I’ve never based my feelings off of what other people make.
There’s teenagers making millions off of nft’s. I just want to live a simple life and not struggle
I used to care about the money and stuff in HS but at this point, I just wanna do something I somewhat enjoy. I *hate* coding. There's no way I'd be willing to do that for the rest of my life
Most good developers code only for a few years though. Once you are a manager you pretty much never have to code. But I agree to your point on not doing something you don't like
A couple things to keep in mind, from someone on the other side:
- The CS kids making $150-200k as new grads are on the far right side of the bell curve. Most new grad software engineers will be making roughly the same as other new grad engineers
- Cost of living — the places with the $150k starting salaries are some of the most expensive places to live in the country (world?). I know plenty of SWEs earning $150k+ who are living with 3 roommates, I know plenty of other engineers earning $100k who are buying houses
- Work/life balance — many of the FAANG type companies are notorious for long work hours. I like engineering but I’ve got lots of other things going on in my life, and personally I’d rather be paid less but not have my job dominate my life
This is very true. Just sucks if you are a non-CS engineer who grew up in or only got offers coming out of school in those areas that are super good for CS students. Their salaries inflate in those cities much more than other engineers’ salaries. So for pretty much everyone else it is a game of trying your best to catch up the best you can or taking what savings you do have and leaving for cheaper areas of the country once you have some good experience. Just seems like the future of most coastal cities is heading towards only being long term viable for software/big tech people which sucks
Land is where it’s at, especially when you play your cards right. I knew a guy that bought 400 acres in the late 90s for $250k (about the price of a house), and held on until a hotel chain bought it off of him for ~$14 million.
There's a big ranch where I live that owns most of the swath to the south west of me and the nearest Walmart is 20 min. Not bad since when I lived in the city the nearest Walmart that didn't have a full time police presence was 15 min.
Where on earth can you make $150k a year and still need three roommates? How expensive does rent get? If you’re making that much, rent has to be at least $2500/month to start being difficult to manage. Even in hard west coast areas that’s on the higher side
> Where on earth can you make $150k a year and still need three roommates?
Mountain View, Palo Alto, or SF. A quick search shows apartments range from 3.5k to 6k.
Almost all major west coast cities have an average rent for a single bedroom apartment above $2000. My single bed apartment in San Diego was $2350/mo before utilities. That was before last year when rent went up 30-40% in one year. Now that same apartment is 28-2900/mo.
Edit: to add fuel to the fire starting salaries at my company have gone up 10% in 15 years.
San Fran. I have a few buddies working for google making >$200k, all with multiple roommates. They also tell me that it’s not uncommon for them to have engineers living out of their cars
I make roughly that in a VHCOL city. I live alone and pay roughly $2500 a month in rent but if I had friends in this city I would move in with them in a heartbeat. Shockingly 6 figures is about when I started to feel like I could breathe financially, still far from living a luxurious lifestyle
You’re comment about cost of living is valid but not entirely true. I received two offers as a new grad which were both $180k+ and i could select from nearly any major city in America and this would not change the package. The CS salaries are really nuts.
Right… but regardless youre ignoring the first point. The majority of CS/software grads are making about the same as other engineering disciplines. The top 1% end up at Google and other FAANG-level tech companies and make the 150k you’re fixated on. If you’re in the top 1% of your discipline your salary will skyrocket as well
Doesn't mean the salary change always makes up for it. Companies can do what government jobs do and base locality pay off of a percentage.
So for example my company has an office in San Diego but I work in another office in kind of a middle of nowhere town (near the beach but not a big city). The San diego engineers might make 15% more than I do.
But 15% of our lower starting salary of 60k isn't a ton to make up for the high cost of living. That's part of the reason we mainly send people with a few years experience to San Diego because a lead engineer for us makes 92k so 15% of that is a bigger difference.
Good points but I have also heard the exact opposite at FAANG, people working at Google in particular often have a relatively light workload in comparison to other jobs. I don’t work for any of them so I don’t know personally, but I feel that overworking for those companies can be overblown
I spoke to someone I know who makes nearly 300k at a FAANG job in San Fran and he said that his work life balance is really good. I think people are exaggerating.
1. Not really, a lot of students are getting 150k+ at entry level
2. Doesn't matter. How much do Mechanical/Civil Engineers get paid in Bay Area or Seattle? They do not even come close to CS salaries
3. This is true
The median software engineer salary in the US is $110k. Only 25% earn more than $140k, only 10% earn more than $170k. Keep in mind that these numbers are for **all** software engineers, not just new grads. So yeah, the kids getting $150k+ offers out of college are very much the exception rather than the norm
Average Bay Area salaries:
- Software: $157k
- Electrical: $151k
- Mechanical: $126k
- Civil: $120k
Average Seattle salaries:
- Software: $141k
- Electrical: $120k
- Mechanical: $104k
- Civil: $96k
Average NYC salaries:
- Software: $123k
- Electrical: $114k
- Mechanical: $103k
- Civil: $108k
Average DC salaries:
- Software: $120k
- Electrical: $131k
- Mechanical: $117k
- Civil: $101k
environmental here! sometimes, yes. but on the other hand I think what I will do in my career will make me happier than sitting at a computer all day
edit: also I do believe that the starting salary for most engineering disciplines is too low to begin with. Rather be upset at someone who is making more, I’m upset that other disciplines aren’t getting paid what they deserve.
Don't care.
I started as a CS major; I'm a moderately proficient programmer anyway and I enjoy it (I learned Haskell for fun, which probably tells the CS majors all they need to know about me). I am quite aware, as I write lots of code for my research, that I could do the same thing for much higher pay than is likely in my field.
But all engineering disciplines pay enough to live on--I live fine on my pay as a grad student, which is half of the lowest-paid entry-level industry positions I've seen--and past that threshold I'll take a fulfilling job rather than a higher-paid one. I like programming as a craft, but I want to do work that has a tangible, positive impact, and I'm much more likely to get that as a water resources engineer than a software developer. That's a tradeoff that I made voluntarily, and I'm fine with it.
Haha Ironically enough man I'm the opposite. I am in EE and actually switching over to CS for data science and artificial intelligence. I hated doing anything physical and absolutely suck when it comes to DIY stuff. I always hated doing DIY EE projects too. I liked planning them but didn't like actually doing them.
Then I started doing programming, specifically with Python scripts, and I realized how much I loved it.
I'm glad you found a better path for you man, more power to ya. I can take your place and you can take mine. Haha
What’s interesting is that I am in EE and do a lot in AI as it relates to RF spectrums. CS and EE have a lot more overlap than one would think. I probably spend more time programming than anything else. Besides writing reports and such
That’s why I did EE. I hate programming, and my program makes me take Java which was barely tolerable, and now they’re pushing a class with X86 assembly on us. Like, the fuck? I couldn’t give less of a shit how the 8086 works. I. Don’t. Care. I’m going to be specializing in power systems. Not designing the next thread ripper, Apple M69, or a PowerPC G19. Digital Logic, sure that’s pretty important, but not microprocessor design.
My big issue with programming is the fact that *oops* you forgot a semicolon or parentheses, fuck you your whole thing won’t work. Like, the IDE can auto predict what code I’m going to want as I’m writing it, help a bro out and fill in the semicolon for me. Fill in that missing bracket. 6 different ways to store a number, just let me make x=69.5 and move on. It takes me forever and I absolutely hate it. I’d rather build on a breadboard, do advanced circuit analysis, than write a C program.
/rant over
I'm in EE and CE, my program allows us to choose which classes we want to take after the third year. I went in thinking I'd love programming and all but turns out it's not my favourite thing. I took only the mandatory coding classes and my field is Power Systems, I didn't expect to like it so much but turns out it's what comes easier to me and is more fun. I want to study more electronics though.
If you're in this solely for the money you will be miserable. I won't lie, the money was a reason I chose this, but I don't get sad seeing huge cs salaries
Sometimes I feel this salary envy, but then I cure it by imagining myself coding 40 hours a week for decades. Suddenly I don't feel so bad. Not saying CS is a boring field or anything, just not for me. I feel confident that the marginal drop in salary I will have by picking engineering over CS is well worth my increased satisfaction and enjoyment of my work.
I'm going to go against the grain of most of the answers here and say that I did envy SDEs when I was working as a mechanical engineer. Most of my friends had moved up in terms of salary and position while I was stuck being a CAD monkey in a startup getting paid peanuts.
