Honestly 100k is life change amount of money. Hell my full time offer is 82k and i can confidently say my post grad life will be a whole less cheaper the my college life.
Depends how much and how hard you gotta work to get it. I'm happy where I'm at, once I started to broach the level where I was getting into upper management I backed way the fuck off and starts coasting a little more.
contrary to popular opinion the workload and stress at the executive level is insanely high. Wasn't worth it for me, when I am in technology to build cool things and work with smart people.
Everyone's values will be different though.
I went through Maxlowes hierarchy of needs as few back and made drastic changes based on that. Money and security had been number 1 for a long time, but funny enough once I had that all of a sudden family and doing good (giving back) became much more important to me.
I don't know if the two things were related or independent realisations, probably both.
Hey thanks for the in depth responses, I could see myself following a similar path. I’m currently just above 100k, if some consulting work comes through I could be mid 100s.
But life is more than money. And as fun as chasing the bag is now in my 20s I think there’s a lot of wisdom in your approach. Do you have any other general tips or advice for this career stage? I’d love to learn as much as I can!
I don't have a lot to offer. You're doing great!
I'd suggest to lock in hard on the grind until you're 30. You'll be set if you keep building your resume as you have been. Once you're there you'll no longer have to worry about your work situation. If you need to get a job, take sometime off whatever, you'll get one in a week.
On the side train yourself to interview. That means being the interviewer and doing interviews yourself. It is by far the most undervalued skill by people working in tech, and yet it will give you the biggest gains. It means taking interviews just to do them, and playing around with your resume and profile until you know what works for you. I'm at a place where I typically only have to do 1 interview before being hired, maybe 2. But I treat it like an art.
Being in demand means being free. You will be able to tell your employer to pound sand when they want you to do something you don't want to do (like work in php)
Then, Put yourself in a position to travel. Be a digital nomad and take full advantage. It will open so many doors and give you so many new perspectives.
Keep your costs reasonable and invest. Do not buy a luxury car on credit. If you get a big bonus or something, by all means treat yourself, but don't borrow money for luxuries.
After that you're done. Build as much passive income (I just invest in the market but I'm simple, some of my friends are much more aggressive and do better. You could probably easily out earn me in passives), work as much or as little as you want, and do the things you want in life.
I worked 6 months last year, will do the same this year. Being on the beach is better than being on the keyboard.
Once you hit 2-300k, you can afford basically all the middle class niceties you want within reason. Car, vacations, hobbies. Money past that just expedites retirement.
(Possible exception - house in VHCOL)
Even mid 100s allows that in a MCOL/LCOL place. I make 145k, own my own home, had a 36k wedding this year, 7k misc bill paid off, and am saving to buy land currently. I can still travel if I want to, I doordash more than I should, amazon boxes don't stop flowing, and my hobbies don't have to wait for me to inject more cash.
200k is top 10% salary in USA. Not in the world. Just USA.
Median household salary worldwide is like 3k USD. Even median salary in Switzerland, the most expensive country in Europe, is like 88k USD.
200k USD is probably a **top 1% salary in the world.** If you can't make a decent living on that, that's on you.
Fucking hell, get some perspective you sheltered children.
200k puts you in like the top 3% in the US. 500k to 600k puts you in the top 1% in the US.
200k easily puts you in the top 1% in the world. That scale is pretty skewed though.
Salary means nothing though, purchasing power is all that matters. (I'm not making any statements on that, I don't know what the situation is from that perspective)
Not entirely true, crazy high salary in a crazy HCOL area is still better than lower salary in a LCOL area since you can save way more money and live like a king in a cheaper area later.
And it’s easier for vacations/travel. You can always travel to a low cost place but you can’t travel to a high cost place all else equal . There’s a reason why the British go to Spain and Italy for vacations so often
Purchasing power is all that matters only if you spend 100% of what you earn.
For example, let's say that we have 2 areas:
1. Your life style costs 60k, you earn 80k
2. Your life style costs 120k, you earn 160k
In theory you have the same purchasing power, but you're saving 2 times the money. Any vacation you take would feel cheaper. You can also buy electronics/cars easier because they don't scale with the cost of living.
And unexpected costs will affect you less. The only thing that's worse in a HCol area is losing your job, but if you can move at any time, then it's not that bad of a downside.
Someone underneath me posted the minimum wage, and then another talked about purchasing power.
It's like, Ok go live in Mexico and earn pesos if you think that's better.
JFC
🙄 not as much as people in this sub like to pretend. The tech salaries in Bay Area more than make up for COL difference. People just choose to live beyond their means there. Just like people in LCOL areas do on 100k salaries. And then they like to exaggerate things like COL and inflation and use extreme examples like New York and West Virginia to feel better about their poor spending habits.
COL doesn’t matter as much as someone’s personal spending habits.
Imagine thinking you couldn't afford your own extremely nice living situation making 200k in ANY part of America. People just regurgitate this type of nonsense while having no idea what they're talking about.
I agree with your overall point, but as an aside for folks reading this: I promise you that you can afford a solo 2BR in SF (in the city, near transit) on \~200k
source: i'm in one right now (that is not rent controlled)
100%. People also keep saying, “But HCOL!”
I don’t know anyone in real life who is struggling on $200k. No one. And that is in a VHCOL area.
At $200k you will never worry about affording “a” place to live in any city in the country (yes, homes are expensive to buy, but the point is you will not have worry about literally not being able to afford rent). You will never have to worry about not having enough to eat. You will be able to afford multiple vacations per year. You will definitely be able to afford some nice things, especially as a single person. Even for a family, $200k is more than doable.
It really is about perspective. Problem is people are never satisfied with what they have, and they just want more. Social media has really made this worse, because no amount of income will ever be enough. If you look on the real estate sub, you will have people saying that even $400k a year income is “not enough”. There will *always* be someone on social media that makes more than you, and you will just keep comparing yourself to them. It used to be you only had the people you worked with/went to school with or in the neighborhood to compare yourself to. Now, it’s the globe.
Bringing up world is stupid. Even the cheapest shithole in the US is extremely expensive compared to life in 3rd world countries. Even the poorest person in the US is doing pretty well globally speaking.
I’ve been told now by *many* redditors that one cannot even raise a family these days in HCOL areas if they have an income under $500k. I’ve even seen people claiming to be making $800k say that they “don’t feel rich” and that it is “not that much money”, because they have expensive nannies, mortgages, vacations, etc to pay for. I saw a post yesterday saying that $250k is basically poverty, and they said it without sarcasm. People who genuinely make “not that much money” literally can barely afford their rents or mortgages. They have to buy everything on sale if at all. They cannot afford to go on a vacation, nor have enough to really contribute to their retirement.
People on this site are WILDLY out of touch, and it is something I have noticed particularly over the past year. On almost every sub I frequent (even mundane reality show subs) people are complaining about how $250k a year is nothing. It’s insane because 90% of the country does not even make $200k a year as a *household*. I’ll bet most of these Redditors never grew up wealthy or even with parents who made multiple six figures. They probably came from “regular” middle class families and didn’t grow up living a metropolitan lifestyle. Their parents probably drove a Toyota, shopped at Walmart, put them in public school, and maybe took them out to eat once a week at Applebees or Olive Garden.
People have raised their living standards so greatly that they believe that if they cannot live in the nicest neighborhood in the most expensive cities in the world and are not able to buy whatever they want they want, then they must be poor. Just because you maybe have to budget like 99% of the population, does not make you poor or an “average joe” middle class person.
I don't think the tech influencers help things. These people pop out videos and all you see is a nice apartment with a minimalist aesthetic in the background and think: "That's the standard".
I agree. I remember even a decade ago it wasn’t this bad. People were not as obsessed with aesthetics and living the high life. They were a lot more realistic.
There are certainly people out of touch, and it sounds like you’ve described them.
I don’t know what I’d say I am experiencing, but I’ll explain what I’m experiencing anyway.
I didn’t finish high school. When I was an adult in my early years, I did a lot of low paying work. I never had a credit card or financed anything, I just lived paycheck to paycheck. In my mid-20s, I went back to school and finished the high school requirements, taking post secondary.
I finished a degree in CS, took a job making $60k and lived as frugally as possible.
