<p>I was just looking at MIT Electrical Engineering and Computer Science dual major and guess what, the average salary for student with a BS in EECS make 90k straight out of college. I wonder how much they make after 5 years plus all the opportunity this guys have, I feel so jealous lol. I don’t think money is the most important thing. Actually you have to love the field otherwise you will hate your life. I always tell people to major in something they LIKE and that PAYS well</p>
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<p>Take home pay for a single recent college grad (and let’s say this is the Midwest… Not Chicago), 39K ain’t bad. You’re not living the life of luxury, but you’re paying the bills and living comfortably.</p>
<p>Engineering is engineering. I did a project for the heavy duty truck business years ago and it was quite funny… We had to demo our product in the Mid-America Truck show in Louisville, sigh. I later described the show to our executives as (and I quote) “Las Vegas CES mixed with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome”…</p>
<p>In the 80’s I took a job with one such company nobody had heard of in the boonies. I got to do real engineering from day one, unlike my friends at Intel and defense related companies where all they did was testing or paperwork. 28 years later, I’m still writing software and my friends are wrestling powerpoint and excel…</p>
<p>so why intel hired them in the first place?? who design the processors at intel??</p>
<p>What I’m saying is that the entry level Intel hires will not be designing the next processors any more than the entry level hires will be designing Word 2019.</p>
<p>There’s a small core group of coders / chip designers / etc and hundreds of testers, QA types, and people in not-quite-designs-a-processor jobs.</p>
<p>To design processors you need a MS and five years of experience, PhD preferred. And even having those things doesn’t guarantee you a job. That is one of those areas immune to ageism and silly rules, a silicon designer with ten or twenty years of experience under his belt is worth his weight in gold to those companies.</p>
<p>And turbo is right, if you work for one of those big companies you’ll most likely be doing testing or other non-glamorous things. The R&D jobs are like the movie star jobs, and everybody else is doing bit parts and holding boom mics. I always told people they should do undergraduate research instead of an internship, it’s way more interesting even if it doesn’t pay as well.</p>
<p>But these are not iron clad rules. And the big companies like Intel compensate VERY well.</p>
<p>They do, but let’s just say that few of my graduating class that nearly all ended up in Bowers Avenue in Santa Clara were there a few years later…</p>
<p>I do have a friend who designs processors for a living, he’s indeed a PhD and a ‘brand name’. Even in software, a basic core team is only a handful of people.</p>
<p>What do you guys consider to be a big company? Is Facebook a big company yet? (if not, it’s clearly going to transition in the next several years)</p>
<p>Sumzup, FB is a huge company. Its market capitalization is in the billions and is publicly traded.</p>
<p>You say that FB is going to grow in the future. That’s doubtful. Zuckerberg has proven to be a somewhat foolish businessman. I doubt he has what it takes to ensure long-term growth.</p>
<p>If anything, something fresh is going to come along and replace FB, just like FB replaced Myspace.</p>
<p>I realize this is completely tangential, but I have to agree with AeroMike: Facebook (and other social networking sites) have never seemed to me to have a long-term sustainable business model. In fact, they seem to have what I’d characterize as something much closer to a “flash in the pan” than a “long-term sustainable” business model.</p>
<p>Then again, I just work in tech, I’m not an expert at analyzing the viability of business models… so take this with a grain of salt.</p>
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<p>I agree. </p>
<p>I never really understood why some grads fight tooth-and-nail over jobs with these high-profile tech companies. The pay is really about average once you figure in the cost of living. Job perks might be good, but in the end, you still have to deal with the hyper-competitive, every-man-for-himself, pretentious types that generally work at these companies.</p>
<p>Because the jobs are sexy and the payoff - if IPO / stock options are involved - can be enormous. Also, due to rapid expansion, a lot of hiring occurs, which makes screening all that harder.</p>
<p>Plus the perks. Have you seen the free food in Facebook and Google’s cafeteria? They even have in house dry cleaning service and all kinds of free stuff. </p>
<p><a href=“The Perks of Working at Google, Facebook, Twitter and More [INFOGRAPHIC] | Mashable”>The Perks of Working at Google, Facebook, Twitter and More [INFOGRAPHIC] | Mashable;
<p>Hehe, those perks are to convince you to live at your office and work 100 hrs a week.</p>
<p>That’s exactly what it is. If you’re a strong believer in the Elbonian work ethic (35-40 hours a week) for $X/year versus Google at $2X and 60-70 hours per week, at the end you’re losing BIG time by the time the U-Haul pulls into Mountain View…</p>
<p>I think a lot of it is the types of problems you’d get to be working on. I know my future employer isn’t known for paying exceptionally well, but the work you get to do tends to be more interesting than at most other companies (as well as the freedom of what you want to work on).</p>
<p>I remember back then not long time ago when AOL first came on…yes, you got mail ! then everybody wanted to work for them. But, now…?? it is drifting like petal and what has happened to the big salary(s) with AOL?..</p>
<p>If that could happen with AOL, it certainly would too with facebook, google, etc.</p>
<p>Nice fallacy you’ve got going there.</p>
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<p>No big deal… just find another place to work when that happens. Company loyalty isn’t what it used to be (from what I hear).</p>
<p>At the risk of sounding cynical, company loyalty is a fairy tale employers use to render unambitious employees docile. Having too few butts in seats makes managers look bad; having too many is a problem easily fixed. Layoffs make the grass grow.</p>