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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."
Bullshit. Not believing any of this till I see paystubs.
Where are these jobs? Silicon Valley? A small town in the Midwest?
In debates about Christianity, there are two groups: those looking for answers, and those looking to just ask questions.
Are they talking about undergrads or did they include graduate students and PhD graduates as well? I really doubt that somebody fresh from college with an undergrad degree can make mid $60k right off the bat.
Gotta cover the prices. The rest of the world is underpaid. Nobody should ever have to work more than an hour to buy a case of decent beer.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
This is why there is a major push to get the H1B program expanded and more women into CS. To drive down salaries. H1Bs can be abused by their employers at will(indentured servants anyone?) If anyone thinks that the gender pay gap is going to go away by more women getting into CS they're nuts. What's going to happen is, more women will get into CS related jobs as employers know they can get away with paying women 20% less.
So..there is some food for thought for you....
of the thousands of students in the poll... only about 350 were CS majors. Makes it kinda easy to have a skewed perspective.
$150k in Silicon Valley = $90k in a more modest location... (adjusted for the cost of living in the area)
My $0.02 CDN.
...where they need $100k just to keep your head above water. The cost of living is ridiculous over there.
What do you mean doesn't get them much in terms of housing? Yeah, rent in the bay are is high, but 2500 get's you a 3-4 bed house in the east bay, you can live quite comfortably, that's 40-50% of your net salary, which is high, but you don't have many other expenses, silicon valley companies feed you, offer transportation, etc etc.
And this doesn't include stock, and may or may not include the bonus, so it's not that bad. And it can only go up from there, 3-4 years in and you can easily be earning a base salary of 150k. Doesn't look that bad to me.
I hope all these CS graduates making this kind of money right out of college realize the kind of rarefied strata that they are in.
More than half of all people on the country make less than half of their starting salaries.
I see so much flippancy from some people here in Slashdot who don't seem to realize the kind of money that most people in this country have to live on.
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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.
Bachelor's? Master's? Ph.D? All of them combined?
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.
Right off the bat?
I hire a lot of developers for my company, and recent grads are slotted in our "junior" role (unless they somehow had a lot of experience during university) and the starting salary is between $55-70k depending on many factors that are personal to them. I have never hired anyone out of university for $100k, and I think that is nuts. Companies should pay for quality, not ambition.
See title
People are overpaid everywhere. A lot of people are not, including most Americans.
"13% of CompSci Grads Get Jobs in Silicon Valley or Redmond"
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
I think most folks are not reading this article right. The average starting salary is $66K. Being average, it means that half the graduates are paid far less than that amount. There's no mention of location as well which varies tremendously as living costs vary. I'm paid well under that average but where I live the amount they give me is considered quite good because of low living costs. This survey also probably doesn't include the unemployed as you can't report a salary if you can't find a job which is a major problem for a lot of graduates in my experience.
I think a good summary is that you can make a reasonable living with a computer science education as long as you can find a job after you graduate. I dislike how the article seems to say it's an "Easy Street" job. To be good at this field, you need to have a certain love for it that extends into your personal life. I've seen some CS Majors who went in entirely thinking they would be paid well but without any of the commitment to continue learning about it. I suspect many of those poor graduates won't survive their field in the real world.
I live in New Hampshire, we don't have 10% state income tax and 10% sales tax, so no, the money you earn isn't the same.
Yeah, a $100,000/yr. salary there is barely enough to pay the rent.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
If you're in Silicon Valey or New York City, you basically can't survive without a salary over $100K. On the other hand, if you live, for example, in Ohio or anywhere in Michigan other than Troy or Detroit, you can so better on half that.
So what we really care to know is what are the salaries prorated for the local cost of living?
Until rents go up.
Well, if $150k in Silicon Valley is "Good", then YES: 100K in Silicon Valley would actually be an "entry level CS salary"
(as scary as that is, being equivalent to the $50-77k we're used to for the same entry level CS job here in Canada)
Consider that a nice 1 bedroom condo in downtown Toronto might go for $400k
The same size of Condo would be priced at $900k in San Mateo.
