This is likely true. Old men/women, move away from the center seats – here comes the new breed of engineers who are of more values to the company.
Isn’t it true that it was once rumored that a few years ago, MS almost got into a legal trouble because they favored unmarried young employees who are more capable of working longer hours because they “do not have a family”?
About 100K in salary at Google is about right, I think. I forgot about other components of compensations.
How about Apple in SV? Many of my previous coworkers joined that company in the past N years. But the rule number one in this industry is not to ask their salary.
Apple is managed in a strange way in that employees working in a different project/division are prohibited (at least discouraged) to communicate with employees in other projects/division. The badges for employees in one project and/or division can not be used to access the office or lab areas in a different division.
The old school command line interface/script seems to be more prevalent than you thought at many companies. There is some truth in this: Programmers do not use GUI and only laymen use GUI, even at a company which made the GUI and mouse interface popular in the first place.
My guess is that the old men/women probably also aren’t working 80+ hours a week. Most people find that loses its alllure after a while. Companies bank on that new hire excitement to get 2x the work out of you.
Really, if you tell me you are making $150K in SV even to start, and then tell me you work 80 or more hours a week, I will ask you why you have two $75K jobs, one without benefits. If you are making $150K and working only 45 or 50 hours, that is something entirely different.
In quick summary, working 80 hours means you have no life outside of work, few friends, few dates, no time for family whether siblings or elderly parents or grandparents or even your kids. You might be hugely out of shape or even outright unhealthy and certainly aren’t enjoying the view from a wilderness peak, unless it is your screen saver. The likelihood is that someday in your 40s or 50s you will realize what you gave up.
And if you are cherry-picking Stanford 3.5 GPA grads, sure you have to pay more. In another thread folks were saying anything below a 3.0 made you hard to employ, so certainly you aren’t getting 150K.
Back to the original post, I also question the extreme emphasis on STEM these days. While that is the field that graduates are most likely to get good paying jobs in directly out of undergrad, the problem is that those jobs do not have the same rate of salary growth for the most part as other fields. The engineering career path tends to be slow and steady. Many who don’t like slow and steady change fields (I did). On the other hand if security is your main goal, STEM is probably your best bet. I wonder if all these high achievers who are chasing these engineering jobs understand just how boring many of them are. Sure some people will get rich and have exciting jobs, but most will end up going to their cubicles everyday and doing relatively routine work.
Recently I was having a discussion at a work gathering. I had been an engineer undergrad and have an MBA. Others in the group included a history major who went on to law school and an accountant. We are all doing similar work now. The other two were laughing about how hard the engineers worked in college and how it didn’t matter at all in the end.
“the problem is that those jobs do not have the same rate of salary growth for the most part as other fields.”
Do you have any statistics showing that other fields have higher salary during middle career or near retirement?
" I wonder if all these high achievers who are chasing these engineering jobs understand just how boring many of them are."
Why are they boring? Are other jobs like accountants, traders,… more exciting?
" but most will end up going to their cubicles everyday and doing relatively routine work."
Which jobs don’t do routine work?
Routine work in engineering is more exciting than routine work in other fields. It’s always challeging and requires creative solutions.
Sorry I’ve seen data on career trajectories in the past but have no idea where to find it now so you can treat that as anecdotal if you’d like.
As for STEM jobs being boring, that is based on my personal observation as I used to work as an engineer, and now work in an industry filled with STEM types, and my husband works in software development. When you are running case after case of some study with slight variations, it is not challenging and creative. When you are dealing with managers who don’t have a STEM degree but think they know more than you, that is not exciting. Sure those fun jobs are out there, but there is a lot of drudgery that doesn’t require advanced calculus. And yes the accounting and trading jobs can be much more exciting.
You do realize that Berkeley is conveniently close to Silicon Valley computer companies, many of which are small and do not have the resources or needs to do non-local recruiting. It is also a relatively selective school (particularly for the EECS major in admission, and L&S CS is now selective in admission to the major once enrolled), so there is a greater pre-screening effect on the students.
GPA can affect recruiting in that some employers will prefer to interview higher GPA applicants, or have a cut-off GPA (apparently most commonly 3.0) to get an interview.
I am an engineer in a small company and we have recent engineering grads (2012-2015) working for minimum wage in our assembly areas. We also have scientists and MBAs. My wife interviewed a woman for a part time receptionist job who has an MA from a well-respected private.
