Ā #HighPayingCSJobs #CareerGrowth #SalaryComparison
Hey folks! š Let’s talk about the elephant in the room – the high-paying potential of CS jobs early in your career.
I know a lot of people are drawn to the field because of the promise of good pay. But I’m curious, did anyone here NOT know about it when they started out? š¤
I’ll go first – I was completely clueless about the earning potential of Software Engineering jobs for the longest time. It took me a while to even consider comparing salaries in the market. š
So here’s my question to you all – did you know about the high-paying nature of CS jobs when you first started out? Or were you like me, oblivious to it?
If you’re in the same boat as I was, don’t worry. I’ve got a possible solution for you:
– Research market salaries for your role and level.
– Network with professionals in the field to get a better understanding of earning potential.
– Consider negotiating your salary when starting a new job or during performance reviews.
Let’s help each other out and make sure everyone is aware of the opportunities for growth and financial stability in the CS field! š¼š” #KnowledgeIsPower š©āš»š
I knew it paid well, but I didn’t expect to be making this much. I was honestly more attracted to the laid back culture at the time.
When I joined college in 2009, nobody wanted to join CS, I was part of a crew who organized a career fair to convince students to join our program. In the whole day, how many came to ask us questions? Zero. Not exaggerating, it was zero, CS was basically nerdy and embarassing.
This was in Quebec.
Oh and, only 4 of us graduated.
When I started CS in 2015, it was definitely viewed as a steady job and a field with a lot of opportunities, but I don’t remember ever having any kind of expectation of making 6 figures right out of college or anything like that
I chose CS as my major in high school (for college) without really knowing how much it paid ā mostly chose it because I heard it paid well (not knowing how much money is a lot of money, though iirc being impressed with 90k), thereās a supposed growing need for swes, and I was good at stem. I think sophomore year was when I learned big tech paid REALLY well. It wasnāt until I started working at a big tech full time that I learned trading firms pay even better ā even in senior year I didnāt know about trading firms, so I jumped.
Rip to the jump recruiters that reached out back in senior yearā¦
I started playing with a very old computer and I enjoyed it. I started walking to the library to get books on programming – I would type in BASIC code and play silly games that were printed in those books.
I didn’t think about money until I was going off to college, many years later. I liked programming and then people told me it was a solid paying career so I went with it.
I really and truly believe SWE jobs are insanely overpaid. I spend hours sitting in my basement, watching Netflix and listening to music, in my climate controlled home, with my fridge and snacks, working away on a fancy computer with my four giant monitors…. And I just solve little problems all day. I don’t love it, and I know I work for a soulless corporation, but I like it a lot.
I used to do it for free.
My sister is a nurse. She literally deals with people dying, she has felt guilty and sadness and came home and cried when some cute little kid she got to know a bit, died. She literally cleans up crap and has to transport 400-500+ people all day. It’s hectic, high stress, messy and dangerous.
And I make more money than she does.
I still think it’s insane and I wonder how it lasted as long as it had. I mean, I understand the reasons behind it, but my internal sense of fairness just sees us as overpaid.
My best year, I made $360k. The reality is, if they paid my $60k, I would still pick being a SWE over any of my other career options.
That $360k was mostly about crazy market gains, my salary is much lower. And to be clear, I’m a pretty mediocre developer. I just got lucky a few times with acquisitions and RSUs
CS was for people who failed their engineering courses.Ā
I didn’t.
I dropped out of a PhD program, looked around at the skills I had, knew what I liked to do, and just went in that direction.
No matter what you do, if you do it well, you can make money.
I wanted to be a mathematician, but I was worried about the availability of jobs. Senior year in high school I took Computer Science. Then I figured that it was close enough to math to enjoy so I decided to major in CS. This was around 2020. I graduated 2nd best in my class and the job market was booming around 2021 so I figured to take on extra classes and graduate a year early. 2023 rolled around and all of a sudden job prospects tanked for Software Engineering.
As you can tell, CS job availability was hundreds of times worse than I expected. I used to think that applying to 50 jobs was āa lot.ā š
Me!
I grew up pretty poor but had a good childhood. I always tinkered with hardware and as a kid I wanted an Xbox. I couldn’t afford one so I got a broken one, took it apart and fixed it. I got most of my electronics by fixing them myself since we couldn’t afford them.
I started college and was going for a business management degree. I realized that the degree I was going for was going to be useless so I decided to give coding a try. I always liked the hardware side of things so I figured I’d give the software side a shot.
Boy was I surprised when I got my first job ($70k) out of school especially considering I was working in a UPS warehouse. These days I make more in a few hours than an entire week of work at UPS.
For me it’s always been about the passion and not the money. I feel very lucky and still enjoy everything programming software.
I didnāt. In the UK, SWE salaries are criminally low. Then I moved to the US and havenāt looked back since.
Living in San Diego, my first related job was about 2007 and maybe here or there you’d hear something about the salaries up in SF. I’d look at craigslist and think, oh wow, that’s a lot of money… but i’m in San Diego, maybe I’ll move there at some point. My first web dev job for a digital agency (2007-8) in SD, was about $45k.
