Hey so just to be clear: a 200k comp package nowadays is the equivalent of about 81k in 1990.
Put another way: I am doing a good bit worse than my dad was at my age, despite being a pretty solid and experienced software engineer, with an EECS degree, and a lot of devops and system design experience.
This is the collapse of the American social contract. Even people like me who are ostensibly in “great” jobs are treated like code monkeys, and adjusted for inflation, it’s flat or worse than 30-35 years ago. We are doing worse than the generation before us. The American Dream is a nightmare.
I think it’s the same in all developed nations; constantly needing more skills to achieve the same standard of living. I think a lot of it is from nearly all resources getting more expensive to extract (oil, wood, iron, etc) due to us having already extracted all the low-hanging-fruit, and needing to move on to more resource-intensive methods like offshore-drilling, fracking, importing lumber long distances from harsher climates. The other drivers are the attacks on labor and executives/shareholders taking more profits for themselves instead of paying their workers more.
Your last point is where I’m putting most of the blame. We’re all doing worse because a few people at the top always, ALWAYS have to do better than last year.
Eternal growth is physically impossible. At some point, shit will have to stagnate, and if shit starts to stagnate, but the top still insists on eternal growth, they’ll have to take some from the bottom. That’s what’s happening right now. The top can no longer keep making more money off of an industry in development, so instead they’ll cut costs, costs being you, the worker, and hope they die before it all collapses under them.
But the filthy wealthy gotta grow their wealth somehow!
Were people getting paid $81k in 1990? This site shows that 95th percentile in 1990 was $58k, and doesn’t have more granular data than that above the 95th percentile. So someone making $81k was definitely a 5 percenter, maybe even a 2 percenter.
That site is talking about averages, assembly across the board. The person you’re talking to is explicitly talking about CS jobs, like software developer or system engineer.
You can’t really compare the two.
This data to me didn’t show much in the way of by-field statistics. If we’re comparing software development pay at the naîssance of the field to today, it should be complicated to do so. I’d expect to look at top 5% at the very least because of how new and niche computing and coding in general was in the 90s.
You have to expect that OP, who is well established in his field, to compare accordingly, not with average pay of 1990.
You have to expect that OP, who is well established in his field, to compare accordingly, not with average pay of 1990.
I’m talking about a number that is 1.4x the 95th percentile generally. It’d be weird to assume that programmers were getting paid that much more than doctors and lawyers and bankers.
According to this survey series, median IEEE members were making about $58k (which was also the average for 35-year-olds in the survey. Electrical engineering is a closely related discipline to programming.
So yeah, an $81k salary was really, really high in 1990. I suspect the original comment was thinking of the 90’s in general, and chose a salary from later in the decade while running the inflation numbers back to 1990, using the wrong conversion factor for inflation.
Edited to add: this Bureau of Labor Statistics publication summarizes salaries by several professions and experience levels as of March 1990. The most senior programmers were making around $34k, the most senior systems analysts were making about $69k, and the most senior managers, who could fairly be described as executives, were making about $88k.
Guess maybe coders needed a fucking union after all, who would have guessed that the “rockstar” programmer gravy train wouldn’t last forever.
My union got me a raise. And I have a pension of all things. Crazy. In 2025!
Unions are great.
In software?
Yep!
Can you share the firm or the union representing? I’m curious if it’s a viable place for me. 😄
Being pro union is being willing to take the risk in your own workplace.
Wait what? Who is making $165k out of college?
I don’t even make $165k after working for… I don’t know let’s say 12 or 15 I can’t keep track what counts anymore
Some big tech companies pay that, theoretically, in total compensation for entry level. These companies make about $1 million per employee.
This is a good thing.
Fuck these kids getting overpaid remote jobs destroying the housing market of poor countries like mine.
What?
$165,000 tech jobs are still out there. Usually they require at least 10 years experience, or a masters in mathematics or data science.
Fresh out of school? Try a $48-64k job and get some experience.
What sucks is that was the starting wage when I got into the tech industry back in the early ‘00s
Yup. Entry level wages have stagnated while food and housing prices have skyrocketed.
Try a $48-64k job and get some experience.
Try renting an apartment in Silicon Valley with a $48k/year paycheck in your pocket.
The starting salaries justified the crazy cost-of-living in a city that wanted $5000/mo for 800 sqft. Now the question becomes how you afford to get the experience in a job that pays below the regional pricetag.
800 is fucking huge tho. Big city folk can easily fitinto 300 if living alone.
It’s a modest bedroom, small living room, and a kitchen.
You can fit in a smaller space. I wouldn’t say you can live in it. 300ft is barely a hotel room.
Most tech jobs are outside Silicon Valley. But I see your point, they need to pay cost of living. Its still technical work
I mean, its hardly unique to SV or to the Tech Sector broadly speaking. One of the biggest challenges I’ve seen down in Texas is teachers earning enough money to live in their (comparatively much cheaper than California) school districts.
But I gotta say, I was earning $48k back in 2006 way out in the Houston 'burbs and it was a tight squeeze. Nothing has improved. “Just earn less” doesn’t work when you’re bumping up against a bunch of landlords and lenders saying “Fuck you, pay me more”.
I need a big truck in case I need to haul wood from Home Depot once or twice a year, because that’s worst case scenario. It needs to be an EV with 1000 mile range, because that’s worst case scenario. And I need to make enough to live in Silicon Valley, because that’s worst case scenario.
Wait till you find out about medical bills
It’s weird that so many replies are attacking you when you are factually right. The industry has always been this way. And some kid with a GED and 3 years of CompSci from their community college is not going to land them a 165k dream job right after graduation.
I think some people have been living in a fantasy world or believed every headline they saw.
Did she have a portfolio that went beyond school work? Coders are like artists you need a portfolio showing you can do shit without being told to.
