I noticed that "tech"-which I'm going to interpret as shorthand for engineers- is often accused of being responsible for gentrification and the increase in the cost of living of the valley but don't see the same accusations directed at other professionals like attorneys, doctors, or other types of engineers who easily outpace engineers in terms of pay. Incidentally, there's a strong presence of swes elsewhere like in Atlanta or Tempe and haven't heard of how it suddenly got unaffordable to live there. And while I see these accusations as pretext for demanding the redistribution of the scraps swes get, people seem to be perfectly content with professional athletes getting paid millions a year without their "rising tides" positively impacting wages for the McDonald's around Oracle Park/Levi's stadium. Hollywood actors get paid millions a year while a PA is paid $17/hr. Speaking of actors, have there been efforts to see if a-list actors can be swapped with non a-listers to boost a project's bottom line?
So which other profession pays 200k for freshgrads?
$200k TC is misleading. To break just $100k base, you're going to have to move to SV, afaik, which isn't going to get you far. Hell, you can skip 4 years altogether and save tuition and just be a security guard for $24/hr, be an Uber driver and be paid $8k/month or for going to school for 2 more years, you can be an LCSW pulling >$200k/year... In Philadelphia, which I'm going to say is way more than $200k TC in SV. You actually have to be an L5 to get $200k base and I've seen L5s with 7 yoe. Also, the most conventional path I've seen for being an swe is to at least get an MS, and that path usually lands an L3 position.
LOL you can get $100k all over the place, not just SV. And the percentage of engineers with an MS is very, very small. Where do you get this stuff?
Top level athletes and a list actors are a few in a million (or some arbitrarily large number) that try and struggle in those fields and are generally broke af. Doctors and attorneys are like u say highly paid though even amongst those it’s not as high a percentage of people who r successful. And they have been around , being rich and obnoxious since time immemorial. So people are used to them Swe on the other hand are a different breed. Doesn’t take very high level of education. Avg swe pay is better than any other profession given the amount of hard work it needs. Plus swe are good people who live and mingle with others unlike successful doctors and attorneys who live in stratosphere. So the wrath comes down on us. :)
Tbf op is at least as disconnected from reality as some of those stratespheric doctors and lawyers.
They hate us cause they ain't us
You think attorney's and doctors easily outpace engineers in terms if pay? I suggest you do more research. Also, Atlanta HAS become unaffordable and gentrification is a huge local issue there. Try to find a decent house in a decent neighborhood for less than $800k.
In my opinion, software engineers mess up the market and costs because there is a high number of people making a high amount of money (150K+). Facebook median pay is like 250K. In every hospital, you have your handful of doctors. Top Law firms are very small compared to tech companies. What’s absurd is when you have 100 thousand workers across a few top tech companies in a city where each one of them makes a compensation similar to a doctor.
And doctors getting paid hundreds of thousands dollars in this crazy unaffordable healthcare state is acceptable? You seem to be unhappy with SWEs getting paid according to supply and demand while having no problem with other glaring inequality issues. Obviously it’s less easy to pick on millionaires or billionaires than the ones making 250k at Facebook.
It’s just the amount of software engineers that make high income affects the local economy. It’s fine when a handful of people make a lot of money. But companies like Amazon have 10s of thousands of people, making a lot of money. One millionaire can have a nice house and not affect anyone. What’s crazy is when 10s of thousands of engineers making 6 figure salaries come and practically out price the local out of the city. This doesn’t happen with doctors. They don’t have “doctor hubs” where a hundred thousand doctors come and work at one area.
Well you made a big generalization so the dichotomy of being underpaid and overpaid at the same time doesn’t represent any one individual. Big thing in SV is the sheer number of highly paid SWE. Highly paid doctors and lawyers are much more seldom and so have less impact on the housing market. But if you look at Wall Street, Manhattan is one of the few places I’ve seen with luxury apartments which cost like 20k a month. So yes high pay can drive up housing. But you have to think of the proportions. And yes many cities have seen increase in house prices. Another reason to add to this is also low interest rates. Making money cheaper to borrow increases people’s spending power and therefore raises asset values as well. Since wealthier people own more assets than non wealthy people (no duh) the federal reserve is directly responsible for contributing to the increase wealth inequality.
I think that the issue with SWE in and around SV is not only money. Many are transplants and may not always respect the traditions and the existing culture of the area they move in. I do not want to be excessively negative, but one has only to read some comments on blind about less fortunate native San Franciscans to see this sentiment. People are not inferior to us because their TC is less than ours. One has to see beyond money and show respect to others. I remember a mediatized incident in the Mission a few years ago: a group of young Dropbox people wanted to evict locals from a pickup soccer game which was a staple of the community. They were insensitive to what their community was, certainly in part due to their lack of knowledge about this community and even its very existence. Sharing the field was the obvious solution, as every other group who had wanted to participate in this game had done. I think that is this type of behavior which creates ill feelings and hostility towards newcomers.
Socialists are dumb