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January 30, 2008

Google, Facebook Battle For Computer Science Grads. Salaries Soar.

Michael Arrington

144 comments »

Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this years crop of computer science graduates, we’ve heard, and ground zero is Stanford. Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away.

Last year, salaries of up to $70,000 were common for the best students. This year, Facebook is said to be offering $92,000, and Google has increased some offers to $95,000 to get their share of graduates. Students with a Masters degree in Computer Science are being offered as much as $130,000 for associate product manager jobs at Google.

Apparently the popular Facebook Applications class is getting a lot of attention from other startups, too. Slide and RockYou are both recruiting hard. One source says that RockYou is approaching students and telling them they aren’t hiring them, they’re “acquiring” their “companies” and will let them continue to work on their applications after graduation. That is, of course, some serious smoke blowing - any code they’ve been working on in the class is likely to be shelved by RockYou. Still, it’s a great way to recruit by making these students feel like they’re entering into some kind of an M&A transaction.

Something tells me the Pitzer students who’ve enrolled in the Learning From YouTube class aren’t getting the same types of offers.

If you are a CS student at Stanford or another top university, tell us what’s happening with recruiting.

Update: Good comments below from students confirming these (and even higher) salaries.

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Comments

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  1. kylin

    January 30th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    Oh, It a good exciting news for Stanford graduates. They can get high salary and decent job. but, for me , just hunting job. Wow

  2. Nate H

    January 30th, 2008 at 10:47 pm

    Why not go after the x-Yahoo’s. I’d imagine any Yahoo! employee at this point is ready to leave.

  3. MikeW

    January 30th, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    Great, in about 14 years they can pay off their student loans.

  4. A

    January 30th, 2008 at 10:48 pm

    I am a CS Major at Stanford graduating this year, where are my 95k offers? Sigh.

  5. A

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:02 pm

    This news is a hoax. There’s no way a big company such as google would hire a fresh graduate for $92K.

  6. Michael in California

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:07 pm

    Which universities qualify as “another top university”?

  7. Michael Arrington

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    michael in california - just about all of them, except Berkeley. :-)

  8. Sketchy CS Grad Student @ Stanford

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:10 pm

    well i can speak for the grad students in the cs dept - and they too are being made offers between 80-100K - though getting offers beyond 100K requires candidates to have at least a few years of work exp. companies in the good pay bracket include a big db company near exit 412 on US-101N, another web based company which is rumored to lay off over 700 people, apart from a few start ups that are doing well - google and microsoft though are not really top of the notch salary payers unless the candidate in question has something exceptional to his/her credit…though i wish i had come to stanford as an undergrad seeing what these guys are making!

  9. Boring Market

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:12 pm

    Where are your sources from? Newly graduated students do not get this kind of offers, not matter how big the tech bubble is. I wonder where you get such inflated numbers from.

  10. CS Grad at Stanford

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:13 pm

    Well, I got 2 offers of more than 95k, one of them 98k. And I have no experience.

  11. Nate H

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    I love it when Michael Arrington comments.

  12. Nick Gonzalez

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:15 pm

    Mike, don’t dis Berkeley because you had to go to Stanford instead of Boalt.

  13. Jeff

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

    Interesting concept, im sure some of these grads could create their own apps and make around the same per year

    The barriers to entry are very low and facebook and google and news corp make it that much eaiser

    If your a grad and have some ideas for http://www.yupnup.com let me know

    feedback@yupnup.com

    How do you rate? Check out http://www.yupnup.com

  14. B

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm

    @9 you are wrong.

  15. Bassam

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:27 pm

    I’m a Ph.D. student in CS at UCLA. I do know that Google has been making their presence known pretty heavily on campus, though I don’t know how much they’re paying their new hires.
    I know that the Google process for hiring Ph.D.’s is much harder then undergrads. A colleague who’s skills I admire and who’s getting his Ph.D. pretty soon just got turned down by Google after the onsite interviews. Doesn’t look so good for me. :-(

  16. Bassam

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

    Oh, and I haven’t seen Facebook at all around the UCLA campus. I guess they’re not interested in SoCal grads.

  17. anon e. mouse

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:29 pm

    Definitely true. I’m a CS undergrad from stanford with offers up to $100k before stock/bonuses/etc. Two keys to success:

    -Grades aren’t as important as you think, experience is. Focus on doing independent projects, great internships, and part-time work rather than squeezing out the 4.0. A 3.5 w/ tons of real-world experience and projects to point to is much more impressive because it shows that you can actually get things done in the real world (which is quite different from most classes).

    -Get lots of offers. Job hunt aggressively! Don’t be afraid to go for positions beyond your experience level (particularly if you’ve followed point one). Because of my past internships and work during the school year I have been offered senior developer positions right out of college. Also be honest with other employers by telling them that they you are considering other options. If you’re qualified and they want you they can (and will!) increase their offer. This can make a substantial difference ( as much as $10-20k).

    Good luck!

  18. Don MacAskill

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:44 pm

    Wow, those salaries seem low to me for CS grads from schools like Stanford or Berkeley.