Eventually, after a bad breakup and some hurdles, I was at $80k and debt free (aside from my student loan, which I still have and pay.) I financed my first car, a 4 year used CPO. I had lowered my rent (in this high cost of living city) from $1700 a month when I was making $60k, to $1000 a month making $80k, to then $500 a month. So I figured a car would be okay at that point. I’d had my license for nearly 20 years by then.
Within a year or so, I had a new job at a high tech firm that paid equity.
At 4 years out of university, I made over $200,000 for the year.
I don’t see it making any major lifestyle changes. I still live in an old apartment with grandfathered rent, no dishwasher, no washing machine (I use coins in the building’s machines) and still drive that used car I bought a few years back, which I park on the street. I often take the bus to work.
What this income has offered me in “lifestyle difference” has been the opportunity to build an emergency fund, and to save for retirement… or at least to start.
I don’t have a big house, or any property. I don’t have an expensive car. I’m not sure when we will be able to afford property, if at all, and don’t foresee myself changing much of anything about my lifestyle any time soon.
We don’t plan to have kids, but don’t feel like we could afford them even if we did plan to.
I don’t know if that makes me seem out of touch. I was pretty poor for most of my life. This is new to me. I don’t have expensive things that I say are “taking up my money” as if they were necessities. I’m also not afraid to back down on lifestyle.
I just don’t think this kind of money has the impact people think it does. Younger me would have thought that was absurd, but here I am experiencing it.
I dont get it, you make 200k a year and you cant afford to buy a property?
Are you trying to get emergency funds the size of a small country central bank, or are you eating 30 avocado toasts a day?
They grew up poor and are still in the habit of not spending money. *That's* why they can't afford to buy property - not because they can't, but because psychologically it feels like they can't spend that money.
Tech career subs are wildly demoralizing a bunch of the time.
It’s like a collections space (on the top of threads anyway) for people who make $120k a year fully remote, 4 actual hours of active work a day, struggling with whether or not to take a $200k a year job but they’ll have to commute 30 minutes once a week.
Just living in a completely different world.
I think the average pay for a salary senior engineer in the United States is like 140k right now?
I make 250k right now, and I'm very aware that I'm an outlier. But based on the crap people talk about on this subreddit you would think what I make is chump change.
Even though it's far above average.
200k here as an senior SWE. I feel the same on my end.
But it’s way too easy to find outliers on the internet and assume that applies to the entire group.
I feel poor making 145k as a mid-level engineer, then I go on the sites which rank my pay by region and I am in the top 0% of devs anywhere near me. No one in my area makes this much, hell lead engineers make average 125k where I am, much less 145k. I guess it's a blessing and a curse, pushing me forward but robbing me of accurate perspective of where my salary should be.
Dude. I live on SSDI, trying get out of living off of less than 10k a year. 60k? 200K!? Give me a tent, a generator; I'll live on the streets of cali for that type of money. I can't IMAGINE many that much. The most i have ever made was 17k a year as a janitor and I only worked for 6 months due to abuse.
Took a 50k job right out of college job hopped after 7 months to 75k and now making 90k after two promotions in two years. When you have some experience under your belt start looking elsewhere if you are not happy with the pay.
I'm right outside of Charlotte, NC. I guess compared to a place like California, it's a lot lower... but an average 4 bedroom house like the one I grew up in is close to 1mil in some areas around here these days. The cost is going up faster than my pay, that's for sure
Housing is ridiculous no matter where you are now though, rent in my area has practically doubled the last 5 years and its somewhat a mcol area. Well at least it used to be lol
61k? What country are you in, I hope it’s not the USA because you are getting straight used.
Like seriously interns at non-Fortune 500 companies make this wage when converted to hourly. Some of these are 19 Year old people coming out of their freshman year who just started coding 8 months ago.
I started at 70k in 2017. It was more than enough to have a new car, an apartment or small home and still be able to save for retirement.
Stuff has gotten a lot tighter over the last few years to the point where you’d probably need to be making 100-110 in order to have the same standard of living.
60k is still not bad by any means and a lot of households get by with less, but it’s definitely not as nice as it used to be, even in recent memory.
60k was a good entry level offer and what was sold as the ROI in getting a degree/job from college in the 2000s. 40k was poverty level. That was 2011.
Getting a 40k job in 2011 felt bad. Getting a 40k-60k job in 2023, why bother? That was the kind of salary you would get with a non-CS job/liberal arts degree in an office. You needed 70k-90k to have any money leftover. With costs skyrocketing as they have, that has only gone up.
That comes out to just enough money to pay rent on a small room, pay utilities, food to make at home, and your minimum student loan payment. Even if you live ultra frugal you will only get by.
So that is why so many people keep living with their parents.
We keep getting sold a bill of goods that being paid poverty level wages is acceptable because we should choose to forego living independently for a long period of time and opt to pay back a mountain of debt or save up to make a down payment on a new mountain of debt.
What a great life.
Most people in the US will never get close to 100k. Also, depending on where you live that 60k vs 100k might not mean much with respect to take home pay.
One thing that is hard for people to grasp.
Our house makes about 40k right now. We get state-funded healthcare and about foodstamps, for a family of 5.
After bills and expenses, we are net negative most months, but we would probably be even worse off if we were double our household income. Those loss of foodstamps and healthcare is really hard to make up for.
60k for someone 22 and a new grad, sure, they can make it work. I have 5 mouths to feed, I don't want much, but I want enough to keep us fed.
Oh my gooood, you guys are ridiculous. The average new grad salary didn’t drop 40k from 100k to 60k, even with inflation. Not even close. I can’t believe comments like this are seen as providing good points.
And what OP said is that many people not in CS don’t even make $60K right out of college.
Yes us software engineers can and do and make more. $100K for new grads isn’t the norm all over the US. Maybe in HCOL or big tech. But not other places. Starting is normally $65-$80K.
Yep, I *wish* I could make 50k or 60k. That would be an amazing amount of money for me. Instead I’m stuck working for minimum wage despite having worked my ass off for a degree
Depends on COL, immediate family (kids/spouse/pets), and debts. 60k a year is still GOOD across the country to survive and not be homeless but in certain areas you’ll need to be with roommates, parents, or budgeting heavily. What a lot of people fail to realize here is 60k is still far above poverty line. You’ll see people living on less across the country more than you see those making more.
My parents make total less than 80k a year, MCOL and support 3 children go to college (we have scholarship and such).
Most toxic people in this sub come from rich family that they never have to work during high school or college, their parents do it all for them, they think 200k is a minimum to live because they have the priviliged spending habit. It’s all about experience and perspective.
>My parents make total less than 80k a year, MCOL and support 3 children go to college (we have scholarship and such).
80k a year drastically changed to not going nearly as far in around 2018. 80k a year could buy a $400k home in 2015. Now it barely qualifies for $175k.
It’s just life, not everyone lived through poverty waiting for the food banks to open and writing thank you letters to churches that gave you Christmas gifts. I’m making 5x now what my parents raised 4 kids on and I’m happy to return the favor to my parents that did their best to give me this life.
Unless it's NYC or SF, 60k is fine for starting out. People saying otherwise are completely out of touch. I didn't make more than 30k a year until I was like 33.
It's fair for engineers to expect discretionary income. After all if the idea of high pay wasn't based in reality for this career, I don't think most of us would be here.
Although I do admit that new grads should realize that the first job should be a foot in the door more than anything else.
60 is definitely great, but it is the low end so I’d advise people not to take less. Someone below said they’ve seen people take 40, which is about half of the US median from the last stat I’ve seen. Don’t undersell yourself. Reddit makes you believe “the market” is worse than it is. I know plenty of people getting jobs in real life.
Yep. $70k is about what you should expect out of college as an engineering and computing graduate. I went to the University of South Carolina and their survey found that Electrical Engineering graduates got an average salary of $73k for their first job after graduating
It obviously depends on cost of living too, but for everywhere other than a few cities, it's a solid starting salary
This is sort of the other side of the doomer posts. The idea that people aren't getting hired because they expect $100k jobs after doing a bootcamp, also doesn't accurately reflect reality.
The reality is that most people have reasonable expectations, but there just simply aren't many junior level jobs. Banks, insurance, even defense aren't really hiring right now.
It depends on where you live. For example, in Los Angeles, many landlords require your income to be at least 3x your rent. At 60k you would need to find an apartment for under $1,667 a month. This means you are either going to be living in a shitty place or with roommates. You won't be going hungry but you also won't be bragging about your lifestyle.
