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13% of CompSci Grads Have Starting Salaries Over $100K
itwbennett writes: That was one of the findings of a survey of 50,000 U.S. college students and recent graduates by Looksharp, a marketplace for internships and entry-level jobs. For general findings across all majors, check out the State of College Hiring Report 2015. But the company shared some more computer science-specific findings with Phil Johnson. Among them: "Of all majors, students studying in CS had the highest average starting salary, $66,161." And, what's more, they know the value of their degree: "On average, they expected a starting salary of $68,120, slightly above the actual average starting salary of $66,161."
Indeed. Employees have a vested interest in inflating these numbers. I have filled out these surveys multiple times, and I always put in about double my current salary. That way my employer thinks I am underpaid, and I am also more likely to get the free magazine subscription that the survey is supposed to qualify me for.
$150k in Silicon Valley = $90k in a more modest location... (adjusted for the cost of living in the area)
My $0.02 CDN.
This is pretty common in insane cost-of-living places like the CA Bay Area. I finished my BSCS in December and am making 108k now. I had just under 3.5 GPA at a state school and a couple of good internships, so it's not too hard. Though that salary isn't even enough to buy a house here.
Our survey found that only 45.4% of the class of 2014 is currently enrolled in a full-time job meaning 54.6% of grads from last year are unemployed or underemployed (this is excluding students enrolled in graduate education).
This seems to be more noteworthy.
I make $50,000 per year and rent a 475sqf studio apartment for $1,400 in Silicon Valley. For my needs, it's perfectly fine. Then again, I'm not trying to live the American dream of having it all. A modest lifestyle can go a long way in an expensive area like Silicon Valley.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.
Lets see a breakdown that calculates geographical cost of living and hourly wages (rather than salary). $100k isn't much when you're working 100 hours a week and live in silicon valley.
All of the numbers in this article are very believable.
I have a BS degree from the University of Nebraska. And not the prestigious Raikes school, but the normal old pre-Raikes degree program.
After a summer internship, I got an offer from McDonnel Douglas for 48k.
My offer from Microsoft was more like the 60k figure. I took that one, because it didn't involve living in St. Louis.
The year: 2000
So, 60k to start right out of college was a going rate for top-tier companies... fifteen years ago.
Some companies paid much more, and sometimes that was a company decision, and sometimes it was a reality of where the position was located. For instance, before I had even finished my degree, I was recruited for a position with a 99k starting salary. That firm, however, was in NYC. When you adjust for NYC cost of living, it's not such an eye-popping number.
Subsequent to these numbers from 15 years ago, I have been involved in lots of hiring at Microsoft in the years I've been here.
Starting salaries have adjusted upward significantly since I was hired.
If you can score an engineering position with a top software/services company like Microsoft, you will be paid exceptionally well. For someone fresh out of college, there is just an obscene amount of money on the table.
Different companies target different spots in the industry pay curve. Microsoft by no means targets the top of the salary scale, but neither do we target the bottom. At times, Microsoft has been seen as, to put it mildly, "pretty uncool". At times, there has been lots of startup money and equity available for top quality grads to go after.
In those time periods, Microsoft has to offer more money to continue to attract new talent.
If you want to work at a company where lots of people want to work (e.g. a games company, or SpaceX), those organizations don't have to compete as much with offer packages, since their brands have a high intrinsic draw.
While I don't know what a Netflix offer package is like, Netflix states that their policy is to pay very high wages - the wage they'd be willing to pay to keep someone excellent who wanted to leave.
Finally, it's important to consider the type of organization you're looking at joining. Do they do software/IT, or is that a cost of doing business for them? If a company is in the business of selling shoes, but has an unavoidable need for software engineers, they're going to treat software engineers as a cost of doing business.
If a company is in the business of building software, they're going to think differently about compensation and retention.
Finally, companies that aren't well established players in the software space can have difficulty making big offer packages. At times in my career, I've been frustrated and have looked elsewhere, and the smaller, less profitable companies I've spoken with are offering tens of thousands lower than what I was already making.... making the friction of leaving financially tremendous.
(my personal financial plan is to expect a 50% paycut when something happens to my MSFT employment)
In summary, I have no problem believing the numbers. Top quality CS people at top quality organizations are paid outrageously well.
However, I get that lots of people are expressing disbelief. Let's talk about why that may be. The survey data could be skewed by multiple factors:
- the locale of the person responding
- the self-selection bias of the person responding (e.g. are people happy with their comp more likely to fill out a survey?)
- the kind of organization the survey respondants work for...
If you surveyed internal apps developers at regional insurance offices, in the Midwest, you would get a different picture from a survey of facebook engineers...
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.