Principal/Senior SWE base salary comparisons: DC region, Boston, NYC, Silicon Valley, So Cal, Seattle, Austin
Leidos
hobknob
Feb 14, 2018
16 Comments
I'm just gauging salaries at various tech regions within US for someone with the following CV. I'm looking to potentially move to one of these areas (currently in AZ).
Principal/Senior SWE, 20+ year experience, full stack, Java/Python/JavaScript, J2EE/Spring/Django/Android, Oracle/Postgres/Hadoop/Mongo. No experience with AI/machine learning.
Please share base salary only (no sign-on, bonus, rsu, etc) if you're from these areas:
DC region: ?
Boston: ?
NYC: ?
Silicon Valley: ?
So Cal: ?
Seattle: ?
Austin: ?
comments
Not sure why you don't want equity numbers, as those make the real comp go way higher. Companies are now giving out stock quarterly instead of yearly.
With 20+ years of experience, I've worked for many startups and big corps. I've been burned by equity a few times where price of vested stocks are below strike price. So equity is for optimists (if price is higher than strike price when vested), whereas salaries are guaranteed.
Hypothetical: which offer would you choose: (1) $200k base + 50k shares; (2) $150k base + 150k shares (4 year vest schedule 10/10/40/40).
After 4 years and all shares vested, offer 1: best case, take home $800k + stocks worth something; worst case, take home $800k + stocks worth nothing. Offer 2, best case, take home $600k + stocks worth something; worst case, $600k + stocks worth nothing. With offer 1, you pocket $200k guaranteed.
I'd choose offer 1 hands down. I chose to exclude equity in my original question because it's not guaranteed. Actually, equity is a big gamble and when you're someone experienced like myself, you calculate the risks carefully.
I wonder if that range requires some specific high level of clearance. DC isn't known for high salary like SV.