Back home the programming community used to run a salary poll on Facebook every year. How much do you make, what do you do?
This was in Slovenia a few years back – smaller numbers than you'd see online now. Some said €20,000 was the most an engineer could dream of, others that they wouldn't get out of bed for anything under €50,000 and €100,000+ sounds reasonable with some hustle.
Both groups yelling at each other that the other group doesn't exist. There is no way in hell an engineer could get paid lots! What do you mean you'd work for peanuts are you dumb??
The same fight every year!
You see this everywhere engineering salaries are shared. Distinct groups of people, doing the same work, paid on such vastly different scales they can't even imagine each other existing.
What do you think is going on here? 🤔
The trimodal nature of engineering comp
In 2021 Gergely Orosz collected data on engineering salaries and found that compensation is trimodal. What you see reported as averages, top of range on public portals, and an invisible range of high achievers and IPO lottery winners.
This is where my friend Josh, a salary negotiation coach, casually drops in chat "Oh yeah we negotiated $800,000 more equity". You what now 😳
All these engineers have roughly the same work. Write code, have meetings, investigate bugs, build company assets, help others. Yet some get paid way more than others.
What gives?
What you do matters less than who it's for
Early in 2021 a contractor helping with my websites took my advice and changed his day job from a local Italian enterprise to Automattic, the company behind Wordpress. His pay went from €28,000 to €116,000 overnight.
Swizec Teller writing a book you’ll wanna read@Swizec
Friend of mine just went from €28k to €116k by switching jobs to a remote first US company.
And Europe wonders where all the engineers at 🤣
He no longer has time to contract for me 😅
And instead of spending his days with an outdated in-house framework, he's learning transferable skills. How many companies would hire someone with deep Wordpress expertise? It runs 39% of all websites ...
Similarly, I changed jobs early in the pandemic and after a few comp adjustments now make $75,000/year more than before the pandemic. Cash.
Swizec Teller writing a book you’ll wanna read@Swizec
Over the last 2 years my cash salary went up by $75,000 🥳
No promotions, no extra effort, no faff. Just showing up every day and applying principles from
way easier than quitting your job and going solo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The equity could be anywhere from $0 to $millions in 10 years. We'll see 🤷♀️
5 Action Steps to Senior Engineer
Get a short email series with action steps you can take right now to be true senior engineer. Go from being a pair of hands that write code to a collaborative partner that others rely on.
Here's what a reader had to say:
Hey Swiz, I really enjoyed the series. Quite useful 5-step roadmap, if everybody kept those things in mind we would be in a much better place and our industry would be a more mature and less hype-driven one. Thanks, keep up the great work!
Your comp is based on value
Gergely puts the difference down to competition.
Tier 1 firms compete with local firms in the same industry. Tier 2 firms compete with all local firms. Tier 3 firms compete for talent globally and hire anyone who's good enough.
The pandemic accelerated this trend.
With remote work, every tier 1 company has to compete with tier 3 for talent. That's pulling up the market for everyone.
The reason tier 3 companies can compete for global talent is the value you bring. Think about it.
How much can a $10,000,000/year company pay its 10 engineers? What about a $10,000,000,000/year company with 50 engineers?
Alphabet (Google) makes $1,650,000 per employee according to Wikipedia. Apple's quarterly profits are higher than Slovenia's annual GDP. Facebook can lose $45,000,000,000 in stock value from a 6 hour outage.
How much salary do you think the engineers worth $7.5bn/hour can ask for?
What you do matters a lot less than the value you bring.
Swizec Teller writing a book you’ll wanna read@Swizec
Your salary is limited by the value you bring, not your title. The value is limited by your company
As senior engineer I've been at $105k, at $210k, and a few steps in between. Pretty big spread 🤨
Is tier 3 all about company size?
You may think tier 3 companies are all about size. Large enterprise, huge profits -> tier 3.
Not so!
It's a mindset. A competitive strategy. The company has to decide it wants to hire the best. Then it needs to attract the best and keep you happy.
The combination of company and personal growth, salary, exciting challenges, brand building, coworkers you can learn from, and good work environment all contribute. Tier 3 companies want you to be happy, challenged, and growing.
To them, you are an investment, not a cost.
Cheers,
~Swizec
Become a *true* Senior Engineer
Get promoted, earn a bigger salary, work for top companies
Getting that senior title is easy. Just stick around. Being a true senior takes a new way of thinking. Do you have it?
Leave your email and get the 5 Action Steps to Senior Engineer - a short email course showing you steps you can take right now to become a true senior engineer and go from writing code to being a true collaborative partner that builds products.
5 Action Steps to Senior Engineer
Get a short email series with action steps you can take right now to be true senior engineer. Go from being a pair of hands that write code to a collaborative partner that others rely on.
Here's what a reader had to say:
Hey Swiz, I really enjoyed the series. Quite useful 5-step roadmap, if everybody kept those things in mind we would be in a much better place and our industry would be a more mature and less hype-driven one. Thanks, keep up the great work!
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Want to brush up on modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️