Search By Salary

Our portfolio company Indeed has done something pretty neat. They've culled salary data from millions of current job listings and made it searchable. Of course, the obvious thing to do with this is look for jobs that pay what you want to make.

But there are lots of other uses. Like this analysis I did of the average salaries of "venture backed" jobs in some of the major VC markets. I've added this chart to my right sidebar, right under my Indeed jobroll with an ad for joining a startup in NYC because "it pays more!".

Indeed explains their methodology for this salary search on the Indeed blog.

Give it a try, it's fun and informative.

Comments

[Dimitar Vesselinov]

Fred, for $117,000 you could hire a whole team of very dood developers and designers (10-15 people) in Eastern Europe, Russia or India for one year!

[Don Park]

Having helped more than a handful of startups, I would choose a squadron of attack helicopters over an army of inexperienced soldiers any day. Fundamentally, it's a matter of trust. At each startup, engineers I could trust to farm off important tasks to could be counted with only one hand, even startups that grew to 100~200. Pretty sad.

In short, you can't raise tents without a few tent poles.

[Todd Allen]

Very neat, but at least in the San Diego area the numbers seem low.

http://www.indeed.com/salary?q1=Chief+Executive+Officer&l1=San+Diego%2C+CA&q2=Senior+Software+Engineer&l2=San+Diego%2C+CA&q3=Vice+President+of+Product+Management&l3=San+Diego%2C+CA&q4=Vice+President&l4=San+Diego%2C+CA&q5=Software+Engineer&l5=San+Diego%2C+CA&q6=programmer&l6=San+Diego%2C+CA&q7=graphic+designer&l7=San+Diego%2C+CA

I wouldn't take a job in San Diego for any of those salaries, but if you fit the bill and WOULD... let me know!

[simon]

i stumbled accross this week or two ago ... neato

[Kate]

It's a neat little tool and I think the engine itself has a ton of applications, but I am not sure salary ranges posted in ads are an accurate guide since 90% of executive jobs are filled through other means.

[Dan Cornish]

The reason it costs so much in NYC is because start ups compete with Wall Street for talent. The money on Wall Street skews the salary curve. Also the cost of living is CRAZY for middle class people. A rock start programmer in NYC making 120K is just getting by. The same programmer in Austin making 120K is living like a king. Starting a software company in NYC is borderline irresponsible. There should be a really compelling reason to do it. Attracting good talent is not one of them. I submit there is better talent outside of NYC because most really good developers are smart people and they also like to live well.

[fred]

interesting that this turned into a debate about starting companies in NYC.

people start companies in NYC because they want to live here and they manage the costs associated with doing so.

it turns out that of the seven portfolio companies we have in NYC, only one has any significant development team in NYC.

almost all of them do their deveopment elsewhere.

fred

[Jianing]

I can only see the average salary in the search results. Is there a way to see other information like range, median, distribution?

[MillionDollarCountDown]

Cool web site. Now, this is something I can use to negotiate with my boss. Thanks.

[Adam Phillabaum]

I really think they should include some sort of cost of living index along with those numbers, and use those indexes to show what someone would really be earning in that city. As someone pointed out making $120k in NYC is a lot different than makeing $120k in Austin or even Seattle.

[Paul]

I'm currently working with local developers (in Cambridge) and outsourcing to developers in Bangalore. Good developers there can make up to $46,000/year. You no longer have the ability to have 10-15 offshore people for 120k, more like 2 or 3.

Back in 1999, I recall having a very difficult time hiring. mostly because there were too few people and too many jobs. Simple supply and demand economics. A lot of the applicants I saw were folks who recently switched careers in order to take advantage of the increased salaries in high tech. If these folks actually got the jobs they were looking for and the salaries they were demanding then the companies hiring them were getting totally ripped off.
Obviously the job market corrected itself since then, and some of those folks who switched careers have persevered, but most have not.
Back then, it might have been true that you could hire offshore developers for a small fraction of their American counterparts. Since then the overseas market has changed significantly and tech workers are earning much more.

It's all economics.
Given today's state of the market, I think salaries will continue to rise for offshore developers, and they will soon come down for their American counterparts.

Smart companies hire locally for the long-term, and outsource during market fluctuations like these. They also offer incentives to their current staff so they don't leave simply for higher paying jobs.

Just some rambling thoughts with absolutely no data to back it up. These are just my opinions. :--)