Do software engineers really make that much?

CathalC2011

GreeBo wrote: »

What do you consider junior? How many years exp?

I would say 90k is not at all standard for a junior or even senior developer in Dublin and have never seen any salary survey that would suggest otherwise, do you have links to any that would back up your above statement?

I'd consider anyone with under 5 years experience junior.

And im including stocks in that 90k figure.

I don't have references to surveys, only my own experience and insights from friends, family and colleagues.

Note, I never said it was standard, I said it was absolutely achievable!

14ned

CathalC2011 wrote: »

And im including stocks in that 90k figure.

Did you discount the stock proportion of income appropriately?

• If it's not a big multinational, the discount rate is 100%.
• If it's stock options rather than actual stock, the discount rate is 100%.
• If it's actual stock, but with a time or condition delay, the discount rate is 100% for the first year, and less than 100% in following years.
• Finally if it's actual stock in a big multinational, does it fall under an Approved Share Scheme as according to Revenue (https://www.revenue.ie/en/additional-incomes/employment-related-shares/approved-share-schemes.aspx)? If so, discount by as little as 30% as a gross income, if under an Unapproved scheme, discount by your marginal rate of income tax, and then a further 40%.

There is a nasty habit coming out of Silicon Valley that Stock is equivalent to cash in salary. It is not. Payment as stock has many unpleasant tax consequences in Ireland, unlike in other countries, it is also illiquid, and subject to large swings in value over a ten year period.

One thing universal everywhere is that stock in privately held non-multinationals is usually worthless, which is why startups award it so lavishly.

Niall

CathalC2011

14ned wrote: »

Did you discount the stock proportion of income appropriately?

• If it's not a big multinational, the discount rate is 100%.
• If it's stock options rather than actual stock, the discount rate is 100%.
• If it's actual stock, but with a time or condition delay, the discount rate is 100% for the first year, and less than 100% in following years.
• Finally if it's actual stock in a big multinational, does it fall under an Approved Share Scheme as according to Revenue (https://www.revenue.ie/en/additional-incomes/employment-related-shares/approved-share-schemes.aspx)? If so, discount by as little as 30% as a gross income, if under an Unapproved scheme, discount by your marginal rate of income tax, and then a further 40%.

There is a nasty habit coming out of Silicon Valley that Stock is equivalent to cash in salary. It is not. Payment as stock has many unpleasant tax consequences in Ireland, unlike in other countries, it is also illiquid, and subject to large swings in value over a ten year period.

One thing universal everywhere is that stock in privately held non-multinationals is usually worthless, which is why startups award it so lavishly.

Niall

I'm no expert in tax, but I know enough about shares to tell you they're far from worthless.

Even after the insane tax I pay on shares, they still account for a large proportion of my total income.

And this is not the point of the conversation. The point of my original response to OP was to explain that when people (especially in tech, and especially at that age) say they make X amount per year, a large amount of that figure comes from shares.

So in a sense I'm agreeing with you here. I'm well aware of the high tax on shares, but people tend to leave that bit out when others ask how much they make, ie OPs friend.

dubrov

Stock options are certainly not worthless but generally overvalued in stick market boom times.

E.g. An employee might be paid 50k salary plus 5k worth of stock options.
A year later, the options vest and are worth 30k, then the employee pats himself on the back and thinks he is really getting paid 80k by his employer.
In reality he is getting paid 55k and his investment in the market generated the other 25k.

Just to add, no one is paying 90k for a junior developer even with stock options

14ned

CathalC2011 wrote: »

I'm no expert in tax, but I know enough about shares to tell you they're far from worthless.

Even after the insane tax I pay on shares, they still account for a large proportion of my total income.

And this is not the point of the conversation. The point of my original response to OP was to explain that when people (especially in tech, and especially at that age) say they make X amount per year, a large amount of that figure comes from shares.

So in a sense I'm agreeing with you here. I'm well aware of the high tax on shares, but people tend to leave that bit out when others ask how much they make, ie OPs friend.

I suppose one should always discount salary claims by 50% so. Daft. I'm increasingly feeling that Ireland could do with a nice-defrothing sharp recession, stop all that madness happening once again.

Niall

victor8600

dubrov wrote: »

Just to add, no one is paying 90k for a junior developer even with stock options

Exactly. Unless he is somehow doing a senior developer job -- for example, if he did a Master's degree in some hot field (Machine Learning) and is applying his recent knowledge to drive/define a profitable project.

14ned

dubrov wrote: »

Stock options are certainly not worthless but generally overvalued in stick market boom times.

