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Google's Engineers Are Well Paid, Not Just Well Fed
D H NG writes "According to a study by the career site Glassdoor, Google tops the list of tech companies in the salaries it pays to software engineers. Google paid its engineers an average base salary of $128,336, with Microsoft coming in second at $123,626. Apple, eBay, and Zynga rounded off the top 5."
Considering the amount of effort in getting a job there, the hours worked, and the cost of living in Mountain View, I think that roughly equals minimum wage. Maybe they need a software engineers' union.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
And to add to my previous comment, I wish GlassDoor would redo their study after factoring in cost of living. Then we'd see who's *really* paying their engineers.
In Germany for a slightly lower salary (let's say 100K) you work only 37 hrs a week (for real, not only on paper), have 30 days of paid vacation a year, an extensive social security and healthcare coverage provided by the government (you don't need any private insurance), and you cannot be fired "at will", but only for a fair reason. What about google, microsoft, and the US in general?
Yesterday here on slashdot I read a scary post saying that astronomy Ph.D. students work 80 hrs a week, and reading the comments it seemed that it's considered "normal" in the US. I thought they were on another planet!
Any engineer would loved to be paid 127,001
I'm not so sure that these engineers are very well paid. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook was awarded $378 million in compensation. According to the above survey, the average software engineer at Apple makes $114,413 a year. In order to make the same amount as the CEO, the engineer would have to work 3300 years. So let's ask the question: When would the engineer have had to start working in order to have the same amount of money as the CEO? The engineer's first day of work would be 1300 years before Jesus of Nazareth would be born. And keep in mind this is an engineer. Consider junior level employees. According to an article by the New York Times, a salesman working at an Apple store makes about $11.25 an hour. He would make the same amount as the CEO in about 16 thousand years —- that would put his first day of work well into the stone age -- if you’re a creationist, his work time would be longer than the age of the universe.
Considering the number of Phd's and M.S. graduates that Google employs versus Microsoft, it stands to reason that the average salary would be higher. As others have mentioned, when you factor cost of living, hours worked, and the degree employees hold, 128K doesn't go very far. Also in Washington State (where Microsoft is located), there is no state tax
When the median home price in Mountain View is over a million and the cost for a decent 2 bed/bath apartment is 3k/month, your dollar doesn't go to far.
I wish GlassDoor would redo their study after factoring in cost of living. Then we'd see who's *really* paying their engineers.
That's something people don't seem to get, not even economists. I'm twice as rich as someone in Chicago who earns the same salary as me, because prices up there are twice as high.
I took a required economics class as an undergrad (late 1970s), and on the first day of class the three instructors were saying that Americans made too much money, there was going to be a crash, and that we would be earning the same as someone in a third world country.
I'd been in the USAF the previous four years. In Deleware I was a pauper; they don't pay airmen jack shit. When I was stationed in Thailand (then still not developed, although it's completely different now) I lived like a king. My bungalow (including woman) was $30 per month. I could tale three ladies to a decent restaraunt and have a $1 bill. I bought a tailored shirt for $5. It cost a nickle to go anywhere in the country on a bus, a dollar for a taxi.
I raised my hand and asked about the differences in living costs and asked these three educated idiots how in the hell someone can live on $1000 a year in the US. Their answer? Live in a cardboard box and eat nothing but peanut butter.
I stood up, called them idiots to their faces, and walked out and dropped the class, and replaced it with... hell, I don't remember, some other unscientific science like sociology or something.
People just don't get it, and I suspect that someone who should but doesn't, like someone with a PhD in economics is being disingenuous for their own evil ends. I've had nothing but disdain for economists to this day, it was made even stronger when these economists espoused trickle down fairy dust.
Oh, yeah... time showed that those idiotic economists were idiots, if common sense didn't.
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