Without knowing what field your husband is in, I don’t know why he wouldn’t be able to command at least 100K (and probably more).
I have 14 years of experience and make just a bit under what he was asking for as an automated test engineer (QA) with a background in embedded systems design (I work in hospital equipment design). My brother has similar years of experience in DSP and makes a bit more than I do (working for a satellite video equipment manufacturer). I would say the normal wage for a senior software engineer (someone with 12+ years experience) in this area is probably around 95-105K. I think mechanical and hardware engineer’s average a bit lower, but 70K would definitely be very much on the low side.
Of course, it depends on his field – sometimes if you get overspecialized, it can actually work to your disadvantage if theres not a large enough market for those skills at the moment (something I learned a few years back myself) – after all, if there’s only one company hiring in an area for a particular specialty – and that company knows it – they can turn that to their advantage.
SDEngineer, great to hear you make that salary. Gives me something to look forward to. I am in the same field but with 7 years of experience. Just the last few years my salary has jumped about 25k.
Actually, a lot of startups pay below “scale” – of course, if that startup goes public, there’s a huge difference between a stock option issued at $0.10 (what I got a large block grant at when I worked at a startup), and a stock option issued at $43.00 (what I got issued this year).
I am in this category at this time. Sure I could have made more money going to a bigger company but the experience I have gained will be worth much more if/when I decide to make a jump to an established company.
