So west coast tech salaries at top places range from 200k (give or take) at the start to 4mm (at the higher end) for jobs that are reachable without being special – i.e., without being a startup founder, or a Google SVP. The people you saw may have been making 400k a head per person. If married, that is 800k (possibly more) by the time they are 30. These numbers are difficult in Atlanta (as an example). Sure, they can afford a $200 a couple meal. But often they don’t. because they want to keep expenses low, and have money to invest.
The original post that started this tangent listed a table with ROI measured in $ – not ROI as measured in “good place to study CS” . It was defined as additional $ earned because of attending that college / additional $ spent because of attending that college. This is obviously a severely flawed metric. In my opinion it’s flawed enough to make ROI tables near meaningless.
If you instead define ROI based on placing students in “the most competitive markets” rather than financial salary/earnings, then it would probably be to your advantage to attend a college located near your desired target market. That college is likely to have more employers in the target market attending career fairs, stronger alumni networks at the nearby companies, etc. Students can certainly apply to companies in their desired target location from any colleges, but employers from the desired location will be more represented at certain college’s career fairs than others, will have a stronger alumni network from some colleges more than others, etc.
For example, if your target market is working in Silicon Valley, then Berkeley may offer some special benefits. However, if you instead want to work in Austin/Dallas, then UT Austin would probably offer greater special advantages. It’s certainly not universal that everyone wants to work in Silicon Valley. Many would prefer to work elsewhere. This is particularly common at publics. Many attending publics grew up in the area, have friends/family in the area, and would prefer to continue living at quality tech companies within driving distance, rather than move to Silicon Valley. In contrast, I expect that students who attend private colleges that are perceived as prestigious are more likely than average to favor employers that are perceived as prestigious, such as certain SV employers .
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I don’t disagree. But conversely, if you want to work in anything other than tech, moving to SF is a financially disastrous move. And that’s a huge problem for this area.
Having said that, if current trends in the stock market continue, employment decisions might look very different for next year’s grads. I remember all too well the number of laid off friends who left for cheaper parts of the country in 2002-3.
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I know someone quite well, recent grad from an MBA program, that works in SF for a large global real estate investment/development/management firm. She and the company she works for seem to be doing VERY well in SF.
That’s bad for your friends, but it’s not a fact that most persons working in tech have career regrets if they live outside of CA, and have no career regrets if they work in CA. Most tech employees do not work in CA, and many are quite satisfied with their career.
Are you saying that the median net worth of tech employees living in CA is 5x to 10x more than the median net worth of tech employees working in comparable positions outside of CA? This is simply false. It may be true in your limited circle of friends who regret their careers, but it is not true in general. There are many outstanding tech jobs outside of CA, including many that are well compensated (after considering cost of living differences).
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Let me correct what I said. It is not that everyone that is not in CA that has regrets. It is students from the same college and class that went different ways – some went east and some went west. People that went to to non CA employers from that cohort have some regrets, simply because of what could have been.
Let me correct what I said. It is not that everyone that is not in CA that has regrets. It is students from the same college and class that went different ways – some went east and some went west. People that went to to non CA employers from that cohort have some regrets, simply because of what could have been.
I suspect you are overestimating the difference in salary for comparable positions based on your personal experiences. The average base salaries for “software engineer” employees with <1 year experience as listed on indeed.com are below. The averages for many areas of SV are among the highest in the US, but often not enough to compensate for differences in cost of living. It’s certainly not a situation where early career salaries averages are expected to be many times higher in the state of California than anywhere else in the USA. I realize there are many software engineering positions in SV that have base salaries that start well above the listed $130k for new grads, but there are also positions that start less than $130k.
Charlette – $144k (based on 668 salaries)
San Francisco – $130k
Columbus – $127k (based on 469 salaries)
Detroit – $126k (based on 258 salaries)
Mountain View (Google) – $126k
San Antonio – $121k
NYC – $116k
Dallas – $115k
Seattle – $114k
Chicago – $114k
Boston – $113k
San Jose – $112k
Denver – $110k
Los Angeles – $101k
Indianapolis – $98k
San Diego – $94k
Atlanta – $92k
Phoenix – $87k
We all have regrets about something- it’s called the Human Condition. I don’t believe that geography or working at a “non CA employer” is the source of that regret. And if it is, those people need to really get out of their bubble and see how a single parent who drives a school bus manages to keep food on the table, a roof overhead, and get the special needs child to therapy every week.
This is just an absurd argument. California is not the be-all and end-all of existence- even in tech, even in “high end tech” like you seem to be talking about. My kids MIT friends (no, not Stanford, or Berkeley, but some say that there is tech talent in Cambridge too) are ALL over the country and the world. There are company founders in Pittsburgh and Tulsa and St. Antonio and Cincinnati OH; there are exciting and challenging jobs in Omaha and Minneapolis and Philadelphia.
