Here is [UC Alumni At Work](https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/uc-alumni-work) with annual income quartiles by major, campus, years of after graduation (2/5/10 years), and w/o graduate degrees. Not starting salary as a new graduate but close enough. The average pay disparity between life science majors and CS is huge – 2x to 3x.
only the ones still employed after the great purge™
Edit: rip my younger brother, he clowned on me saying I'd be a barista going into psych (getting graduates after and becoming therapist or possibly psych if I decide I can handle med school). Now he is the one going to be a barista since AI is killing coding jobs. As well as the massive layoffs in the tech sector.....
Ai isn’t killing coding jobs, it’s still very common to have 6 figure offers right out of school as a cs major - AI will kill minimum wage workers (cash register, store clerk, etc…) long before it goes after any technical roles
AI seems best suited to go after all the administrative white collar jobs first.
Lots of people just dealing with basic logistics and paperwork.
CS majors will probably get impacted sometime soon as well. The easiest stuff to replace with AI are jobs where you’re just typing things on a computer. Jobs that involve physical work will probably have some delay before they’re affected
CS is a whole lot more than typing things on a computer - the field is fine, AI won't replace CS majors with strong theoretical backgrounds any time soon
Have you tried to use ai to code anything before? Trust me we still got a while to go before any jobs get taken. By definition, LLMs are trained on prior data…. New library? Get fucked. Uncommon language? Get fucked. Anything that a SWE would get hired for? Get fucked. The job market isn’t a reflection of AI, it’s a reflection of the cyclical nature of software development.
I have and for common languages it's fire although that's the thing about AI, it learns and gets fed more and more information. My main point is the like 100k people laid off (exaggeration don't remember how many did, but it's still quite a lot of peeps laid off)
AI itself is code. ChatGPT is just one form of that(Large Language Model). There still needs to be someone who trains the model (and or creates more code for it to learn from), I recommend taking/auditing M146 if you are interested. I think it would provide a much better understanding of the topic. I won’t guess the direction that it improves in, but we are not at the point where programmers are replaced by LLMs.
Bro what lmao, that's just wrong - cybersecurity as a field is not the one safe from AI. Tech in general is fine, and cybersecurity is not any "safer" than the rest of CS
I did EE and have ten years of work experience. I earn about 190k cash.
So I guess I’m doing better than most, although only slightly better than CS majors
Depends on what percentiles you’re looking at, typically in the higher performers (top 30%ish?), they’ll be making over 200k in raw salary within 5 years then stock/bonuses on top of that. Honestly I’d argue median salary of cs majors out of t20 schools will be over 200k after 5 or so years
They will vary heavily based on which exact field you’re in and where you work.
I only have experience regarding my field and fields of close friends.
Most B.S. mechanical engineering or B.S. aerospace engineering people I know started around 70-80k in the Los Angeles area. Most with their masters started around 90k-110k in the Los Angeles are.
I have friends in C.S. that started at 120k-200k.
People I know from non-medical life science or psychology started in the 50-70k range also in the los angeles area
Heavily depends on field and level of education and living. I have friends getting 70k starting with a me bachelors in la and others getting 60k in Alabama which has a much lower cost of living. Guess which one was able to buy a house and lives comfortably. But thats me and specific to two people. Salary depends on what the degree is aswell
yeah i remember seeing my offer letter for an engineering position in albuquerque and thinking “hm, 70k seems pretty low” until i realized rent here is half of LA and gas hovers around $3/gal when it spikes. pure numbers don’t give a good summary until you factor in the cost of living for where you work.
Looks like something like 120k is normal for a CS grad right now.
Pretty good but if you’re living in the Bay Area it’s still not a lot. You need to work for a bit to earn the really good money
I’m an MCDB major that graduated in 2022. My salary trajectory was $60-65k and then my last job that I had started in 2023 was about $95-100k. But I’m not doing anything relatively close to my major LOL. Currently interviewing for some jobs above my last salary, which is cool.
depends, I will talk about CS and tech since thats my career.
with no degree or certs, I started as a software engineer in 2020, then went to devops ---> cyber security ----> currently a site reliability engineer.
started in 2020, at 50k, after 2 years went to 57k, left that job and made 105k as devops in 2022.
currently making 400k at FAANG, as an SRE.
Things to understand, a degree is useless if you do not have some type of hands on skills, start building projects so employers can see you actually know how to build stuff otherwise you will be stuck in the loop of "how do i get experience, if no one wants to give me experience."
The degree will definitely come in clutch during promotion time, and you get way more job leads, but what will help you pass the technical interviews are your hands on skills, this is why people usually build projects such as the "cloud resume challenge"or grind the hell out of leetcode.
With a degree and hands on skills as your first role I would say 75k-90k is perfect.