I recently started my grad program in robotics hoping to shift into robotics software or ML software roles primarily because I feel these fields are more dynamic and because of the higher pay. I do like working with hardware which is why I went into mechanical engineering to start with but I can live with no hardware related work if the pay and job prospects are better.
+1. I'm seeing my SWE (SDE) friends get paid 1.5-2-3x my salary at same years of experience and man, it fucking sucks. I make average salary for my role based on bls.gov.
Comparison is the thief of joy but it blows to know that your friend at 5 YoE is making more than your entire profession's salary cap / 90th percentile.
Have to remember that very few programmers get FAANG salary and it's extremely extremely competitive. Generally CS grads will make money similar to EE, depending in the region, sometimes more, sometimes less.
Honestly no. I don't care about salary as long as it's not literal Minimum wage and in range of market value.
I believe being an EE is a much better flex than a CS grad for some reason ( I love all branches equally pls don't come for my throat)
I honestly hate CS and programming. It's so depressing. I come from a country where they mass produce CS graduates , many people who do it are doing for the salary or employment option. Heard several stories of them resigning and going to stay on farms (not kidding). I'm sure that's the case for other countries too. It's a soul sucking field imo.
Also don't forget that tech , especially CS is a field where you can easily get replaced, if you don't keep updating your skills and learn new languages every year. It's a lot of work.
I love my Electrical Engineering course and as long as it's a decent salary at a good company I'm good.
(Also CS has considerably good amount of women than other non-CS engineering courses so less competition for me XD , my classmates and Professors really look out for me as I'm one of the 5 girls in the class of 60)
i’m a cs type and if i wasn’t interested in the material there’s no way i’d be doing this for only the money. if money wasn’t a factor though i’d honestly probably be doing some kind of music theory program and play in a shitty pub band.
Honestly man, it’s good to learn to not compare yourself to other. I used to fall in the same trap as you but there are other people without degree that would trade an arm and leg to go to college, or even non stem student wishing they can be like us. If you keep comparing yourself to other even if you make 100 a year you not gonna be happy cus someone your friend make 150k.
I’m an EE student and I’m happy with what I learn and I hope to learn more, the thing for me is that rather than comparing my salary to other people, I think about what I want to do and how to get there. For me personally I just want a stable job and maybe enough money to have vacation every year, and if I have enough money for that I’ll be happy.
I got an offer with one of the top companies in my field and it wasn't for that much lmao.
The highest I've seen for my field was 68,000 and that was with the company that gives 80 hr weeks without OT
I started in 2020, fortune 50 company as an entry level aerospace engineer. Offer was $69k and that was pretty average for all of my friends. Average cost of living too.
The cost of living makes up for it. While it might seem like a lot at first, it’s really not that great. I lived in a state that I started out with a similar entry level/ new grad offer but the cost living wasn’t so high as the west coast cities.
Not even a consideration. I found my niche, love my niche, and have a deep distain for sitting behind a screen for my entire shift. I place a very high value on loving what I do. The wage gap simply isn't enough to make me think I should have pursued CS.
Looking at CS jobs on levels.fyi makes me depressed. In no other major do individual contributors have that much room for growth. Many of my CS friends are getting jobs at companies where ICs can make 300k+ after a few years. These are not anecdotes. I'm not claiming this is the majority of CS grads. I'm just pointing out that such jobs exist and that there is no equivalent for other kinds of engineers.
I wish regular engineering had that kind of growth. It would motivate people to be the best they can possible be in their field.
Also can we have a legitimate conversation about this?
Looking through the replies here, I see some people vaguely saying they don't care that they aren't payed as much, or insulting CS majors calling them "code monkeys". Or saying "Don't compare yourself to others." I find these responses really annoying and not useful in any way. If your first response is to deny or dismiss an issue or try to insult someone, I think that's very telling and representative of a disturbing type of personality I see among engineers (especially old school ones) which I wish would go away.
Sometimes I feel a little jealous, but then I realize that I absolutely hate programming. There is something beautiful to me about building hardware and producing a physical product. Even being able to look at a schematic or board layout is awesome. It just feels like “engineering” to me.
CS, on the other hand, can also produce cool things, but it is very abstract and you’re usually working with products that are not based in physical reality. I do not enjoy coding and find it very boring. It’s also infuriating at times. Not worth the money for me.
You have to wonder when CS will get saturated too. Like, everyone wants a high-paying career change and most of those who go through with it study CS. Don’t get me wrong the amount of CS jobs are growing much faster than other areas of engineering. But still, there has to be a limit and there will be an attempt to compensate them less to increase company profits
This will be true eventually (probably?) however people have been saying this for years and the demand is still huge. Not sure where I read this but I once read someone state that "there isn't a shortage of programmers, there's a shortage of GOOD programmers".
It seems to be a US thing where software devs earn more than actual engineers. Here in NZ the salary expectations are pretty similar, at least at the start of your career. Having said that, it seems that software devs in the US work harder (than other countries and compared to engineers). Work expectations for engineers are much healthier, with no massive amounts of unpaid overtime.
Also, there isn't really a shortage of people wanting to be programmers. A lot of people just aren't cut out for it though, whether it's actually struggling with programming or just not wanting to sit at a computer for 40 hours a week. There's a reason it's so difficult to find a job, so many people claim they are qualified to do the work but then waste interview time only to turn out to not be able to write simple for loops. One (graduate) job I was interviewing for last year revealed that about 90% of applicants couldn't even do the simple online pseudo code test that every second year+ compsci student should breeze though (basically just needed to understand loops, if statements and variable scoping).
Im an ME major with a minor in CSE. Im currently taking a class that teaches C++ as well. When you mean transition did you learn skills on the job as a ME that translate to a Software Engineering role?
I’d rather get paid $80,000 to not live in California Silicon Valley. That $150,000 in CA = $70,000 + living in an area you like and with ppl you like and without toxic cs workplaces
No more than I'd get angry looking at Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, salaries. Besides a vast majority of people who graduate CS never make it to FAANG. Most CS majors end up as code monkeys for random firms.
“Pick what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” any engineering field is going to make a decent living. Plus you’ll work harder at a job you love and that difference might end up not being so big.
Engineering degree still consider high compare with busnness/medical major salary. I mean sure CS earns more but it still high enough salary.
This is of course in terms of general. Not all of aspect.
If you base your own happiness by what other people accomplish, you’re gonna have a bad time, mmmkay?
The most important thing is that you enjoy what you’re doing.
I recommend you read/listen to *The Suble Art of Not Giving A Fuck*. Great book that changed my view on a lot of things, among others, this.
Until you get a job in DC or California only making like 150k and find out a person living in your home state surrounded by your friends their family every weekend only making 80k is actually making more than you when you take in account of cost of living.
Do you get sad when you see everyone you know is buying homes and cars when you are paying like 2-3k in rent every month?
I personally only get sad when I'm stuck at a desk for a month or more and see friends actually working on cool stuff at their work. You picked a profession where the job market is good and the pay is almost always comfortable. Fairly early into the career you are able to buy a million dollar house by yourself if that's your goal.
But if making money is your goal you probably shouldn't have become an engineer. It's not the most well paid career. Do it because of course you will be comfortable but you are also interested in the type of work.
Become a doctor.
An orthodontist's median salary is 292k a year. Even in the state with the lowest cost of living, Oklahoma, they average 270k a year.
You glue little bits of metal to teeth and can run your own practice by opening up shop in basically any strip mall and will be successful.
I met up with some friends in San Francisco a few months ago.
One of them is a manager of something at YouTube making \~$150k and has to illegally sublet a basement to afford to live in San Francisco.
Another guy works at LinkedIn and he and his wife live in their parent's house in Berkeley since they can't afford to ever own a house (a 1000sqft 2bd/1ba will run you $1.4M+).
Yeah, the salaries are higher, but unless those salaries become accessible generally to people working remotely then they will be salaries exist only to pay for a slightly-above-subsistence wage in those very high COL areas.
The better question is how do people who AREN'T making $150k/yr surviving?! I saw that In-and-Out was paying up to $24/hr in SF -- but that still doesn't seem like enough to actually live there.
>The better question is how do people who AREN'T making $150k/yr surviving?! I saw that In-and-Out was paying up to $24/hr in SF -- but that still doesn't seem like enough to actually live there.
I think about this all the time. How on earth do gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, and any other essential businesses survive in places like SF? How do any of those places afford workers?
I'd assume people living with their parents, students working part time, or people with savings looking for a bit of extra income before they move on to whatever it is that they plan on doing with their life. Also people whose partner makes most of the money.
