Sr. Software Engineer salary?

[kev374]

Is $130k asking salary for a Sr. Software Engineer full time position in the Orange County area average, too high or too low? Assumption being that there are no other bonuses.

This would result in possibly a $125k final offer and settlement after negotiation.

[bibsoconner]

Salary.com is showing $122K for a Software Engineer IV (I couldn’t find Sr. Software Engineer!) in Irvine. So, I think you’re not being unreasonable at all. You might want to play with Salary.com (or other sites) and see what you come up with. For example, you may or may not agree that Software Engineer IV is equivalent to Sr. Software Engineer.

I’m a Senior Software Engineer (C#/MVVM/math) in San Diego and currently making $115K, but then I’m underpaid in return for a (relatively) stress free job and (supposedly) generous equity position. My own research indicates that $125 would be more appropriate in San Diego. So perhaps OC and San Diego are the same? Good luck!

[Hatfield]

Dunno if this is still the case, but for a long time salaries in San Diego were a tad lower than LA/OC, and considerably lower than the Bay Area. I guess because so many people want to live here?

[no_such_reality]

It depends on the company. Size, revenue, business, and how corporate they are.

There’s a two tier employer market in OC. Listed and established firms and others. Listed pay more unless you’re in extremely early.

That said, how senior is senior?

More importantly what specific skills are you talking about? In demand skills command a premium for anything beyond marginally punching your way out of a plastic grocery store bag.

You may also have better chance phrasing it as a “total comp” package. Always talk total comp at that level..

Overall, $130K. Coming from current employment, solid skills and solid 7-8 yr experience and good track record is workable.

If their base pay is pinched, total comp gives them a way to make it work.

[barnaby33]

Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Not stellar, but reasonable. As in I wouldn’t jump from another company for that salary, unless conditions were markedly better, but it certainly isn’t low.
Josh

[an]

Not all Sr. Software Engineer positions are equal. I’m getting head hunters pinging me for Sr. SW Engineer positions doing Android Dev in San Diego and they’re anywhere between $110-150k. So, $130k is squarely in the middle of that range. But I don’t know what your expertise is and that can great affect your salary range.

[carlsbadworker]

Slightly off topic, so if Android Dev gets paid between $110-150K, would $75/hour a good rate for experienced freelancer mobile developers based in SoCal? (Assume short project without tight deadline, no work for design is needed with invision prototype ready)

[spdrun]

$100-150/hr at least. Remember that you’re paying for things that an employee does not pay for.

Or charge by the project rather than hourly.

[carlsbadworker]

Right, I think flu has a formula converting salary to hourly pay but I forgot about the exact number he used.

[kev374]

how does one break into Android development? I have done a bit of it but not officially at any job. I just haven’t had an opportunity yet on a project.

[spdrun]

Start coding. Join your local tech meetup listserv, see if anyone is requesting a small development project. Offer your services cheap as a side gig.

[an]

If you don’t have any opportunity to develop it for work, then you can always create apps and publish it to the store. There are also freelance stuff where you can create apps for people.

[Coronita]

[quote=kev374]how does one break into Android development? I have done a bit of it but not officially at any job. I just haven’t had an opportunity yet on a project.[/quote]

I wouldn’t work for free for someone else that wants an app written. No free lunch. What I would do is think of something you think you would like to have on your Android or iPhone that is relatively easy to do and just write an app to do it, even if an app already exists.

For example, I hate organizing my receipts. So I wrote something that after I take a picture of a receipt, I pick which folder it gets uploaded to on google drive, so at tax time, I don’t have to deal with the current mess I’m dealing with.

And awhile ago, I wrote a stupid mileage log app that just records the time you drive to your next business meeting, capturing start time, end time, and distance using the GPS apis, which then gets exported to a .CSV file. Wasn’t that hard to do, and it doesn’t have to have a fancy UI.

This will also test to see how interested you really are in wanting to learn.

[Author]

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