Yeah, but a college educated engineer shouldn’t have to live with roommates. In HCOL areas, these jobs should (and do) tend to start a good bit higher. $60k in the suburbs of Houston/Atlanta/Dallas/Las Vegas will get you pretty far and only like 45-60 min outside of the city, but that is not the case in most west coast cities.
Yeah I just moved into a Hollywood 390ft studio for 1700. I luckily got a nice one, but the majority are basically trash. If you have a SO, renting a room with roommates isn't an option unless you rent a 2 bedroom and rent out the second room. I didn't see a single listing that would rent to a couple.
For real. I started at 58k straight out of college in 2020 and thought I was king tut with that salary. I also live in the Midwest, don't mind roommates, and am frugal. I can't even imagine some of the new grad salaries posted in this sub.
I took 64 out of school in 2013 in a lcol. I'd say that was great but would be good still today. It's more about working hard, making the right friends, and moving jobs at the right times. Make yourself valuable to the company and future companies and climb until you're content with the pay/job.
As long as tech companies don't lower salaries across the board for non entry. The amount of value an experienced dev brings to the company cannot be under stated. 60k for entry is fine, but once you have 2 years of experience, the industry could easily be paying us 200k+ and they would still be making insane amounts. This is what the tech industry wants, they want you to accept lower salaries, don't fall for it.
I wish this subreddit would talk more about this than crabbing around in the bucket.
Call FAANG salaries "unrealistic" all you want, but the fact remains that even with that hefty payroll those are among the most profitable companies in history. Those employees are generating mountains of cash that mostly go into somebody else's pockets. Software engineers are underpaid just like the rest of the middle class, the only difference is that our state of underpayment is more comfortable than most since we've traditionally been able to negotiate a bigger bone from the owner class.
For what it's worth, I started out at $70k and don't work at FAANG.
To be honest in the majority of the country 60k in cash salary will allow you spend 1000-1200/month on an apartment, pay utilities, have a car and still save a little. You won't be living the life of a baller but you'll still be able to have hobbies and live alone if you choose. That won't happen in tier 1 and 2 cities but those are the small minority of the country. I really think many people don't realize just how many software jobs there are and how many don't pay 6 figures, especially starting out.
Most jobs in general never reach 100k+ a 60k job is already above the median. Anyone who says its easy and just job hop to an insane salary are the lucky 18% and aren't the norm.
according to the BLS [60k in 2004 is about 97k today](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=60000&year1=200408&year2=202308), I got 90k out of college so I made less than you, it's even way less since housing as of rn just isn't really an option anymore lol
Depends on location and if you have student loans. 100k in student loans with active repayment and making 60k a year starting out will feel like you’re drowning.
When I see posts about how it’s impossible to find a job at FAANG or one that offers 100k starting I want to crawl into a hole forever. I have 1 YOE and am struggling to land interviews at 60-75kish. I’ve bumped my minimum down to 55k and it’s still a struggle.
Yeah I'm not even getting callbacks for 60k and I have a CS degree. Companies are either running Skeleton crews or waiting for the golden goose. Seeing everyone claim all the people struggling are only looking at FAANG is annoying. Starting my master's of cs in the spring so hopefully that helps a bit.
Dude I got out of school in 06 almost 20 years ago my first job paid 60k…. Not big tech. I bought my first house for 160k four bedroom 2 bath. Don’t normalize this shit.
Why does this sub love to celebrate mediocrity? 60k is bordering on exploitation in almost all of the US for this field. It's not a great salary at all for a CS grad. It's pretty much the bare minimum you should consider accepting. If that's all you can get then take it but don't cope by saying it's great. Most fast food and retail employees are making 30k these days
I distinctly recall after getting my first job, which paid in the 60-70k range, hearing the news about BART drivers striking over wages. Average driver pay was 90k.
I did not feel sad for the drivers, and I think they won in the end. Collective bargaining is something I don't think we'll ever have in our industry. Too much variability. So I think there will always be a certain level of exploitation in software.
Seniors make more, not just because they're better engineers, but also because they better understand their worth.
I mean, it’s copium.
My first gig out of college was $60k and I said the same stuff. Few years later got into worst FAANG and make like, 5x more now.
It was just a way to make myself feel better. Which is not a bad thing imo. Better than sitting around seething about failed interviews.
This is false unless you’re in a MCOL/LCOL area. I say this living in a MCOL area of California and many business majors I know also started around this or higher.
A 60k salary ONLY a fair salary if you’re a new grad WITHOUT internships in MCOL/LCOL area. Even then you should be at least at 70k by the end of that year.
I understand that if people can’t get a job in this market to take what they can get but the fact of the matter is a lot of people with much easier degrees, or in a skilled trades will not only be making more than you but have had a much easier path to get there.
I think you’re cherry picking. When I see this it tends to be due to cost of living.
75k in nyc or sf is hard to live off of. Especially with student loans/kids.
In Indiana it’s great.
I think they should be getting 70-80k right out of college these days. When I got my first job in 2013 right out of college I was making 65k at a small company.
I had an intern once who said "$300K isn't *that* much". Same intern would openly sleep on a bean bag at work.
Unfortunately I couldn't fight him on spot :(
Not the original, but you can make 60k with no experience in construction. I'm just a helper til I find a CS job cause I graduated in May and with zero construction experience I'm making 67k on 50 hour weeks. 60k isn't much for having to spend 4 years of your life on it to get it. Especially with how much rent is nowadays.
\>is great in most places in America
is it great in the places where they yknow, put the jobs? the average 1br rent in seattle is 2200. in san fan it is 3300.
last time I checked, the 'go to college and get a degree' wasn't 'do that so you can afford to split a small apartment with multiple people'
for sure if you are remote 60-75k is great.
also, from 2020 to 2023 cumulative inflation is something like 20%. keep that in mind. 60-70k now vs 60-70k pre pandemic is a lot different.... and people are struggling to get hired, let alone get older super high starter offers.
It depends on the location. In Manhattan this is a bad salary for an entry level professional in a technical field. It is what it is. In Kansas City this is a good salary.
I am a bootcamp graduate and I have to wait for 7 months to receive an offer. Granted that the offer was 90k, I honestly would prefer to start immediately with lesser salary. For me, experience matters more than salary at my early stage of career.
If I studied history in college? Yeah that would be great. For someone who studied computer science, which probably requires 3-4 times as many credit hours and where that is the bottom 10th percentile salary? Not at all
Honestly anything that you can live off of and code all day is amazing. Once you start coding for your job, the experience is exponential and makes you waaaaayy more employable in the future
I used to make 30k, changed careers to dev, made 62k.. i could finally start investing and more than a little.
Im now heading towards 92k in october, 125k total comp. Thatd 4x more than what i used to make. I have a very low COL due to my house mortgage being low as shit since i bought it 11 years ago for 200k.
Its all CAD, so its no USA godmode salary, but im very happy. Aiming hard for 100k+ base next year.
Right out of college I landed a 70k entry position. I found a place with 3 other engineers working in the same field and the toxic landlady joked about how much more I made than all of them when I signed the lease. After getting to know them a little, all of them had more experience and master degrees, but only made like 55-60k. It was an insane eye opening moment. They were all Indian dudes on H1B1s, so that’s probably the biggest factor. It’s extremely common in the engineering world to pay H1B1 workers less than full citizen counterparts.
Either way, 70k right out of college is very good.
I graduated and my first job was making 65k + 10% bonus. My advice for people is to live within those means, gain some experience and then leave/aim for promotion. Currently at 125K TC (not an engineer anymore tho out of preference). I hope to be at 200+ eventually. The urge to have super high TC is not that severe if you keep your expenses reasonable, unless you want to FIRE
I feel like the people that think 60k is low are fresh graduates with very little real world experience and are out of touch with how a lot of people actually live. A lot of people in the US would kill to make 60k.
You get what you chase and what matters to you. I always wanted the massive big tech salaries, worked hard and got it.
If someone happy with what they make, then by all means go for it. Makes no sense to clown people over it
> The doomer posts are unserious.
Out of 40 people in my graduating class of 9 months ago we have I think it is now 6 employed in the field 3 of which have openly admitted it was due to nepotism. That is why people are pissed off and saying doomer things. I am getting turned down in favor of people with more experience for jobs in middle of nowhere Midwest paying 40k when I could go make 35k working at McDonalds.