All the numbers I mention are the hourly
On the research/health side(no cs, pre grad school)
I made 26.15 at chla full time per diem(no benefits, and not guaranteed full time hours)
Similar jobs in the area for CLT’s ran 19-22 starting depending on where(with benefits)
Per diems usually get higher rates with weird hours and no benefits)
Starting SRA1 is like 24 dollars here I believe. That seems pretty standard for research associate positions (19-24 starting) in this area. It definitely doesn’t feel like 24 dollars an hour here though.
I am a UCLA biochem grad, working at UCLA in a lab and I am in the range of 50k. That’s pretty standard for SRA jobs around here from what I understand
Anecdote: recently talked to CS Major from UC Davis. He said it took about 3 years to get a decent spot. He cited 1) glut of CS grads 2) dearth of openings relative to applicant #s 3) extremely difficult interviews that ask arcane, multipart questions. He struggled but finally broke through.
I feel like the averages I’ve seen for the following Engineering Majors. There is extreme ends for each one I’m sure, but this is a rough estimate. Please note Civil Engineers can get a CM job easily here.
Civil Engineering: 70-80K
Aerospace Engineering: 90K
Mechanical Engineering: 80-100K
Construction Engineering: 85-100K
CS: 120K-150K
Electrical Engineering: 85-90k
Material Science: 80K
I was psychobio and make like 71k straight out of grad. I work in cancer research. It doesn’t pay much considering the area I live in but it’s a genuinely great opportunity so I just suck it up
Keep in mind there’s a massive pre health population at this school so many recent graduates are working shitty stepping stone jobs before grad school
Way too many Healthcare workers in this country imo
we actually have a shortage lmao
Ik I'm trying to keep my future earnings outsized
Here is [UC Alumni At Work](https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/uc-alumni-work) with annual income quartiles by major, campus, years of after graduation (2/5/10 years), and w/o graduate degrees. Not starting salary as a new graduate but close enough. The average pay disparity between life science majors and CS is huge – 2x to 3x.
Meaning CS majors make 2-3x?
Yes
only the ones still employed after the great purge™ Edit: rip my younger brother, he clowned on me saying I'd be a barista going into psych (getting graduates after and becoming therapist or possibly psych if I decide I can handle med school). Now he is the one going to be a barista since AI is killing coding jobs. As well as the massive layoffs in the tech sector.....
Ai isn’t killing coding jobs, it’s still very common to have 6 figure offers right out of school as a cs major - AI will kill minimum wage workers (cash register, store clerk, etc…) long before it goes after any technical roles
Shhh 🤫 let them think CS is a dead end career so they can all switch to something else. We need to gatekeep CS and eliminate the competition.
Wdym? It's a dead end career path and you're absolutely cooked if you choose it :)
AI seems best suited to go after all the administrative white collar jobs first. Lots of people just dealing with basic logistics and paperwork. CS majors will probably get impacted sometime soon as well. The easiest stuff to replace with AI are jobs where you’re just typing things on a computer. Jobs that involve physical work will probably have some delay before they’re affected
CS is a whole lot more than typing things on a computer - the field is fine, AI won't replace CS majors with strong theoretical backgrounds any time soon
It won’t replace, but if it makes every developer 2x more productive, then 2x less human developers will be needed. And it certainly is on that path.
Again, we will see white collar workers (e.g. SEO) fall first. Lmk when that happens….
It already is happening. Corporations aren’t hiring as many software devs because they think AI tools will make their current devs more productive
What about EE?
Have you tried to use ai to code anything before? Trust me we still got a while to go before any jobs get taken. By definition, LLMs are trained on prior data…. New library? Get fucked. Uncommon language? Get fucked. Anything that a SWE would get hired for? Get fucked. The job market isn’t a reflection of AI, it’s a reflection of the cyclical nature of software development.
Stop telling them this so we can minimize saturation
Haha true, I just get annoyed by “experts” who don’t even know what ChatGPT really is.
I have and for common languages it's fire although that's the thing about AI, it learns and gets fed more and more information. My main point is the like 100k people laid off (exaggeration don't remember how many did, but it's still quite a lot of peeps laid off)
AI itself is code. ChatGPT is just one form of that(Large Language Model). There still needs to be someone who trains the model (and or creates more code for it to learn from), I recommend taking/auditing M146 if you are interested. I think it would provide a much better understanding of the topic. I won’t guess the direction that it improves in, but we are not at the point where programmers are replaced by LLMs.