Salaries for the same job scale with the cost of living (although not a perfect 1:1)
For contrast, I had a minimum mortgage payment of 850/month on a 3,000 square foot house, had enough extra to pay it all off in 8 years. It's a fair point that $66k/yr in most areas easily beats $100k/year in SV. That's one thing if you really *want* to live in Silicon Valley, but if you move there because of a better job opportunity and didn't particularly care about being in SV specifically, you are probably making the wrong move.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Sorry forgot to point out that out in my above post.
The city of San Jose has a rent control for apartments that allow rent can to go up only 8% per year. When I leased my studio apartment ten years ago, I was making $32,000 per year and paying $800 per month in rent. Although my rent went up 57%, my income went up 64%. As long as I continue to make more money, rent isn't a problem.
A different point of view: is renting a $1,400/month studio on $50k per year really a modest lifestyle? With even conservative estimates of your 401k contribution and benefit costs, calculations show that your monthly rent is a couple hundred bucks more than one of your paychecks, making your rent is more than 50% of your monthly take-home income.
Now I'm not criticizing you here, I want to be clear about that. If you're choosing to live a relatively modest lifestyle so that you can have the convenience of living right in the heart of Silicon Valley, that's of course up to you. But, the thought did occur to me that you're not so much choosing an overall modest lifestyle as you are prioritizing where you live over other things.
I guess the point I'm making is that a truly modest lifestyle would probably be to move to a cheaper place, and save/invest more money or something to that effect.
I pay 50% for rent, save 20% and live on 30%. IMHO, that's a modest lifestyle. I know many people in Silicon Valley who pay 50% for rent, live on 50% and spend 50% on credit cards. While those people are considered middle class, they regard me as being poor. Go figure.
Being one of the few native Californians in the state, born and raised in Silicon Valley, I see this area as my home. I'm always amused by stories that people need $100,000+ per year to live here.
Actually, if you're willing to take a risk and join a startup and have stock options, you can stand to gain an incredible amount. Most startups fail, but finding another job shouldn't be a problem.
What I suggest is to first find a relatively large stable corporation to work for after graduation. After 3-5 years experience, join a startup (do your research on them first of course) or a relatively new company that is planning to go public, and negotiate a nice chunk of stock options. It is likely there will be many long nights at work, but the energy and vibrancy will sustain you. Don't get married too early - if the relationship gets serious, live with each other for at least two years, and get a prenup.
Best area for this sort of lifestyle is still the US west coast, home of the venture capitalists.
But as another poster noted, it helps to have a certain love for this field that extends into your personal life - technologies evolve quickly enough that you should be constantly learning. From my fifteen years plus experience as a software engineer, there are very few people who have this sort of passion. Most prefer to settle into doing the same thing day in day out - their priorities shift elsewhere like to their families - the good news is that most larger companies need people like that, and still pay a decent salary.
This report is like any news article. You can believe it, or you can refuse to believe it. Whatever makes you feel better about your career and your salary.
Well, yes, compared to those folks, that is certainly more conservative. At lease your numbers are in the black. I was more pointing out that most financial advisers recommend spending no more than 25%-30% of your monthly TAKE HOME pay on rent/mortgage. Now again, there is NOTHING wrong with what your doing (and you certainly don't have to justify it to me or anyone else for that matter), I just don't know if you'd really call it modest, per se.
But you know what, dude? Kudos. You're living (presumably) debt free in one of the most expensive areas of the country on a relatively modest salary, and that is a hell of a lot better than the way a whole lot of people manage their money.
rent in the bay are is high, but 2500 get's you a 3-4 bed house in the east bay
You're missing the big picture of real estate: Equity.
When you pay into a mortgage you can sell the house or borrow against the equity. When you pay rent, you build someone else's equity for them. This person already has enough wealth to buy to pay the insane prices of houses in Silicon Valley. So the rich person is getting richer, and the poor person is going nowhere.
but you don't have many other expenses, silicon valley companies feed you, offer transportation, etc etc.
That was tried before in the coal mining towns of West Virginia. It doesn't turn out so well for the workers. See these. You're just skipping the pointless pieces of paper and instead presenting a company ID.
I'm a renter, not a landlord. Besides, I don't live in San Francisco.
