[_throwawayyyyy1]

I'm in Boston & went through an intensive FT job search here about 18 months ago. I'm a mobile developer with 20+ years total experience in desktop, backend, web+mobile, product management, started my own company, etc.

Worked with lots of recruiters, personal network etc., felt like I really got a sense of what the salary landscape is here. Some facts:

- I was leaving a job at a hot unicorn startup that paid $125K base and I was told I was one of the highest paid engineers on staff (20+ engineers)

- I received 2 offers during this job search (was very selective else could have gotten many, many more)

- First offer: IOS developer at very large consulting firm for $120K base (with possibility of small bonus).

- Second offer: IOS developer position that was comparable in interest to first. Decided to "shoot for the moon" and ask for $145K. They agreed, and that's where I'm (happily) working now.

According to this study, SW engineers with my level of experience in these cities are making $181K on average! From what I could see that's just not available here to the rank and file, "average" experienced sw engineer. That salary would be more like top-of-range here.

Am I doing something wrong? Is Boston really that different than Seattle/NYC/SF?

[morgtheborg]

Yes. You didn't really negotiate. Ideally you interview broadly, then use the higher offers at companies that aren't you top choice to boost the offers from companies that aren't your top choice that offered less---and then use those offers to boost your actual top choice.

For example, company A offered 100k, B offered 120k, and C offered 130k. You want company A. You say to company B that company C offered 130k and you're interested but not sure with that diff. They up to 135. You say to company C, hey, company B offered 135, can you help me lower the diff? They up to 140. Then you go to company A, say you'd love to, but you have offers for 135 and 140, so if they could do anything to lower the diff, great. They offer 130. At this point, you have three offers, all higher than you began with and can make a choice.

[adtac]

How would you sync your interviewing so that you have a decently sized, overlapping window where you can negotiate with multiple companies? I'd imagine these negotiations take about a month in total. That must mean that (earliestDeadline - latestOffer) must be at least that long.

[lugg]

Its just a scheduling thing, line up all your interviews into a single week. Similarly, when they start coming back, push them out into the week following so you have room for the slow responses to catch up.

You can reasonably fit in 5-6 interviews into a week.

[dradtke]

While working full-time? Not everyone can afford to take a week off of work just to interview at companies that may not necessarily extend you an offer.

[robrenaud]

I don't think it's a Boston problem. Perhaps a company selection problem though. Have you tried to interview at Google (Or facebook, amazon, apple, netflix, microsoft)?. If that 20+ years is actual work experience, as opposed to coding up BASIC games during middle school, I am sure you'd get offers at 300k+ total annual comp at those places if you passed the interview.

[_throwawayyyyy1]

I think it's possible - yes. But I kind of qualify those employers as "elite" here, and very competitive to get into - not average.

And if you want to count my pre-teen years coding BASIC games, total experience jumps significantly!

[kwindla]

I haven't hired in Boston in a few years, so my perspective may be out of date, but it definitely was the case up until 2014 or so (my most recent concrete experience making job offers to candidates in Boston) that Boston salaries for engineers were lower than SF and NYC.

That seems mostly to be a supply/demand thing (which is tangled up with local culture norms, too, in complicated ways). There is much, much less VC funding in Boston than in SF and NYC. But a great supply of engineers because of the universities. And there's no equivalent to Microsoft+Amazon (Seattle) and Wall Street (NYC) pushing up both demand and top-end base salaries for experienced engineers.

Also, you mention that your search was 18 months ago. In SF (and I think Seattle and NYC, too) the job market is crazily engineer-favorable right now. I'd bet there's been 10% inflation in average base senior engineer salaries in SF in the last 18 months. That would match your $145k against ~$165k (rather than $181k).

[jeffbax]

While not any HQs, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook and (pretty sure in some form) Apple are all in the greater Boston area and certainly have had an impact on salaries.

As for funding: https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/04/boston-area-startups-are-o...

I don't think Boston is as much as a slouch as you think, in fact it's is pretty well positioned for the long term in regards to overall industry diversity and pretty respectable funding (though not as dominated by software like SF might be)

Salaries are probably lower because overall COL has traditionally been lower here (though housing sure isn't far behind anymore). Most people I know working for the big companies are getting ~$250k total comp (8-10 years exp). Other large, if more under the radar, companies are not too far behind.