FFwd late 2009 I’d decided to make the move and gotten a short contract gig but was really aiming for this other digital agency. The contract gig over 3 months was enough to pay off my outstanding CC that I had been paying off minimum for a few yrs. Got hired at the agency at $75k, and just maybe 2 yr later an offer at an already growing ‘startup”, something like $88k.
I thought man, at this rate that dream of being in 6 figures is prob more of a reality – and I eventually got there cause, that company I was at, just kept dishing out bonuses an raises within my first 1.5 yrs there. Had the opportunity for more options but, I didn’t know how it worked.
So now it’s 2013ish I guess, I’m happy above 6 figures, I’m decent at my job, company is successful, but I get lazy, I cruise, I don’t get much better for the next few yrs. The big salaries start happening, and I’m unprepared for even the easiest of interviews. Housing is increasing, people buying left and right, and I’m just wishing i could own in SF.
I could go on. Eventually that company got acquired, I cashed out my options, I had my opportunity at big tech for 3 yrs in SF. So I feel like I had just a little taste of the much bigger success stories you hear a lot about. I’m back in San Diego now, unemployed, but very much happy because I’m teaching myself a whole lot now, at a time where there is just a mountain of stuff to learn. And in fact, I prob wouldn’t change a thing – I just turned 40 and I’d rather be learning all this now with all the available resources, than trying to make sense of it all back then. I feel like I have a lot of valuable experience – of what not to do. Learning a whole lot just by way of failure.
oh and i now use neovim, btw.
I didnāt lol. I just didnCS because it was the only thing I knew how to do.
I got a PhD thinking I’d be happy making 90k. I make over 200k, way more than I’d ever thought I would
In 1998 it was just the most ordinary job. I was like, oh, you can make a living doing that? That’s cool. Just another office job.
somewhat
I think high-school-me went into CS thinking I’d be perfectly happy with a ~$30-40k USD (this is in my home country), then 3 things happened
1. I discovered this sub
2. I found levels.fyi
3. I found teamblind
started aiming for USA internship that pays like maybe $40 USD/h vs. ones in my hometown which pays like maybe $8 USD/h, then it snowballed from there
I knew. I was a Freshman in 2013, in Mechanical Engineering. I saw that CS was about to boom, and I had always been into high-tech and computers in general. I wanted to switch, but my dumb Asian parents forced me to stay in MechE (I grew up in a very strict household so I had been conditioned to be obedient). I did end making a switch 9 years later, and I work in a big tech as a mid-level engineer. But sometimes I wonder how far I would have gotten if I had the courage to disobey them and make the switch. CS was less competitive back then.
I knew about the high potential in 1996, when I was 14. Where you been?
I graduated in 2014. I had started as a Mechanical Engineer since I had a background in drafting, and was doing quite well – wasted a whole year. My roommate was CS. I found ME incredibly boring and was complaining, he suggested CS since I was more interested in his work than my own. I switched and loved it. It was from a major engineering school, the ME program had probably 1000+ students. There were about 50 total for CS. I didn’t realize the salary potential until I started pursuing internships.
Sure there’s potential. But unless you’re coming from a targeted school and graduating top of your class, you’re not gonna get it.
My aim in life was to make at least 50k and I knew this route would be good to get that. First support job was 60k, i was surprised. Super grateful. Then my next job was 100k, soon 120k. It was when I got that first 6 figure salary that I realized how much I could stand to make
Some great pick me energy going on in here
I loved computers as soon as ai got my hands on one (graduated CS in 1990) and back in those days it was an addictive hobby that turned into a career. None of us thought about the $.
I think that those only getting into it for the money and to fast fire, etc is a relatively new less than last 10 years sort of thing.
This was 2013…I didn’t know I could make 100k right after the school. I just wanted a job.
I was like holy sh*t when I saw the offer letter..
I knew it paid well, but I was surprised at how quickly my pay shot up.
I had a goal of reaching 75k within a few years of graduating. One of my friends in a different major was adamant that was unrealistic.
My first job was 105k, and it paid 140k by the time I left a few years later. Did not expect that by my mid 20’s.
When I started this was a woman’s job, it was very close to being a secretary , the man’s job was to be either the computer systems boss from the company, (because of being a boss,.actually), or to be a “computer mechanic”, it was not until the smartphone era that the market corrected itself.
And it was kind of weight in the sense that the pay for a ca.computwr graduate was below the average pay of all adults including of course the ones who did not attend college, for proportion the average for a cs graduate back then was 4k per month with the normal adult average being 6k.
I knew about it, but it wasn’t a big deal to me.
It still isn’t. I am paid much the average for a software developer, but I value working with good people and interesting projects more.
I sort of knew I always wanted to do something with computers, whether that be CS or CE. I liked looking at things from a CS perspective so I chose that path in college. It wasn’t until like junior year when I found out how much some companies could pay.
Ha! Iām 45. I switched from chemical engineering to computer science. At the time CS had a lower average salary for new grads