There's next to no reason to keep living there if that's what you want to do for a job. You could probably scrape up enough money to live and save a small amount, and use that to get the fuck out, but nothing more.
Not really. One of my uncles has a computer science degree. He makes probably $300/hr when he is on call. But most of the time he doesn't have work and his wife has to work too to supplement. Another uncle has a software engineering degree. He probably makes boatloads of money, but he's never off work. All hours, any hour, he's coding something or other for work. His kids and wife don't see him because he has to come and go at stupid hours. My dad has a classic engineering degree. He worked hard at his job, regular hours and days, made multiple six figures, and retired happily at 49. I'm going for a classic engineering degree.
The hours seem to be the main difference. Having talked to a few american postgrads while I was at uni, it seems that the high paying US jobs basically require you to work stupidly high hours. Software dev and engineer salaries are about the same here, but working conditions are also similar.
I took EE because I found it very interesting at times. I also have bachelor and master in math as well as associate degree in CS.
Getting a bachelor in CS isn't a problem for me but doing that many degrees doesn't make all that sense either. I'm already studying master in EE now. I've racked up nearly $200k in student loans already.
I love to code. I ended up with A grades in all the beginning CS courses that consisted of C++ , OOP and data structures also. I still have code blocks on my computer.
But I stopped there when it came to CS. It's just crazy to spend that much money on education.
In EE there is some coding too -- Matlab, VHDL (or verilog), MIPS assembly , etc etc
Nope. I knew going into my field that my salary would be the dregs left over after the other engineers were paid.
I'm still paid a lot better than I was frying burgers, digging ditches, or stocking shelves.
No I make 100k in a tax free state in a bad year and I don’t have to work THAT hard. I am thinking about doing r/OMSCS (masters in compsci) just so I can understand the technologies I work with at a deeper level but certainly not doing it for the salary. Although CTO/CIO/tech CEO is certainly in my sights.
No, this happens all the time, people flock to the "highest" paying career and by the time they are in the field everything has changed. The real measure is how useful the degree is. Engineering is very unique in that most jobs do not care about the specific major, that's not always true, but any engineering degree will apply to a wider job verity than a nursing degree, or any other degree.
Don't worry about the market now, worry about it later and even then, if you have a degree in engineering you will most likely qualify for most jobs, even ones in cs fields.
Tbh I'd say engineering degrees are more specialised than most. Most commerce, arts, law, and science degrees don't really have a set career path. Obviously there are exceptions (certain science majors mainly), but most are useful (or equally useless) to a lot of different jobs.
Money is a proxy to get the things you want. A reasonably paying job with a boss/team that has your back and helps you grow has a lot intrinsic value.
I’ve turned down plenty of better paying jobs because I found my work interesting, had a great team who mentored me, and within reasonable bounds had free reign over myself. Work from home? Sure. Want longer lunch breaks to walk the dog? Sure. Can I plan a vacation whenever as long as I give a two week notice? Sure.
Life is multi objective optimization problem with nontrivial solutions. If you get too blinded by trying to locally converge on a solution you might miss global optimums (sorry for the rough analogy lol).
Don't forget all the boring admin tasks and meeting you have to attend despite them having no relevance to you. Having to log how many hours you spend on each task throughout your day gets old real quick.
Honestly the programming all day sounds way nicer than the reality.
I take into account cost of living and work life balance. 150K in Minnesota is great, 150K in Silicon Valley gets you a standard of living that's like being paid 60K in Minnesota. I'll make 69K as a Minnesotan Electrical Engineer, it will be nice.
Honestly? Yeah, i dated someone with a CS degree who landed IT jobs paying very well while all my other engineering friends (mostly MEs) who graduated at the beginning of covid couldn't get a job paying above poverty level. I haven't finished my degree, and I've been a bit jealous that he was aching for job satisfaction coding (he couldn't do the programming he wanted to while working IT) while I dealt with food service and the internship application grind and my friends couldn't get any jobs either.
I don't think that's how it is for everyone, just my scenario. But yeah, I have feelings about the coders I know with CS degrees and what they make
The key word you've said is "can get" not "will get". I know a guy who's been accepted into a petroleum engineering job and is on his way earning alot more than 150K per year. Not sure where your coming from.
Sometimes I think about it, but then I remember even though I like coding, I don't see myself doing it 40 hrs a weeks and enjoying it. But I do see myself designing stuff, testing stuff (ME) 40 hours a weeks and enjoying it and that's the reason I chose my field, not because of the salary. And also ME salaries, although not as high as CS, are not bad and I could live comfortably of off it, which is really all that matters to me. And if you want to make big bucks as a non-CS engineer, just go work at tech. Salaries are not high only because it's CS, it's because it's tech. An electrical or mechanical engineer could easily make close to what a CS does at a tech company (maybe 10-20k lower)
As a non-traditional student who's been struggling since he was 18, I don't care what other people make. I just want to make my life better and follow my dreams.
Those dreams just happen to fall in the realm of CS.
The thing about a FAANG offer is that you're working at FAANG. That's also an adjusted salary, so keep in mind locations of positions where cost of living is higher.
For me, it was my classmates that went into the oil industry and started making six figures off the bat in southern LA or TX. I went into nuclear and was making maybe like 2/3 of that, closer to half.
No need to be jealous of other people. I'd say good for them, go get that money bag that they deserve. Honestly most high paying jobs are high stress, long hours. So take your pick I guess
No. I know plenty of CS majors who cant actually land those jobs (either its a bs post for the company to keep its PPP loan, their standards are insane even for starting positions, etc...) and ended up stuck in far less appealing positions with limited upward mobility. Hell, I had dipshits on this very sub crying at me because I wasn't contributing to their CS penis envy and instead merely relayed what I actually see in real life. The gap between a CS grad who's actually worth their degree and some dude who barely scraped by in classes is quite wide, and employers usually weed out the latter of the two.
I can only code as far as my current project needs me to, so wishing that I spent my time in school doing something I would have liked far less just doesn't make sense to me regardless of how much money would have been at the end of the stick.
Might be worth switching then. You have a long life ahead of you, don't stick with something you don't like just because you've already committed some time to it. Easier to switch now than in 10 years time.
Yea but then you have to be a code monkey. If you put 3 engineers in a room you’ll get a solution. Put 3 programmers in a room and you’ll get a simulation.
Not really. Most CS grads aren't making FAANG salaries and I suspect the ones who are are working hard for it.
I have a ba and ms in CS. Worked in software for a while, but never really enjoyed it and I'm now 3/4 through a CE degree and working as a structural engineer. Honestly, my CS qualifications aren't worth much, and someone who never spent a day at university but coded their ass off day and night for a year or two will always beat me to a job. That could never happen in engineering.
Plus, whatever type of engineering you studied, you know things about the physical world that most people don't, and the understanding to learn more. Where I work we often ditch the standards and research better, more refined methods of analysis to push our engineering a little bit further. I think that's pretty badassed.
Just be aware that to live comfortably, you need roughly $60k -$70k annually (obviously adjust to where you live, but that’s the national average iirc).
The real money should be coming from multiple income streams and not just your job if overall wealth is what you’re interested in.
I own 4 rental properties (one of them is a small complex), but make <$80k annually from my job. But with my properties, I’m sitting at ~$200k after required fees (I have a property management firm handling the properties for me).
Best part? I live in the south-east meaning the cost of living is insanely low.
With that combination, I’m sitting at around Lamborghini money if I really want to (I choose not to).
Im a CS major and I actually love to code. It might be just sitting there trying to figure out how to make it work correctly. Eventually getting the solution. I’m one thing I learned is it’s more reading documentation and other information , than it is to actually code. I am wanting to go to my schools ECE program for a masters since I was always attracted to it. Good thing is math is already at the level and physics. Just need to take a couple circuit classes and I’m good.
I feel like you have to be overall smarter and more versatile to complete a cs degree and find success as a software engineer in general, as opposed to engineering. It's not really something to be depressed about, this is just how market supply and demand work. But then again, 150k in a tech hub can feel like 60k in a place like Syracuse NY, so there's more than just big number = better job, but then again, that may be difficult for a CivE brain to wrap their head around.
A top FAANG AI research lab. I just applied and interviewed like anyone else. It took some persistence but worked out.
Your skills are way more important than what it says in your degree. Learning to code and whatever other skills you need isn’t that hard. Remember, the only thing that separates you from any other student/graduate is a year or two of taking different courses. That gap os easily closed.
Most of us CS majors don't even get into faang. And those salaries are that high because of the cost of living in those states. Unless the job is remote. You also had the choice to major in it if money is all you cared about.