    But what do I know - none of our engineers have degrees and they all make more than this. :)

  19. ItsNotTheSame

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:45 pm

    Last year’s average was more than 70k. I think median was somewhere in the 80’s, according to numbers from computing forum.

  20. Boring Market

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:51 pm

    @ 17

    You could not be more right, experience does count! Why the focus on Stanford and other Cali University’s when Google can find twice as qualified candidates elsewhere?

  21. Andrew

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:54 pm

    Can someone explain me what these companies need all these people for? Is this another case of better hire him, so that noone else gets him? I mean I honestly don’t see how Facebook would need the hundreds of programmers that they have on payroll.

  22. Yakov

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:55 pm

    It disrupts the job market, doesn’t it?

  23. Nichole

    January 30th, 2008 at 11:57 pm

    This is hardly news for the top candidates from best schools. The names that compete for the top talent just change from time to time.

    The ones flush with cash can bid for the top talent, whether it is investment banking, biotech, computer sciences, or any other field flush with cash from investors or in fields just adding un-proportionally more value to the economy than most other fields.

    Top talent includes being in top of your class, top internships, and interesting extracurricular activities that make you an interesting blend into the company.

  24. Javi

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:02 am

    agree with #20. there are a lot of other qualified candidates outside of the mentioned schools that aren’t quite as expensive.

  25. ERHAN ERDOGAN

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:09 am

    @18 , @all, @Zuckerberg especially

    Does Zuckerberg hire Zuckerberg if he is a new grads. from Harvard, now!?

    ; )

    i’m waiting your answer too, best commenter Michael Arrington : )

  26. Spuds

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:14 am

    As I have always said, Google hire me.

  27. Joke Cricket

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:16 am

    nice thought Erhan :)

  28. Tim

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:18 am

    Given the current exchange rate, they all could earn more in most parts of Europe :)

    (I know, that I do)

  29. lawrence

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:22 am

    get a job with a top tech co., get options, etc - stay there for a couple of years - then leave / cash out

    …to start your own company, you’ll have more than enough then to survive a couple years. and have gained clout and connections and what not

  30. David

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:27 am

    The *average* salary of a IST grad from Penn State was $56,000, an average signing bonus of over $5k, with placement over 90%. This is a state school with a competitive but average CS/tech program (PSU is not known for their tech). Merrill Lynch is paying their starting programmers $65k + 20k benefits, or about $85k total comp starting. Top grads out of IST can make over $90k total comp per year starting. I would *hope* that SV-based Stanford grads are making at least that, especially given the talent competition roaring these days.

  31. vahid

    January 31st, 2008 at 1:04 am

    Hey friends.
    You maybe missed the point.The Google and Facebook are specially seeking for ones who have prior knowledge in similar area. In fact, if you have “ANY” open source software or anything that reveals your passion into programming, you will have a big chance to win the offers. I (and maybe you) know a lot of people who woks for Google who doesn’t have any CS degree. Their salary is unimaginable even base upon US standards.

  32. fitnessanywhere.com

    January 31st, 2008 at 1:15 am

    I have friend CS MS from Stanford making close to $200k at a wireless startup.

  33. Nikolay Kolev

    January 31st, 2008 at 1:26 am

    $90K is basically the starting salary for developers in California.

  34. Darren

    January 31st, 2008 at 1:52 am

    Why don’t they look at other lesser known colleges they could save themself some money. I can’t believe CS grads at stanford are better than any others.

  35. Marzipan from Toledo

    January 31st, 2008 at 2:05 am

    This is hilarious. I remember when Nortel was making standing offers to entire CS classes with no interview necessary. This was back in 2000 - if you were graduating you had a job paying $60k.

    Given the progressive size of funding rounds as of late, hiring and salary trends, and imploding non-tech economy, it is not hard to see what is coming. This is beginning to look like the year 2000 again.

    My suggestion is don’t go for the $hitty startup if you can get a job with a company that is rock solid, profitable, and has minimal exposure to outside interests (shareholders, VCs, etc.).

  36. seb

    January 31st, 2008 at 2:28 am

    In Europe IT-students can apply for a 3 day event in Dubai by McKinsey. All expenses paid!! (50% solving Business Cases, 50% Leisure according to the agenda)

  37. Ben

    January 31st, 2008 at 2:43 am

    I’ve known people from Stanford and Berkeley, and interviewed them as well. I haven’t seen an increased ratio of quality developers coming from these schools. If anything, I’d say that they are less interested in learning new things. So in the end, they generally are average. No better, no worse.

    Congradulations, but remember that these schools are a bubble in themselves.

  38. Ryan

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:23 am

    As a recent graduate of a top university, I’d say that this is applicable to the top 10%, but most graduates are in the 50k-70k range.

  39. M

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:32 am

    Wow. such a “jealous underpaid journalists” type post.

    seriously, it was rumored that bloggers are paid 12 dollars a post writing here. sad and unfair. but wam, not that michael arlington should be the jealous type…

  40. Pim

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:37 am

    So far, so good. Where does it end? If I narrow things down to my own perspectives, ‘across the pond’ (The Netherlands) a Phd-qualified computational linguist will need about 5 years of experience and a lot of talent to be paid those numbers (taken into account you’re about 10 years older than these students, don’t forget the weak dollar (vs. euro) and life’s a great deal more expensive over here as well). But, as experience and professional levels grow the curve steepens considerably as well.

