Silicon Valley newcomers are still dreaming big

[victork2]

Sorry to be cynical here but I see that the myriad of new Tech companies do all pretty much the same thing and users don't stick to their product. However at the end of the day these companies do not survive and I don't even know if workers see that fact. For Business Investors it's a typical situation where it's "Make a lot of cash, fast, SELL". They all know that the company is not going to survive past the buzz, but they don't care because in the meantime they can make money out of it. People if you want to dream, do a product that is really useful, forget the "social", "new consumption" keywords that we hear everywhere and build a product that will last.

Also 70k in Silicon Valley is not great. Living there is very expensive. I know they have stocks but look at the fine prints to resell them! Remember that a salary is relative to an area.

But anyway keep on dreaming, it is not forbidden.

</cynicalguyrant>

[dpres]

Here are some of my friend's salaries. 1-4 graduated from the same school as me in TX in the same year, not sure where 5 went to school:

(1) $120k/yr - tester - Seattle area - large company - interned 1 yr at same large company as tester.

(2) $75k/yr - software dev - bay area - small company - interned 4 yr at different small company as software dev.

(3) $65k/yr - Java dev - Dallas, TX - medium size company - no internship experience, but competent programmer

(4) $60k/yr - software dev - Dallas, TX - large company - never wrote a line of code through University

(5) $110k/yr - M$ sharepoint maintainer - Dallas, TX - large company - n/a

[jsnk]

>Also 70k in Silicon Valley is not great. Living there is very expensive.

Wow, I had no idea. Here in Canada, 70K in Canada is definitely above average for entry or junior level developers. I think high 50k to low 60k is around the average here for developers right out of college.

How much is the average salary for established developers and entry-level developers around the Valley and the Bay area?

[gxs]

You know, I'm tired of hearing this. I live very comfortably and my total expenses are <$1500/mo. This might get a small bump if I go out more than usual in a particular month. But really, I wonder what everyone else does so differently.

[t342]

"Bansi Shah, 23, picked up her undergraduate diploma, then took a job at Lattice Engines, a small San Mateo startup, where she makes “near the top” of the company’s $80,000 to $130,000 range for an entry level product manager, plus equity"

Is this the norm in silicon valley, entry level positions making close to 130k plus equity? If this is the exception great!, but where does someone go from there? If right out of school your making 130k, does that mean your going to make 200k after 6 years?

[johnnyn]

Pretty sure that's the exception. She actually has a Masters degree as well, so I think that line is pretty misleading. $130k is still high for an entry level product manager though I think.

[gaius]

Lattice Engines doesn't make engines. It's just another fluffy dotcom.

[jsherry]

"They go hiking rather than clubbing, look with a hint of impatience at their less social-media-savvy elders, are picky about their sushi and unhappy with iceberg lettuce."

There is nothing necessarily wrong or untrue about this statement, but it's definitely an unflattering generalization that made me chuckle during my lunchtime HN binge.

[RobPfeifer]

This: “My guess is that at some point the music stops and we find out that there’s not just one less chair but hundreds of thousands of less chairs, and we’ll have thousands of kids who haven’t learned anything because they’re all expecting to learn from each other,” he said."

A lot of people are going to come out of this boom with less useful experience than is commonly assumed.

[gxs]

>>Still emerging from their student years, most have yet to translate their earnings into material tokens of success.

This sentence rubbed me the wrong way. I don't think it's a coincidence that the same people who command these salaries are the same people that would be smart enough to drive a Ford or Honda and not splurge on a 5-series.

[pork]

Now see, your comment rubs me the wrong way. After I got my first job, I splurged on a used 911 Turbo. It got terrible mileage, but made me smile every single day I drove it (which wasn't everyday).

Attitudes to money are varied, and the accumulation of wealth, like squirrel nuts, is not everyone's goal.

[mahyarm]

Hey you can buy a used 5 series/boxster/etc in good condition for about the price of a new subcompact. It's not that unwise.

[jteo]

This time it's different..

[jpdus]

changing the world instead of hitting the jackpot? Sounds like what business majors are pretending too nowadays...

[kmfrk]

The salary listings in http://angel.co/jobs are a decent way to get an impression of the amount of money people are paid in the business. It's quite high by my standards.

[funkah]

130k for an entry-level product manager. Whew.