Do engineers not make good money anymore?

[PandaBear]

I'm kinda curious, where does 200-300k come from. It's been many years since I've been up on this stuff, but I wouldn't think the median pay for an engineer is that. Then again, I didn't know CPA partner was 1-3 mil.

Again, if it's money a person is interested, there are so many ways to get that in the USA. But one has to be realistic and accurate too.

That's only software engineer in the FAANG or so. Most small fry companies only pay like 100-120k new grad and 200k seniors. I think the biggest pay tend to come from the stock portion of the pay so if someone was paid a 120k base salary with 40k stock vesting per year and the stock went up 7x during 7 years that 40k can easily turn into 280k. It was crazy since 2015 when hyper inflation kicked in after the low interest and FB started to offer "we will beat everyone's competing offer even Google and Apple", and started the salary war, with stock prices went up like crazy because most advertisement went from TV and newspaper to Google search and FB algorithm. Pandemic accelerated that, then 22-23 started having some cut because low interest is ending, and then ChatGPT started the AI arm race and now only the AI guys are getting crazy new offers.

I heard a rumor in 2021 or so, a well known AI / ML engineer in the industry got hired with a competing offer between 2 companies and got a 1M / year comp, but that's like the way out lier, most people I know who got a good offer make 200k-300k.

So, about the stock appreciation part of their pay, I heard a few guys asking if their landlord's finance distress program during pandemic will accept stock tanking being an acceptable excuse...

 

[PandaBear]

Without getting into it, you'll have to trust me, this is a HUGE topic in dentistry right now with private equity buying-up practices. The past three CE courses I've attended were all about EBIDTA, practice valuations, multiples, and take-home numbers. You see the reasonable trends. Yes, these are generalizations that I bring up to emphasize what most people think is often not true because everyone assumes the small-town dentist isn't killing it, and of course, the Manhattan dentist is making 7 figures. Sure that can be true, but I know of ton of small-town practices looking for associates who are starting associates at $300k plus a % of collections. If they're busy that % collections can double their income.

Same for Lasik facilities. Most I heard are PE owned now and they kept the price high instead of having competition.

 

[PandaBear]

I was always told the only career that keeps up isn’t a career at all.

I start to realize that it is important to learn how to invest using your domain knowledge instead of doing a good job to get promoted. You will spend 20x the effort only to find out your boss has a budget to work with and the guy with your same title and 30 more years of experience is way underpaid and he has to pay him more so he has to cut your share. That's most places without fast cut throat growth with annual 10% mandatory performance based firing at every single level to make room to promote people who deserves promotion.

 

[PandaBear]

Why are we worrying and discussing what engineers make? If $200k doesn't go far in a high cost area as someone pointed out, there are plenty jobs that don't even pay 1/4 of that even in high cost of living areas. How do people in SF, NY or Austin live on $50K a year?

You qualifies for gov subsidies at 50k a year. I think (as a joke only) Palo Alto qualifies a family of 4 making 200k.

Anyhow, people either don't have kids (move away when you are raising a family), or they have roommates, renting, commuting, etc. This is why work from home is a big deal not because people are lazy but they can move somewhere much cheaper.

 

[PandaBear]

I have a childhood friend who has a degree in "Computer Engineering." From what I could tell, his degree was a mash-up of comp sci. and electronics/EE, just as you said.

My take was that it was building a foundation to either go into programming/software design or hardware design. He went the software route and has been quite successful doing it.

I'm not in super regular touch with that friend, but just in talking with him I feel like he has a better understanding of what's going on inside than a lot of general programmers/software engineers do. I know all comp sci. education includes some of that, but I think his is a lot more detailed. Given how quickly things change(and that in the mid 2000s they were still writing assembly on Motorola 68Ks in his classes) I'm sure that he'd need a lot more study to really get down to modern x86-64 or ARM but at least they built the foundation for how it all works.

Comp Sci: mostly algorithm and software
Comp Eng: some software, some logics design like gates and schematics, PCB
Electrical Eng: transistors, signals, analog, frequency, power electronics, silicon chips internal like doping, amplifier, etc.

Most of the Mech Eng guys I know ended up as firmware guys programming electronics in the mechanical world these days also.

Once you know some fundamental the specific stuff like 68k vs ARM vs x86 are just .... fine prints not much different. You always look at the big picture and the minor details are going to fall into the right places.