People need to get a life. There are clear advantages to locating yourself in a hub of any kind (proximity, co-location, etc.) and clear advantages to locating yourself away from a hub (able to attract attention from the VC community when you aren’t competing at every single event with every other startup; easier to hire and recruit the non-technical talent you need to launch in finance, marketing, customer service, HR). It’s not as though every single tech company only hires tech people.
You are an entrepreneur. Do you want to pay an adequate head of talent 300K (which is not an outrageous salary for an HR person in SV) or do you want a world class person and pay them 150K plus stock?
There are lots of entrepreneurs who want to invest their cash in the actual business; in expansion; in quickly developing a market (whether in the US or overseas) and starving the business to pay bloated SV salaries is not always the way to do that.
I feel bad for ANYONE who spends a moment of regret for having chosen to develop the algorithms which power robotic limbs for wounded military veterans, which landed them in Pittsburgh- the hub of robotics-- vs. living in California. What a waste of a life.
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The world isn’t static, however. Talent poaching is constant. Harvard just recently hired away a key member of UW’s CS faculty. Financial resource and perceived general prestige probably played a role.
Sure. I can recall a time when Bill Gates helped UW steal Leroy Hood from Cal Tech and in one day put Washington at the head of the game in biotech and genomics. Leroy Hood - Wikipedia
The world is indeed not static. I would say that, overall, time has been Washington’s friend, particularly in CS, BIotech and related areas of study.
With or w/o the guy Harvard took, you’d be hard pressed to find anybody in the CS world who would not put Washington way up on the list of good places at which to get a CS education. It’s very competitive.
From that cohort being the most important factor. The same was true if you graduated in 1995 when Sand Hill Road created an unmatched opportunity. If you graduated in 1999 then going to Silicon Valley was highly likely to end badly unless you were lucky enough to pick Google instead of Cisco or Webvan or ExciteAtHome (or any number of other much larger companies).
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We’re working too hard here and going off topic. Your points are fine and valid, but beyond what we are discussing. At least three of the four markets you cited are three of the very tippy top tech markets which attract the very best of the best in huge numbers, and Brown’s ability to place in those markets is arguably an indication of how good they are. You either agree or disagree with that.
Interestingly, later in the thread you point this out:
This list seems to suggest that maybe it’s not just where Brown kids go that drives the salary number in their favor.
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I never said it was “not just where Brown kids go that drives the salary number in their favor.” I said that you need to consider cost of living when comparing salary, and listed multiple other specific contributing factors to the higher reported salary besides just location. According to the Brown alumni survey, nearly all Brown CS grads work in high cost of living areas after college, so one needs to consider that high cost of living to comparisons with other colleges where not as large a portion of grads work in high cost of living.
If you believe that having a lot of grads working in at least 3 particular high cost of living areas means it is good CS program, that’s fine; but not everyone shares that opinion. For example, Santa Clara also has a large portion of CS grads working in Silicon Valley and was one the 25 colleges with the highest average starting salary for CS majors in Payscale’s survey and similar rank for mid career salary. Regardless of whether you believe this is meaningful indication of “how good they are”, you need to consider the higher typical cost of living when comparing Santa Clara’s average salary to other colleges where smaller portion of grads choose to work in Silicon Valley.
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The “Brown Mafia” has been life -changing for my kid, yes, in Silicon Valley. He could have done well out of UMass as well no doubt. Maybe more importantly he had a great college experience at Brown and with work as an undergrad TA, another tech. job on campus, and access to summer internships, he was able to pay a good portion of the cost.
I pushed for UMass but faculty at his public school made him gung-ho for Brown. He had aid but some loans (Brown no longer has loans). I met with financial aid and decided to go for it. He was so happy there and has been happy and successful so in his case, it was worth it.
Harvard kid finishing doctorate in a performing art, happy but poor. Teaching undergrads now but no certain income source ahead - but confident something good will happen. ROI is not financial in this case.
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Not quite. Your inaccurate paraphrasing of what I said leaves out the most important point. I said that a particular program’s overwhelming success (which you helped us ascertain for Brown) in placing students in three of the most important and competitive markets for CS talent suggests it’s a good program. I merely added that those places are expensive, at least in part, because of the relevant market activity in those places, which serves as further evidence of the robust and competitive qualities of those markets.
With that out of the way, what I thought I read you to say (and subsequently allude to) is that the Brown higher salary stat is due to the fact that they tend to work in high COL areas. It was to that my response has been directed. But I see you’re also making the point a dollar doesn’t go as far in Boston as it does in Topeka. Regarding the latter, the point is well taken, but I think this crowd’s sophistication is such that we can assume everyone knows that.
But in going back and trying reacquaint myself with the discussion, I noticed this quote from you that I had missed or skipped over that likely explains why we’re still arguing.
I don’t know what ROI tables typically assume, but I don’t think even stupid people think that way. I have never known anybody to say, “Well, when Firm X hires for Y position, they pay the Cal State kids $50,000 and the Stanford kids $95,000.”