    Where will those guys end up? Go figure.

  41. dr.honey

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:37 am

    This is for Stanford Graduates(USA). But what for the Graduates from rest of world like Punjab University College of Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.

  42. Xie Li

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:57 am

    I graduated from the CS Masters program at Stanford not long back. Google’s offer was in the 85 - 90k ball park but the stock offering made it interesting (since the strike back then was in the 480’s). Even people with 2 years of work experience got the same offer. MSFT’s offers were in the late 70s/early 80s but required relocation to seattle. AMZN made insane sign on bonus offers (in the 35 to 40k ball park with a base salary of 90-95k for seattle). The best i’ve seen is from Yahoo! which offered way more than 100k for really strong candidates. Facebook is pretty competitive given the early stage stock perspective.

    130k for APMs sounds ridiculous. I just called a couple of juniors and i havent heard of anything more than 95k. The 130k is probably for MBA graduates from the GSB(Graduate school of business).

    For those of you not from Stanford, sorry, but most of us would agree that getting into Stanford CS was the best thing that God could’ve given us! Thank you professors, CS dept chair and everyone else!

  43. ERHAN ERDOGAN

    January 31st, 2008 at 4:38 am

    @M

    Ooops : )
    jealous as u i think : )))

  44. Tankbott

    January 31st, 2008 at 4:38 am

    Are they only targeting computer science students? What about all the software engineers (with engineering degrees)?

  45. Jurado

    January 31st, 2008 at 4:56 am

    Google has the best food and Burritos from Andale…:-)

  46. L

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:25 am

    Enjoy the salaries/competition while you can peeps. Unemployment in the Valley was very very high just a several years ago. What goes up usually comes down.

  47. josh

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:33 am

    They’re just buying the college name. You could have two candidates with the same skill levels and degrees, and because one went to a “known” school they’ll get the job 9 out of 10 times.

  48. Jason

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:52 am

    What does 90k equal with the inflated rates of living in California? Can you even comfortably own a house with that?

  49. happy student

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:57 am

    heh, does this mean we’ll be approached by these companies too? our school is teaching developing applications on facebook as well. And the site’s kick ass. neways, don’t bother me. i’ll be counting my $$$$.

    http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~cs3216/

  50. AreTheyWorthIt?

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:05 am

    Whether or not a fresh-out-of-Stanford CS grad makes $85K or $95K is largely irrelevant. The bigger issue over time will be the impact on the Valley’s startup ecosystem.

    Google and Facebook are sucking the oxygen out of the air, making it extremely difficult for many small startups to find the kind of engineers they need to develop their businesses. We live in a market economy, of course, so we can’t begrudge them their ability to call dibs on the best engineers. But it would be interesting to know how many great ideas are lying fallow because Google wants to throw another ten engineers at some little piece of functionality or Facebook wants to sell another million little bouquets of digital flowers.

  51. Manuel

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:06 am

    Facebook is the greatest site of all times, forget about Google.

    Facebook is just the best way to do hundred of things !

    http://techiteasy.org/2007/07/.....ks-for-me/

  52. Ed

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:08 am

    What about business students with experience from the online business in Europe? I wouldn’t mind relocating to California :)

  53. Jason

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:12 am

    Happy Student, what a ridiculously stupid class that is.

  54. CanCar

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:16 am

    Oh my God… I must have studied computer sciences??

  55. patChuck

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:23 am

    This all sounds a little too similar to the artificial home prices we’re all too familiar with.

    All we need is another tech slow down and a lot of the people with these inflated salaries, and probably over extended budgets of cars and homes will not be able to secure another job paying the same or more.

    funny thing is… i’m making near that amount with no degree…in Atlanta!

    -Cheers

  56. S

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:25 am

    GEICO’s office in DC is hiring computer science grads too

  57. dave mcclure

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:50 am

    not really a data point, but… the best students from our Stanford Facebook class aren’t taking jobs at Google, Facebook, Yahoo, or even other startups.

    the best teams / students in the class are starting their OWN startups

    (and from what i hear, a few are already making more money from their own projects than any of those quoted salaries.)

    don’t get me wrong: a few years at an established company like G, F, or Y can be great to learn from smart folks & get your legs under you. but for those who want to dive in & do a startup, there’s no time like the present.

    - dave mc

  58. ThirdWorld

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:20 am

    Around U$D 8000 to 12000 per year here in the third world for a decent junior C programmer (embedded devices) and somewhere between U$D 2500 and 3000 per year for trainees/interns in Q&A for the said systems.

    Makes me cry.

  59. Alain Raynaud

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:25 am

    To everyone who is complaining that they too, should be hearing from Google and Facebook: the answer is to be proactive. If you are sitting at your university waiting for a phone call, you are starting on the wrong foot.

    No matter what your starting salary is, it wil be irrelevent 5 years from now. The high flying, high performing engineers will have gotten promotions, started their own company, whatever… and some who started with high salaries will get a 4% annual raise forever.