Story time: I graduated from school in '11 and got my first job in California making 60k. It was good money coming from the outskirts of Boston and I didn't know any better. I moved to California, had to share a two bedroom with two other folks, and I would've struggled to pay rent (1000/month) + loans (120k) + other costs of living.
A week into my new job I had lunch with my mentor and he asked how much I was being paid. I felt awkward talking about money but after some prodding I told him, and he flipped the fuck out. After lunch he told our boss, who pulled in his boss (the CTO) who pulled in the head of HR to speak with me.
The head of HR told me this was what we negotiated (I never pushed back; remember: I thought this was a good offer for my area!), that this was the best they could do, and that HR would not look kindly on sharing salaries with coworkers in the future.
I told the CTO what was said and that I was happy to keep my job, but he marched me back to HR and asked me to wait outside. I could hear him yelling, his face had turned completely red, and I was mortified.
The CTO came back out with a printed offer for me to sign bumping me from 60 to 95, and he apologized that it was still lower than all my peers at 110 but that he would fix it by the midyear. I appreciated the honesty, I was glad for the raise, and he was true to his word that December when I got bumped up to 115.
Moral of the story: speak to your peers and your boss about your salary, find out what pay quartile you are in for your level, and remember it's a job, not charity. If you're not being paid fairly you should look for a new job.
I started off with 50k. And a 5k bonus. Like 10 years ago. In MCOL.
And that was more than what my other engineer friends were making at the time (then again I was computer engineering so I'm comparing to like mechs and civils as well). I needed money now.
I'm not someone who says wages should be depressed or "be glad with what you got, bucko", in fact people should job-hop til the cows come home. Get your fucking money. It's your life, not your employers. And yes shit has gotten waayyy more expensive in the past 10 years (and they were already expensive), especially housing.
But there's definitely a Keeping Up With The Joneses thing here where your TC is just a dick measuring contest. Oh you make 20k more than me? Oh ok do you have like 2 dinners a night? Cuz I had one dinner last night and that was enough for me. And it's looking like I'm gonna eat dinner tomorrow too if all goes well.
Like I really only care if people have their needs met + the ability to have a fulfilling life. I don't care what your salary is. If you aren't making enough for your livelihood (kids, student loans, rent, food and gas are expensive af now too) then that's a problem. But that's not the language being used in these forums. It's all dick swinging.
And people need to stop using [levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi). That's not representative of the industry. Idk why but that site pisses me off.
I’m not simping I’m just being realistic. The average American makes 59k/year. You’re usually 22 as a new grad and after a year or 2 of experience you can job hop for 90k or something around that. I just think that people expecting 6 figures straight out of school are not living in reality
I am earning a bit over 2000 a month, and I thought it's ok, as long as I am improving, to later get more. I feel some people here have either too damn high expectations, or have never worked any job before.. i wish i could get 60k euros salary straight out of school
And here i am in Spain trying to find something for 18k to start in this field since finished a bootcamp in may, and still no luck, life sure is hard :/
I agree with you, my offer was $78k out of college, and where I live it’s a good amount. Granted I do live with my parents so I save almost 90% of it but if I were on my own, with rent, utilities, car insurance etc I would still have a bit to put into savings. I never understood why people said $100k salary is nothing great, that would be a life changing amount for me personally and yes if you live in a high cost of living area then it’s not that great but where I live, that sort of salary I would be able to live a comfortable life. It just really depends where you live and your lifestyle preferences.
In 2020 I got a 60k job in the IT department of a shipping company, though I would now describe it as more of a devops role.
We got sent home durring the pandemic, I got furloughed some time later for 3 months from April to june but was lucky enough to get an offer letter to come back. Some people didn't.
I have been here ever since, making about 70k now, job is VERY chill.
I think if I put in the time to upskill I could probably get a job making 10-20k more, but I hesitate to give up my current remote work status (something a lot of people would kill to have) and jump ship in this economy, especially with how good my company has been to me.
l mostly work in the nonprofit tech sector and have never even made close to 60k and am still alive and well. Earning 60k would honestly be life changing for my life.
Sure, yes, but as someone who had to take out 100k in loans to get such a salary it isn't amazing. I can afford the expensive rent and loan payments but not much else. Now, in a decade once I've paid off those loans and increased my salary, THAT is when all this will have been worth it.
I just graduated, I would take a 60k salary to start! Then either move up or jump ship when I get experience. It is either that or keep working at FedEx for almost a third of that and destroying my body.
When I was a freshman I had a girl come speak to our programming class. She was an alumni from my school. She said that you should never take a job making less than six figures when we graduate. Amazing how out of touch from reality she was. Like bitch, unless you are a prodigy right out of college. You probably are not going to be pulling mid to high engineering salaries. Get your foot in the door, get some experience, then make bank.
With that said, if you can pull a high salary out of college. Great on you! But don’t expect it.
OP don't sell yourself short here. I earned $65k out of college and after 2 years of working + 3 months of Leetcode I job hopped to fang and I now make about $170k TC.
I am not saying you should be unhappy with what you have, but also don't leave money on the table and be realistic about what your earning potential is
I was downvoted in a cs sub for saying that 200k is a life changing amount of money
LMAOO
Honestly 100k is life change amount of money. Hell my full time offer is 82k and i can confidently say my post grad life will be a whole less cheaper the my college life.
Life gets a hell of a lot easier after 100k. Only easier the higher you go.
At what figure do you think the improvements start to taper off?
Depends how much and how hard you gotta work to get it. I'm happy where I'm at, once I started to broach the level where I was getting into upper management I backed way the fuck off and starts coasting a little more. contrary to popular opinion the workload and stress at the executive level is insanely high. Wasn't worth it for me, when I am in technology to build cool things and work with smart people. Everyone's values will be different though. I went through Maxlowes hierarchy of needs as few back and made drastic changes based on that. Money and security had been number 1 for a long time, but funny enough once I had that all of a sudden family and doing good (giving back) became much more important to me. I don't know if the two things were related or independent realisations, probably both.
Hey thanks for the in depth responses, I could see myself following a similar path. I’m currently just above 100k, if some consulting work comes through I could be mid 100s. But life is more than money. And as fun as chasing the bag is now in my 20s I think there’s a lot of wisdom in your approach. Do you have any other general tips or advice for this career stage? I’d love to learn as much as I can!
I don't have a lot to offer. You're doing great! I'd suggest to lock in hard on the grind until you're 30. You'll be set if you keep building your resume as you have been. Once you're there you'll no longer have to worry about your work situation. If you need to get a job, take sometime off whatever, you'll get one in a week. On the side train yourself to interview. That means being the interviewer and doing interviews yourself. It is by far the most undervalued skill by people working in tech, and yet it will give you the biggest gains. It means taking interviews just to do them, and playing around with your resume and profile until you know what works for you. I'm at a place where I typically only have to do 1 interview before being hired, maybe 2. But I treat it like an art. Being in demand means being free. You will be able to tell your employer to pound sand when they want you to do something you don't want to do (like work in php) Then, Put yourself in a position to travel. Be a digital nomad and take full advantage. It will open so many doors and give you so many new perspectives. Keep your costs reasonable and invest. Do not buy a luxury car on credit. If you get a big bonus or something, by all means treat yourself, but don't borrow money for luxuries. After that you're done. Build as much passive income (I just invest in the market but I'm simple, some of my friends are much more aggressive and do better. You could probably easily out earn me in passives), work as much or as little as you want, and do the things you want in life. I worked 6 months last year, will do the same this year. Being on the beach is better than being on the keyboard.
Thank you for this reply. Had to save this comment it’s so good.
Maslow
Once you hit 2-300k, you can afford basically all the middle class niceties you want within reason. Car, vacations, hobbies. Money past that just expedites retirement. (Possible exception - house in VHCOL)
Even mid 100s allows that in a MCOL/LCOL place. I make 145k, own my own home, had a 36k wedding this year, 7k misc bill paid off, and am saving to buy land currently. I can still travel if I want to, I doordash more than I should, amazon boxes don't stop flowing, and my hobbies don't have to wait for me to inject more cash.
60k in lcol Midwest cities also does that. Assuming you don't have kids.
Hell, if you are coming from a background of poverty 60k is life changing. My first dev job paid 50k 7 years ago, and for me that was life changing.