13% of CompSci Grads are Routinely Lying in Surveys
A pox on web designers who feel that window.innerWidth == screen.availWidth
Well, apparently there's money to be made in products that people can use worldwide.
http://www.businessinsider.com...
If 3 mediocre software engineers could match the capabilities of one good one, I'm sure we'd see more application of that principle outside of government contracting (cost-plus) work.
A few more certifications and another job change in a few years should put me on the $100,000 per year pay rate tier. Then, for the second time ever in my lifetime, rent will be less than 50% of my take home pay.
$100K in California, equates to around $5.5k in hand (for a single person) per month. 1 BHK apartments are going around $2.5K per month in Mountain view.. much much higher in SF. $500 goes for your car payments. A new grad would probably try to pay off his education loan off, so can take around $1k per month out for that.
Since bay area has a higher population of immigrants, you can assume that he is sending some share of the remaining money to his parents in his home country.
$100K is not a lot in SF Bay area.
You can't ignore prices, unless the walls come down and they're the same everywhere. I base my salary demands on the cost of living. I use beer as the reference, because it can apply to any country where you can buy it. No matter where you are, the equivalent of one case/hour will provided for a pretty good living. And it covers for inflation automatically.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Could their job be done by 3 people elsewhere for 30k each?
No. The Mythical Man Month was published forty years ago. Even then, it was clear that the best programmers were ten times more productive than an average programmer. Bad programmers have negative productivity, since the cost of correcting their errors is more than the value of what they produce.
Write'n code ain't like digging ditches.
Racism?
More often than not, those people are not as good as you are, because they haven't had as good an education, and:
- they don't speak English as well as you do
- they live in a different time zone
- their culture is different, as in "Everything is OK!" when actually it's not
- they are not as settled and dependable, and you will be working with a different person every 4 months
- their country can be invaded by Russia
Okay, the last one is perhaps unlikely, but it has happened at least twice in the last 8 years.
I must be really low then. I barely make the average starting salary and I've been working for 17 years since getting my CS degree.
...quicker, easier, more seductive the darkside is...but more powerful, it is not.
Not every state is Iowa. There are lots of reasonably big cities throughout the midwest.
Columbus, OH
Cincinnati, OH
Cleveland, OH
Detroit, MI
Indianapolis, IN
Minneapolis, MN
These are just some that pop into my head. But then, you're an AC, so you don't really care about a real answer.
Nice try, but the cost of living in certain cities is what drives up salaries.
If you live in Spokane WA, you're going to get paid a LOT less than if you live in Seattle WA.
If you live in NYC or San Francisco or San Diego, same thing.
They say things like this to justify sending more H1-B visas to firms like Tata to get cheaper employees while it's the literal cost of living that's actually driving up the prices.
To someone in Podunk, Illinois, they hear this and believe it, but you can hire someone you'd pay $100k for in SF for only $26K there. And salaries done by averages tend to inflate it by adding total compensation - retirement, sick leave, vacations, health insurance, etc. So you won't clear $100k, you'll be lucky to get $60k.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There has been a lot of talk of another tech bubble. A lot of money is going into a lot of silly startups.
Before the other bubbles, there was a lot of speculation about "are we in a bubble"? About 2/3 the time the conclusion was "no", which turned out to be wrong.
But on the flip side there has been speculation of a college loan bubble going on for several years, but we've yet to see the popping. But maybe a tech burst would also trigger a loan bubble burst as graduates couldn't pay off their loans.
Caveat Emptor.
Table-ized A.I.
800 / 1400 = 0.57 or 57%
Equity doesn't matter nearly as much as you think, especially illiquid equity. Here's the real math.
If you rent, you pay X per month. You may have renters insurance of Y. So your monthly cost is X+Y. This entire amount is lost.
If you own, you pay A per month in principal, B per month in interest, C per month in real estate taxes, D per month in utilities (things like garbage and sometimes water are usually rolled into rent), and E per month in maintenance. B+C+D+E is lost.
If B+C+D+E >= X+Y you should 100% rent. Your equity will be in the form of monthly savings, which you can put into any investment you wish.
