Were people getting paid $81k in 1990? This site shows that 95th percentile in 1990 was $58k, and doesn't have more granular data than that above the 95th percentile. So someone making $81k was definitely a 5 percenter, maybe even a 2 percenter.

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.

Who is making $165k out of college?

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.

This data to me didn’t show much in the way of by-field statistics. If we’re comparing software development pay at the naîssance of the field to today, it should be complicated to do so. I’d expect to look at top 5% at the very least because of how new and niche computing and coding in general was in the 90s.

You have to expect that OP, who is well established in his field, to compare accordingly, not with average pay of 1990.

That site is talking about averages, assembly across the board. The person you’re talking to is explicitly talking about CS jobs, like software developer or system engineer.

You can’t really compare the two.

You have to expect that OP, who is well established in his field, to compare accordingly, not with average pay of 1990.

I'm talking about a number that is 1.4x the 95th percentile generally. It'd be weird to assume that programmers were getting paid that much more than doctors and lawyers and bankers.

According to this survey series, median IEEE members were making about $58k (which was also the average for 35-year-olds in the survey. Electrical engineering is a closely related discipline to programming.

So yeah, an $81k salary was really, really high in 1990. I suspect the original comment was thinking of the 90's in general, and chose a salary from later in the decade while running the inflation numbers back to 1990, using the wrong conversion factor for inflation.

Edited to add: this Bureau of Labor Statistics publication summarizes salaries by several professions and experience levels as of March 1990. The most senior programmers were making around $34k, the most senior systems analysts were making about $69k, and the most senior managers, who could fairly be described as executives, were making about $88k.

Maybe they oughta unionize. Lol.

800 is fucking huge tho. Big city folk can easily fitinto 300 if living alone.

No, but it is a starting point for passing some kind of sanity check. Someone who was making $81k in 1990 was making an exceedingly high salary in the general population, and computer-related professions weren't exactly known for high salaries until maybe the 2000's.

[This report] (https://www.bls.gov/ocs/publications/pdf/white-collar-pay-private-goods-producing-industries-march-1990.pdf) has government statistics showing that in March 1990, entry level programmers were making on average about $27k. Senior programmers were making about $34k. Systems analysts (which I understand to have primarily been mainframe programmers in 1990) were making low 30s at the entry level and high 60s at the most senior level. Going up the management track, only the fourth and highest level was making above $80k, and it seems to me that those are going to be high level executives.

So yeah, $81k is a very senior level in the 1990s tech industry, probably significantly less common than today's $200k tech jobs.

It's a modest bedroom, small living room, and a kitchen.

You can fit in a smaller space. I wouldn't say you can live in it. 300ft is barely a hotel room.