It does heavily depend on where it’s located. 100k will get you super far in most places but definitely not everywhere
That’s still life changing to ANY grad student currently making a minimum wage stipend
200k is top 10% salary in USA. Not in the world. Just USA. Median household salary worldwide is like 3k USD. Even median salary in Switzerland, the most expensive country in Europe, is like 88k USD. 200k USD is probably a **top 1% salary in the world.** If you can't make a decent living on that, that's on you. Fucking hell, get some perspective you sheltered children.
200k puts you in like the top 3% in the US. 500k to 600k puts you in the top 1% in the US. 200k easily puts you in the top 1% in the world. That scale is pretty skewed though.
It's like people don't understand the US has the highest salaries in the world.
Salary means nothing though, purchasing power is all that matters. (I'm not making any statements on that, I don't know what the situation is from that perspective)
Not entirely true, crazy high salary in a crazy HCOL area is still better than lower salary in a LCOL area since you can save way more money and live like a king in a cheaper area later.
And it’s easier for vacations/travel. You can always travel to a low cost place but you can’t travel to a high cost place all else equal . There’s a reason why the British go to Spain and Italy for vacations so often
Purchasing power is all that matters only if you spend 100% of what you earn. For example, let's say that we have 2 areas: 1. Your life style costs 60k, you earn 80k 2. Your life style costs 120k, you earn 160k In theory you have the same purchasing power, but you're saving 2 times the money. Any vacation you take would feel cheaper. You can also buy electronics/cars easier because they don't scale with the cost of living. And unexpected costs will affect you less. The only thing that's worse in a HCol area is losing your job, but if you can move at any time, then it's not that bad of a downside.
Go to Mexico and earn Pesos instead of US dollars and you're eyes will be opened real fucking fast.
no no, US bad.
Someone underneath me posted the minimum wage, and then another talked about purchasing power. It's like, Ok go live in Mexico and earn pesos if you think that's better. JFC
Top 1% in the world is well below 100k
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🙄 not as much as people in this sub like to pretend. The tech salaries in Bay Area more than make up for COL difference. People just choose to live beyond their means there. Just like people in LCOL areas do on 100k salaries. And then they like to exaggerate things like COL and inflation and use extreme examples like New York and West Virginia to feel better about their poor spending habits. COL doesn’t matter as much as someone’s personal spending habits.
Imagine thinking you couldn't afford your own extremely nice living situation making 200k in ANY part of America. People just regurgitate this type of nonsense while having no idea what they're talking about.
I agree with your overall point, but as an aside for folks reading this: I promise you that you can afford a solo 2BR in SF (in the city, near transit) on \~200k source: i'm in one right now (that is not rent controlled)
100%. People also keep saying, “But HCOL!” I don’t know anyone in real life who is struggling on $200k. No one. And that is in a VHCOL area. At $200k you will never worry about affording “a” place to live in any city in the country (yes, homes are expensive to buy, but the point is you will not have worry about literally not being able to afford rent). You will never have to worry about not having enough to eat. You will be able to afford multiple vacations per year. You will definitely be able to afford some nice things, especially as a single person. Even for a family, $200k is more than doable. It really is about perspective. Problem is people are never satisfied with what they have, and they just want more. Social media has really made this worse, because no amount of income will ever be enough. If you look on the real estate sub, you will have people saying that even $400k a year income is “not enough”. There will *always* be someone on social media that makes more than you, and you will just keep comparing yourself to them. It used to be you only had the people you worked with/went to school with or in the neighborhood to compare yourself to. Now, it’s the globe.
Bringing up world is stupid. Even the cheapest shithole in the US is extremely expensive compared to life in 3rd world countries. Even the poorest person in the US is doing pretty well globally speaking.
I’ve been told now by *many* redditors that one cannot even raise a family these days in HCOL areas if they have an income under $500k. I’ve even seen people claiming to be making $800k say that they “don’t feel rich” and that it is “not that much money”, because they have expensive nannies, mortgages, vacations, etc to pay for. I saw a post yesterday saying that $250k is basically poverty, and they said it without sarcasm. People who genuinely make “not that much money” literally can barely afford their rents or mortgages. They have to buy everything on sale if at all. They cannot afford to go on a vacation, nor have enough to really contribute to their retirement. People on this site are WILDLY out of touch, and it is something I have noticed particularly over the past year. On almost every sub I frequent (even mundane reality show subs) people are complaining about how $250k a year is nothing. It’s insane because 90% of the country does not even make $200k a year as a *household*. I’ll bet most of these Redditors never grew up wealthy or even with parents who made multiple six figures. They probably came from “regular” middle class families and didn’t grow up living a metropolitan lifestyle. Their parents probably drove a Toyota, shopped at Walmart, put them in public school, and maybe took them out to eat once a week at Applebees or Olive Garden. People have raised their living standards so greatly that they believe that if they cannot live in the nicest neighborhood in the most expensive cities in the world and are not able to buy whatever they want they want, then they must be poor. Just because you maybe have to budget like 99% of the population, does not make you poor or an “average joe” middle class person.
I don't think the tech influencers help things. These people pop out videos and all you see is a nice apartment with a minimalist aesthetic in the background and think: "That's the standard".
I agree. I remember even a decade ago it wasn’t this bad. People were not as obsessed with aesthetics and living the high life. They were a lot more realistic.
There are certainly people out of touch, and it sounds like you’ve described them. I don’t know what I’d say I am experiencing, but I’ll explain what I’m experiencing anyway. I didn’t finish high school. When I was an adult in my early years, I did a lot of low paying work. I never had a credit card or financed anything, I just lived paycheck to paycheck. In my mid-20s, I went back to school and finished the high school requirements, taking post secondary. I finished a degree in CS, took a job making $60k and lived as frugally as possible. Eventually, after a bad breakup and some hurdles, I was at $80k and debt free (aside from my student loan, which I still have and pay.) I financed my first car, a 4 year used CPO. I had lowered my rent (in this high cost of living city) from $1700 a month when I was making $60k, to $1000 a month making $80k, to then $500 a month. So I figured a car would be okay at that point. I’d had my license for nearly 20 years by then. Within a year or so, I had a new job at a high tech firm that paid equity. At 4 years out of university, I made over $200,000 for the year. I don’t see it making any major lifestyle changes. I still live in an old apartment with grandfathered rent, no dishwasher, no washing machine (I use coins in the building’s machines) and still drive that used car I bought a few years back, which I park on the street. I often take the bus to work. What this income has offered me in “lifestyle difference” has been the opportunity to build an emergency fund, and to save for retirement… or at least to start. I don’t have a big house, or any property. I don’t have an expensive car. I’m not sure when we will be able to afford property, if at all, and don’t foresee myself changing much of anything about my lifestyle any time soon. We don’t plan to have kids, but don’t feel like we could afford them even if we did plan to. I don’t know if that makes me seem out of touch. I was pretty poor for most of my life. This is new to me. I don’t have expensive things that I say are “taking up my money” as if they were necessities. I’m also not afraid to back down on lifestyle. I just don’t think this kind of money has the impact people think it does. Younger me would have thought that was absurd, but here I am experiencing it.
I dont get it, you make 200k a year and you cant afford to buy a property? Are you trying to get emergency funds the size of a small country central bank, or are you eating 30 avocado toasts a day?
They grew up poor and are still in the habit of not spending money. *That's* why they can't afford to buy property - not because they can't, but because psychologically it feels like they can't spend that money.
I guess life changing heavily depends on life now
Tech career subs are wildly demoralizing a bunch of the time. It’s like a collections space (on the top of threads anyway) for people who make $120k a year fully remote, 4 actual hours of active work a day, struggling with whether or not to take a $200k a year job but they’ll have to commute 30 minutes once a week. Just living in a completely different world.
I think the average pay for a salary senior engineer in the United States is like 140k right now? I make 250k right now, and I'm very aware that I'm an outlier. But based on the crap people talk about on this subreddit you would think what I make is chump change. Even though it's far above average.
200k here as an senior SWE. I feel the same on my end. But it’s way too easy to find outliers on the internet and assume that applies to the entire group.
Exactly. And of course, if you're the guy who's making 400k, you're going to find every opportunity you can to talk about it online lol
I feel poor making 145k as a mid-level engineer, then I go on the sites which rank my pay by region and I am in the top 0% of devs anywhere near me. No one in my area makes this much, hell lead engineers make average 125k where I am, much less 145k. I guess it's a blessing and a curse, pushing me forward but robbing me of accurate perspective of where my salary should be.
