Huh, I thought engineers' pay scale would be a lot higher than program managers, business analysts, administrators, consultants and the like. It isn't. At all.
Developer layoffs are always projected as huge savings in expenditure. It probably gives the impression that developers' pay is higher compared to other employees.
That isn't true in at least two other industries: Finance and sports.
At investment banks, it's quite possible for a star trader or I-banker to be paid more than the CEO.
An NFL head coach is almost certainly paid less than the starting QB, and possibly other positions. The general manager is paid far less than many players.
HR and accounting are not in charge of pay and hiring. They are involved, but management is in charge and sets the rules.
I have seen cases where I made more than my boss (the difference was a few hundred/year), but it wasn't long before they promoted my boss so that wasn't the case. (I'm convinced that it was only allowed to happen just long enough to say it was possible and then when nobody was looking they promoted him to ensure it doesn't become a pattern)
HR is definitely in charge of pay structure , at least where I have managed. You could argue with them, but it was a monumental effort to get them to do a market study, and they still wouldn't drop degree requirements for some of our best candidates.
I only had a tiny bit of freedom within a pay band.
Those are the boots on the ground. The people in charge are those they listed, i.e, program managers, business analysts, administrators, consultants...
Upper management yes but level for level engineers are paid more than biz roles at most other tech companies, FAANG. The only other people who possibly make more is sales (performance based)
> Why in the name of all that is unholy would you ever think that?
Seen it many times where engineers are making more than their managers. I had jobs where there was no real difference between my pay and my direct manager's.
There were fewer programmers for each programmer's role than managers for each manager's. Not sure if it still applies though.
I don’t think I saw anywhere in the article about Msft pay for program managers and the other positions you mention. Curious about these numbers, can u share?
It is possible that programmers are taking less money than their worth due to the fact that our jobs are basically fun, but that’s an exploitation rather than a feature.
No one sets pay rates. Pay for labor in a free market economy is determined purely by supply and demand. So literally the entire concept of "paid less than their worth" is nonsense, because the economy is what is evaluating "the worth". Here's a simple question, how would you prove that someone is "being paid less than their 'worth'"? I can fantasize any figure for my "true worth" and make noise about being paid less than it; it's just as meaningless.
It also occurred to me that the movement to make most IT jobs 100% remote depresses pay which would normally be based on local standard of living (much higher in cities)
As a person doing that exact thing right now, I 100% sympathize with the hate there. It's awful. It's like being single, except your survival depends on it.
Paradoxically, I'd prefer 60% onsite/40% remote due to being a bit ADD.
If you insist people get the same pay no matter how enjoyable the job is, then you're implying people should get the same pay for jobs that make people feel like shit.
May have been true of the 2000s. But the 2010s and 2020s, not much “fun” to be had cleaning up the shit architecture of 2000s; and getting rid of “legacy” tech (ie, mainframe).
It’s a grind, m8. Companies today just acquire their competition, “trim the fat”, pump the stock. There hasn’t been any new innovation in this industry in a long time.
$126k base is certainly livable in the Seattle area, though may be difficult to get ahead (ie: save for a house). Pretty comparable to entry level Amazon SDE 1 pay (at least years ago)
Oh wow! I got $37k in 1999 (~$69k 2024 according to BLS) in the DC area, for a Software Engineering job. I love to hear that grads now get rewarded w/ $125k fresh out.
My Goldman Sachs starting salary as a new analyst out of college in 1999 was US$40K. During that first year, because of the dotcom bubble, Goldman raised the salary to $55/65/75K for first/second/third-year analysts, and my end-of-year bonus in 2000 was close to 100% of salary. Then the full effect of the recession/market crash hit and the 2001 bonus was, well, much smaller.
Microsoft in the DC area or somebody else like Raytheon?
I would expect Raytheon and the other contractors (i.e. Booze Alan) have raised entry level to like 70/80k but they're going to be much lower than Microsoft. As well as as you get promoted it caps out much lower. It's a bit better at non-contractors like Capitol One but still not quite the same as a "Tech Company".
It's rather interesting; management at contractors seems to have their head in the sands. When you tell them what people get by leaving they're just like "I think you misunderstood what they're being paid".
(The level number starting so high is I'd guess due to an homogenous pay structure, so some non-engineering, junior HR say, roles lower paid (<L59) than where engineering happens to start.)
I think your layers of hell are very skewed by recent human history and may need a bit of a healthy reality check. In almost all of human existence, working at Microsoft or Oracle and sitting in a cushy chair coding and being paid ungodly amounts of money would be considered eternal paradise.
You're being paid to build the mechanisms of power projection, and to completely divest yourself from the question of how the fruits of your labor are then applied.
Seems a little low compared to the numbers I've seen reported, which makes sense. The promoted numbers are actually the most shocking, they must lose a lot of people
Compared to what? I wasn't in FAANG and my first job out of college paid better than the highest average wage in any country in Europe, Switzerland [1], I paid very little in taxes (no state tax), got 20+1 days of vacation with half of those rolling over if I wanted, as well as sick leave, parental, etc, etc. I had the option of taking highly subsidized healthcare as well, but I was still on my parent's plan at that point.
Between 22 and 30 days paid vacation, healthcare, guaranteed payment on layoffs, free time outside official hour works, 35 to 40 hours work week, paid leaves due to illness, childcare, unions,....
All those things are given to a Microsoft software engineer. It's really only the low paying jobs that there's a directly benefit from the European model.
Sure. And the laws could change in any given European country and remove certain protections. Just because a possibility is there does not mean there is any real likelihood of that possibility happening.
Well, all these laws are applicable for privileged natives.
If you are an immigrant, even from the US or other first-world country, good luck — you’ll be given contractor arrangements and fixed-term positions, still with low compensations.
Sure, this is why you won’t be offered a permanent position (say, in France). Too much hassle. Much easier for them to hire you as an unprotected contractor.
It's not guaranteed, but these big tech companies always give severance with layoffs. At Microsoft I believe it was 1 month pay + 1 week pay per 6 months employed. And that's not including any extra downtime where you're not working but technically employed(maybe, due to 60 day notice required by WARN act, for example)
Unemployment insurance is mostly guaranteed if you lost the job through no fault of your own (weren't fired, didn't quit), but the amount varies by state. Good luck with receiving it in a timely manner. Took months for my wife to receive it when she was let go in 2023. If we'd been counting on her income we would have been homeless by the time the first payment came in.
Since I am an immigrant and don’t have access to most of local safety nets anyway, I much prefer working for higher-paying US companies as a contractor.
absolutely eyewatering in comparison to EU wages (outside of London etc). inb4 "but you have healthcare" (which is so good you'll go to jail if you don't pay up)
My understanding is that Canadian FAANG offices are staffed mostly with those who cannot (and often will never get) a US visa, plus the odd local who doesn't want to move to the US for personal or family reasons.