[kwindla]

I wouldn't call Boston a slouch, at all! It is an amazing city with a lot of great tech stuff happening.

But having raised VC money for three companies, Boston definitely feels like it doesn't have the same VC culture as SF and NYC. In some ways, this is a really good thing!

A lot of Boston investment money is much more conservative about valuations and business models. There's more late stage money than early stage money. There has historically been a lot more life sciences money than "software" money (on the professional investment side). My memory is that the last numbers I saw (2017) put Boston overall tech venture funding at something like 1/8th of the Bay Area's totals.

[shepardrtc]

Having lived in Seattle and knowing several software engineers at various companies, I would have to say Triplebyte's numbers are being inflated by the FAANG companies. I have one friend at Microsoft that is making probably 160 to 180ish right now, and another friend at a startup that is making between 80 and 100. Most other engineers make around what you've been offered. I really would take Triplebyte's numbers with a grain of salt.

[seattle_spring]

80 to 100 is insultingly low for even a startup in Seattle. Sure, some are able to get away with it like Energysavvy, but only bottom tier engineers should put up with it.

[shepardrtc]

Funding is month-to-month, essentially. Not sure how long they'll last. But I agree, its very low.

[ptmcc]

Why can EnergySavvy get away with it?

[seattle_spring]

Because there are enough people that don't know their own market value to fill their ranks, I guess.

[davidjnelson]

Damn they are getting ripped off.

[wildmindwriting]

I also work in Boston and have done so since 2010. My experience has been the same as yours. A little over 15 years of experience, worked at a fairly well-known Boston startup, now in a VP level at a digital agency and I was also shocked at the kind of salaries indicated here. I don't feel I could command $180,000 in Boston even with all my experience.

You're not doing anything wrong. I just don't think Boston pays these kind of salaries (yet). We've got a burgeoning tech scene here but compensation isn't at the same level. When I was looking to relocate back to Denver a few years ago, Boston salaries were much higher than what I was seeing out there.

[fatnoah]

>I don't feel I could command $180,000 in Boston even with all my experience.

You could absolutely command much more than that. I've got 20 yoe, was VP level at a smallish startup in Cambridge (35 employees, about 20 of which reported to me) that was acquired. When it was time to move on, nearly any conversation with recruiters started with "total comp" expectations. I had that discussion with about 10 recruiters, and only 1 outright said no thanks when I threw out an expected total compensation of $350k.

For public companies that meant base, bonus, and RSU. For private companies that meant base, bonus, and paper money.

I eventually interviewed with two companies (1 private, 1 public) and received offers from both. Both offered compensation far, far greater than $180k.

[_throwawayyyyy1]

so glad i posted about my experience - posts like these have been eye-opening!

[chris_va]

I know the Google SWEs in Boston tend to get paid (net comp) much higher than that for senior positions, though I am not very familiar with Boston.

On the west coast you'll usually get paid a significantly higher salary in Seattle/SF than most of the other cities with any tech presence (e.g. Portland, LA, San Diego, etc).

Salaries are tied to cost of labor/employment, which varies by city. It is generally correlated with cost of living, though (otherwise people move away), so it balances slowly minus network effect adjustments.

FWIW, I thought the SF numbers in that article were low for mainstream companies, but high for startups.

[UweSchmidt]

Only way to find out is to interview more with numbers that get rejected.

[_throwawayyyyy1]

Glassdoor has average boston Software Engineer salaries at $98K. Hmmm....

[dropofwill]

That seems really low to me. I have friends that work at a dozen or so places all 3-4 years out of school and the range we’re getting is more like 110-140.

Personally out of school I got 85, but got bumped to 110 after 1 year and 120 after 2.

Maybe they’re including 495/NH jobs bringing it down? There definitely is a difference between jobs in Boston/Cambridge, those on 128, and those in the outer burbs.

[_throwawayyyyy1]

SF average is $126K per Glassdoor - so maybe there really is a much bigger difference than i thought. I feel like 5-10 years ago they were roughly comparable. Guess that's a long time ago in internet years!