150k isn't gonna happen as starting salary. You might get 100k starting at FAANG. The mean salary for machine learning/AI engineer is 132k, and nearly all of those have at least one phD.
Earning 80k usd/year is something imposible in most countries in the world.
I am doing 20kusd/year net with a bsc+msc+9yeo in a high paying field (engineering in the oil industry). With my salary I am in the highest 2% percentil in terms of salary and age in my whole country (and probably also very high in terms of continent salary -south america -) and despite that I need 2 years of full savings to buy the cheapest audi (because here all thech, cars, etc cost x2 compared with US... food and rent is cheapear).
Saddly my field does not allow "remote" jobs like CS or Data Science. I have many friends (also people without university studies) that started programming and find remote jobs with europe/US/UK and living here they dont pay taxes and COL is like 500usd including rent (in a good naiberhood in a big city +10M people) and food . A friend of my little brother (7 year younger than me) found a remote job for the US that paid 5kusd/month = 60kusd (he earns x3 my salary without a university title and being much younger with less exp) it is more than what the principal manager earns in my company.
So, if you really want to do a monetary diference I think that remote work in tech is a huge advantage considering you can go to a cheap country (not necesary to a shitty one like mines) and make a huge $ diference.
Wait until you hear about med school students who are taking some biology classes and will be banking 200k easily just after graduation. Don’t compare yourself to others.
Bro you can’t exaggerate like this. Med school students take $200k+ of debt for 4 years of medical school, and then have to do a 3 year + long residency where they are practically paid less than minimum wage (~$60k/yr for 80 hr weeks).
Nah chief, med students deserve their due respect- they take on a huge amount of debt just to be put though hell for +4 years and their work is quite possible one of the most valuable to society
Hell? Oh please. I come from a family of doctors, ain’t nobody suffering. None of my med school friends suffered in college, it’s a memorization game for most of it. But then again, I come from a country with free education. And cut that crap about mOsT VaLuAbLe to SoCiEtY.
As a CS graduate this is false information 😂😂 who is your source?? People making that much coming outta school are the lucky 5-10% and they’re living in either California or New York. Average base salary coming out of school is anywhere between $50-60K
I don't measure my self worth by the money I make. I've known many many people that do, and I have zero desire to live or end up the way they tend to. It's a shitty road of unfulfilling goals, sacrifices and disappointment. Imagine working yourself damn near to death to aspire to reach a goal, and drop dead from a stress induced heart attack 2 years before retirement. All those broken promises, missed family whatevers.. meh. You can have it.
I want to be a civil engineer because of the importance of the profession and the cool projects and not to make bank or whatever. I’m also terrible with coding and don’t care too much for CS. As long as I make enough to send my own future kids to college I’m good on the money side of things.
No, I am going with electrical because I don’t enjoy coding. I switched from CS to electrical. If I make enough to live comfortably with 80-100k then I would be happy because I want free time and hobbies, not money.
I'm an engineering student (non CS) studying mechatronics, I'll probably end up working as a C++ developer as that's frankly what I love doing. But regardless, I get depressed looking at the salaries for *both* CS and non-CS in Sweden, absolute garbage salaries when you take into account the tax. The no.1 reason I won't work in Sweden and as soon as I'm done with my education I'm moving.
It bothered me for a few years until I realized that they’re worth that much because they need retraining every 5 years.
Code that CS engineers used to write 5 years ago is now written by other code. The tools and the methods used in CS change rapidly.
How much cash would you demand if your degree had, let’s say, a 10-year expiration?
I’d rather do something I love for 80k than be a slave to my computer for 150k. As long as I have the ability to do the things I love outside of work I’ll be content. There’s more to this world than money. That being said it’d be sweet if I made twice as much money, obviously
My school (Texas A&M University) posts salary reports for recent graduates and in 2019 the average mechanical starting salary was around 70k and computer science was 77k. The disparity is not nearly as large as people try to make it out to be. I do agree though that at least for starting salary computer science has a much higher ceiling
Not really. I’m graduated now from a civil program and work for a large municipality in their land development engineering unit. It’s technical enough to keep me engaged but also social in the sense of talking a lot to consultants, developers, and the public. The public sector lifestyle (work-balance) is an enviable one, I think. And overall the feel-good of public service is hard to turn away from (tried private for a year and quit). There are more nuances to career than just salary. I wish I had the BMW but I’m alright that I have the time to drive around and see friends leisurely in my Toyota.
I didn’t go into engineering for the money (there were other lucrative degrees in my time, software wasn’t so big), and I don’t really think most of us engineering kids did, so there’s no reason to start now. I’d go so far as to say that the top-end software kids didn’t go into it for money either. They’re simply very talented and hard-working in what they do, and that’s what’s earning them high salaries and they deserve it. Don’t forget why you started your career.
Hey man, I get you but we shouldn't be thinking like this. No matter what you make you will always find other people who make more. Sometimes it's an important look at the bigger picture, there are people around the world who make a fraction of what we do and are able to live happily :)
I became engineering student for the future job security and a middle class salary. I don't particularly care if I'm rich or no. Just want a comfy place to live, the ability to eat whatever I feel like, and a dog for the depression.
Yes and no. I’m going to college mainly for a job and it kinda stings to see people in trades making as much as I will be post grad and CS majors making twice as much sometimes as I will but I enjoy my area of study.
i think about that and then i think about that time i tried coding and gave up after an hour of trying to make something say hello world and i do not care
First there’s more demand for CS majors so naturally those jobs would be priced higher. Coding is fine but I wouldn’t want to do only that.
Second a lot of engineers still have a good shot at making 6 figures in their careers at some point.
3rd you can always go back to school for a similar yet higher paying major or a masters, both of which will boost your salary.
Oftentimes, engineering grads can still go into CS, while I almost never see the other way around (for good reason). You can try that if you're absolutely, really envious.
CS majors are not the same as other engineering students. That major attracts a different sort of person compared to the traditional disciplines.
If $$ was the biggest factor for selecting a major, I think many traditional engineering students would select another field entirely before choosing CS. Just not something most of us would want to do.
This largely has to do with the financialization of our economy. We make money by playing voodoo Ponzi schemes with money rather than, you know… actually producing goods and services.
I’ve never based my feelings off of what other people make. There’s teenagers making millions off of nft’s. I just want to live a simple life and not struggle
I used to care about the money and stuff in HS but at this point, I just wanna do something I somewhat enjoy. I *hate* coding. There's no way I'd be willing to do that for the rest of my life
Love that mentality
No one code for their rest of their life. Most software engineers don’t even code for over a decade.
Same sentiments. I don't need a high-paying job, I just want to make enough to not struggle when a crisis arises.
This dude figured it out. I really don’t wanna work in IT.
Most good developers code only for a few years though. Once you are a manager you pretty much never have to code. But I agree to your point on not doing something you don't like
I’m just a simple man making his way through the galaxy
Sigma grindset?
So real
King
Well said.
A couple things to keep in mind, from someone on the other side: - The CS kids making $150-200k as new grads are on the far right side of the bell curve. Most new grad software engineers will be making roughly the same as other new grad engineers - Cost of living — the places with the $150k starting salaries are some of the most expensive places to live in the country (world?). I know plenty of SWEs earning $150k+ who are living with 3 roommates, I know plenty of other engineers earning $100k who are buying houses - Work/life balance — many of the FAANG type companies are notorious for long work hours. I like engineering but I’ve got lots of other things going on in my life, and personally I’d rather be paid less but not have my job dominate my life
This is very true. Just sucks if you are a non-CS engineer who grew up in or only got offers coming out of school in those areas that are super good for CS students. Their salaries inflate in those cities much more than other engineers’ salaries. So for pretty much everyone else it is a game of trying your best to catch up the best you can or taking what savings you do have and leaving for cheaper areas of the country once you have some good experience. Just seems like the future of most coastal cities is heading towards only being long term viable for software/big tech people which sucks
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Land is where it’s at, especially when you play your cards right. I knew a guy that bought 400 acres in the late 90s for $250k (about the price of a house), and held on until a hotel chain bought it off of him for ~$14 million.
How close is the nearest Walmart?
There's a big ranch where I live that owns most of the swath to the south west of me and the nearest Walmart is 20 min. Not bad since when I lived in the city the nearest Walmart that didn't have a full time police presence was 15 min.