 

[Lubener]

I thought they made like 200-$300k/year, but looks like the top engineers only make like $150k, not that 150k isn't plenty of money, I just thought they made more

That's the first I heard with engineers making 200-$300k salaries.

 

[JeffKeryk]

That's only software engineer in the FAANG or so. Most small fry companies only pay like 100-120k new grad and 200k seniors. I think the biggest pay tend to come from the stock portion of the pay so if someone was paid a 120k base salary with 40k stock vesting per year and the stock went up 7x during 7 years that 40k can easily turn into 280k.

Spot on. Around here, your salary pays the bills, your options and grants are where the money's at. To get those options, you have to be responsible for an important, or critical, business function. Right place at the right time, as they say...
Of course as the Valley has matured, the stock option opportunities are not what they once were.

 

[supton]

I think the biggest pay tend to come from the stock portion of the pay so if someone was paid a 120k base salary with 40k stock vesting per year and the stock went up 7x during 7 years that 40k can easily turn into 280k.

The problem with that is stock can be a variable--and if it's now a real part of your pay, something that you might want to liquidate when awarded. Life isn't cheap and if the company is shifting compensation towards this, with a flat income, it may become important to sell when awarded. Great if you can sit on it. [We have running discussions on this, my cubicle mates and I.]

Not all companies go through the roof. 7x in 7 years?

 

[John105]

I start to realize that it is important to learn how to invest using your domain knowledge instead of doing a good job to get promoted. You will spend 20x the effort only to find out your boss has a budget to work with and the guy with your same title and 30 more years of experience is way underpaid and he has to pay him more so he has to cut your share. That's most places without fast cut throat growth with annual 10% mandatory performance based firing at every single level to make room to promote people who deserves promotion.

Dang this sounds like the bonus structure where I work.

The co announces a target %.

The bonus letter comes out stating the same target number. Then, the $ amount doesn’t match. For some it’s 4x. For some, it’s literally $0. Took me a while to get used to it.

People asked me after Helene why would you do that (work 2 am to 5 pm that Friday). I said I’m pretending to be a CPA trying to make partner.

 

[zzyzzx]

Do engineers not make good money anymore?​

Correct, they don't make good money anymore. Outsourcing a H1-B's have ruined the profession. This happened decades ago.

 

[supton]

Dang this sounds like the bonus structure where I work.

The co announces a target %.

The bonus letter comes out stating the same target number. Then, the $ amount doesn’t match. For some it’s 4x. For some, it’s literally $0. Took me a while to get used to it.

Do you have a portal to go into for time off and other HR related items? It should have compensation listed also (might be the place where you adjust things during open enrollment). In your compensation portal, there may be a target % of your pay for bonus. [I swear, for years they kept that info from us, but it has been transparent now for a while.]

Now that percentage is still going to be adjusted by your manager(s). CEO might say that the profit target is 80%, and you'd be tempted to think that you are going to get 80% of your targeted bonus. But technically your manager (and going up) can still fudge the numbers how they see fit. I think they have to give reason why they are adjusting but it's still as variable as ever.

 

[4WD]

...depends on what you are selling and who you are selling to.

Or if an international company or not. Expat for us is where the money is. Then a bonus system for performance …

 

[John105]

Btw I’ve read some detailed and seemingly reliable accounts of “what it takes.”

Then, I’ve fact checked with close friends, who concur what I read.

It’s not that easy to make say 3 mil in our society—but, that 22 yo grad can get with a lot of info available on what it takes.

One that always comes up is time for one’s family. The other is health.

People can goof their way to well above median incomes these days wfh and shopping at Costco on co time. But there is a threshold at which that no longer works. My .02

 

[PandaBear]

The problem with that is stock can be a variable--and if it's now a real part of your pay, something that you might want to liquidate when awarded. Life isn't cheap and if the company is shifting compensation towards this, with a flat income, it may become important to sell when awarded. Great if you can sit on it. [We have running discussions on this, my cubicle mates and I.]

Not all companies go through the roof. 7x in 7 years?

You have to be financially responsible, sell enough to cover your certain cost, and keep only the play money to speculate in the market. Sometimes if they know the stock is going to tank and the management is ruining it, they will switch job and use the existing stock to bargain for a sign on bonus in the new job and just gave up the old one they left behind. Once the good people leave the company turns to trash and the rest of the good enough people will also want to leave. This is what happened to Cisco and Intel.