    Attitude is what matters, being proactive. If you take the classes and nothing else, you’ll end up in the 4% category. Which by the way is fine: there are other nice things in life apart from money. A CS day job pays very comfortably, not matter what (even in Silicon Valley).

    Some of us will be more aggressive and will climb faster than the rest. Google and Facebook are trying to find those fast climbers, and they do so by casting a wide net. Small startups don’t have that luxury, they need to get the right person or their business will suffer. Google will just park you in a cubicle and leave you there if you are not an overachiever.

    In the end, what happens to you mostly depends on you taking the lead, if you want to. A previous poster said that what matters is experience, not a perfect GPA. That is very true.

    PS: I would advise against starting your own company right after college, you just don’t have the business experience and contacts. And I’m a big fan of startups. Do it after a few years, and by the way, only when you have an idea that keeps you awake at night.

    Alain.

  60. Scott

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:28 am

    Man, I’ve got to move out to california. I have a CS degree from an east coast school and a couple years experience. At the low end those salaries still approach double what I can make in the great state of Vermont.

  61. Chip

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:44 am

    Come to Romania - you will recruit great programmers with lots of experience for 40-45000 $ per year. :)

  62. Aaron

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:47 am

    More and more I realize my film degree was a waste of time…

  63. Wharton Student

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:56 am

    These are bubbled salaries that are just scraping $100,000.

    The very best kids here at Wharton routinely get offers approaching $200,000, or more. I know one guy who got a joint undergraduate business degree and MBA at the same time and got an offer of $800,000 per year…at 23. The worst finance majors can get jobs targeting about $120,000 per year (60K base + 60K target bonus).

    There is a business world slowdown coming for one year. So knock the number of hires and the salaries by 10%-20%, you still see much higher rewards for Wharton students than CS students anywhere.

  64. TheDuhMoment

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:56 am

    Michael,

    I’m not so sure you should be touting the “student” confirmations of your story. Can you event verify that those postings are from actual students? Even if you could, do you really think they would post that salaries are not good — I doubt it.

  65. Ashy

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:58 am

    Only vahid’s comment seemed true. The rest of you are just spammers.
    The truth of the matter is Google is screening candidates from top unis all around the world, not just Stanford. And the are only “screening” to find if they hit upon that special someone they are looking for. The offers made are only verbal, not legal, just to lure those 22- 27 year olds.
    Its a bit like dating. Google, facebook and all others need to innovate and they are doing a constant hunt for innovators.

  66. Max

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:59 am

    re #60, your cost of living in CA is going to be quite a bit higher than it is in VT…real sticker shock. If you plan to raise a family at some point in the future, it’s only to get worse, and the quality of the public schools is abysmal. Don’t be seduced by the dollar signs — being part of the echo chamber has some definite (and very high) costs.

  67. JeffC

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am

    These companies should look outside the box for a slice of their employees. Bring on board some creative thinkers, idea generators and communicators who DON’T have a computer science degree, or who AREN’T complete geeks. You can be book smart and degree heavy, but only capable of linear thinking, and not good at communicating with or leading people. Mix it up. There are plenty of innovative entrepreneurs (wihout a doctorate in CS or mathematics) that would bring a whole new creative process to the tech game.

  68. Alize

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:05 am

    I thought this was high, but I have just hired a Polish grad for £40K , so these grads sound pretty cheap. I guess its down to their lack of experience

  69. Pranav Prakash

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Google is one of the top salary givers in India, in competition with Microsoft and IBM. Will Facebook come to India?

  70. Jason

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:13 am

    Salary.com has a cost of living wizard that calculates what you need to be earning to maintain the same standard of living. From Rochester,NY to somewhere like LA is a 147% increase in pay required. Considering I got hired out of school before my senior year at 65K, I own a large house and live more than comfortably. No way in hell 100k would even come close to giving me the same lifestyle in California.

  71. MikeT

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:15 am

    @Wharton student: yeah, your salaries are cool, but they are in finance, not IT, so stop flashing the big numbers you guys get - you belong to a different pond and you go by different standards.

    @all: I am impressed to see how many people are/were at Stanford and other strong universities and make so many spelling mistakes… What did you learn there, people?

  72. raymond from ghana

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:17 am

    i totally agree with Ashy. Google, Facebook and all other startups looking for great innovators must screen candidates from uni’s all around the world. Mr. Arrington, the best minds in the cs industry are not found in your so called “top us uni’s” they are all over the world.Look @ the number of people who contribute great code to open source projects out there….. are they all in your so called “top us uni’s”? please give us a break……

  73. Steve

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:23 am

    I agree with Alain Raynaud, don’t start your own startup right out of college… start it way before you even graduate! I’m graduating this year and I’m on my 3rd company.

    He’s right, you don’t have the business sense or connections necessary to succeed when starting out. When I was a Sophomore, I didn’t have any of these. But I don’t know any faster way to get them than to get out there and start a company. There’s no better safety net for failure than being in college. You’re pretty much guaranteed a place to sleep and eat, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.

    The funny thing is even when you succeed (my second company), it’s not enough and you want to do it again (my third company).

    Remember, all it takes is one success, and when you get it, people rarely say, “Yeah, but how many times did you fail?”

