Tech's Highest-Paid Engineers Are At Juniper

Phoghat writes "The guys at Glassdoor have compiled a list of the 25 tech companies with the best salaries for software engineers. Google and Facebook made the list, of course. So did Apple and Twitter. But the company at the very top is a bit of a surprise: networking gear maker Juniper Networks."

Comments

Thanks slashdot.... now I feel underpaid.

[mark-t]

I barely make half of the average of the 25th place company...

Re:Thanks slashdot.... now I feel underpaid.

[Anonymous Coward]

Serves you right for living in British Columbia.

Re:Thanks slashdot.... now I feel underpaid.

[CAIMLAS]

Don't feel bad. At least you don't work for Juniper. That's a reputation an engineer can do without!

Think of it this way: Juniper has to hire the best and brightest, because if they don't, they're fucked. Their products are horrible; they need drastic improvement, and they don't have the market share like Cisco does to muscle competitors or victims.

Bad data

[Anonymous Coward]

Base salary is only a fraction of the compensation. I work for one of the top 5 and the base plus stock per year for a fresh COLLEGE GRADUATE engineer is higher than the "average" salary listed for the company. All this really says is that your company is in Silicon Valley where you need 100k a year to rent a decent apartment.

Re:Bad data

[Frosty Piss]

I see you bought in to the "stock" thing. Why do you think start-ups offer such a thing? Because for the most part it is WORTHLESS in the long run. You will never benifit from those "stock" options. And yet you go on working for "real world" wages that are shitty because you're in love with the company. In a few years, you will walk away shaking your head at how you could have stayed there so long without real actual good compensation in the form you real actual money paid into your bank account.

Re:Bad data

[artor3]

It's not just start-ups offering stock options, you know. My company's been around for several decades, and I receive about 20% of my compensation in the form of stock -- which I sell as soon as it vests, because only an idiot would keep so much money in a single company. I'm sure the AC is in the same boat, since he claims to work for one of the top 5 (Juniper, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Google, or Twitter).

Re:Bad data

[francium de neobie]

Well, I'd rather save $2k - $3k every month and have housemates. That's $36k per year of extra cash for Christ's sake. You roll that into Tesla in the beginning of this year and now it's $150k (okay you'd need to be quite lucky to do this); or you roll that into BitCoins whenever there's a panic; or you just save it up and wait for the next market crash. But as you can see.. if you save and invest that, it becomes Porsche or even Ferrari money pretty quickly.

... and... that's still not enough for a good house :(

Re:Bad data

[hackula]

Anyone have any idea how the schools can stay so bad, even with all the upper middle class engineers in the area? It stands to reason that they would not be AS good as the places where all the high dollar investors and execs would live, but 150k average for a few given neighborhoods should provide plenty of taxable income to maintain a decent, safe school district.

Re:Bad data

[Sir_Sri]

Don't rent buy.

That's same with any big city/small town setup - you buy a house in the city (or suburbs of the city anyway), when it comes time to retire you sell your house and move to a small town half an hour a way, buy a comparable house for half the price, and the other half becomes most of your retirement nestegg.

Re:Bad data

[lgw]

Save $2k/month? That's off. When I lived in Silly Valley this year my rent was less than $2k, and I had a nice modern 2-bedroom (and no roommate). Of course, that was with a bit of a commute - close in it would have been 2200 or so.

It's amazing what people can find to spend their money on. Live cheap until you're independently wealthy - your freedom is by far the best gift to yourself.

Re:Bad data

[evilviper]

you buy a house in the city (or suburbs of the city anyway), when it comes time to retire you sell your house and move to a small town half an hour a way, buy a comparable house for half the price, and the other half becomes most of your retirement nestegg.

Houses depreciate over time, they don't get more valuable (unless you're putting lots of work and money into them. What *usually* becomes more valuable is the LAND your house is on.

Where I looked, bare land was $200,000, with a house on the same sized lot being $600,000. For that $400,000 difference, you can pay rent for a LONG time. And the cost of the house will balloon as you pay insurance, perform repairs, etc., making rentals even better deals.

If you're really doing this as an investment strategy, buying up as much vacant land as you can afford, while continuing to rent, is the far better deal. You'll probably come out a decent bit ahead with the house, but not nearly as much. And you're a fool if most of your retirement savings is tied up in a single house, single piece of land, or single stock... And of which can be worth little at the time you want or NEED to sell it. Diversify.

Property isn't the best of investments, either. The worst areas may experience gentrification and become immensely valuable. While the most expensive areas may decline severely. I've seen it first hand, and you can't possibly know your home will be immune.

Re:Bad data

[Kjella]

Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I liked having my own room as a kid, now I have my own apartment and I guess eventually I will have my own house. I've had housemates in the past and with no offense to those I was living with I always wanted my own living space, even if it's a lot of arguably unnecessary cost. If you don't think it's a big deal, good for you. Heck some just like that lifestyle and only move out to live with someone as a couple, never having nor wanting a place all to themselves. Personally I'd take living by myself and my current 10+ year old okay-but-impresses-no-one car over housemates and a Ferrari any day of the week. Except the days with lots of leisure time and cruising weather at least.