E.g. An employee might be paid 50k salary plus 5k worth of stock options.
A year later, the options vest and are worth 30k, then the employee pats himself on the back and thinks he is really getting paid 80k by his employer.
In reality he is getting paid 55k and his investment in the market generated the other 25k.

Under an Approved Revenue Share scheme, you can be paid up to 11k in stocks per year. Those are taxed with everything apart from Income tax however. You then pay more tax again if you ever sell them.

Most Share schemes are unapproved however, and the tax consequences far more unpleasant. And most startups might pay 15-30% of your cash income in shares or share options, which in Ireland means you pay income tax on cash you never received, because they're treated as if cash in Ireland. And the shares are usually held privately, and cannot be sold for years, so what all this really means is that getting paid in shares means a decrease to your cash income.

Unless you are committing tax fraud of course. Which tons of people do here, and claim ignorance of the tax law when caught. And then Revenue triple the punishment, and you lose everything. C'est la vie.

Niall

Finty Lemon

antimatterx wrote: »

I'm 24, I've been working 19 months (I spent 4 months unemployed), and I only make 32K ��

He will have 170k tax paid by his 30th birthday
You will be 54 by the time youve paid that

TuringBot47

CathalC2011 wrote: »

Even after the insane tax I pay on shares, they still account for a large proportion of my total income.

Depends on the company.
I know the likes of Workday throw stock at staff and they get more stock each year.

antimatterx

Finty Lemon wrote: »

He will have 170k tax paid by his 30th birthday
You will be 54 by the time youve paid that

What?

GreeBo

CathalC2011 wrote: »

I'd consider anyone with under 5 years experience junior.

And im including stocks in that 90k figure.

I don't have references to surveys, only my own experience and insights from friends, family and colleagues.

Note, I never said it was standard, I said it was absolutely achievable!

Well you said
pretty much every large scale engineering shop will pay over 90k plus for junior engineers

If every large scale engineering company are doing it I would consider that largely equivalent to standard.

A tiny percentage of large scale engineering companies are paying a tiny percentage of junior developers 90k plus.

To me that's not equivalent to your statement at all.

Creamy Goodness

antimatterx wrote: »

What?

They’re saying he’ll have paid 170k in tax by the time he turns 30.

If you stay on the same salary (which is unlikely) you been blowing out 54 candles on your birthday cake before you paid the same amount of tax.

wally1990

I'm work in an accountants and most of my contractor software developers are on 350 to 550 per day.

WhiteMemento9

TuringBot47 wrote: »

Depends on the company.
I know the likes of Workday throw stock at staff and they get more stock each year.

Companies like workday offer very good salaries to grads straight out of college for roles as Application Developer's but they use a proprietary framework/language which for someone straight out of college looking to gain experience may not be the best move career-wise when thinking further down the line. There are a few other companies like this in Dublin. Personally think taking less money and a chance to gain experience with more industry-standard focused technologies is the better move.

antimatterx

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

Companies like workday offer very good salaries to grads straight out of college for roles as Application Developer's but they use a proprietary framework/language which for someone straight out of college looking to gain experience may not be the best move career-wise when thinking further down the line. There are a few other companies like this in Dublin. Personally think taking less money and a chance to gain experience with more industry-standard focused technologies is the better move.

What other companies use proprietary languages? Although I do understand why companies would use them, it might reduce the number of staff who leave each year.

WhiteMemento9

antimatterx wrote: »

What other companies use proprietary languages? Although I do understand why companies would use them, it might reduce the number of staff who leave each year.

Salesforce and companies who use the SF platform are another off the top of my head. From a quick google, Apex is the SF proprietary language and WorkDay uses Xpresso. It probably does reduce the number of staff leaving and it is Quid pro quo, in that they do compensate staff very well (I guess you could argue they need to or no one would take these jobs) but taking a job in a proprietary tech stack straight out of college just seems like a really bad idea.

CathalC2011

WhiteMemento9 wrote: »

Salesforce and companies who use the SF platform are another off the top of my head. From a quick google, Apex is the SF proprietary language and WorkDay uses Xpresso. It probably does reduce the number of staff leaving and it is Quid pro quo, in that they do compensate staff very well (I guess you could argue they need to or no one would take these jobs) but taking a job in a proprietary tech stack straight out of college just seems like a really bad idea.

I agree with you about taking an app Dev job straight out of college, but Workday offer the exact same salaries to software dev engineers out of college too!

Computer Science Student

The way it works when you join a new company is you get stock options + 10k salary bump. So if you keep moving companies to the right roles, you can get up to 90k within a few years of leaving college plausibly enough.

AndrewJRenko

Computer Science Student wrote: »

The way it works when you join a new company is you get stock options + 10k salary bump. So if you keep moving companies to the right roles, you can get up to 90k within a few years of leaving college plausibly enough.