  74. TheDuhMoment

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:24 am

    #72 — Also have a look at all the poorly written open source code from all over the world…

  75. Justin from Indiana

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:33 am

    I know that I graduated from Purdue last year and got $65k + loads of benefits right out the door, and that is in INDIANA! I have a lot of work experience, but everyone that I graduated with had jobs lined up by Christmas break. I was 22 when I purchased my first house. Have I mentioned how much I love the technology industry?

  76. Eric

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:38 am

    I’m 10 years out of school with a CS degree, an MBA and I’m not making much more than the highest quoted salaries that Google is allegedly offering. With salaries like those for kids right out of school I should be getting a lot more money!

    During the last bubble I remember hiring kids right out of school at close to $100k. That was for a company that quickly went bankrupt. These days we are hiring kids out of school with CS degrees but little programming experience starting at half of that, if they are lucky.

    I don’t know what the pay rates are like out there in the Valley, if they are that high it might be worth it for me to move out there.

  77. matt

    January 31st, 2008 at 8:39 am

    From MIT….salaries are higher than those reported for Stanford, for the smart kids in the class…

  78. MI dude

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:09 am

    cost of living plays a huge part too. i was ecstatic upon receiving an 85K offer back in 2001 coming out of a masters program at university of michigan, but once I moved out to silicon valley, realized that’s 85k is a lot like making 60-65K in a lower cost of living state like Michigan.

    Of course, in the first few years out of college, you can expect your salary to go up another 20-30%, so that helps :)

  79. sd

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:09 am

    what about IT consulting? do they pay higher actually? If you do well in consulting, you can get high price tags too.

  80. Shams

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:19 am

    May be some companies pay so high. But which one, Google, Facebook, Yahoo are oversaturated with talents. And while Yahoo is laying off jobs for thousands, how CS kids getting so much. As is mentioned in an earlier comments those start-ups go bankrupt soon. Now the world is full of CS students.

  81. stanford cs undergrad

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:20 am

    100k is still nothing. what about the billions of dollars larry and sergey will make when some “inexperienced” kid from stanford develops the next killer app for google.

  82. Brazilian

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:21 am

    In Brazil, students of a very very good university, don’t hava plus of 3000 dollars for year… is very bad =(

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  83. software engineer

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:27 am

    $100k +/- $30k seems to be pretty standard salary for a software engineer these days. Kudos to Google for stepping up the scale for entry level engineers but it’s not unreasonable compensation.

  84. sd

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:30 am

    ppl making 100K would tell everyone about their experience.
    ppl making 50K won’t, so rumor chaser will report that everyone is getting 100k.

  85. wasapeas

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:33 am

    As a senior at MIT I can confirm these kinds of offers. Hell, INTERNS can make 60-80k nowadays if you play it right.

  86. ohnopirates

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:37 am

    I love Arrington’s hatred of Pitzer.

    I have a b.a. from Pomona and an M.A. from Chicago (3.7 and 3.9 gpa respectively) - I’m a senior analyst.

    I don’t make 100k, but I moved to a specific city because my wife (a math ph.d. from Chicago) is making that. I took the first job that came along that let me do what I want and paid enough to satisfy my standards of living.

    I can report 250k+ (that’s base before signing and options) offers being thrown at math ph.d.s from Chicago.

  87. randy

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:39 am

    Curious, what is $100,000 worth in Santa Clara or Solano County these days? Adjusted for tax & regulation crazy Democrat representatives and absurd real estate prices?

  88. josh

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:51 am

    #73
    What are these companies? I’d be interested to see what a college kid can d without any experience (unless its a dot.com).

  89. Mark

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:52 am

    ? I’m flummoxed

  90. rubu

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:55 am

    http://termlifeinsuranceonlinequote.net/But I don’t know any faster way to get them than to get out there and start a company. There’s no better safety net for failure than being in college. You’re pretty much guaranteed a place to sleep and eat, so you’ve got nothing to worry about.

  91. Jan Mahler

    January 31st, 2008 at 10:03 am

    It’s a simple formula why companies go after college kids:

    1. They are not married, have no family, etc. This means you can squeeze much more work out of them as they don’t have to run home to the wife and kids in pursuit of their “balanced lifestyle” and external responsibilities.
    2. Younger folks fresh from college aren’t jaded just yet as they have not tasted bitter failure just yet. They come out of college with energy and enthusiasm and aren’t necessarily “burnt out” or have the same world and work view like the 10+ year veterans of the industry.
    3. College kids don’t necessarily do the math on the concept of time, money and their worth relative to one another. Money is near infinite and time certainly isn’t.

  92. lesmadras

    January 31st, 2008 at 10:09 am

    as someone who has managed large teams, i can tell you that Stanford has no patent on talent. i have hired Stanford phds who have turned out to be utter losers. the only thing you are guaranteed out of stanford is an “attitude” so buyer beware. a more predictable source of engineering quality without the BS is the University of Ilinois.

    I am not an Illinois alumnus.

  93. Impartial Observer

    January 31st, 2008 at 10:10 am

    Average salary offer coming out of Carnegie Mellon CS has been 110k for those coming to the Valley, with yes, Google leading the way.

