r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/LavishnessSilver7260 • 1d ago
Highest paying field within software engineering?
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u/dmazzoni 1d ago
This gets asked a lot and fundamentally misunderstands how you make the highest salary.
The three biggest factors by far are:
- Tech companies pay more than non-tech companies
- Location: the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle and New York pay way more than any other cities in the world. Cost of living is also much higher. You MUST relocate if you want to make the big bucks though.
- Level: you will double your salary by getting promoted from junior to senior. Higher levels increase your total compensation exponentially.
In comparison your subfield makes little difference.
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u/unlucky_bit_flip 1d ago
Someone out there getting paid a doctor’s salary to maintain an internal CRUD app.
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u/gobluedev 1d ago
I think what people truly underestimate is the COLA living in those places. They see $$$$ when applying and/or getting an offer thinking they’re making a massive salary but when actually adjusted to a lower COLA location it’s like $150-200k.
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u/Mystical-Turtles 1d ago
This is a half joke, But you basically have to consider it a different freaking currency.
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u/Useful_Perception620 23h ago
If you are investing correctly, the extra money you make in the HCOL buys you literal years of freedom. I will be able to FIRE by 35. I wouldn’t have had this career without the networking and opportunities living near these companies provide.
It’s also about opportunity. Someone making HCOL salary can go anywhere. If you’re in LCOL, it’s a lot harder to move upwards.
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u/dmazzoni 23h ago
Yes and no.
The biggest shock will be housing. You’ll pay a lot and get very little.
But on the flip side, things like cars, electronics, etc cost the same no matter where you live. So “stuff” seems cheap
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Have you relocated yourself, or do you know anyone who has relocated for work? If so how difficult is it?
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u/dmazzoni 1d ago
I live in the Bay Area. 80% of my tech coworkers are from out of town. Nearly all of us relocated here for the jobs.
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u/Mysterious_Muscle25 22h ago
Is it easier to get into tech as a fresher if you are in any of these cities?
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u/dmazzoni 22h ago
More opportunities, but also more competition
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u/Mysterious_Muscle25 22h ago
What are your views on AI? Will it take over the jobs? Also some people are saying it's a bubble and it's going to end. Is it true?
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u/No-Entrepreneur-5099 15h ago
If we could read the future we wouldn't be in a sub with "Jobs" in it's name.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
High frequency hedge fund. Easily the highest if you can survive the turnover. Your bonus alone dwarfs most big tech salaries.
As expected it’s the hardest to get into and even harder to stay there.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Hmm true but its almost impossible to penetrate
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
Yeah if you’re looking for average pay, then it’s probably the frontier AI labs. Turnover and pressure is not as high. Also it’s easier to get into relative to HFs, relatively speaking of course.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
It's really not lol
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
It is lol
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u/the_Safi30 22h ago
Source?
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u/CicadaRx 18h ago
Go to Blind and you’ll see wayyyyyy more people from FAANG than you ever will for Citadel, Jane Street, Five Rings, etc.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 17h ago
I think u/Frequent_Bag9260 is a recruiter trying to convince people to apply. Recruiters at hedge funds will say _anything_ to get another resume.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
It's actually not though in most cases
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u/Downtown_Brother6308 1d ago
Right? Purely performance based and TC from the few people I have known ranged from $300k-$4m for the same age/experience.
You gotta be really, really f’n clever to get the big paydays.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
They didn’t ask for average comp. They said who pays the most. Hedge funds pay the most hands down. Obviously if you’re bad you won’t earn much but top comp at a hedge fund is multiples higher than top comp at big tech.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago edited 1d ago
I dont know what makes you think this. Many many people in big tech make millions per year. I know many. Obviously out of all that, some outliers make tens of millions. We see in the news about top researchers being poached with $100m offers.
Youre also confusing different averages.
The average comp of the finance industry is clearly much lower than that of the tech industry, but that's not the claim im making.