BUt you would generally lose your stock options when you move, right? That's generally the whole purpose of options - the long term incentive to stay with the company. You have to stay for the five year vesting period to get any benefit from the options.


Or have things change from my day?

beauf

They used to release X amount per year in my day. So if you walked you lost any shares that hadn't been released. Haven't been in a company that offered shares in a long time.

Computer Science Student

Yeah the standard seems to be a 4 year vesting period with a 1 year cliff, vesting quarterly/monthly thereafter. So you get a quarter of it if you leave after a year - which is what I would recommend doing several times at the start of your career until you land in that 90k role!

smacl

Computer Science Student wrote: »

The way it works when you join a new company is you get stock options + 10k salary bump. So if you keep moving companies to the right roles, you can get up to 90k within a few years of leaving college plausibly enough.

Too many regular moves will also send alarm bells ringing for many prospective employers. The period between taking someone on and them being productive in active projects can be substantial as can the cost and delays involved with replacing an active member of a project. In my opinion the strategy you're describing is well known to employees and likely to reduce your long term prospects.

GreeBo

smacl wrote: »

Too many regular moves will also send alarm bells ringing for many prospective employers. The period between taking someone on and them being productive in active projects can be substantial as can the cost and delays involved with replacing an active member of a project. In my opinion the strategy you're describing is well known to employees and likely to reduce your long term prospects.

If I see multiple, short term moves its the first thing I am asking in an interview and you better have good reasons.
Once or twice can be explained, any more and its clear that you are chasing money and I will probably expose a shallowness in your knowledge and contributions to previous projects once I get you on the whiteboard.

DellyBelly

Fccwontletmebe wrote: »

Have a look at what other companies are paying on irishjobs.ie

32K isn't that bad for a grad really but I'd probably start looking.

It isn't bad maybe outside Dublin but if you are in Dublin that is a very poor wage. I'd definitely be out looking for something that would be paying nearly double that...

beauf

Company culture either rewards loyalty, permanence or it encourages mobility.

I always stay way too long, and I know I should have moved around far more. When I did, it mostly worked out better.

Creamy Goodness

DellyBelly wrote: »

It isn't bad maybe outside Dublin but if you are in Dublin that is a very poor wage. I'd definitely be out looking for something that would be paying nearly double that...

There's no where that's paying 64k for grads, except for the very exceptional cases (I'm talking maybe 1-2 jobs and they'd be highly specialised and in Facebook/Google).

WhiteMemento9

Creamy Goodness wrote: »

There's no where that's paying 64k for grads, except for the very exceptional cases (I'm talking maybe 1-2 jobs and they'd be highly specialised and in Facebook/Google).

He was probably answering the question inflow of reading the thread. The guy he was referring to isn't a grad, he has 19 months of experience post-graduation and is on 32k.

awec

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

BUt you would generally lose your stock options when you move, right? That's generally the whole purpose of options - the long term incentive to stay with the company. You have to stay for the five year vesting period to get any benefit from the options.


Or have things change from my day?

beauf wrote: »

They used to release X amount per year in my day. So if you walked you lost any shares that hadn't been released. Haven't been in a company that offered shares in a long time.

Computer Science Student wrote: »

Yeah the standard seems to be a 4 year vesting period with a 1 year cliff, vesting quarterly/monthly thereafter. So you get a quarter of it if you leave after a year - which is what I would recommend doing several times at the start of your career until you land in that 90k role!

Stock options are different to stocks that vest over x years.

With Stock options, it just gives you the option to buy stock at a certain price. So in 5 years time, if the stock price shoots up, you might decide to exercise your options and buy stock at the price you were given options at, and make a profit. The stock broker might pay for the stock for you in exchange for a cut of the earnings. But until you buy the stock, you own nothing.

With vesting stocks, you actually gain and own a percentage of the total value each year. Generally your employer buys them for you and you pay tax on them when they're bought then CGT on the profit minus allowance when sold.

I personally haven't ever seen stock options as a thing here.

14ned

Firstly, thanks for clarifying people with confusion, and if people want to know more, Revenue describes all things and their tax treatments at https://www.revenue.ie/en/additional-incomes/employment-related-shares/index.aspx

awec wrote: »

I personally haven't ever seen stock options as a thing here.

Unless the options are for a publicly traded company, I can see it being extremely hard to issue options under current Revenue tax rules because you cannot accurately calculate the tax due to Revenue if the pricing isn't transparent. Hence I suspect options are harder than alternatives, in most situations.

Niall

beauf

When I use to got them they'd be for US stocks. You'd be dealing with a US broker. So you have to make a return here on them. Long time ago now.

Whats changed in the rules?