  94. yougodit

    January 31st, 2008 at 10:55 am

    @25

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:09 am

    “@18 , @all, @Zuckerberg especially
    Does Zuckerberg hire Zuckerberg if he is a new grads. from Harvard, now!?
    ; )
    i’m waiting your answer too, best commenter Michael Arrington : )”
    .
    .
    .
    Lol Erhan! I think we uld wait Marc Zuckerberg s answer for ur question as u said :D
    Great catchin’ fun :D Marc ll hit the wall :D

  95. stanford cs undergrad

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:08 am

    @Wharton: You are not making an equal comparison. Think about hours and environment. The hardest working CS students will likely work 50 hour weeks in light stress environments where they can wear sweatpants to work and play billiards in the office. At your job you’ll be working 90 hours per week and will probably have your first heart attack by the time you’re 40. Quality of life is still not worth $800k.

  96. Steve

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:09 am

    @ #88

    Well, the third company as you can see from my link is a .com (RateMyStudentRental.com). I can somewhat understand the “unless it’s a .com” part of your comment though; I think most .com’s simply plan to become popular and sell out. But if you have a robust business and revenue model that has a solid foundation offline as well, it can be more business-intensive than brick and mortar companies. With a .com, if you play your cards right, you start out with a much larger customer base in a shorter amount of time. Most of what I do is networking, marketing, and customer interaction.

    My first company was a used and aftermarket car parts company that I’m thinking about selling off because it hasn’t been very fun or exciting to run for the last couple years. The second company is No BS Web Design and Devolopment (and consulting) (http://www.nobswebdesign.com).

    I hope that answers your question. I say knowledge comes form school, experience comes from doing, and success comes when you learn to connect the two. But what do I know? I’m just a college kid.

  97. agnes

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:16 am

    Wondering: How many of these grads were originally symbolic systems majors?

  98. Ferderand Remo Biro Cabrera

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:25 am

    I just received an offer from one of the companies mentioned here to do advanced HTML and CSS programming and can tell you that the numbers you gave are very low. The starting salary I was offered is $115,000. Once we’re done negotiating my pre-IPO stock options I will be accepting.

    You are also wrong about the recruiting only happening at top universities. I just graduated from Solano Community College so they are recruiting at top community colleges as well.

    I can’t wait to move to Palo Alto. With my $115,000 salary I should be able to pull some Stanford hotties. Once they see me pull up in my Porsche Boxter and I tell them who’s been viewing their profile they’ll be jumping in and begging me to take them back to my studio apartment at Merrilee Terrace Apartments.

  99. Recent Masters Grad

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:28 am

    Xie Li’s comment above (paraphrased below) is about right. A lot of the people reporting 100k+ must be MBA/Phd/past-full-time-work-experience hires.

    I recently graduated from a top masters program in CS and I can say that the numbers are around 90k +/- 5k for base salary not including salary/bonus/sign-on/relocation for entry masters-level positions.

    Undergraduate ranges around the 65k-75k mark.

    And as Xie Li said, I do believe Amazon is the top base payer and sign-on bonus employer (~30k sign-on, ~95k base). Google is actually not known to be the highest base payer.

  100. Greg

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:35 am

    I am making $7/hr at Wendy’s. I must be doing something wrong…

  101. Baller

    January 31st, 2008 at 11:51 am

    The average intern at Microsoft, Yahoo and Google now makes more than $30/hr.

    Most CS undergrads think that working at Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon or Facebook is going to solve all their issues. The best advice is to get entrepreneurial as early and as soon as possible and try not to look like every other top CS student. You start to look like a commodity.

  102. back when i was...

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    a stanford undergrad (2000), I was hired for $110K plus stock and signing bonuses at a competitive startup (still around today). And that was after my sophomore year. Inflated, yes, but isn’t it today as well?

  103. anonymous

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    @Wharton: sorry, i went to wharton, so i will correct the poster’s comment (not that anyone on this forum would care, but nonetheless)

    salaries: most people go into investment banking or consulting, and your top end for first year analysts last year on wall street was $60k base + $90k bonus (except for a handful of boutiques that offered $100k bonus) = $150k; work week ~ 85 hours a week, with worst weeks ~ 120 hours. for consultants, that dwindles down to roughly (and i do not know exact numbers on this) $70k base + ~$20k bonus = roughly the number that is being discussed on this forum (and this is at the best firms too, mckinsey, bain, bcg; and the hours at mck can be just as bad as avg banking hours on Mon-Thurs). there were some people i knew who got jobs at d.e. shaw, citadel, sac capital, etc etc; these were arguably the toughest and most competitive hedge fund jobs, and even still, starting salaries were maybe $200k at most. this was all last year mind you. quality of life at these jobs isn’t too bad either, so for the kids who get these, good deal.

    so essentially, the wharton poster’s opinion is very much incorrect; also, all the submat MBAs never made more than $300k coming out (with proper MBA students, not submats, this is a different story). haha, that $800k is surely nonsense.