That's the problem when interest rate is near zero to prop up companies too big to fail or clean up their messes, and sovereign funds have to find a way to invest in new assets with those money they have before they inflate away, yet they don't want to overpay for something to create another bubble.

How do you create new assets out of nothing? The only way it make sense is to invest into VC then to create new companies. Some succeed, many failed. Since the dot com days they want to be the first to exit to get their money back, in exchange the companies they invest in get some ridiculous valuations (i.e. 20% of the company in exchange for first to exit, so they value the company at hundreds of millions but in reality they only paid 20% of that), then that keep the multiplier until IPO or sold to another company at a huge discount.

So a lot of people had the fantasy that when the company they work for went IPO they end up with 500k a year income in the last several years, IF THEY CAN SELL IT AT THAT VALUATION FOR EVERYONE. In reality a lot of that stock in IPO ended up worth fractions and sometimes almost nothing, or worse if the company got cut from funding and only the patents were sold and everyone laid off.

Last couple of years right before the mass layoff a lot of companies' stock tank by 30%, and then after the layoff went back up 30%. There's a lot of luck involved and not everyone is making it big in a 7x in 7 year companies. It is not a healthy environment to raise a family.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Do engineers not make good money anymore?​

Correct, they don't make good money anymore. Outsourcing a H1-B's have ruined the profession. This happened decades ago.

We need to graduate more engineers and techies. The American demand is there, the talent is not.
I have said this for years.

 

[PandaBear]

Do you have a portal to go into for time off and other HR related items? It should have compensation listed also (might be the place where you adjust things during open enrollment). In your compensation portal, there may be a target % of your pay for bonus. [I swear, for years they kept that info from us, but it has been transparent now for a while.]

Now that percentage is still going to be adjusted by your manager(s). CEO might say that the profit target is 80%, and you'd be tempted to think that you are going to get 80% of your targeted bonus. But technically your manager (and going up) can still fudge the numbers how they see fit. I think they have to give reason why they are adjusting but it's still as variable as ever.

I am a neighbor of a former CEO who settle down and live modestly (to his former standard, he lives here because it is close to his daughter and his daughter own the home he's in).

He said to be successful you have to 1) perform well 2) be consistent, and 3) your boss like you. Can't do well without all 3.

 

[4WD]

I am a neighbor of a former CEO who settle down an live modestly (to his former standard, he lives here because it is close to his daughter and his daughter own the home he's in).

He said to be successful you have to 1) perform well 2) be consistent, and 3) your boss like you. Can't do well without all 3.

4) Turn the lights on/off each day … (do the time) …

 

[supton]

Last couple of years right before the mass layoff a lot of companies' stock tank by 30%, and then after the layoff went back up 30%. There's a lot of luck involved and not everyone is making it big in a 7x in 7 year companies. It is not a healthy environment to raise a family.

Doesn't seem like it. I was lucky, privately owned until recently.

I did get lucky and offloaded some company stock during a run last year. That felt good. I sit on this years award, in hopes it'll go up at some point--right now, if I sold, it'd be for a loss. Who knows what the future holds.

 

[John105]

4) Turn the lights on/off each day … (do the time) …

I’m a human being. It wasn’t as if I loved working 2 AM to 5 PM when Helene hit GA (similar with Crowd Strike). It’s simply my job. The others that I worked with are the same as I am. Everyone knows this. So while my teammates were getting their long weekends started Thu and enjoying themselves, I was doing what I consider what falls under my responsibilities. Any good co. Is always gonna have an A team.

 

[supton]

I’m a human being. It wasn’t as if I loved working 2 AM to 5 PM when Helene hit GA (similar with Crowd Strike). It’s simply my job. The others that I worked with are the same as I am. Everyone knows this. So while my teammates were getting their long weekends started Thu and enjoying themselves, I was doing what I consider what falls under my responsibilities. Any good co. Is always gonna have an A team.

Heh, I prefer to leave early, beat the traffic, then finish the day at home. Less distractions.

Does not help that for some of my coworkers, the second part of the day starts around 8pm. The other side of the world is starting their day--time for team meetings. For a bit I managed a team like that and once a week or so I'd be on Teams call 8-9 or 8-10 with meetings. Not going to work 8-5 and do the commute in rush hour only to do that too. [My bosses didn't care--work got done--it's salary not hourly.]