[sonnyblarney]

Purely based on my 'gut' (though I've been around):

1) SF/NY/Seattle salaries are skewed by really rich companies 2) Yes, there a big uptick as it's more competitive, FYI cost of living is much more. 3) The salary I think has a selection/sample problem that probably over estimates.

My bet is $150K for an experienced dev at a normal company in Boston is probably somewhere in the league of normal.

Consider that salaries are not as an efficient a market as we might imagine. If Boston area companies can get away with paying $140 instead of $180 they will! Most people don't move across the country for a pay raise. Worker mobility in the US is down over the last 30 year (weirdly).

SF has a lot of people moving there which creates a different kind of frothy market.

Boston is established and so everything gets established, including salaries.

Consider the situation: imagine if you had a company making ok profit, with 50 Engineers in Beantown. Do you think you could all of a sudden get your Eng. to the 'next level' by paying SF rates?

So you're staffing costs are way up, but is productivity? Surely, you might be able to bring on the best hires, but will that make all the difference?

It's such a big bet, and the inclination is always to make (or save) money 'now'.

It's a little bit like the 'open vs. closed office' calculation. The CFO can make a direct and measurable compelling case for open office: it's 20% cheaper. Those in favour of a nicer office can't provide the hard numbers on how much the company would increase productivity.

I think salary differentials are a crazy interesting subject and suspect there are a lot of weird and interesting things going on.

I'm from Canada, where any good developer can double their salary by moving to a choice job in the US. Why the hell would young talent stay? Which implies, how the hell can Canadian companies even remotely compete on building great companies of the top tier talent leaves?

Obviously this depends a lot on a companies specific need for hyper-top tier talent, those that don't would maybe be better off out of the Valley.

I also wonder a lot on what would happen if a well funded Canadian startup actually started paying super great salaries. Sure, they'd be able to get the best talent that comes through the door ... but then there's the other paradox: most Canadian cities are not destinations! Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver are regular cities, if you start a company there, most of your applicants will be local. It stands that local talent may not be all that spectacular (good but not great) thereby not justifying really big salaries. And can you really have 'regular salary' for the 'regular, local talent' and then inflated salaries for the international hot talent? That might be hard!

So SF, NY and Seattle have the advantage of being destinations, i.e. cities where people are willing to move, meaning that their quest for talent is really a not a function of the locals, but the top tier of a much broader pool of talent.

[mattnewport]

I'm not sure about this characterization of "destination cities". The primary reason developers move to Seattle or SF is pay and career opportunities. The primary reasons for leaving are things like cost of living, commutes and lifestyle. Vancouver by contrast is more of what I'd call a "destination city" - people move there for the lifestyle and location (surrounded by ocean and mountains) and leave because of the cost of living and lack of career opportunities.

Certainly for some people SF or Seattle have a lot more to offer than just career opportunities and not everyone is going to like the Vancouver lifestyle but in my experience the primary draw of SF is money and career not desire to live in the cities for other reasons. I think the story might be a little different for NY where lifestyle might be as big a draw for many people as career opportunities.

[sonnyblarney]

California and NY are absolutely aspirational places.

They are mythologized in news, song, film and TV.

Try to recruit someone to Toledo, Ohio vs. SF with the same cost-of-living-adjusted-pay and there's no comparison.

California is a place where people 'want' to move. NYC has been branded as the 'centre of action' for almost a century now. Just the other day I was reading about how artists feel they need to be located there for brand purposes.

The only people who 'aspire' to move to a regular city are those in smaller towns in the immediate vicinity, i.e. in rural Ontario, Toronto is an 'aspiration' it's 'the big city'. (Also, Toronto is an aspiration for a lot of migrants worldwide but that's a different story).

SF and NYC have access to a global talent pool.

Toronto has access mostly just Ontario.

FYI I worked at a 'big name company' in Waterloo Ontario and it was really hard to bring people in, especially Americans for whom Canada it seemed may have as well been the arctic. Those few we did bring up, often kept their 'primary residence' in the US, or otherwise felt they were doing a 'tour of duty' and would otherwise want to go home.

[_throwawayyyyy1]

excellent points - thanks for this perspective!