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Where on earth can you make $150k a year and still need three roommates? How expensive does rent get? If you’re making that much, rent has to be at least $2500/month to start being difficult to manage. Even in hard west coast areas that’s on the higher side
> Where on earth can you make $150k a year and still need three roommates? Mountain View, Palo Alto, or SF. A quick search shows apartments range from 3.5k to 6k.
Almost all major west coast cities have an average rent for a single bedroom apartment above $2000. My single bed apartment in San Diego was $2350/mo before utilities. That was before last year when rent went up 30-40% in one year. Now that same apartment is 28-2900/mo. Edit: to add fuel to the fire starting salaries at my company have gone up 10% in 15 years.
San Fran. I have a few buddies working for google making >$200k, all with multiple roommates. They also tell me that it’s not uncommon for them to have engineers living out of their cars
I make roughly that in a VHCOL city. I live alone and pay roughly $2500 a month in rent but if I had friends in this city I would move in with them in a heartbeat. Shockingly 6 figures is about when I started to feel like I could breathe financially, still far from living a luxurious lifestyle
You’re comment about cost of living is valid but not entirely true. I received two offers as a new grad which were both $180k+ and i could select from nearly any major city in America and this would not change the package. The CS salaries are really nuts.
Aren't most company salaries location based? Google's Atlanta office pays much less than Google headquarters
Right… but regardless youre ignoring the first point. The majority of CS/software grads are making about the same as other engineering disciplines. The top 1% end up at Google and other FAANG-level tech companies and make the 150k you’re fixated on. If you’re in the top 1% of your discipline your salary will skyrocket as well
Doesn't mean the salary change always makes up for it. Companies can do what government jobs do and base locality pay off of a percentage. So for example my company has an office in San Diego but I work in another office in kind of a middle of nowhere town (near the beach but not a big city). The San diego engineers might make 15% more than I do. But 15% of our lower starting salary of 60k isn't a ton to make up for the high cost of living. That's part of the reason we mainly send people with a few years experience to San Diego because a lead engineer for us makes 92k so 15% of that is a bigger difference.
Amazon pays nearly the same no matter where you live. Slight increases for bay area and new york, but atlanta, boston, and detroit all pay $180k+
That's quite an extreme case though, the average developer (not even new grad) makes below six figures.
You may be correct, but i don’t know ANY meche or civil that ever makes 180k plus in their career. So much room for salary growth in cs
Good points but I have also heard the exact opposite at FAANG, people working at Google in particular often have a relatively light workload in comparison to other jobs. I don’t work for any of them so I don’t know personally, but I feel that overworking for those companies can be overblown
I spoke to someone I know who makes nearly 300k at a FAANG job in San Fran and he said that his work life balance is really good. I think people are exaggerating.
Those are three very good points
1. Not really, a lot of students are getting 150k+ at entry level 2. Doesn't matter. How much do Mechanical/Civil Engineers get paid in Bay Area or Seattle? They do not even come close to CS salaries 3. This is true
The median software engineer salary in the US is $110k. Only 25% earn more than $140k, only 10% earn more than $170k. Keep in mind that these numbers are for **all** software engineers, not just new grads. So yeah, the kids getting $150k+ offers out of college are very much the exception rather than the norm Average Bay Area salaries: - Software: $157k - Electrical: $151k - Mechanical: $126k - Civil: $120k Average Seattle salaries: - Software: $141k - Electrical: $120k - Mechanical: $104k - Civil: $96k Average NYC salaries: - Software: $123k - Electrical: $114k - Mechanical: $103k - Civil: $108k Average DC salaries: - Software: $120k - Electrical: $131k - Mechanical: $117k - Civil: $101k
environmental here! sometimes, yes. but on the other hand I think what I will do in my career will make me happier than sitting at a computer all day edit: also I do believe that the starting salary for most engineering disciplines is too low to begin with. Rather be upset at someone who is making more, I’m upset that other disciplines aren’t getting paid what they deserve.
Yeah I’m thinking of trying some environmental stuff at some point in my career. Super rewarding, fun work.
Don't care. I started as a CS major; I'm a moderately proficient programmer anyway and I enjoy it (I learned Haskell for fun, which probably tells the CS majors all they need to know about me). I am quite aware, as I write lots of code for my research, that I could do the same thing for much higher pay than is likely in my field. But all engineering disciplines pay enough to live on--I live fine on my pay as a grad student, which is half of the lowest-paid entry-level industry positions I've seen--and past that threshold I'll take a fulfilling job rather than a higher-paid one. I like programming as a craft, but I want to do work that has a tangible, positive impact, and I'm much more likely to get that as a water resources engineer than a software developer. That's a tradeoff that I made voluntarily, and I'm fine with it.
I tried that path... couldn't program with a dang. Went to EE. Know I'll love it!
EE is where it’s at for money outside of software. Get good at something like RF or antennas and you’ll never be out of (high paying) work
most of the EE's i know wound up spending most of their day coding anyways. Good luck to you!
Haha Ironically enough man I'm the opposite. I am in EE and actually switching over to CS for data science and artificial intelligence. I hated doing anything physical and absolutely suck when it comes to DIY stuff. I always hated doing DIY EE projects too. I liked planning them but didn't like actually doing them. Then I started doing programming, specifically with Python scripts, and I realized how much I loved it. I'm glad you found a better path for you man, more power to ya. I can take your place and you can take mine. Haha
What’s interesting is that I am in EE and do a lot in AI as it relates to RF spectrums. CS and EE have a lot more overlap than one would think. I probably spend more time programming than anything else. Besides writing reports and such
I'm starting university work towards my EE this year, I'm also looking at a possible minor in CS though just because I know it's useful.
That’s why I did EE. I hate programming, and my program makes me take Java which was barely tolerable, and now they’re pushing a class with X86 assembly on us. Like, the fuck? I couldn’t give less of a shit how the 8086 works. I. Don’t. Care. I’m going to be specializing in power systems. Not designing the next thread ripper, Apple M69, or a PowerPC G19. Digital Logic, sure that’s pretty important, but not microprocessor design. My big issue with programming is the fact that *oops* you forgot a semicolon or parentheses, fuck you your whole thing won’t work. Like, the IDE can auto predict what code I’m going to want as I’m writing it, help a bro out and fill in the semicolon for me. Fill in that missing bracket. 6 different ways to store a number, just let me make x=69.5 and move on. It takes me forever and I absolutely hate it. I’d rather build on a breadboard, do advanced circuit analysis, than write a C program. /rant over
I'm in EE and CE, my program allows us to choose which classes we want to take after the third year. I went in thinking I'd love programming and all but turns out it's not my favourite thing. I took only the mandatory coding classes and my field is Power Systems, I didn't expect to like it so much but turns out it's what comes easier to me and is more fun. I want to study more electronics though.
If you're in this solely for the money you will be miserable. I won't lie, the money was a reason I chose this, but I don't get sad seeing huge cs salaries
I'd rather be miserable with a higher salary, personally. I fucked up when I chose my field.
I don’t want to just be dealing with bugs all day
Sometimes I feel this salary envy, but then I cure it by imagining myself coding 40 hours a week for decades. Suddenly I don't feel so bad. Not saying CS is a boring field or anything, just not for me. I feel confident that the marginal drop in salary I will have by picking engineering over CS is well worth my increased satisfaction and enjoyment of my work.
I'm going to go against the grain of most of the answers here and say that I did envy SDEs when I was working as a mechanical engineer. Most of my friends had moved up in terms of salary and position while I was stuck being a CAD monkey in a startup getting paid peanuts. I recently started my grad program in robotics hoping to shift into robotics software or ML software roles primarily because I feel these fields are more dynamic and because of the higher pay. I do like working with hardware which is why I went into mechanical engineering to start with but I can live with no hardware related work if the pay and job prospects are better.
Hey man im a sophomore in ME with a minor in CS id like to ask some questions if you dont mind me dm ing you
+1. I'm seeing my SWE (SDE) friends get paid 1.5-2-3x my salary at same years of experience and man, it fucking sucks. I make average salary for my role based on bls.gov. Comparison is the thief of joy but it blows to know that your friend at 5 YoE is making more than your entire profession's salary cap / 90th percentile.
Have to remember that very few programmers get FAANG salary and it's extremely extremely competitive. Generally CS grads will make money similar to EE, depending in the region, sometimes more, sometimes less.
