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Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2025
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Wait what? Who is making $165k out of college?
I don't even make $165k after working for... I don't know let's say 12 or 15 I can't keep track what counts anymore
Some big tech companies pay that, theoretically, in total compensation for entry level. These companies make about $1 million per employee.
My first tech job out of college was $55k.
Average in my area for new grads at best is like $85k.
My highest paying was $195k as a Senior and my average is probably $150k as a Senior / Lead.
None of this was big tech though.
Yeah, I'm more-or-less the same. Outside of Silicon Valley, Seattle, and a few other big metros, tech pay is good, but not amazing. I know what I'd have to do to get $200k+, but I'm unwilling to (crazy hours, move to SF, etc).
Yeah I made $51k out of college.
My first software job I made $68k? Granted Im at $150k after all that time, but still. Dang yo you know?
I don't make quite that after 8 years of doing this stuff. That being said, I dropped out of college twice. Maybe $100k of debt is what I need to close that $25k difference lol
Computer science and engineering grads at the top of their class at top schools who choose not to go to grad school. This thread claims to cite Department of Education data to show median salaries 3 years after graduation, and some of them are higher than $165k. Sure, that's 3 years out, but it's also median, so one would expect 75th or 90th percentile number to be higher.
Anecdotally, I know people from Stanford/MIT who did get their first jobs in the Bay Area for more than $150k more than 10 years ago, so it was definitely possible.
But this NYT article has stories about graduates from Purdue, Oregon State, and Georgetown which are good schools but also generally weren't the schools producing many graduates landing in those $150k jobs as that very top tier. I would assume the kids graduating from Cal Tech, MIT, Stanford, and UC Berkeley are still doing well. But the middle is getting left behind.
I technically did... But I had prior experience to my college degrees. Also blew through 6 years of degree in 3.5. Turns out college is piss easy if you already have the real world experience.
How did you do that? Did you take more than 5 courses per semester or did you challenge a bunch of exams?
18-24 credit hour semesters... and summer courses when available.
Since I knew virtually most of the program going in, course load in general was stupidly easy to manage. But I would not recommend it unless you really know the material/subject matter.
Edit: there was heavy incentive... GI bill pays for 4 years of schooling. I have a few months left of that 4 year period left of my GI bill... But if I didn't take everything accelerated, I couldn't get the masters. So I just went full ham on the curriculum.
Big tech in HCOL areas (Seattle, all of Cali, etc.) pay new grads about 100k to 150k base, with a hefty sign on bonus (anywhere from 20k to 50k). RSUs usually only vest about 5 to 10% of their total stock in the first year, but thats about 5k to 10k
Of course HCOL means this money is relatively less than it seems, but still a lot for new grads.
I never came even close with 25 years under my belt.
My mother won't answer me what her salary was when she retired. Easily in the industry for 30-40 years, but I know it was under $200k. Granted she was an electrical engineer before getting her masters in computer science, but I also suspect it has to do with the fact that she and I didn't work for the big tech giants.
And I have no interest in doing so.
I mean I did not work for a tech giant but not like I would not have taken one but yeah I was not looking for work in new york or san fran.