Interesting. In terms of predicting Ruthie’s salary as a senior engineer, I don’t know whether to trust my anecdata (which presumably is sampled from closer to the same distribution as Ruthie), or the BLS, which is clearly a lower-variance estimate but possibly of the wrong quantity (systems programmers across the country).
The BLS also has regional data if you check the second link. Seems the BLS thinks programmers in the Bay Area make perhaps 1.3x the national average. But Bay Area programmers don’t just work for highly profitable tech companies… there are non-software-company salaries and salaries at less profitable tech companies pulling the average down. It’s also not clear whether the BLS is taking in to account equity compensation, which is obviously very significant at many Bay Area tech companies.
Interesting. In terms of predicting Ruthie’s salary as a senior engineer, I don’t know whether to trust my anecdata (which presumably is sampled from closer to the same distribution as Ruthie), or the BLS, which is clearly a lower-variance estimate but possibly of the wrong quantity (systems programmers across the country).
The BLS also has regional data if you check the second link. Seems the BLS thinks programmers in the Bay Area make perhaps 1.3x the national average. But Bay Area programmers don’t just work for highly profitable tech companies… there are non-software-company salaries and salaries at less profitable tech companies pulling the average down. It’s also not clear whether the BLS is taking in to account equity compensation, which is obviously very significant at many Bay Area tech companies.