If B+C+D+E is anywhere close, you should rent. Why? Because its fucking stupid to put all of your money into a single investment. Diversification of assets is key to any investment strategy. So why put it all into one?
Worse, its illiquid. Selling real estate is hard. It takes months, and you may not get what you expect for it. Then you'll take an 8-10% cut in taxes, realtor fees, title insurance, lawyers, etc. You need an 8-10% increase in value just to break even and pay off the mortgage.
You also can't sell just part of a house. Its all or nothing. You can get a loan against principle (maybe), but that's another expense at a higher interest rate. Whereas selling stock/bonds you can cash out at any time at no penalty.
And it completely ties you to one place. YOu cannot move without taking a huge financial hit. If your local area goes into a recession, you're unable to take offers outside. If life changes and you have a long distance relationship, or you need to move back to care for a parent, or you get a job offer on the other coast you're fucked.
The only time it really makes sense to invest in real estate is when
*its for cash, no mortgage
*you have plenty of other money and won't become underliquid
*your career is over, or its a rental property.
For the vast majority of people, buying is a bad idea.
This is just naive. Rent has gone up 2 or 3 times over the last 10 years. Meanwhile mortgage payments are flat through decades. Why did fall in real estate value result in skyrocketing rent?
The percent difference calculator disagrees.
http://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/algebra/percent-difference-calculator.php
You can make considerably more money operating a nail salon or a hair styling place. Seriously. And buying/building one costs a hell of a lot less than a 4-year college degree does.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Holy mother of god that's expensive. My condo is 3 times that size and my ENTIRE housing costs (including HOA dues, power, cable, mortgage, water) are $950/month.
You will never understand why people choose to live in San Francisco or Manhattan until you understand that people value different things.
How do you compare lifestyles between SF and suburban Chicago? What if I have a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge in SF and I go jogging through the Presidio in the morning and have lunch in Chinatown? How much does the home cost in Kansas that affords me that same lifestyle? Oh, yeah, right, infinity dollars.
As hard as this may be to believe for the suburban castle folk, there are things that weigh heavier on someone's quality of life than how many square feet (or bathrooms or garages) their home has. People are different, they care about different things.
Speaking as somebody with a CS B.S. in the SV area, and with a handful of friends the same, I think this sounds about right. If anything 66k for an entry salary is a bit low. I would have expected more like 75 as an average entry salary.
you can take a 2 year technical course and start off at 40K and rise to 60K in 2-3 years in a place that cost half as much as the techy centers of the world
When talking about percentage increase, you have to use the starting value as the denominator, not the end value (actually your numerator isn't right either).
Rent:
$800+$600=$1400 so the actual increase is 75% ($600/$800)
Your salary:
$32,000+$18,000=$50,000 so the actual salary increase is 56% ($18,000/$32,000)
Your 'straight out of university' grad is not ten times as productive as the average programmer.
For those rare few, maybe within a couple of years, more likely five. Not before you fucking hire them, which is when you're setting salaries.
- their culture is different, as in "Everything is OK!" when actually it's not
I find the cultural issues are the biggest ones.
Timezones even out - the challenge of working in disparate timezones is balanced by the ability to lengthen the working day without directly impacting on the individuals involved.
There were no rent increases in 2009 and 2010 after the economy cratered from the Great Recession and people started moving out from Silicon Valley. The maximum rent increase by law is 8%, which didn't always mean that the rent went up by that amount each year. The rents have gone up in recent years because the apartment complex got sold several times. Each new corporate owner felt obligated to slap on a coat of paint, list the "luxury" apartments for inflated rents, and tried to recoup their costs in the shortest amount of time.
I like my numbers better. :)
Property taxes.
nt
My first salary was nowhere like that. $30K per year with a dotcom/startup company back in the late (19)90s. :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
First of all, it's a bad idea to take out a 30 year mortgage. A 30 year mortgage is for someone who is buying too much house for their income. Imagine a 3rd person who buys a house for 3x their income, pays it off in 10-15 years, and then spends the remaining 15-20 years investing his housing money. (As it happens, I took out a 30 year mortgage, but refinanced it to a 10 year mortgage after 5 years). Second, you probably shouldn't expect to get twice the salary moving to SV.