Re:Bad data

[rollingcalf]

The schools are bad because they can't attract good teachers to the area due to the high cost of living, and they're not willing to double or triple the salaries to bring in the good teachers.

LinkedIn at 2?

[Anonymous Coward]

LinkedIn is obviously overpaying. No way is any of the code coming out of there as good as pretty much anybody below them on the list.

Re:LinkedIn at 2?

[Joining Yet Again]

Capitalism is about supply&demand, not effort&quality. The aim is to invest capital efficiently in response to demand instead of labouring.

It's depressing that people understand so much about recent complex scientific developments, but don't have the simplest grasp of an economic system that's centuries old.

Re:I can't tell from the post

[locopuyo]

They are including the "base salary" of Senior Engineer and lead positions.

Re:Other surprise

[lw54]

Walmart is big data personified. Here are some old stats http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_71

misses size & location, distribution of compan

[zrelativity]

Many of those companies are based in the Silicon Valley (particularly Santa Clara, North San Jose, Sunnyvale and Mountain View) where your cost of living is very high.

If you were in Washington State or Texas (Dallas), your cost of living maybe only half of what it is Silicon Valley. When I was living in Dallas, I was paying less than half of what I now pay for an apartment in San Jose. There is state tax too. Juniper is relatively small.

What was surprising to me was to see Walmart, but I don't know their Software Engineering group size or location.

Not surprising. . . .

[sgt_doom]

has anyone ever read Goralski's book on networking (he's a top engineer there)?

http://www.amazon.com/The-Illustrated-Network-Kaufmann-Networking/dp/0123745411

"engineers"

[Anonymous Coward]

programing is not engineering.

Re:"engineers"

[russotto]

programing is not engineering.

Yeah, that's what the guy who drives the train tells me.

Re: misses size & location, distribution of co

[Badblackdog]

Wal-Mart does not skimp on IT/security infrastructure and equipment upgrades. I have been doing data, phone, CCTV and alarm service work in Wal-Mart/Sam's for years. They are not afraid to spend money on tech.

Greetz to my buds

[TheRealHocusLocus]

Greetz to my buds at Juniper's Special NSA Piggyback Slurp Packet Sniffle Fiber Fruitcake Utah Datacenter Cluster Zap Lightning Products Division.

Glad to see someone is living the American dream.

Just joking. I know full well that routers do not listen to people, people listen to people.

Re:I can't tell from the post

[Sir_Sri]

Those wouldn't be starting salaries unless you have a graduate degree or experience and are jumping into a senior position.

Last I checked (which was a couple of years ago) a fresh PhD starting at google was in the 130-140 range, and a fresh undergrad was usually in the 80 range - at least that's what my students get.

Re:misses size & location, distribution of com

[lgw]

My apartment in Washington State costs 10% more than my apartment in Silicon Valley did. It's all about your commute and what you're close to.

The tax difference is quite significant though - CA is 7%, but that's 7% of gross, so more like 10% of what would have been your take home in WA or TX. Plus here in WA I can legally get plastic bags in the grocery store if I like - so there's that (I just didn't realize how intrusive CA laws were into my daily life until I left - it was like a weight lifted).

Walmart is a top-tier employer in vary large scale computing. They're just as happy for folks not to know about the billion dollar data centers (bunkers really - they're quite ready for the Walmart riots).

Some Caveats

[Anonymous Coward]

As they note: "Because Glassdoor only includes companies where at least 50 engineers have submitted salaries, there are some high-paying companies that didn’t make the list. Netflix, for example, often pays engineers far more than other companies" which, working at Netflix, I can confirm -- software engineers get paid substantially more than at Juniper at Netflix and as for "some startups that are paying software developers close to the same salaries as management" -- Ha. I manage a software development group, and about half of my engineers get paid substantially more than I do. And that's probably right, because they'd be harder to replace than I would be.

(Posted as AC for what are probably obvious reasons)

Finance?

[zenyu]

I don't work in finance, but I'm surprized not a single hedge fund made the list. A big part of their compensation is in the bonus, but still you can't live on a base of $130k in Manhattan, kindergarten costs $38k per year per kid, not to mention a place to live, etc.

Is it just that you need to have 10,000+ employees before 50 of them post their salary on glassdoor?

Do hedge funds actively discourage their employees from posting?

Re:Use brick and stone

[evilviper]

Well all low rise buildings don't perform that well in earthquakes

Non-masonry structures absolutely perform MUCH better with the twisting stresses caused by earthquakes. That goes triple for old, unreinforced masonry...

Wood-frame buildings can be significantly improved at trivial cost by just switching to HurriQuake nails.