    also, an important sidenote is that many start-up employees are taking $90k now, with lifestyle benefits, for maybe $1-$2MM, and potentially much more, in a few years. so, you kind of have to look at it from that angle. how many start-up employees will cash out “successfully”, for whatever that means? i have no idea, and it would be interesting to see what people across the board have made so far in companies that have realized some type of exit strategy

  104. anonymous

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:12 pm

    also, as a sidenote, if you had offers from the following companies:

    doostang
    rockyou!
    slide
    meebo

    all for business strategy and/or bus dev positions, what would you take, and why? i am asking because i am thinking about throwing my resume out to start-ups, and these are a few companies i am really interested in, in terms of what they are doing

  105. dj

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:31 pm

    re: 98 Ferderand
    The best part is that the faulty premise in your post is the concept of “Stanford hotties” to begin with. Have you taken a look around campus? ouch

  106. babaghanoush

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:41 pm

    @ 92
    couldnt agree with you more… alot of schools like Stanford, Harvard, etc produce students that think that they are great and dont have the work ethic to prove it (especially in the engineering and CS fields) …

  107. Peter Antypas

    January 31st, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    #105: I believe #98 was being blatantly sarcastic. 115K doesn’t buy you shit in Palo Alto ;)

  108. Recent Masters Grad

    January 31st, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    #103 anonymous: for salaries are you talking about undergrad. business program or MBA?

  109. Chuck

    January 31st, 2008 at 2:02 pm

    To those who don’t believe the numbers believe them. $90K for a person coming out of a top 4 year school with a CS degree is not on the high end of the spectrum. Google only hires the best and if you have an offer from them then you can be sure it will be at that level. Most decent senior programmers in the valley can look at a base salary of anywhere from $125 to $150K with 5 years of experience plus some kind of bonus or option structure. What one has to realize is that for the programming side the salaries don’t increase as fast on a year to year basis than someone on the business side who starts at possible a lower base salary but has the room to get promoted from an associate to a senior manager over that same five years time. Back in 1999 oracle was shelling out $70K a year salaries plus stock etc. That was 8 years ago so even with our modest inflation it seems very reasonable that Google would pay $95K.

    I’ve worked for Amazon, eBay, Orbitz and others and we have always recruited at schools like Stanford and Princeton that are know as being generally excellent at academics but also top CS schools like IL, Indiana and others who have very solid engineering departments.

  110. Match Maker

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:10 pm

    Michael, your girlfriend is using you to get famous! ha ha!

  111. S

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:23 pm

    you are a fool if you take an offer from these stupid Slide/RockYou type companies and expect to have anything long-term. Even facebook, to a lesser extent. These companies are just one big joke, and won’t be around in two years. The US economy is going to run lean and mean if it intends to recover from this shit state; you won’t see any more $90 million investments in FunWall II.

  112. Ferderand Remo Biro Cabrera

    January 31st, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    dj: the girls at Stanford are really hot compared to the girls at Solano Community College. I was born in Cebu, Philippines and when I called my dad back home to tell him that I got a job at Facebook and would be dating tall white girls whose parents can afford to send them to Stanford, he said “You make you father and mother proud, son. We love you long time.”

  113. Joe

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:13 pm

    It is amazing to me the number of people responding to this post from universities where English is clearly a second language. Anyone paying these inferior communicators in English these high salaries is nuts. If you don’t care about their English skills and just need a good propeller head, hire from a developing country for 10 cents on the dollar.

  114. Gary

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:23 pm

    As a Staffing Manager for a SaaS company in the SV one bit of advice to you recent or soon to be grads with CS degrees. It would be a terrible mistake to consider initial offer (Base, Bonus, and Stock) as the primary criteria in determining whose offer sheet you decide to sign. Please also consider risk to reward ratio. Ask your precursors in the class of 2000 who opted for the big bucks instead of thinking about such frivolous things like: 1. solvency of the company, 2. Value proposition of company’s product, 3. Top management, etc;

  115. anonymous

    January 31st, 2008 at 5:58 pm

    to 108: i was mostly referring to undergrad salaries; mba is definitely different

    mba (WITH experience) as a first year associate investment banker probably gets around $350K all in (all the submats i know that got banking offers were hired as third year analysts EXCEPT for at UBS, don’t know if this is because ken moelis was a wharton submat or not); mba as a first year consultant probably more like $120K-$140K; mba as a first year at a KKR or a TPG or some other huge private equity shop probably something around $600K-$700K

  116. pete

    January 31st, 2008 at 6:22 pm

    wow, those are some awesome salaries. this just confirms that my 3 years for law school was in vain.
    coming from LA, and working for a mid-size (www.freeafterfive.com is my project) i can tell you that the salary listed about is roughly 30% more then what you can expect from southern california.
    my friend is a recently graduated with a master’s from usc, and his best offer in southern california topped out at 70K (bonus was not discussed, since he never got a 2nd interview).
    for all those who have the opportunity to make that sort of money i hope you consider your good fortune.

  117. anonymous

    January 31st, 2008 at 7:31 pm

    #111: why do you say that? i am really curious; what companies do you think will stand tall through all of this? what places do you think would make sense to go to, in terms of maximizing potential payoff? i would think a place like slide would go for alot once exit is realized (i have already heard they raised new money on a roughly $500MM valuation) i’m just wondering what the thinking process should be in getting into one of these startups

    also, how much equity/options would one expect, and how does that process work?