It’s not about the name determining salary, which as I write that seems even more absurd than when I read it. It’s that the name can, and sometimes does, provide entry into a market and at individual companies that pay what they pay.
Which brings us all the way back to my original point: whether @Catcherinthetoast chose the right list or not, with your help we have learned that Brown CS grads congregate in Boston, SV and Seattle (and NY for whatever that is worth in the CS world). If I’m a prospective CS student and I read that, I’d say “sign me up!”
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It’s been awhile since I looked up the specific numbers. Among reporting 2019 (pre-COVID) Brown CS graduates, the most common locations of first job were as follows. Most worked for tech companies, but a significant portion also worked for finance or consulting companies.
- New York City – 36
- San Francisco – 34
- Boston – 19
- Seattle – 13
- San Jose – 4
As mentioned in my earlier posts, college name can influences which employers attend career fairs and strength of alumni network at specific companies. I think it is likely that the listed locations above are overpresented among Brown career fair participants. However, I’d I expect Silicon Valley companies are far more overrpresented at the previously noted Santa Clara University than Brown as well as several other SV area colleges. I’d make a similar comment about UW and other Washington area colleges for Seattle, and similar. However, employers from the listed cities are probably still more represented at Brown than the vast majority of northeast colleges.
As noted in my earlier posts, I expect one contributing factor to that overrepresentation is that students who attend a private college that they perceive as highly prestigious are probably more likely than average to favor working at an employer that they perceive as highly prestigious, which may fit with your comments about the believing the “best of the best” are working in SV, Seattle, or Boston; but apparently not other areas. However, plenty of excellent students do not share this opinion choose to work elsewhere for a variety of reasons, rather than just not having the opportunity to work in SV/Seattle/Boston. Many really do prefer other locations and do not regret their career, if working outside of CA.
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When looking at colleges this cycle, for us, the trade off is really between a north eastern private vs a stronger in CS mid-western public. The mid-western public (like the Santa Clara situation) may place better into SV. I am not even sure if this is really the case, but let us put that aside for a moment. A good northeastern private will give you decisive advantage into mgmt consulting and finance. And if you take a private like even Tufts, they place 25% of their class into great tech jobs. Let alone Brown. The optionality to consider banking and consulting late into your undergrad is really invaluable. This optionality doesn’t depend on being a business major or something. If you pickup either a math or econ minor, you have the optionality automatically.
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Unlike tech, “elite” finance/consulting is one of the few areas where college name really can make a big difference in hiring decisions. However, this does not mean, if you attend an “elite” college, you automatically have the option to work at such a company, if you want it. Admission to an “elite” finance/consulting consulting company is often extremely competitive, which probably contributes to the appeal. And not having a preferred major can put the applicant at a disadvantage in this competitive admission, even if it does not automatically eliminate them.
As noted, employment at such companies is more the exception than the rule. If you look at employers in general, they say that internships, past employment, and having desired skill sets to be successful on the job are most important. And college name is among the least important factors. For example, I’ve mentioned the survey at https://chronicle-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/5/items/biz/pdf/Employers%20Survey.pdf in which a survey of hundreds employers marked college reputation as the least influential of the listed criteria in hiring decisions for new grads. They also marked state flagships as the most desired college type for hiring new grads, and marked elite colleges significantly lower on average.
That said, I agree that if you want to work in “elite” finance/consulting after college, then it helps to choose a “target” college. Brown is no doubt high on that target list, but not as high as handful of others.
Again, I didn’t say what you said I said. There’s no “apparently” about it. I said this:
I’m not at all interested in what “plenty of other excellent students” do or do not do and what their preferences are and whether they do or do not regret their choices. That’s just nebulous commentary and not helpful to this discussion.
Are Seattle, the Bay Area and Boston (again, IDK about NY) not three of the top tech markets in the US that do, in fact, attract the best of the best in large numbers? Not all of the best of the best, which would be an absurd claim for anyone to make about anything. Or forget the “best of the best” nomenclature; it’s unnecessary for my point. Do those markets command great interest from high level CS talent or don’t they? If they do (I believe so), and we know from you that Brown kids tend to land in those markets, then I rest my case.
You seem to be spending a lot of time and energy bouncing around this one simple point, which is the sum total of all I am saying here. Brown kids get CS jobs in top and competitive markets. You helped us learn that. What’s more to discuss?
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I am speaking from the lived experience of my kids and other kids I and they know. This is not based on some generic survey. I am not saying there is automatic preference, but your resume will get a look if you come from a reputed place. Much harder to get a look if you come from a less reputed place. You still need to get through the rest of the process. For example I have second hand knowledge of a 3.3 GPA sophomore getting a FB internship this cycle. I have second hand knowledge of a bio major sophomore getting a banking internship etc … I know sophomore kids who walk into a big-tech interview with zero prep and get an internship. Not because they are getting favors. I am not making random claims :-). Anyway, I think both sides of the argument have discussed this issue sufficiently :-). I will sign off from this topic. Good to hear your point of view.