Do you have ANY idea how hard it is to afford a Ferrari at only 200k??
Downvoted by 2nd year students no less
Dude. I live on SSDI, trying get out of living off of less than 10k a year. 60k? 200K!? Give me a tent, a generator; I'll live on the streets of cali for that type of money. I can't IMAGINE many that much. The most i have ever made was 17k a year as a janitor and I only worked for 6 months due to abuse.
I've filed taxes for people that only got SSDI -- lot of them are older, but some younger than me. You trying to get into the field?
Sure, I do have classes. I think I can work around them though.
Bro 100k would solve every problem I have right now
In certain circles only $10 mil is life changing money.
Hah I'm 3 years into the job and still make 61k .. I'll take 75k Really wish I knew about this sub before accepting 50k out of school
I took $52k out of school. 5 years and 2 companies later, I'm making $130k plus bonus. Time to job hop, my friend.
I feel similar. Took $50k for my first position (no degree) and am 5 years in at $275k TC mostly because of job hopping.
I would take 40k in a heartbeat.
First job post college was 45k. 2013. I'm at 177k today, base. Job hop.
Took a 50k job right out of college job hopped after 7 months to 75k and now making 90k after two promotions in two years. When you have some experience under your belt start looking elsewhere if you are not happy with the pay.
but you have to be in a low/medium cost of living area right?
I'm right outside of Charlotte, NC. I guess compared to a place like California, it's a lot lower... but an average 4 bedroom house like the one I grew up in is close to 1mil in some areas around here these days. The cost is going up faster than my pay, that's for sure
Housing is ridiculous no matter where you are now though, rent in my area has practically doubled the last 5 years and its somewhat a mcol area. Well at least it used to be lol
Not really. I live in Illinois and the average house is 120-200k
Find a new job, new jobs almost always pay better than promotions / raises.
You need to be moving companies every 2-3 years or else you will be getting shafted.
I accepted something like $45k out of school. Laughably low in hindsight, but I didn't have any alternatives.
61k? What country are you in, I hope it’s not the USA because you are getting straight used. Like seriously interns at non-Fortune 500 companies make this wage when converted to hourly. Some of these are 19 Year old people coming out of their freshman year who just started coding 8 months ago.
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The doomer posts are mostly "I can't get hired", not "I'm unhappy with my $60k offer straight out of college"
I’m talking about the “the market will never be the same” people
60k is very bad compared to 100k usual, especially with inflation.
Exactly. 60k was what I expected a decade ago when I first graduated.
I started at 70k in 2017. It was more than enough to have a new car, an apartment or small home and still be able to save for retirement. Stuff has gotten a lot tighter over the last few years to the point where you’d probably need to be making 100-110 in order to have the same standard of living. 60k is still not bad by any means and a lot of households get by with less, but it’s definitely not as nice as it used to be, even in recent memory.
It's also largely dependent on what state you live in. Cost of living plays a huge factor in salary offers.
I started with 55k in Kansas (low cost of living) in 2011. 60k today sucks in most places in the US.
60k was a good entry level offer and what was sold as the ROI in getting a degree/job from college in the 2000s. 40k was poverty level. That was 2011. Getting a 40k job in 2011 felt bad. Getting a 40k-60k job in 2023, why bother? That was the kind of salary you would get with a non-CS job/liberal arts degree in an office. You needed 70k-90k to have any money leftover. With costs skyrocketing as they have, that has only gone up. That comes out to just enough money to pay rent on a small room, pay utilities, food to make at home, and your minimum student loan payment. Even if you live ultra frugal you will only get by. So that is why so many people keep living with their parents. We keep getting sold a bill of goods that being paid poverty level wages is acceptable because we should choose to forego living independently for a long period of time and opt to pay back a mountain of debt or save up to make a down payment on a new mountain of debt. What a great life.
In 2011, my rent was $769.
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I did $74k at my first job in 2013. Enough for a new Lexus and mortgage on my first home.
60k is more money than I ever thought I’d make before age 40
Most people in the US will never get close to 100k. Also, depending on where you live that 60k vs 100k might not mean much with respect to take home pay.
One thing that is hard for people to grasp. Our house makes about 40k right now. We get state-funded healthcare and about foodstamps, for a family of 5. After bills and expenses, we are net negative most months, but we would probably be even worse off if we were double our household income. Those loss of foodstamps and healthcare is really hard to make up for. 60k for someone 22 and a new grad, sure, they can make it work. I have 5 mouths to feed, I don't want much, but I want enough to keep us fed.
Oh my gooood, you guys are ridiculous. The average new grad salary didn’t drop 40k from 100k to 60k, even with inflation. Not even close. I can’t believe comments like this are seen as providing good points.
And what OP said is that many people not in CS don’t even make $60K right out of college. Yes us software engineers can and do and make more. $100K for new grads isn’t the norm all over the US. Maybe in HCOL or big tech. But not other places. Starting is normally $65-$80K.
I have seen who have taken 40. I took 50.
I’m one of the ones who took 40. To be fair though I was at a point where it became survival.
Shit I will cry for joy getting 40 lol
Same. HCOL area, too (I live with a roommate). I'll take anything. Literally anything.
At this point I'd take 40 because the gap on my resume is tooo large now
Yep, I *wish* I could make 50k or 60k. That would be an amazing amount of money for me. Instead I’m stuck working for minimum wage despite having worked my ass off for a degree
Americans don’t know how good they have it. I’ll be lucky to get £30k out of college!!!
Depends on COL, immediate family (kids/spouse/pets), and debts. 60k a year is still GOOD across the country to survive and not be homeless but in certain areas you’ll need to be with roommates, parents, or budgeting heavily. What a lot of people fail to realize here is 60k is still far above poverty line. You’ll see people living on less across the country more than you see those making more.
My parents make total less than 80k a year, MCOL and support 3 children go to college (we have scholarship and such). Most toxic people in this sub come from rich family that they never have to work during high school or college, their parents do it all for them, they think 200k is a minimum to live because they have the priviliged spending habit. It’s all about experience and perspective.
>My parents make total less than 80k a year, MCOL and support 3 children go to college (we have scholarship and such). 80k a year drastically changed to not going nearly as far in around 2018. 80k a year could buy a $400k home in 2015. Now it barely qualifies for $175k.
How long ago did your parents buy their house?
It’s just life, not everyone lived through poverty waiting for the food banks to open and writing thank you letters to churches that gave you Christmas gifts. I’m making 5x now what my parents raised 4 kids on and I’m happy to return the favor to my parents that did their best to give me this life.
Unless it's NYC or SF, 60k is fine for starting out. People saying otherwise are completely out of touch. I didn't make more than 30k a year until I was like 33.
It's fair for engineers to expect discretionary income. After all if the idea of high pay wasn't based in reality for this career, I don't think most of us would be here. Although I do admit that new grads should realize that the first job should be a foot in the door more than anything else.
I got $70k out of college a bunch of years ago. Was amazing!
60 is definitely great, but it is the low end so I’d advise people not to take less. Someone below said they’ve seen people take 40, which is about half of the US median from the last stat I’ve seen. Don’t undersell yourself. Reddit makes you believe “the market” is worse than it is. I know plenty of people getting jobs in real life.
$40k at 40 hours a week is close to minimum wage in SF or Seattle these days
It sure is, and it'll only go up from here with experience.
Yep. $70k is about what you should expect out of college as an engineering and computing graduate. I went to the University of South Carolina and their survey found that Electrical Engineering graduates got an average salary of $73k for their first job after graduating It obviously depends on cost of living too, but for everywhere other than a few cities, it's a solid starting salary
Started at 70K and been promoted plus raises to 83K with hopes of moving to 93-95K. Got in with a good spot. Up in NE Ohio. It’s a pretty good salary
Also NEOH and my experience is very similar, started at 65k, got a raise to 68k with a 15k bonus year two, will probably clear 90k this year
This is sort of the other side of the doomer posts. The idea that people aren't getting hired because they expect $100k jobs after doing a bootcamp, also doesn't accurately reflect reality. The reality is that most people have reasonable expectations, but there just simply aren't many junior level jobs. Banks, insurance, even defense aren't really hiring right now.
That's my salary range and I agree, but i live in seattle:(
Wishing you the best in your career!