Bottom line, we produce more graduates in all fields than the economy is willing to absorb. Whatever you choose to do, get great grades and network relentlessly, work on projects and get transferable skills. The days of “D for done” and “Cs get degrees” are gone, As and Bs get jobs. Cs and Ds will leave you scrambling.
Study engineering only if you love it. It is a terrible major for the unmotivated.
"Employers like to hire engineers for a variety of positions because they know it takes lots of hard work to get that degree, unlike art history, sociology, communications or fashion merchandising. A CS or CE grad today fresh out of college can make $70,000 to $120,000, while an English major is lucky to make $40k, and this is the way it has always been. Even MBAs with engineering background are preferred and paid better over MBAs with a LibArt background. "
Oh please! Engineers make more coming out - and then they hit a wall. This is common sense.
And if art history, sociology, and communications are so easy – why not just go do it? Answer: These things require skills you don’t have, but rather than admit you don’t have them, you pretend that they don’t require skills. I’d like to see you write a communications brief for a new product, or diagnose why people don’t do something in the public health arena that’s good for them. Just because you can move numbers around … big whoops. I can too, but I’m not so ignorant to believe that’s the only worthwhile skill in life.
There was a recent survey done of high tech companies in Austin that was eye opening for me considering I have a D majoring in CoE. They stated they needed 3500 new employees annually and the local universities were producing 1500. But only 12% would consider hiring a new graduate and 42% would throw away any resumes that did not have at least 5 years of experience. They all were chasing the individuals with 5 to 15 years of experience and they wanted additional access to H-1 ? visas. It reinforces the belief that they do not want to spend any time or money training and want to hire only individuals that can contribute from day 1. Based on this info, I think internships and coops are very important and probably getting that masters.
They want other companies to train the people they are going to hire.
I notice that some companies would only hire H-1B with multiple years of experience too – typically these H-1Bs got their industrial experience by working for the overseas branches of large US companies, that is, it is quite likely that they are trained by US companies on their land first and are then moved here when they are more experienced, using H-1Bs. They could get cost-effective, already trained workers in this way.
So these large companies train their future employees after all. It is just that they do not want to pay too much when they train them. (An analogy here: the interns are generally paid less.)
Aargh- so concerned about making a lot of money after college. First you need to remember to enjoy your profession. You need to become an engineer if that is your passion, or major in computer science for the same reasons. You need to be able to relocate to where the jobs are no matter what you choose. Yes, salaries can be in the $100 K range for software developers/engineers (title depends on the company) but those jobs are competitive. Not everyone who applies gets the job, like in every field.
I do not think any student entering college needs to be concerned about how many/which computer languages are already known. A college freshman interested in engineering will take the same courses as others in similar STEM majors- at some schools a students are not admitted to engineering until they have some college courses. Your college/U should have lists of required courses that you can start with. Once you are on campus you will be able to learn a lot more about careers with various majors. Remember if CS is your goal there will be overlap with math courses beyond calculus. An article I read online (skimmed all 38,000 words- CS son who also has a math degree said “yep” in reply when I asked if it was an accurate description of being in that profession) stated how math knowledge was useful.
@Vladenschlutte Do a Craigslist search for apartments in the Silicon Valley. A 900 SF apartment in Sunnyvale could run you $3500+ a month. Yeah, the starting salaries are more, but cost of living is ridiculous. Oh, let say you want to save some money and commute from Fremont . . . do you really want to spend the best years stuck in traffic. not to mention the water crisis . . . or Gov Brown . . .
Let’s not exaggerate. I was there recently and no traffic even in rush hours. Unlike Southern California, it’s 10 times worse.
Sunnyvale is not a posh area, we were lost there without Google map recently so my knowledge is recent.
One bed room apartment is $2200-2500, for example see link below. One doesn’t rent one bedroom but rather share with roommate, so cost is a bit cheaper if 2 persons share 2 bed rooms apartment. http://www.apartments.com/the-crossings-sunnyvale-ca/yy7sr2s/
Post #76 - High rent, bad traffic are totally irrelevant. Not only engineers work in Silicon Valley. Accountants, construction workers, teachers,… also work in Silicon Valley. Similarly in NYC, Seattle,… where rents are extremely high.