...Their website doesn't work at all for me.

Um...exactly when did $84,000 get to be "peanuts"? I'd love to be making that kind of money (and working for Apple). Some perspective, please.

Um...exactly when did $84,000 get to be "peanuts"? I'd love to be making that kind of money (and working for Apple). Some perspective, please.

When? The minute you move from wherever you are to Silicon Valley.

Here's your perspective - a quick glance at a real estate site shows that a 1500 square foot, 3 bedroom house in the Cupertino, CA area sells for about $1,500,000.

Maybe Applebots are just out of 'Kewl U' so 84K is pretty damn good. On the other hand Google has scads of PhD's working for them. It's weird in a way that new companies actually tend to have older more experienced employees than older firms. At IBM the median tenure in 1996 was >15 years. Now it's <4 years. As a result, salaries tend to drop. Perhaps Apple is going through the same thing whereas Google is still on the upswing, organizationally wise.

The flipside of it, is that good companies to work for really do attract people who want to work for reasons other than money. I can think a bunch of companies who, if they offered me a job, I would demand screw you money up front just because they're a bunch of assholes.

deployed around the country to a certain degree? That would certainly pull down the averages a bit. Pretty much all of GOOG's engineering is in Mtn View, and salaries are just higher in Silicon Valley-- especially northern Silcon Valley.

An Apple engineer living outside of the Bay Area has a higher standard of living than the Google guy making $20K more a year in one of the most expensive places in the world to live.

Are those random engineers who are posting? Are there large samples?

Of course not.

That means that you'll have to wait a bit if you really want to draw conclusions from their data.

Sorry, but even in Silicon Valley $84K is not peanuts. Lower than average engineer salary at comparable companies? Apparently. Lower than average engineer salary? Possibly. Lower than average salary in Santa Clara County? No (it's about $75K). Anything higher than average wage in an area is not "peanuts" and it's insulting to the many people who live, work, and even raise families on much less in this valley to suggest it is.

If $75K is the average salary in Santa Clara then $84K is even more peanuts than I would have thought, since the Average clearly includes young workers, and non-graduates . In fact why do a 4 year engineering course to earn slightly above the average? I suspect the figures are wrong, but if true, it explains why people tend not to do these complex courses in university anymore - there is far more money in simpler occupations like real estate. Of course what is not factored here is stock options, about which Apple is quite generous.

most of Apple's engineers are hardware engineers and compiled software engineers. This stuff takes much longer to master than the web programming being done at the younger companies.

I guess I'm glad I don't live in the Silicon Valley.

I'd heard they were chronically lowballing people on salary. Its nice to know they are paying well, finally.

84K is peanuts for Silicon Valley, btw. I don't care how huffy people get. Living there is scary expensive, which makes me glad I live and work elsewhere.

Maybe we can use blogs and community websites to take over the responsibilities of all the gummit watchdog groups that don't/won't/can't do anything anymore.

So, we basically lost OSHA, the EPA, the Clean Air act, and who knows what else. At least we can read each other's reviews while we trash the social contract.

A married couple in Silicon Valley, both making $85K.

Their combined income would allow them-- BARELY-- to buy a modest home (in Silicon Valley, a modest home is actually a large shoebox) somewhere with half decent schools and a sane commute. That, of course, assumes they can save about 15 months of their combined salary for the down payment.

Then, they have a baby (Lets call her Nano). Either one of Nano's parents leaves Apple, and the single $85K salary is covering a massive mortgage all by itself, or, alternatively, Nano goes to daycare at a cost of about $25-30K a year. Mom and Dad can- maybe- still afford the house, but the two highly skilled engineers cant even afford to buy an iPod.

armchairlinguist, dont take offense, but living on a salary that would be 'normal' or even generous in most of the world just dont cut it here. Does that mean that Apple engineers are of higher societal value than someone earning an 'average' wage? Certainly not. But those living off of peanut shells, like teachers, around here, are even more deeply hosed!

... no wonder the airlines don't serve them anymore

Are they hiring organic chemists? No? Guess I'll stick with my current employer then.

As a former employee of Apple and various other tech firms in Silicon Valley, it's absolutely true that Apple compensation is less about money and more about aura. But it seems to be working: they're getting and keeping top talent, and making great products. The employees don't seem to mind, so why should we?

(And to be fair, many Apple employees made a killing in stock options over the past 5 years.)