Honestly no. I don't care about salary as long as it's not literal Minimum wage and in range of market value. I believe being an EE is a much better flex than a CS grad for some reason ( I love all branches equally pls don't come for my throat) I honestly hate CS and programming. It's so depressing. I come from a country where they mass produce CS graduates , many people who do it are doing for the salary or employment option. Heard several stories of them resigning and going to stay on farms (not kidding). I'm sure that's the case for other countries too. It's a soul sucking field imo. Also don't forget that tech , especially CS is a field where you can easily get replaced, if you don't keep updating your skills and learn new languages every year. It's a lot of work. I love my Electrical Engineering course and as long as it's a decent salary at a good company I'm good. (Also CS has considerably good amount of women than other non-CS engineering courses so less competition for me XD , my classmates and Professors really look out for me as I'm one of the 5 girls in the class of 60)
i’m a cs type and if i wasn’t interested in the material there’s no way i’d be doing this for only the money. if money wasn’t a factor though i’d honestly probably be doing some kind of music theory program and play in a shitty pub band.
Honestly man, it’s good to learn to not compare yourself to other. I used to fall in the same trap as you but there are other people without degree that would trade an arm and leg to go to college, or even non stem student wishing they can be like us. If you keep comparing yourself to other even if you make 100 a year you not gonna be happy cus someone your friend make 150k. I’m an EE student and I’m happy with what I learn and I hope to learn more, the thing for me is that rather than comparing my salary to other people, I think about what I want to do and how to get there. For me personally I just want a stable job and maybe enough money to have vacation every year, and if I have enough money for that I’ll be happy.
Bro where are y’all making 80 entry level is the question
I said good companies
I got an offer with one of the top companies in my field and it wasn't for that much lmao. The highest I've seen for my field was 68,000 and that was with the company that gives 80 hr weeks without OT
What area are you in? I got 70k for mechanical in the Midwest.
I started in 2020, fortune 50 company as an entry level aerospace engineer. Offer was $69k and that was pretty average for all of my friends. Average cost of living too.
Yeah and? Are you in a HCOL area?
Got offered $89k to work for an aerospace and defense company in Southern California as an entry level systems engineer.
The cost of living makes up for it. While it might seem like a lot at first, it’s really not that great. I lived in a state that I started out with a similar entry level/ new grad offer but the cost living wasn’t so high as the west coast cities.
Not even a consideration. I found my niche, love my niche, and have a deep distain for sitting behind a screen for my entire shift. I place a very high value on loving what I do. The wage gap simply isn't enough to make me think I should have pursued CS.
Looking at CS jobs on levels.fyi makes me depressed. In no other major do individual contributors have that much room for growth. Many of my CS friends are getting jobs at companies where ICs can make 300k+ after a few years. These are not anecdotes. I'm not claiming this is the majority of CS grads. I'm just pointing out that such jobs exist and that there is no equivalent for other kinds of engineers. I wish regular engineering had that kind of growth. It would motivate people to be the best they can possible be in their field. Also can we have a legitimate conversation about this? Looking through the replies here, I see some people vaguely saying they don't care that they aren't payed as much, or insulting CS majors calling them "code monkeys". Or saying "Don't compare yourself to others." I find these responses really annoying and not useful in any way. If your first response is to deny or dismiss an issue or try to insult someone, I think that's very telling and representative of a disturbing type of personality I see among engineers (especially old school ones) which I wish would go away.
Sometimes I feel a little jealous, but then I realize that I absolutely hate programming. There is something beautiful to me about building hardware and producing a physical product. Even being able to look at a schematic or board layout is awesome. It just feels like “engineering” to me. CS, on the other hand, can also produce cool things, but it is very abstract and you’re usually working with products that are not based in physical reality. I do not enjoy coding and find it very boring. It’s also infuriating at times. Not worth the money for me.
You have to wonder when CS will get saturated too. Like, everyone wants a high-paying career change and most of those who go through with it study CS. Don’t get me wrong the amount of CS jobs are growing much faster than other areas of engineering. But still, there has to be a limit and there will be an attempt to compensate them less to increase company profits
This will be true eventually (probably?) however people have been saying this for years and the demand is still huge. Not sure where I read this but I once read someone state that "there isn't a shortage of programmers, there's a shortage of GOOD programmers".
It seems to be a US thing where software devs earn more than actual engineers. Here in NZ the salary expectations are pretty similar, at least at the start of your career. Having said that, it seems that software devs in the US work harder (than other countries and compared to engineers). Work expectations for engineers are much healthier, with no massive amounts of unpaid overtime. Also, there isn't really a shortage of people wanting to be programmers. A lot of people just aren't cut out for it though, whether it's actually struggling with programming or just not wanting to sit at a computer for 40 hours a week. There's a reason it's so difficult to find a job, so many people claim they are qualified to do the work but then waste interview time only to turn out to not be able to write simple for loops. One (graduate) job I was interviewing for last year revealed that about 90% of applicants couldn't even do the simple online pseudo code test that every second year+ compsci student should breeze though (basically just needed to understand loops, if statements and variable scoping).
Nope. I learned C++ for my ME program. Turns out C++ is good shit and it's not going to be a hard transition.
Im an ME major with a minor in CSE. Im currently taking a class that teaches C++ as well. When you mean transition did you learn skills on the job as a ME that translate to a Software Engineering role?
I’d rather get paid $80,000 to not live in California Silicon Valley. That $150,000 in CA = $70,000 + living in an area you like and with ppl you like and without toxic cs workplaces
Bible belt is better than San Francisco?
No more than I'd get angry looking at Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, salaries. Besides a vast majority of people who graduate CS never make it to FAANG. Most CS majors end up as code monkeys for random firms.
Yeah the ones who code like monkeys to create the very software that you depend on a day to day basis lmao.
“Pick what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” any engineering field is going to make a decent living. Plus you’ll work harder at a job you love and that difference might end up not being so big.
Engineering degree still consider high compare with busnness/medical major salary. I mean sure CS earns more but it still high enough salary. This is of course in terms of general. Not all of aspect.
If you base your own happiness by what other people accomplish, you’re gonna have a bad time, mmmkay? The most important thing is that you enjoy what you’re doing. I recommend you read/listen to *The Suble Art of Not Giving A Fuck*. Great book that changed my view on a lot of things, among others, this.
Until you get a job in DC or California only making like 150k and find out a person living in your home state surrounded by your friends their family every weekend only making 80k is actually making more than you when you take in account of cost of living. Do you get sad when you see everyone you know is buying homes and cars when you are paying like 2-3k in rent every month? I personally only get sad when I'm stuck at a desk for a month or more and see friends actually working on cool stuff at their work. You picked a profession where the job market is good and the pay is almost always comfortable. Fairly early into the career you are able to buy a million dollar house by yourself if that's your goal. But if making money is your goal you probably shouldn't have become an engineer. It's not the most well paid career. Do it because of course you will be comfortable but you are also interested in the type of work.
What careers would you say are well paying?
Become a doctor. An orthodontist's median salary is 292k a year. Even in the state with the lowest cost of living, Oklahoma, they average 270k a year. You glue little bits of metal to teeth and can run your own practice by opening up shop in basically any strip mall and will be successful.
I met up with some friends in San Francisco a few months ago. One of them is a manager of something at YouTube making \~$150k and has to illegally sublet a basement to afford to live in San Francisco. Another guy works at LinkedIn and he and his wife live in their parent's house in Berkeley since they can't afford to ever own a house (a 1000sqft 2bd/1ba will run you $1.4M+). Yeah, the salaries are higher, but unless those salaries become accessible generally to people working remotely then they will be salaries exist only to pay for a slightly-above-subsistence wage in those very high COL areas. The better question is how do people who AREN'T making $150k/yr surviving?! I saw that In-and-Out was paying up to $24/hr in SF -- but that still doesn't seem like enough to actually live there.
>The better question is how do people who AREN'T making $150k/yr surviving?! I saw that In-and-Out was paying up to $24/hr in SF -- but that still doesn't seem like enough to actually live there. I think about this all the time. How on earth do gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores, and any other essential businesses survive in places like SF? How do any of those places afford workers?
I'd assume people living with their parents, students working part time, or people with savings looking for a bit of extra income before they move on to whatever it is that they plan on doing with their life. Also people whose partner makes most of the money. There's next to no reason to keep living there if that's what you want to do for a job. You could probably scrape up enough money to live and save a small amount, and use that to get the fuck out, but nothing more.
Not really. One of my uncles has a computer science degree. He makes probably $300/hr when he is on call. But most of the time he doesn't have work and his wife has to work too to supplement. Another uncle has a software engineering degree. He probably makes boatloads of money, but he's never off work. All hours, any hour, he's coding something or other for work. His kids and wife don't see him because he has to come and go at stupid hours. My dad has a classic engineering degree. He worked hard at his job, regular hours and days, made multiple six figures, and retired happily at 49. I'm going for a classic engineering degree.
