What is a approx salary for people right out of college?

[Lablitz]

new grads can make $160,000 (base, bonus, stock options, sign on bonus) as a software engineer at google/facebook in the San francisco bay area.

[MLSFan]

Originally Posted by Lablitz

new grads can make $160,000 (base, bonus, stock options, sign on bonus) as a software engineer at google/facebook in the San francisco bay area.

only if they are skilled... being a new grad doesnt mean they didnt gain experience during the years they were in college

[mizzourah2006]

Originally Posted by Lablitz

new grads can make $160,000 (base, bonus, stock options, sign on bonus) as a software engineer at google/facebook in the San francisco bay area.

Also keep in mind the cost of living of that area. My brother graduated with a CS degree from Mizzou in 2009 and $60k/yr starting jobs were very common in the KC/STL area for that type of job. $60k/yr is about equivalent to $145k/yr in Sunnyvale today and this was 9 years ago.

I’ve repeatedly turned down jobs in expensive cities that sound great on paper because it’s way more money than I ever thought I’d make in my life but then I look at what a house costs, what daycare costs, how my commute time would triple, etc. Then you plug that salary into a couple of cost of living calculators and you find out that even though it’s a 30%+ raise it’s actually a net loss in standard of living.

My main point is I know that salary is a measuring contest where people like to compare and this is obviously going to be personal, but for me I’d rather make less and have it go farther than make more and spend a larger % of my total income just to live a similar lifestyle.

[ShampooBanana]

I made about $33k in my first real professional job in 2003. That was in a pretty low COL midwestern town where you could buy a home for $100k. I knew a few years later guys (friends of mine) getting job offers straight out of school for $70-75k to work for some tech companies. These friends were computer science or electrical engineering grads, and granted my university was one of the top schools for that. One went to work at Intel in AZ, another Intel in Portland, another Microsoft in Seattle (started at $90k but also dropped out of the doctoral program for the job so pretty smart guy), another AMD in Austin. I think typical these days for a grad from a reasonable, respectable four-year college is around $45-50k for a first job out of undergrad.