6 ms·

Seeing this is concerning. I'm 8 years into design Engineering(and self taught programming 12 yes) and at 125k. It seems there is no way up without extreme spec

Seeing this is concerning. I'm 8 years into design Engineering(and self taught programming 12 yes) and at 125k. It seems there is no way up without extreme speciality. I know a FAANG guy making 160k doing server Java but we both think it's a temporary anomaly. I thought embedded might pay better than design Engineering, but I haven't seen too many people saying they make significantly more. I'm not sure how to angle my career. I've peaked? Current thoughts, side business is ultra important for a pay raise. Maybe AI.

jbay808 6y ago
125k is pretty good, isn't it? 8 years into my career I was at 60k. If you want to earn more then go for it, but you shouldn't feel bad about yourself.
- lifeAsNerd 6y ago
  It's great, but I don't see a path higher.
  - pedrosorio 6y ago
    Where are you located? The numbers are way off compared to total compensation in FAANG. A software engineer in the level immediately above junior (2-3 years experience) earns ~250k at Google or Facebook in San Francisco: https://www.levels.fyi/# https://www.levels.fyi/#
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    My FAANG total comp was >150k (2015, new grad, major US metro area), and that was just the regular offer they made to everyone if you didn't try to negotiate. You can definitely go higher, at least once the current coronavirus hiring freezes get lifted.
    - gumby 6y ago
      > ...at least once the current coronavirus hiring freezes get lifted. FWIW I heard google has slowed down but I know FB is Accelerating hiring and and onboarding new hires virtually.
njharman 6y ago
If you're only after money then be a Quant for financial company. But you probably had to plan that from college. The other option is start your own companies (plural cause it's unlikely your first several will be "the one").
tracer4201 6y ago
$160K (US Dollars) is definitely on the lower end of FAANG for a software engineer. My recommendation to folks is work at a FAANG at least for 3-4 years. You won’t be able to afford the kind of home you can get in Houston, Kansas City, Nashville, etc. but the experience and typical scale of problems you’ll work on is well worth it. To be clear, I mean home in terms of Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond pricing. I live in Bellevue, WA. Source: been at two different big tech companies over the past ~10 years.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
monocasa 6y ago
Embedded makes less for whatever reason. What I'll say is that over $100k-ish at non-FAANG, the salaries say more about the company than the person doing the work.
- badpun 6y ago
  > Embedded makes less for whatever reason. Embedded goes into hardware, which is mostly a low-margin product. Whereas software products (be it FAANG or startups) either make a ton of money or are perceived by investors to have a potential to make a ton of money, so they can afford to spoil their devs. In the realm of non-product development, enterprise software can deliver milions/bilions in increased efficiency for the enterprise, so it's another field where there's enough money to spoil devs.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    Margins are super low on pretty much everything that's not a B2B behemoth. And in a world where a good oscope is $30k, these companies can afford to pay their devs a bit more for the most part too; I've seen their budgets. I think it's just a market failure where everyone already pays these wages, so no one goes out of their way to pay better. You can see this on the software side with China's "code peasants", or the UK salaries.
    - badpun 6y ago
      > Margins are super low on pretty much everything that's not a B2B behemoth There's tons of in-house custom enterprise software development where, depending on the skills of the manager leading the project, the idea for the developed solution can be sold to upper management as the second coming of Christ (e.g. we'll spend $10m over two years on developers and potentially earn/save hundreds of millions) and this unlocks a pot of gold for the development budget. The manager will then want to hire good/expensive devs as this increases the chance that the team will deliver what he promised to the upper management. I've seen this multiple times in large organizations I've worked for.
AnimalMuppet 6y ago
The thing about embedded is that you can stay in it. I'm 58, and my salary hasn't stopped going up. Sure, it's not at FAANG levels, but it's better than people with 8 years of experience get. In embedded, that extra experience actually is worth more money. It's not the "you don't know this week's web framework? No job for you" world.

jbay808 6y ago

125k is pretty good, isn't it? 8 years into my career I was at 60k. If you want to earn more then go for it, but you shouldn't feel bad about yourself.

lifeAsNerd 6y ago
It's great, but I don't see a path higher.
- pedrosorio 6y ago
  Where are you located? The numbers are way off compared to total compensation in FAANG. A software engineer in the level immediately above junior (2-3 years experience) earns ~250k at Google or Facebook in San Francisco: https://www.levels.fyi/# https://www.levels.fyi/#
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- jdm2212 6y ago
  My FAANG total comp was >150k (2015, new grad, major US metro area), and that was just the regular offer they made to everyone if you didn't try to negotiate. You can definitely go higher, at least once the current coronavirus hiring freezes get lifted.
  - gumby 6y ago
    > ...at least once the current coronavirus hiring freezes get lifted. FWIW I heard google has slowed down but I know FB is Accelerating hiring and and onboarding new hires virtually.

njharman 6y ago

If you're only after money then be a Quant for financial company. But you probably had to plan that from college. The other option is start your own companies (plural cause it's unlikely your first several will be "the one").

tracer4201 6y ago

$160K (US Dollars) is definitely on the lower end of FAANG for a software engineer. My recommendation to folks is work at a FAANG at least for 3-4 years. You won’t be able to afford the kind of home you can get in Houston, Kansas City, Nashville, etc. but the experience and typical scale of problems you’ll work on is well worth it. To be clear, I mean home in terms of Seattle, Bellevue, Redmond pricing. I live in Bellevue, WA. Source: been at two different big tech companies over the past ~10 years.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

monocasa 6y ago

Embedded makes less for whatever reason. What I'll say is that over $100k-ish at non-FAANG, the salaries say more about the company than the person doing the work.

badpun 6y ago
> Embedded makes less for whatever reason. Embedded goes into hardware, which is mostly a low-margin product. Whereas software products (be it FAANG or startups) either make a ton of money or are perceived by investors to have a potential to make a ton of money, so they can afford to spoil their devs. In the realm of non-product development, enterprise software can deliver milions/bilions in increased efficiency for the enterprise, so it's another field where there's enough money to spoil devs.
- monocasa 6y ago
  Margins are super low on pretty much everything that's not a B2B behemoth. And in a world where a good oscope is $30k, these companies can afford to pay their devs a bit more for the most part too; I've seen their budgets. I think it's just a market failure where everyone already pays these wages, so no one goes out of their way to pay better. You can see this on the software side with China's "code peasants", or the UK salaries.
  - badpun 6y ago
    > Margins are super low on pretty much everything that's not a B2B behemoth There's tons of in-house custom enterprise software development where, depending on the skills of the manager leading the project, the idea for the developed solution can be sold to upper management as the second coming of Christ (e.g. we'll spend $10m over two years on developers and potentially earn/save hundreds of millions) and this unlocks a pot of gold for the development budget. The manager will then want to hire good/expensive devs as this increases the chance that the team will deliver what he promised to the upper management. I've seen this multiple times in large organizations I've worked for.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago

The thing about embedded is that you can stay in it. I'm 58, and my salary hasn't stopped going up. Sure, it's not at FAANG levels, but it's better than people with 8 years of experience get. In embedded, that extra experience actually is worth more money. It's not the "you don't know this week's web framework? No job for you" world.