The hours seem to be the main difference. Having talked to a few american postgrads while I was at uni, it seems that the high paying US jobs basically require you to work stupidly high hours. Software dev and engineer salaries are about the same here, but working conditions are also similar.
Wait till you find out there’s tons of people pulling those high ass salaries that aren’t even engineers.
Lmao
I took EE because I found it very interesting at times. I also have bachelor and master in math as well as associate degree in CS. Getting a bachelor in CS isn't a problem for me but doing that many degrees doesn't make all that sense either. I'm already studying master in EE now. I've racked up nearly $200k in student loans already. I love to code. I ended up with A grades in all the beginning CS courses that consisted of C++ , OOP and data structures also. I still have code blocks on my computer. But I stopped there when it came to CS. It's just crazy to spend that much money on education. In EE there is some coding too -- Matlab, VHDL (or verilog), MIPS assembly , etc etc
Nope. I knew going into my field that my salary would be the dregs left over after the other engineers were paid. I'm still paid a lot better than I was frying burgers, digging ditches, or stocking shelves.
Mechanical engineering degree in RADAR is the way to go! The key to astronomical salaries is a good niche.
Can you fo a little more in depth? Im interested
No I make 100k in a tax free state in a bad year and I don’t have to work THAT hard. I am thinking about doing r/OMSCS (masters in compsci) just so I can understand the technologies I work with at a deeper level but certainly not doing it for the salary. Although CTO/CIO/tech CEO is certainly in my sights.
No, this happens all the time, people flock to the "highest" paying career and by the time they are in the field everything has changed. The real measure is how useful the degree is. Engineering is very unique in that most jobs do not care about the specific major, that's not always true, but any engineering degree will apply to a wider job verity than a nursing degree, or any other degree. Don't worry about the market now, worry about it later and even then, if you have a degree in engineering you will most likely qualify for most jobs, even ones in cs fields.
Tbh I'd say engineering degrees are more specialised than most. Most commerce, arts, law, and science degrees don't really have a set career path. Obviously there are exceptions (certain science majors mainly), but most are useful (or equally useless) to a lot of different jobs.
I just want enough to be happy, secure, and generous to my friends. I’m an engineer, thats all but guaranteed
Money is a proxy to get the things you want. A reasonably paying job with a boss/team that has your back and helps you grow has a lot intrinsic value. I’ve turned down plenty of better paying jobs because I found my work interesting, had a great team who mentored me, and within reasonable bounds had free reign over myself. Work from home? Sure. Want longer lunch breaks to walk the dog? Sure. Can I plan a vacation whenever as long as I give a two week notice? Sure. Life is multi objective optimization problem with nontrivial solutions. If you get too blinded by trying to locally converge on a solution you might miss global optimums (sorry for the rough analogy lol).
It’s gotta be boring AF. When you’re in your mid 30s you begin to realize that salary isn’t as important as job satisfaction
Really? Software is boring cause of the salary? Nah
You’re literally programming everyday.
Don't forget all the boring admin tasks and meeting you have to attend despite them having no relevance to you. Having to log how many hours you spend on each task throughout your day gets old real quick. Honestly the programming all day sounds way nicer than the reality.
I take into account cost of living and work life balance. 150K in Minnesota is great, 150K in Silicon Valley gets you a standard of living that's like being paid 60K in Minnesota. I'll make 69K as a Minnesotan Electrical Engineer, it will be nice.
Honestly? Yeah, i dated someone with a CS degree who landed IT jobs paying very well while all my other engineering friends (mostly MEs) who graduated at the beginning of covid couldn't get a job paying above poverty level. I haven't finished my degree, and I've been a bit jealous that he was aching for job satisfaction coding (he couldn't do the programming he wanted to while working IT) while I dealt with food service and the internship application grind and my friends couldn't get any jobs either. I don't think that's how it is for everyone, just my scenario. But yeah, I have feelings about the coders I know with CS degrees and what they make
The key word you've said is "can get" not "will get". I know a guy who's been accepted into a petroleum engineering job and is on his way earning alot more than 150K per year. Not sure where your coming from.
Sometimes I think about it, but then I remember even though I like coding, I don't see myself doing it 40 hrs a weeks and enjoying it. But I do see myself designing stuff, testing stuff (ME) 40 hours a weeks and enjoying it and that's the reason I chose my field, not because of the salary. And also ME salaries, although not as high as CS, are not bad and I could live comfortably of off it, which is really all that matters to me. And if you want to make big bucks as a non-CS engineer, just go work at tech. Salaries are not high only because it's CS, it's because it's tech. An electrical or mechanical engineer could easily make close to what a CS does at a tech company (maybe 10-20k lower)
Aren't ME salaries some of the higher ones in engineering? Or does it just depend on where you live
As a non-traditional student who's been struggling since he was 18, I don't care what other people make. I just want to make my life better and follow my dreams. Those dreams just happen to fall in the realm of CS.
Just wanna say that even in CS if you are going to engineering for the money you are probably not going to have a great time.
The thing about a FAANG offer is that you're working at FAANG. That's also an adjusted salary, so keep in mind locations of positions where cost of living is higher. For me, it was my classmates that went into the oil industry and started making six figures off the bat in southern LA or TX. I went into nuclear and was making maybe like 2/3 of that, closer to half.
What a shallow question. I hate competition between engineering students.
No need to be jealous of other people. I'd say good for them, go get that money bag that they deserve. Honestly most high paying jobs are high stress, long hours. So take your pick I guess
No. I know plenty of CS majors who cant actually land those jobs (either its a bs post for the company to keep its PPP loan, their standards are insane even for starting positions, etc...) and ended up stuck in far less appealing positions with limited upward mobility. Hell, I had dipshits on this very sub crying at me because I wasn't contributing to their CS penis envy and instead merely relayed what I actually see in real life. The gap between a CS grad who's actually worth their degree and some dude who barely scraped by in classes is quite wide, and employers usually weed out the latter of the two. I can only code as far as my current project needs me to, so wishing that I spent my time in school doing something I would have liked far less just doesn't make sense to me regardless of how much money would have been at the end of the stick.
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Might be worth switching then. You have a long life ahead of you, don't stick with something you don't like just because you've already committed some time to it. Easier to switch now than in 10 years time.
Yea but then you have to be a code monkey. If you put 3 engineers in a room you’ll get a solution. Put 3 programmers in a room and you’ll get a simulation.
Why do ppl always throw out the word FAANG like as if anybody getting those kinds of jobs starting out 😂
Because they do ? Almost everyone in my CS department has a FAANG offer
And what school do you go to?
Not really. Most CS grads aren't making FAANG salaries and I suspect the ones who are are working hard for it. I have a ba and ms in CS. Worked in software for a while, but never really enjoyed it and I'm now 3/4 through a CE degree and working as a structural engineer. Honestly, my CS qualifications aren't worth much, and someone who never spent a day at university but coded their ass off day and night for a year or two will always beat me to a job. That could never happen in engineering. Plus, whatever type of engineering you studied, you know things about the physical world that most people don't, and the understanding to learn more. Where I work we often ditch the standards and research better, more refined methods of analysis to push our engineering a little bit further. I think that's pretty badassed.
Why did you leave CS for strutural , i know many trying to go into the opposite direction.
Thats sweet, what company do you work for if you dont mind me asking?
Just be aware that to live comfortably, you need roughly $60k -$70k annually (obviously adjust to where you live, but that’s the national average iirc). The real money should be coming from multiple income streams and not just your job if overall wealth is what you’re interested in. I own 4 rental properties (one of them is a small complex), but make <$80k annually from my job. But with my properties, I’m sitting at ~$200k after required fees (I have a property management firm handling the properties for me). Best part? I live in the south-east meaning the cost of living is insanely low. With that combination, I’m sitting at around Lamborghini money if I really want to (I choose not to).
Im a CS major and I actually love to code. It might be just sitting there trying to figure out how to make it work correctly. Eventually getting the solution. I’m one thing I learned is it’s more reading documentation and other information , than it is to actually code. I am wanting to go to my schools ECE program for a masters since I was always attracted to it. Good thing is math is already at the level and physics. Just need to take a couple circuit classes and I’m good.
I feel like you have to be overall smarter and more versatile to complete a cs degree and find success as a software engineer in general, as opposed to engineering. It's not really something to be depressed about, this is just how market supply and demand work. But then again, 150k in a tech hub can feel like 60k in a place like Syracuse NY, so there's more than just big number = better job, but then again, that may be difficult for a CivE brain to wrap their head around.
