Filed under: Apple Corporate
Apple losing engineers due to low salaries? Not so fast
A post on Slashdot by Oren Hurvitz yesterday highlights a Glassdoor analysis, claiming engineers at Apple have significantly lower annual salaries than their Silicon Valley (and Redmond) peers:
- Apple: $89,000
- Yahoo!: $105,375
- Microsoft: $105,642
- Google: $112,573
The post asks, "Will Apple have to raise salaries to match the market rate, or face defections?"
Cnet's Matt Asay says, essentially, "nah." Apple's high stock price and options benefits are likely a reason many engineers are staying. Plus, he asks, "where are these developers going to go?" The coming [staying? already-here? -- ed.] recession and a sagging employment market aren't going to make it easy for engineers to find higher-paid jobs elsewhere in the Valley.
On the other hand, Hurvitz notes on his blog that when squared with the company's net income, Apple's engineers are getting the short end of the stick, since their low salaries made a large difference in Apple's bottom line.
Even so, Asay says, "Apple has time to figure this out and may not need to do anything."
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Jeff said 12:14PM on 6-18-2008
Game developers take a similar size salary cut to work in a field they're passionate about. If apple's staff is half as fanatical as its userbase is, it makes sense that developers would work for less pay in return for the privilege of touching shiny, shiny Apple products.
Not that I think that makes much sense, but people are far from the rational actors that economists wish us to be.
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Jon Niola said 12:16PM on 6-18-2008
That is definitely true. I know many game developers who take a good 15-20% less pay for their position than they would get in other industries just because they really enjoy the work.
Prometheus25 said 1:35PM on 6-18-2008
What really irks us Economists is that you somehow define this behavior as "not rational". People get utility from different sources and economists understand this perfectly well. These individuals are still acting in their own rational self interest.
peter said 12:23PM on 6-18-2008
This is so stupid. The SOURCE of these articles is based on a few salary inputs. Not the entire board.
Apple gets the engineers they want, because the engineers want to work for Apple.
And of course they pay well, I bet they smoke Google in salary and benefits.
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kurt.tappe said 12:30PM on 6-18-2008
>"I bet they smoke Google in salary and benefits."
And why do you bet that? Google is world-renowned for their great pay, great work atmosphere, and great benefits. That's why there is a 30,000-deep waiting list to get hired there. In fact, as a 20-year Mac user and rabid Apple fan, even I'd rather work at Google than Apple if given the choice.
peter said 12:35PM on 6-18-2008
When has Apple EVER publically said anything about anything?!
Just because they dont advertise their great benefits and pay doesnt mean they arent there.
Kyle said 1:24PM on 6-18-2008
As a former Apple employee I can confirm that while they have nice benefits they are truly lacking to Google's. I would take 4 weeks paid vacation, nap-time, onsite doctor and free food any day of the week. Apple employees even have to pay for their meals on the on-campus cafeteria in Cupertino.
Kuy said 12:38PM on 6-18-2008
Confirmed. I personally know several examples of this phenomenon.
Having solid Cocoa/Objective-C expertise is very valuable to companies who want to broaden their Mac development, and I'd bet it's a better deal to hire one straight from Apple, seeing how disgruntled and undercompensated they often are.
And there's another top-tier Bay-Area software company you're forgetting who needs more Mac lovin'. :-D
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Jim said 12:45PM on 6-18-2008
* off topic warning *
coming [staying? already-here? -- ed.] recession
Just for the record, a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth. We have yet to have one quarter of negative growth during this downturn, so we are not currently in a recession. There are some indications that the worst has past, so many economists believe we will avoid one this cycle. In that light, the words "coming", "staying" and "already-here" are ill-informed.
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Robert Palmer said 12:52PM on 6-18-2008
It was only a qualitative observation that was certainly not intended to be held to rigorous economic scrutiny, such as your hoity-toity "dictionary definitions."
;)
John said 9:27AM on 6-19-2008
Yeah, because a 0.6% growth rate is the equivalent of a booming economy! Workers are happy, able to afford their homes, and paying off their loans left and right!
Jim said 9:39AM on 6-19-2008
Who said the economy was booming?
Galley said 12:47PM on 6-18-2008
$100K probably doesn't go very far in Silicon Valley.
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Brandon Martinez said 1:21PM on 6-18-2008
You know, I was thinking that as well. Around where I live (West Michigan Area), that would be considered "very, very well off" (sadly). Over there, probably not so much.
daily dwayne said 1:36PM on 6-18-2008
what is this "loving what you do" everyone is talking about? you mean..wait a minute...i can ENJOY my job?
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kevin said 1:51PM on 6-18-2008
As a fellow silicon valley tech company employees, I know that almost all tech companies here do their compensation with stock options + salary. I'd rather have $20k less in salary and have apple stock options than $20k more and have yahoo stock options...
You cant really do an apples to apples comparison
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Tristan OTierney said 2:42PM on 6-18-2008
That would be a great argument, except Apple almost never gives options to new hires.
Thayne said 12:12AM on 6-19-2008
You're dead wrong. This article is way off.
mark said 2:09PM on 6-18-2008
First, this is a pathetic study that only has 10 respondents from Google. He never says how many responded from Apple: which probably means only one.
Boo hoo, to some poor college grad (who has at least a B.S.) working at Apple for a paltry $89,000 in this economy. Be lucky you have a job. I'll trade you my unemployment for your truly massive salary.
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AB said 4:28PM on 6-18-2008
Cost of living is where it really hurts. According to cost of living calculations (from http://www.bestplaces.net/) an $89,000 in San Jose is $51,215 in Dallas, TX (another tech-center). Not a bad salary, but still not nearly as impressive.