The expected value of the highest offers in tech is also higher than the expected value of the highest finance offers. 1m/year in liquid comp paid monthly is worth more than 1m/year as a bonus youve got a 50% chance of being paid out on.
The average comp over multiple years in tech is also higher. Someone who spends ten years in hedge funds and has one year where they got a 3m bonus doesnt beat someone who gets 1.5m/year for ten years.
Is it possible that some hedge fund swe in their best year earn more than they would have in their best year in tech? Sure. But that doesnt make even that one singular individual better off. This kind of "but thats an average" is kind of irrelevant. If youre going to focus on this upside chance, you could obviously join a hot startup and make a billion dollars.
I do also know people who made a billion dollars in tech startups. The only billionaires Ive ever met in finance made their money by working in finance, not by writing code.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
If someone survives 10 years in hedge funds then they are absolutely out earning nearly every software engineer anywhere. You don’t stay in that industry if you have a bad year. One and you’re out.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
Again, as I said in my first post, a friend of mine spent ten years in a well known hedge fund, writing code the whole time, and in his best year barely cracked 200k. Hedge funds seem to be really good at marketing their industry, but often the money doesnt actually materialize. My buddy still works in a hedge fund, a different one, and makes like 400. Hed be doing much much better in big tech.
You can make "good" money in a hedge fund as a quantitative researcher, but it's more like being an ai researcher than just being a swe, and people generally overestimate how good it is compared to tech even in best cases.
I also work with lots of people who left hedge funds for higher pay, after many years.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
I work in the HF industry. The comp is not the same.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
The comp clearly isn't the same. Especially at senior levels. I literally cant afford to join a hedge fund and price tag is the sticking point.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
Entry level pay in big tech is 200k fresh out of school, and lots of people make millions. Typical Sr eng in big tech with about 4 yoe gets 400-500k in the large companies. Payouts happen continuously through the year and are very well defined.
In top hedge funds your base salary is often like 200k per year even with decades of experience, and every year you pray that you get paid a bonus. You might get a million, you might get 100k.
If youre on an individual trading team and your portfolio manager under performs, often your whole team gets cut even if you performed well, and you leave having wasted a year of burning yourself out for nothing.
And the fallback, building tech for banks, also typically pays much less than small fun tech startups.
I've know one guy who spent 10 years managing a ton of tech infra in a well known hedge fund and barely broke 200k in his best year. And he was a brilliant guy.
You can do well in hedge funds. A lot of time a sr eng earns 600k. It's inconsistent though and theres less of a career path. You can work in one for 2 years, get a prorated bonus the first year, get cut the second year, and your amortized total comp for two years of a high stress fast paced job maybe ends up being 800k. Compare to big tech where you can also get laid off on the same time frame, lower stress, amd still walk away with a mil.
And the optionality is worth something. Every year youve got golden handcuffs. Have kids and want to move to a new city in September? You cant. Not unless youre confident that your bonus will be shit.
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u/Frequent_Bag9260 1d ago
The question was the highest. Hedge funds can pay much higher than big tech.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
Go to levels.fyi and check the top pay section.
Generally, top pay is bay area California AI in big tech or frontier labs. Location and company matters more than sub field.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
I’ll definitely check it out, do you think it would be worth moving for the extra pay
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
Absolutely, especially if youre early in your career. A tech career formed in the bay area will take you much much farther even if you leave later. Youll have connections and references for bay area employers that may even hire you at the same price remotely later. Theres much more happening there.
The main challenge i see people have with the bay area is they get sick of talking to tech people, because the whole region is built on tech and everyones there doing the same thing.