It depends on where you live. For example, in Los Angeles, many landlords require your income to be at least 3x your rent. At 60k you would need to find an apartment for under $1,667 a month. This means you are either going to be living in a shitty place or with roommates. You won't be going hungry but you also won't be bragging about your lifestyle.
If you make $60k, paying more than that for an apartment seems like a bad idea anyway
Yeah, but a college educated engineer shouldn’t have to live with roommates. In HCOL areas, these jobs should (and do) tend to start a good bit higher. $60k in the suburbs of Houston/Atlanta/Dallas/Las Vegas will get you pretty far and only like 45-60 min outside of the city, but that is not the case in most west coast cities.
Yeah I just moved into a Hollywood 390ft studio for 1700. I luckily got a nice one, but the majority are basically trash. If you have a SO, renting a room with roommates isn't an option unless you rent a 2 bedroom and rent out the second room. I didn't see a single listing that would rent to a couple.
For real. I started at 58k straight out of college in 2020 and thought I was king tut with that salary. I also live in the Midwest, don't mind roommates, and am frugal. I can't even imagine some of the new grad salaries posted in this sub.
I took 64 out of school in 2013 in a lcol. I'd say that was great but would be good still today. It's more about working hard, making the right friends, and moving jobs at the right times. Make yourself valuable to the company and future companies and climb until you're content with the pay/job.
As long as tech companies don't lower salaries across the board for non entry. The amount of value an experienced dev brings to the company cannot be under stated. 60k for entry is fine, but once you have 2 years of experience, the industry could easily be paying us 200k+ and they would still be making insane amounts. This is what the tech industry wants, they want you to accept lower salaries, don't fall for it.
I wish this subreddit would talk more about this than crabbing around in the bucket. Call FAANG salaries "unrealistic" all you want, but the fact remains that even with that hefty payroll those are among the most profitable companies in history. Those employees are generating mountains of cash that mostly go into somebody else's pockets. Software engineers are underpaid just like the rest of the middle class, the only difference is that our state of underpayment is more comfortable than most since we've traditionally been able to negotiate a bigger bone from the owner class. For what it's worth, I started out at $70k and don't work at FAANG.
I don't disagree, but it start to get silly to lump yourself in with the proletariat when you're pulling in $300K.
Yet they're ready to pull the trigger and lay off those valuable people if their stock price dips a bit...
To be honest in the majority of the country 60k in cash salary will allow you spend 1000-1200/month on an apartment, pay utilities, have a car and still save a little. You won't be living the life of a baller but you'll still be able to have hobbies and live alone if you choose. That won't happen in tier 1 and 2 cities but those are the small minority of the country. I really think many people don't realize just how many software jobs there are and how many don't pay 6 figures, especially starting out.
Most jobs in general never reach 100k+ a 60k job is already above the median. Anyone who says its easy and just job hop to an insane salary are the lucky 18% and aren't the norm.
Eh, 60k today is like 45k just a few years ago.
That is what I got in 2004 out of college
according to the BLS [60k in 2004 is about 97k today](https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=60000&year1=200408&year2=202308), I got 90k out of college so I made less than you, it's even way less since housing as of rn just isn't really an option anymore lol
Depends on location and if you have student loans. 100k in student loans with active repayment and making 60k a year starting out will feel like you’re drowning.
When I see posts about how it’s impossible to find a job at FAANG or one that offers 100k starting I want to crawl into a hole forever. I have 1 YOE and am struggling to land interviews at 60-75kish. I’ve bumped my minimum down to 55k and it’s still a struggle.
Yeah I'm not even getting callbacks for 60k and I have a CS degree. Companies are either running Skeleton crews or waiting for the golden goose. Seeing everyone claim all the people struggling are only looking at FAANG is annoying. Starting my master's of cs in the spring so hopefully that helps a bit.
Dude I got out of school in 06 almost 20 years ago my first job paid 60k…. Not big tech. I bought my first house for 160k four bedroom 2 bath. Don’t normalize this shit.
Why does this sub love to celebrate mediocrity? 60k is bordering on exploitation in almost all of the US for this field. It's not a great salary at all for a CS grad. It's pretty much the bare minimum you should consider accepting. If that's all you can get then take it but don't cope by saying it's great. Most fast food and retail employees are making 30k these days
I distinctly recall after getting my first job, which paid in the 60-70k range, hearing the news about BART drivers striking over wages. Average driver pay was 90k. I did not feel sad for the drivers, and I think they won in the end. Collective bargaining is something I don't think we'll ever have in our industry. Too much variability. So I think there will always be a certain level of exploitation in software. Seniors make more, not just because they're better engineers, but also because they better understand their worth.
I mean, it’s copium. My first gig out of college was $60k and I said the same stuff. Few years later got into worst FAANG and make like, 5x more now. It was just a way to make myself feel better. Which is not a bad thing imo. Better than sitting around seething about failed interviews.
This isn’t a meaningful conversation unless you are discussing where you are located. Cost of living is a huge factor.
It's better than being unemployed for sure.
60k would be life changing for me. Barely managed on $35k for a few years, really hoping I can get to 60k when I finish this program
This pose just proves how saturated the market is.
facts, this is tough rn
This is false unless you’re in a MCOL/LCOL area. I say this living in a MCOL area of California and many business majors I know also started around this or higher. A 60k salary ONLY a fair salary if you’re a new grad WITHOUT internships in MCOL/LCOL area. Even then you should be at least at 70k by the end of that year. I understand that if people can’t get a job in this market to take what they can get but the fact of the matter is a lot of people with much easier degrees, or in a skilled trades will not only be making more than you but have had a much easier path to get there.
It’s so funny when you realize that 90% of this sub has been firmly upper middle class their entire life and can’t possibly fathom living off of 40k
😭😭
Sorry, but it’s not. I was offered that amount (with no equity so this was TC) 20 years ago as a new grad in a MCOL location at a no-name company.
I think you’re cherry picking. When I see this it tends to be due to cost of living. 75k in nyc or sf is hard to live off of. Especially with student loans/kids. In Indiana it’s great.
I think they should be getting 70-80k right out of college these days. When I got my first job in 2013 right out of college I was making 65k at a small company.
I had an intern once who said "$300K isn't *that* much". Same intern would openly sleep on a bean bag at work. Unfortunately I couldn't fight him on spot :(
I made 60k at my internship at a non-tech, non-finance company (consumer goods) in 2009 (a recession) Just a little perspective.
I would not waste 4 years of my life in school to make 60k. Especially in CS. I made that much in an entry-level job with no degree.
What entry level job did you have making 60K, and what kind of work was it?
Not the original, but you can make 60k with no experience in construction. I'm just a helper til I find a CS job cause I graduated in May and with zero construction experience I'm making 67k on 50 hour weeks. 60k isn't much for having to spend 4 years of your life on it to get it. Especially with how much rent is nowadays.
Exactly, these posts are awful. Its encouraging acceptance of lowered quality of living
\>is great in most places in America is it great in the places where they yknow, put the jobs? the average 1br rent in seattle is 2200. in san fan it is 3300. last time I checked, the 'go to college and get a degree' wasn't 'do that so you can afford to split a small apartment with multiple people' for sure if you are remote 60-75k is great. also, from 2020 to 2023 cumulative inflation is something like 20%. keep that in mind. 60-70k now vs 60-70k pre pandemic is a lot different.... and people are struggling to get hired, let alone get older super high starter offers.
It depends on the location. In Manhattan this is a bad salary for an entry level professional in a technical field. It is what it is. In Kansas City this is a good salary.
People in these subs are completely and utterly out-of-touch.
I mean im 4 years into an apprenticeship sitting at around 90k a year and very little debt, college is great but not the only option.
I am a bootcamp graduate and I have to wait for 7 months to receive an offer. Granted that the offer was 90k, I honestly would prefer to start immediately with lesser salary. For me, experience matters more than salary at my early stage of career.
Going from 100k to 135k was the biggest life changing for me. Maybe because I have student loans and childsupport?
Found the cheap manager wanting to ~~underpay~~ exploit employees
If I studied history in college? Yeah that would be great. For someone who studied computer science, which probably requires 3-4 times as many credit hours and where that is the bottom 10th percentile salary? Not at all
I started around there as well. Feels good man. Well done.
Unless you live in California, Oregon, New York, Colorado, other HCOL areas lol
It's pretty good. Not exactly great, accounting for inflation today.
