$100k-$120k for undergrad? that's crazy. I guess this is one of the reasons why Facebook and Twitter decided to open offices in Vancouver _specifically_ to hire undergrad. Undergrad salary here can be half of that.
What happens to these developers after a few years in the industry? Is there an invisible salary ceiling they hit faster than developers in non-SV areas? Or does it increase at the same rate as developers in non-SV areas? I don't live in SV so I'm curious how high a typical senior dev salary is if the junior dev salary is already so high.
EDIT:
I just looked up Software Engineer III in San Jose on salary.com. The median is $108k and the upper 90% is $130k. So how can the salary for someone who just graduated be 100k+? Is that just for google and facebook? And all other companies in SV pay much less?
AFAIK, the offices in Vancouver are for people who for whatever could not obtain work visa, so most of them work there until they are able to relocate to SF.
Good luck. With real estate prices being the highest in north america in vancouver, i don't know if i should blame facebook or the candidates for taking what's less than market wage.
we can speculate for what reasons facebook opened an office in vancouver, but from what i was told is that it's all about simplifying the visa/foreign worker issue, and opening doors to more candidates/talent (e.g. western canada & beyond).
Honestly though. Unless if you have no experience in the real world, $50-$60k seems a bit low... ESPECIALLY in Vancouver.
> Good luck. With real estate prices being the highest in north america in vancouver, i don't know if i should blame facebook or the candidates for taking what's less than market wage.
I can say that in the Microsoft area, wages go up, house prices go up, rent prices go up.
When MS did their huge salary bump, apartment prices shot up 20%-30%. House prices went from 600k to 800k. Blech.
I'm curious to know if there is a single employer in Vancouver that could do that. I think given the city's layout, it would be very difficult for one single employer to have that sort of effect. (e.g. if EA Games boosted salary 20-30%, I doubt you'd see much impact locally, though maybe a pct pt or two citywide... maybe)
Pretty sure EA games closed up shop in Vancouver. Median salary is $70k for a developer here, usually less for junior devs. Keep in mind you'll be paying at least $15k income taxes so now your salary is $55,000.
Vancouver wasn't that expensive of a place to live before the Chinese started buying up all of the real estate. Also, many of these offices were planned before 2008, when the Canadian dollar was much weaker than today. Also, Vancouver IS a nice place to live, it has mild climate, nice mountains, and its quite a bit more international than the bay area (i.e. large Chinese and Indian populations). Where else can you live in North America where China Town is basically everywhere?
Vancouver is a delightful place to live, though personally I don't see the "Chinatown everywhere" as a merit. It's just a beautiful, cultured city that is very livable.
All of the "A-tier" companies pay $100K+ for undergrads with co-op experience. This is Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, among many others.
As a Canadian expat, Canadians who stay in Canada frankly get royally fucked in salary. The curve doesn't exactly close up either - I'm a few years out of school now and the gap between me and a salary I could command in Vancouver/Toronto is still about 100%.
Not really. If you go after top people from good universities (Waterloo, UBC), it's still 80-85k in Vancouver. Less than in Silicon Valley but not by much.
You mean ACM programming competitions. I believe Shanghai Jiaotong university often comes out #1 in those competitions, and no one is claiming that they are at the top of the computer science program rankings.
i can vouch that facebook was recently hiring people from Cornell for ~$100-$120 starting + $30 signing bonus ($50 if you interned) that admittedly you had to return if you quit in less than a year for any reason that wasn't explicitly their fault.
Yes. I believe you have to stay a year to keep the bonus, but everyone I know who graduated from Stanford last year was offered >100k salary, 100k signing bonus, and some stock (I think per year the stock was about 25k at current market value).
Even non-CS majors. If they studied a quantitative field, can code, and cleared the dev interview, they got that offer.
Those numbers, in general, are high. You might get that if you get them into a bidding war.
In general, a publicly traded company is not going to give that kind of package to an undergrad. Maybe $110-120k in salary, but the stock amount is more likely to be around $80k vesting over 4 years.
100k-ish stock vesting over 4 years is pretty standard among the big SV companies for new grads. It can be a lot more though if you're not a new graduate.
I don't think anyone else gives $100k signing bonus, so yes the numbers aren't representative of the whole but it hints at what an undergraduate can command out of college.
I'd say $100k salary is very typical, as are the RSUs (vesting over 4 years as you said).
Interesting - so even in startups you've got to be a member of 'the club'? If you went to a local state school and could write circles around the club members, that doesn't count? I would see that in some fortune 500 execs, but startups? odd.
Bunch of my peers were hired in the $100-140 range across the T3s straight from undergrad. Complete no-name school outside of US.
Attending an Ivy makes it easier for you to be recruited, since offers literally find you. At a lesser school you can still do well, it's just you have to find the offers.
It must've been the limit on H1B's and Canada's friendlier immigration climate.
But here's a point of reference https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6448448 Important to note that this is offered to a top-of-the class undergraduate, the average is likely to be substantially lower.
you don't even need to be a top-of-class graduate. if you are a successful intern at google, there is no reason for them to not give you an above-average salary.
you're good at what you do (proven), and the ramp-up costs of otherwise hiring someone else are non-existent.
If that's inclusive of signing bonuses, stock grants, etc. $120k is materially less than the major companies are offering these days.
Their Vancouver offices (certainly for FB, unsure of others) are visa holding tanks to hold graduates before they can be moved down to the SF offices. I would expect them to be receiving virtually equivalent offers.