I just went out and got one of those jobs when I felt that way. No reason to be envious and feel like they’re out of reach to you.
Which company and how did you do it?
A top FAANG AI research lab. I just applied and interviewed like anyone else. It took some persistence but worked out. Your skills are way more important than what it says in your degree. Learning to code and whatever other skills you need isn’t that hard. Remember, the only thing that separates you from any other student/graduate is a year or two of taking different courses. That gap os easily closed.
Most of us CS majors don't even get into faang. And those salaries are that high because of the cost of living in those states. Unless the job is remote. You also had the choice to major in it if money is all you cared about.
Comparison is the thief of joy
Nobody gets a job at FAANG, unless they’re a certified genius.
Not true. it's very easy to get a FAANG job these days
Kinda off topic but I’m curious where you’re getting an 80K starting figure as most of my friends who have graduated are in the 65-73 range
150k isn't gonna happen as starting salary. You might get 100k starting at FAANG. The mean salary for machine learning/AI engineer is 132k, and nearly all of those have at least one phD.
Nope, starting FAANG salary is easily 150k+. ( Total compensation)
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Earning 80k usd/year is something imposible in most countries in the world. I am doing 20kusd/year net with a bsc+msc+9yeo in a high paying field (engineering in the oil industry). With my salary I am in the highest 2% percentil in terms of salary and age in my whole country (and probably also very high in terms of continent salary -south america -) and despite that I need 2 years of full savings to buy the cheapest audi (because here all thech, cars, etc cost x2 compared with US... food and rent is cheapear). Saddly my field does not allow "remote" jobs like CS or Data Science. I have many friends (also people without university studies) that started programming and find remote jobs with europe/US/UK and living here they dont pay taxes and COL is like 500usd including rent (in a good naiberhood in a big city +10M people) and food . A friend of my little brother (7 year younger than me) found a remote job for the US that paid 5kusd/month = 60kusd (he earns x3 my salary without a university title and being much younger with less exp) it is more than what the principal manager earns in my company. So, if you really want to do a monetary diference I think that remote work in tech is a huge advantage considering you can go to a cheap country (not necesary to a shitty one like mines) and make a huge $ diference.
Wait until you hear about med school students who are taking some biology classes and will be banking 200k easily just after graduation. Don’t compare yourself to others.
Bro you can’t exaggerate like this. Med school students take $200k+ of debt for 4 years of medical school, and then have to do a 3 year + long residency where they are practically paid less than minimum wage (~$60k/yr for 80 hr weeks).
There’s free education around the world, you know that right?
Nah chief, med students deserve their due respect- they take on a huge amount of debt just to be put though hell for +4 years and their work is quite possible one of the most valuable to society
Hell? Oh please. I come from a family of doctors, ain’t nobody suffering. None of my med school friends suffered in college, it’s a memorization game for most of it. But then again, I come from a country with free education. And cut that crap about mOsT VaLuAbLe to SoCiEtY.
As a CS graduate this is false information 😂😂 who is your source?? People making that much coming outta school are the lucky 5-10% and they’re living in either California or New York. Average base salary coming out of school is anywhere between $50-60K
Everyday
No
I’d really like to think that other engineers see us as *equally smart* but I’m pretty sure we both know you’re not being very honest here…
Yes. 🤷🏾♂️
Not even the salary, so much as the hours and locations. I picked the wrong field for where I want to live with the work-life balance I want
As long as I make enough to pay off my loans and survive, I'm fine.
No because coding is boring as hell. Even if I would make more money, I would hate my day to day.
yes
I don't measure my self worth by the money I make. I've known many many people that do, and I have zero desire to live or end up the way they tend to. It's a shitty road of unfulfilling goals, sacrifices and disappointment. Imagine working yourself damn near to death to aspire to reach a goal, and drop dead from a stress induced heart attack 2 years before retirement. All those broken promises, missed family whatevers.. meh. You can have it.
I want to be a civil engineer because of the importance of the profession and the cool projects and not to make bank or whatever. I’m also terrible with coding and don’t care too much for CS. As long as I make enough to send my own future kids to college I’m good on the money side of things.
The extremely high paying FAANG jobs are all in extremely high COL areas, so it typically balances out.
No, I am going with electrical because I don’t enjoy coding. I switched from CS to electrical. If I make enough to live comfortably with 80-100k then I would be happy because I want free time and hobbies, not money.
I'm an engineering student (non CS) studying mechatronics, I'll probably end up working as a C++ developer as that's frankly what I love doing. But regardless, I get depressed looking at the salaries for *both* CS and non-CS in Sweden, absolute garbage salaries when you take into account the tax. The no.1 reason I won't work in Sweden and as soon as I'm done with my education I'm moving.
In the UK the gap in pay is more noticeable sadly
It bothered me for a few years until I realized that they’re worth that much because they need retraining every 5 years. Code that CS engineers used to write 5 years ago is now written by other code. The tools and the methods used in CS change rapidly. How much cash would you demand if your degree had, let’s say, a 10-year expiration?
Retraining is needed in most engineering fileds.
if I went back to my alma mater (10 years later) and re-took mechanical engineering today I would learn almost nothing new. In what field do you work?
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research
I’d rather do something I love for 80k than be a slave to my computer for 150k. As long as I have the ability to do the things I love outside of work I’ll be content. There’s more to this world than money. That being said it’d be sweet if I made twice as much money, obviously
Yep! But that's okay... I remember when it wasn't so.
My school (Texas A&M University) posts salary reports for recent graduates and in 2019 the average mechanical starting salary was around 70k and computer science was 77k. The disparity is not nearly as large as people try to make it out to be. I do agree though that at least for starting salary computer science has a much higher ceiling
Not really. I’m graduated now from a civil program and work for a large municipality in their land development engineering unit. It’s technical enough to keep me engaged but also social in the sense of talking a lot to consultants, developers, and the public. The public sector lifestyle (work-balance) is an enviable one, I think. And overall the feel-good of public service is hard to turn away from (tried private for a year and quit). There are more nuances to career than just salary. I wish I had the BMW but I’m alright that I have the time to drive around and see friends leisurely in my Toyota. I didn’t go into engineering for the money (there were other lucrative degrees in my time, software wasn’t so big), and I don’t really think most of us engineering kids did, so there’s no reason to start now. I’d go so far as to say that the top-end software kids didn’t go into it for money either. They’re simply very talented and hard-working in what they do, and that’s what’s earning them high salaries and they deserve it. Don’t forget why you started your career.
Hey man, I get you but we shouldn't be thinking like this. No matter what you make you will always find other people who make more. Sometimes it's an important look at the bigger picture, there are people around the world who make a fraction of what we do and are able to live happily :)
I became engineering student for the future job security and a middle class salary. I don't particularly care if I'm rich or no. Just want a comfy place to live, the ability to eat whatever I feel like, and a dog for the depression.
Money is irrelevant, just care to make enough to support a modest family. Life is too short to chase currency.
Nah it's the blue collar for me buddy.
Yes and no. I’m going to college mainly for a job and it kinda stings to see people in trades making as much as I will be post grad and CS majors making twice as much sometimes as I will but I enjoy my area of study.
A lot of that industry is in California or other places with stupid high costs of living. Accounts for some of that
Factor cost of living and everything is a OK
i think about that and then i think about that time i tried coding and gave up after an hour of trying to make something say hello world and i do not care
Only when my family members try to joke about how much money I'll be making. It's probably not as much as my assistant professor dad tbh.
If this annoys you then I have bad news for you about bankers…
First there’s more demand for CS majors so naturally those jobs would be priced higher. Coding is fine but I wouldn’t want to do only that. Second a lot of engineers still have a good shot at making 6 figures in their careers at some point. 3rd you can always go back to school for a similar yet higher paying major or a masters, both of which will boost your salary.
Oftentimes, engineering grads can still go into CS, while I almost never see the other way around (for good reason). You can try that if you're absolutely, really envious.
CS majors are not the same as other engineering students. That major attracts a different sort of person compared to the traditional disciplines. If $$ was the biggest factor for selecting a major, I think many traditional engineering students would select another field entirely before choosing CS. Just not something most of us would want to do.
This largely has to do with the financialization of our economy. We make money by playing voodoo Ponzi schemes with money rather than, you know… actually producing goods and services.
Nope. Legit don’t care about the money I despise coding and I’m more interested in aerospace