engineers make, engineer, technology, amazon, google, developer, apple, googler, tech, swe, software, facebook, computer science, cs, fb, software engineering, software engineer life, software engineer intern

Id: Btbvv9kfLqo

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 14 2019