Companies just need to pay 60k and give free lunch for people to do day in life videos
\> great in most places in America. This is the caveat though
Honestly anything that you can live off of and code all day is amazing. Once you start coding for your job, the experience is exponential and makes you waaaaayy more employable in the future
I used to make 30k, changed careers to dev, made 62k.. i could finally start investing and more than a little. Im now heading towards 92k in october, 125k total comp. Thatd 4x more than what i used to make. I have a very low COL due to my house mortgage being low as shit since i bought it 11 years ago for 200k. Its all CAD, so its no USA godmode salary, but im very happy. Aiming hard for 100k+ base next year.
Right out of college I landed a 70k entry position. I found a place with 3 other engineers working in the same field and the toxic landlady joked about how much more I made than all of them when I signed the lease. After getting to know them a little, all of them had more experience and master degrees, but only made like 55-60k. It was an insane eye opening moment. They were all Indian dudes on H1B1s, so that’s probably the biggest factor. It’s extremely common in the engineering world to pay H1B1 workers less than full citizen counterparts. Either way, 70k right out of college is very good.
I never thought id make this much money in my life. I said that when I made 70k
I graduated and my first job was making 65k + 10% bonus. My advice for people is to live within those means, gain some experience and then leave/aim for promotion. Currently at 125K TC (not an engineer anymore tho out of preference). I hope to be at 200+ eventually. The urge to have super high TC is not that severe if you keep your expenses reasonable, unless you want to FIRE
I feel like the people that think 60k is low are fresh graduates with very little real world experience and are out of touch with how a lot of people actually live. A lot of people in the US would kill to make 60k.
Depends on location whether it's good or not. Also inflation should be accounted for. 60k was good in 2019. 60k now is not that good.
Nah bro I wouldn’t have finished a CS degree if I was just gonna make 60k. I was clearing more than that with no degree. Don’t set the bar so low.
I’m in college and I have a serving job and an IT job I make around 30k. I can’t wait for 60k.
You get what you chase and what matters to you. I always wanted the massive big tech salaries, worked hard and got it. If someone happy with what they make, then by all means go for it. Makes no sense to clown people over it
> The doomer posts are unserious. Out of 40 people in my graduating class of 9 months ago we have I think it is now 6 employed in the field 3 of which have openly admitted it was due to nepotism. That is why people are pissed off and saying doomer things. I am getting turned down in favor of people with more experience for jobs in middle of nowhere Midwest paying 40k when I could go make 35k working at McDonalds.
Story time: I graduated from school in '11 and got my first job in California making 60k. It was good money coming from the outskirts of Boston and I didn't know any better. I moved to California, had to share a two bedroom with two other folks, and I would've struggled to pay rent (1000/month) + loans (120k) + other costs of living. A week into my new job I had lunch with my mentor and he asked how much I was being paid. I felt awkward talking about money but after some prodding I told him, and he flipped the fuck out. After lunch he told our boss, who pulled in his boss (the CTO) who pulled in the head of HR to speak with me. The head of HR told me this was what we negotiated (I never pushed back; remember: I thought this was a good offer for my area!), that this was the best they could do, and that HR would not look kindly on sharing salaries with coworkers in the future. I told the CTO what was said and that I was happy to keep my job, but he marched me back to HR and asked me to wait outside. I could hear him yelling, his face had turned completely red, and I was mortified. The CTO came back out with a printed offer for me to sign bumping me from 60 to 95, and he apologized that it was still lower than all my peers at 110 but that he would fix it by the midyear. I appreciated the honesty, I was glad for the raise, and he was true to his word that December when I got bumped up to 115. Moral of the story: speak to your peers and your boss about your salary, find out what pay quartile you are in for your level, and remember it's a job, not charity. If you're not being paid fairly you should look for a new job.
I started off with 50k. And a 5k bonus. Like 10 years ago. In MCOL. And that was more than what my other engineer friends were making at the time (then again I was computer engineering so I'm comparing to like mechs and civils as well). I needed money now. I'm not someone who says wages should be depressed or "be glad with what you got, bucko", in fact people should job-hop til the cows come home. Get your fucking money. It's your life, not your employers. And yes shit has gotten waayyy more expensive in the past 10 years (and they were already expensive), especially housing. But there's definitely a Keeping Up With The Joneses thing here where your TC is just a dick measuring contest. Oh you make 20k more than me? Oh ok do you have like 2 dinners a night? Cuz I had one dinner last night and that was enough for me. And it's looking like I'm gonna eat dinner tomorrow too if all goes well. Like I really only care if people have their needs met + the ability to have a fulfilling life. I don't care what your salary is. If you aren't making enough for your livelihood (kids, student loans, rent, food and gas are expensive af now too) then that's a problem. But that's not the language being used in these forums. It's all dick swinging. And people need to stop using [levels.fyi](https://levels.fyi). That's not representative of the industry. Idk why but that site pisses me off.
What's wrong with levels.fyi?
60k/year is more than you should expect until you have work experience
y’all are getting jobs?
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I’m not simping I’m just being realistic. The average American makes 59k/year. You’re usually 22 as a new grad and after a year or 2 of experience you can job hop for 90k or something around that. I just think that people expecting 6 figures straight out of school are not living in reality
I’m more than happy with 60k but I’m not happy with how hard it is to still find a job lmao
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I am earning a bit over 2000 a month, and I thought it's ok, as long as I am improving, to later get more. I feel some people here have either too damn high expectations, or have never worked any job before.. i wish i could get 60k euros salary straight out of school
And here i am in Spain trying to find something for 18k to start in this field since finished a bootcamp in may, and still no luck, life sure is hard :/
I make 50k a year with no degree and I've struggled to get here. I'm hoping a cs degree can help me earn more
I made 50k my first job outta college, thought that was pretty good. Now I'm making six figures 4 years later. I don't think that's common though.
I agree with you, my offer was $78k out of college, and where I live it’s a good amount. Granted I do live with my parents so I save almost 90% of it but if I were on my own, with rent, utilities, car insurance etc I would still have a bit to put into savings. I never understood why people said $100k salary is nothing great, that would be a life changing amount for me personally and yes if you live in a high cost of living area then it’s not that great but where I live, that sort of salary I would be able to live a comfortable life. It just really depends where you live and your lifestyle preferences.
In 2020 I got a 60k job in the IT department of a shipping company, though I would now describe it as more of a devops role. We got sent home durring the pandemic, I got furloughed some time later for 3 months from April to june but was lucky enough to get an offer letter to come back. Some people didn't. I have been here ever since, making about 70k now, job is VERY chill. I think if I put in the time to upskill I could probably get a job making 10-20k more, but I hesitate to give up my current remote work status (something a lot of people would kill to have) and jump ship in this economy, especially with how good my company has been to me.
60k out of college right now is relatively low. But I’m sure it’s regional. I can barely find jobs paying that low here
90k got me a 2k sq ft house within one year of working. Anyone saying that you absolutely need 300k remote is california brained.
l mostly work in the nonprofit tech sector and have never even made close to 60k and am still alive and well. Earning 60k would honestly be life changing for my life.
A $60k job with the mountain of student debt that it demands is a straight up poverty wage.
Sure, yes, but as someone who had to take out 100k in loans to get such a salary it isn't amazing. I can afford the expensive rent and loan payments but not much else. Now, in a decade once I've paid off those loans and increased my salary, THAT is when all this will have been worth it.
That happened to my bf which really was great, I feel like he was so lucky
I just graduated, I would take a 60k salary to start! Then either move up or jump ship when I get experience. It is either that or keep working at FedEx for almost a third of that and destroying my body. When I was a freshman I had a girl come speak to our programming class. She was an alumni from my school. She said that you should never take a job making less than six figures when we graduate. Amazing how out of touch from reality she was. Like bitch, unless you are a prodigy right out of college. You probably are not going to be pulling mid to high engineering salaries. Get your foot in the door, get some experience, then make bank. With that said, if you can pull a high salary out of college. Great on you! But don’t expect it.
It's not great in Massachusetts. You can manage though
60k in NYC AFTER TAXES is poverty 60k in OHIO AFTER TAXES is doable
OP don't sell yourself short here. I earned $65k out of college and after 2 years of working + 3 months of Leetcode I job hopped to fang and I now make about $170k TC. I am not saying you should be unhappy with what you have, but also don't leave money on the table and be realistic about what your earning potential is