  118. Darren Monroe

    January 31st, 2008 at 9:21 pm

    Hey Great article love Tech Crunch. I learn about a ton of companies, and opportunities within a few emails.

    I wanted to share with the people claiming that grads aren’t getting 90+ offers for jobs. This is mainly for California. 90+ is not a lot in California. Though a lot for a single graduating student it is not a lot in a state where the average house is 400,000 to 525,000.

    $90k in that area is only 75k in New York 16% increase. And 46% increase in Chicago.

  119. Muhammad Faizan Dosani

    February 1st, 2008 at 1:51 am

    well shocked to sight such mouth watering offers.
    according to my observation i think the current era is the peak level of in IT history. this not limited to USA only even in middle east and south asia where a network administrator can only earn 8000 Rs now offering about 35000 in a month …..
    400% increase in salary

  120. Anony-Moose

    February 1st, 2008 at 3:18 pm

    Well, as a recent graduate (6 months ago) with a bunch of friends in the area I can offer a little insight.

    My friends who are developers are all at startups and all earning ~75k-80k with stock options that range from 0.2%-0.5% of the company.

    Google APMs just got a raise recently, so the base (out of undergrad, no work experience) is 95k. I think it’s +15k for 1 year of work experience and +15k for a master’s.

    Google software engineers’ base for the same experience is a little lower, but pretty close.

    So yeah, this post is pretty accurate (and I’ve go the pay stubs and diploma to prove it)

  121. Alex Linhares

    February 1st, 2008 at 5:38 pm

    And to think I’m applying for a job as a professor of CS in the U of California system, with salaries ranging around 55K…

  122. Cat Chen

    February 1st, 2008 at 7:30 pm

    Google also battles against Baidu for CS students here in China. They both offer 150k~200k, in local currency, before taxed.

  123. Boris Epstein

    February 1st, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    Bill Gates once famously said that 1 great programmer is worth more than 1000 good ones. Based on that logic, the 10-20k that google, facebook and any other top companies pay as a premium is well worth the investment.

    Boris - Software Headhunter
    http://www.bincsearch.com
    blog.bincsearch.com

  124. ZIGGY ZIGALO

    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:00 am

    I am going to Rensellear out on the east coast and majoring in computer science. Is there a possibility I can get a job at google or any of the above mentioned companies?

  125. aflossingsvrije hypotheek

    February 2nd, 2008 at 11:48 am

    Damn this is sooo insane, ppl who are just starting only get in amerika this kind of salaries. In other countries they have to start at the bottom with like 50k. Nice evolution btw ;)

  126. someseniorengineer

    February 3rd, 2008 at 12:07 am

    I am a senior software engineer with 10 years of experience but no degree. I only make $115,000. I have created a number of open source projects. Do you guys think I’m getting ripped off? I really really really want to work at google. Do you think they’d pay me a lot more? Seems like a great time to get in now that the stock is back down to $500 and the online ad market is predicted to DOUBLE in the next three years.

  127. Smee

    February 3rd, 2008 at 12:59 am

    Does anybody know starting salaries for Google etc. in Europe? I’d be particularly interested in Google’s APM programme…

  128. Ph_D student

    February 4th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    Hi does anyone know what are the chances of finding developer job in USA after Ph.D. in UCI for non-american resident ? (Don’t have experience, but have won some competitions like MS Imagine Cup - up to the world final)

  129. anon

    February 5th, 2008 at 8:59 pm

    Wow, I just woke up from this dream where these kids were talking about $100K+ job offers right out of college! Oh well, back to reality and my lowly $45k job. Life is not a race to the finish line, its about constancy…

  130. chris

    February 6th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    Wharton student- you’re stupid. Kids from Stanford also get those ridiculous finance numbers when they work at INVESTMENT BANKS and PE shops. The DIFFERENCE is that they work 9-5, and investment wankers are working 90 hours a week.

    Wharton kids are just finance monkeys who will be replaced by software in the next 10 years. Software written by Stanford kids.

  131. Dean

    February 8th, 2008 at 12:35 am

    “Google and Facebook are sucking the oxygen out of the air, making it extremely difficult for many small startups to find the kind of engineers they need to develop their businesses.”

    You do realize that many companies have offices outside of the SV? I live in the Pacific NW in a city that has offices for Apple, Oracle, Intel, Yahoo, Google (a few miles out of town).

    I used to work in the SV and I can guarantee you that you can find smart people outside of there.

  132. Lord Xenu

    February 8th, 2008 at 12:46 am

    “@Wharton: You are not making an equal comparison. Think about hours and environment. The hardest working CS students will likely work 50 hour weeks in light stress environments where they can wear sweatpants to work and play billiards in the office. At your job you’ll be working 90 hours per week and will probably have your first heart attack by the time you’re 40.”

    I take it you have NEVER worked in tech before? Get ready, you are going to just looooove it :-) boo-ahh ha ha ha…

  133. Yet Another Stanford Grad

    February 8th, 2008 at 1:06 am

    “I am going to Rensellear out o