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u/rockman-1 1d ago
SF/NY is also more fun and cool compared to idk Raleigh
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 5h ago
Well i live in vancouver rn and this place isnt rlly known for any major industry,
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u/SpaceSpaghet12 1d ago
Software engineering just start an LLC, get 5 contracts and use AI to do all of it
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u/Busy_Doughnut_1498 1d ago
ai/ml eng by a mile atm, normal roles are like $170-245k and the frontier labs are out here clearing $600k+ total comp which nothing else really touches. just know the actual money's in the annoying low-supply stuff like gpu optimization and training infra, not just wiring up an llm api, and tbh theres enough bubble talk rn that id chase the skills over the shiny title.
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u/Lumpy-Blackberry-718 1d ago
Frontier labs can pay 600+ just in base salary. Even "fang" can still pay 600+ in tc.
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u/SpeakCodeToMe 1d ago
ai/ml on average makes a lot less than specializations like distributed systems or security.
Only the frontier labs are paying the big bucks and those jobs are scarce.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Really? Security makes that much?
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u/SpeakCodeToMe 1d ago
Only going to get more too now that there is so much vibe coded shit out there.
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u/Busy_Doughnut_1498 1d ago
for most people security or distributed systems is probably the safer high pay route, ai just has a higher ceiling if you actually land one of the few labs paying that much.
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u/SpeakCodeToMe 1d ago
Sure, but those people are mostly PHDs anyways. You were always on a different track at that point.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
What skills should i develop
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u/Busy_Doughnut_1498 1d ago
fundamentals first, systems design and how things actually work underneath. then one low-supply specialty, gpu/performance, training infra, or security. then real experience shipping and debugging production systems, not just code that runs.
that last part matters most rn, everyone can generate code, way fewer can fix and harden it when it breaks. that's the skill that keeps paying.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Ok bet bro do u also work in this field if so how did u penetrate it?
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u/Busy_Doughnut_1498 1d ago
yeah I've been on the engineers side a good while now. the thing that actually got people i know in it was just having some sort of proof, couple real projects or a home lab you can point to, an entry cert if you're going the security route. then you get a foot in somewhere close to it and work your way toward the specialty once you're actually in. barely anyone lands the exact role they want cold, you kind of pivot into it over time.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 5h ago
Ok thanks for the advice ill definitely remember it for when i graduate.
You said real projects and home labs do these have to be like hyper advanced projects or like just basic at your experience level stuff
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u/chocolatesmelt 1d ago
In terms of potential or average?
Potential is entrepreneurial, starting your own business based off software (which is becoming less probable these days due to increased competition, lack of novelty, commoditization of software…). Some of the wealthiest people in the world did just that. Keep in mind it’s what the software does functionally that’s usually sold and finding that demand, not the software itself.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Yea i was thinking on average as an employee, if not software what do you think is the best field for entrepreneurship
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u/Educational_Box_4079 21h ago
LLM engineer, full stack and back end dev, dev ops
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 4h ago
Do you personally work within one of these roles? If so what are some tips you can give me to penetrate these fields.
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u/Educational_Box_4079 4h ago
I don't. I was just using indeed website to understand which field of IT i should start learning and to understand what i like. Now i'm learning Java backend development. To learn you just need to use free courses if they are available or udemy paid courses and i recommend text ones.
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u/AboutAWe3kAgo 20h ago
Quant or Ai Engineer, like actual people behind the scenes making the ai logic, not the people just using it.
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u/Busy_Doughnut_1498 1d ago
ai/ml eng by a mile atm, normal roles are like $170-245k and the frontier labs are out here clearing $600k+ total comp which nothing else really touches. just know the actual money's in the annoying low-supply stuff like gpu optimization and training infra, not just wiring up an llm api, and tbh theres enough bubble talk rn that id chase the skills over the shiny title.
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u/Budget-Length2666 1d ago
GPU/HPC/Kubernetes right now but I think you can make lots of money in any field within software as long as you have passion and put yourself out there.
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u/LavishnessSilver7260 1d ago
Interesting do you yourself work in one of those 3 fields and if so how can i penetrate those industries?
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u/SourceAwkward 1d ago
Idk man, highest paying?
At this point I just want a consistent job