[dewitt]

> "$25,000 was not enough money to retire on for sure, even in 1996."

$25,000 in 1996 is $42,000 in 2021.

Seems like a modest incentive for top tech talent, even back then.

* To respond to the comment below, the author had been working as a hardware systems engineer at headquarters for 10 years by 1996.

[bradleyjg]

Top tech talent, even in software, weren’t making the kind of money they are today. Top new grads going to the hottest employers could hope to make $50,000 all in (not counting stock options paying off down the road). $100,000 in guaranteed comp was all but unheard of for ICs. Programming was not yet at the doctor/lawyer level, much less the banker one.

That started to change in the dotcom frenzy but that was still a couple of years away at that point.

[dboreham]

It started to change when the salary cartel was busted.

[dougabug]

I wonder to what extent the private “no poaching agreements” between major tech companies held down SW Engineer compensation.

[icedchai]

Yep, my first year out of college (1998) I was making 50K at a local public tech company. Anyone in tech would laugh at that nowadays, but that was considered a "good" starting salary.

[harryh]

When I started at Microsoft in 2000 I believe my initial salary was 62k just as another reference plus some stock options (honestly I can't remember the details of that part). This was a very good comp package for a new college grad.

[throwaway123467]

> Anyone in tech would laugh at that nowadays

There was a reset between then and now: The Great Recession around 2008. Starting salaries were below 50K, and I was really surprised when a few years later I got an offer at that amount (also right out of college) - I remember looking around for what to expect, and it was more like 35K.

[dehrmann]

I happened to have this floating around from when I was digging into tech salaries over time.

https://web.archive.org/web/20010203125200/http://www.techwe...

Those are for the Bay Area, not New England (probably important) and for software (less important). He said he'd been at Digital for 10+ years by then, so for a Bay Area salary, I'd guess he made $100k. In New England, I wouldn't be shocked if it was more like $60-$80, so the bonus was up to a third of his salary.

[boulos]

Dewitt (hi!), this isn’t about an annual cash bonus though. This is for a “hit this target and we’ll do award X”.

Given that a number of “achievement” awards are in the < 5k realm today at major tech companies, I think this should be compared to those, not annual bonuses. So in Google terms this is like an outsized spot bonus opportunity with clear (flawed) rules.

[MarblePillar]

The incentive is in the mind of the beholder. $42,000 captured the mind of the author; for its promise, he worked extremely hard and long, mustering a productivity far and above what he normally would have achieved. Then, when he in fact received not $42,000 but $3,666, less than one-tenth what he expected, he convinced himself that this was not a loss but a win because $3,666 is $3,666 more than $0.

What is your lesson here? My lesson is to become the house, because the house always wins.

[faeyanpiraat]

The house can go bankrupt aswell.

[jakemal]

I wonder how it compares to the average salary for an experienced hardware engineer. It may be a ~50% pay bump in 1996 vs a 10-25% bump today.

[jedberg]

In 1996 college grads were pretty excited about $50K-$60K paychecks. So I can't imagine a senior engineer getting more than $120K or so, but they definitely were not only getting $50K.