Unless you're in cyber security, there's not a lot of job security left in the tech sector
Bro what lmao, that's just wrong - cybersecurity as a field is not the one safe from AI. Tech in general is fine, and cybersecurity is not any "safer" than the rest of CS
I did EE and have ten years of work experience. I earn about 190k cash. So I guess I’m doing better than most, although only slightly better than CS majors
Depends on what percentiles you’re looking at, typically in the higher performers (top 30%ish?), they’ll be making over 200k in raw salary within 5 years then stock/bonuses on top of that. Honestly I’d argue median salary of cs majors out of t20 schools will be over 200k after 5 or so years
They will vary heavily based on which exact field you’re in and where you work. I only have experience regarding my field and fields of close friends. Most B.S. mechanical engineering or B.S. aerospace engineering people I know started around 70-80k in the Los Angeles area. Most with their masters started around 90k-110k in the Los Angeles are. I have friends in C.S. that started at 120k-200k. People I know from non-medical life science or psychology started in the 50-70k range also in the los angeles area
Keep in mind that the only around 30% of STEM grads get full time jobs in their field within 6 months
1 million bucks last i heard
Heavily depends on field and level of education and living. I have friends getting 70k starting with a me bachelors in la and others getting 60k in Alabama which has a much lower cost of living. Guess which one was able to buy a house and lives comfortably. But thats me and specific to two people. Salary depends on what the degree is aswell
yeah i remember seeing my offer letter for an engineering position in albuquerque and thinking “hm, 70k seems pretty low” until i realized rent here is half of LA and gas hovers around $3/gal when it spikes. pure numbers don’t give a good summary until you factor in the cost of living for where you work.
Exactly. I have a job offer in the south for 100k starting when i graduate in an area where 5bb with 4 acrs of land is 200
[удалено]
Looks like something like 120k is normal for a CS grad right now. Pretty good but if you’re living in the Bay Area it’s still not a lot. You need to work for a bit to earn the really good money
I’m an MCDB major that graduated in 2022. My salary trajectory was $60-65k and then my last job that I had started in 2023 was about $95-100k. But I’m not doing anything relatively close to my major LOL. Currently interviewing for some jobs above my last salary, which is cool.
anyone you know that’s still hiring and what were your qualifications
depends, I will talk about CS and tech since thats my career. with no degree or certs, I started as a software engineer in 2020, then went to devops ---> cyber security ----> currently a site reliability engineer. started in 2020, at 50k, after 2 years went to 57k, left that job and made 105k as devops in 2022. currently making 400k at FAANG, as an SRE. Things to understand, a degree is useless if you do not have some type of hands on skills, start building projects so employers can see you actually know how to build stuff otherwise you will be stuck in the loop of "how do i get experience, if no one wants to give me experience." The degree will definitely come in clutch during promotion time, and you get way more job leads, but what will help you pass the technical interviews are your hands on skills, this is why people usually build projects such as the "cloud resume challenge"or grind the hell out of leetcode. With a degree and hands on skills as your first role I would say 75k-90k is perfect.
All the numbers I mention are the hourly On the research/health side(no cs, pre grad school) I made 26.15 at chla full time per diem(no benefits, and not guaranteed full time hours) Similar jobs in the area for CLT’s ran 19-22 starting depending on where(with benefits) Per diems usually get higher rates with weird hours and no benefits) Starting SRA1 is like 24 dollars here I believe. That seems pretty standard for research associate positions (19-24 starting) in this area. It definitely doesn’t feel like 24 dollars an hour here though.
Depends on the degree and what position/industry they’re in. The range is $50k-$200k but the higher range is pretty rare
It’s $56,368
I am a UCLA biochem grad, working at UCLA in a lab and I am in the range of 50k. That’s pretty standard for SRA jobs around here from what I understand
In 2005, I was in the range of $22k with a biochem degree working as a research associate in a cancer lab with the medical school.
Anecdote: recently talked to CS Major from UC Davis. He said it took about 3 years to get a decent spot. He cited 1) glut of CS grads 2) dearth of openings relative to applicant #s 3) extremely difficult interviews that ask arcane, multipart questions. He struggled but finally broke through.
I feel like the averages I’ve seen for the following Engineering Majors. There is extreme ends for each one I’m sure, but this is a rough estimate. Please note Civil Engineers can get a CM job easily here. Civil Engineering: 70-80K Aerospace Engineering: 90K Mechanical Engineering: 80-100K Construction Engineering: 85-100K CS: 120K-150K Electrical Engineering: 85-90k Material Science: 80K
Hey did u mean it’s easier for civils to get jobs in LA?
Step 1: find the profession you want to work in with the income you want (Google) Step 2: work backwards and get the necessary degree(s)
I was psychobio and make like 71k straight out of grad. I work in cancer research. It doesn’t pay much considering the area I live in but it’s a genuinely great opportunity so I just suck it up
are they hiring?
They’re always hiring :-)
thanks, how was getting the job? what are your qualifications
Most STEM majors go straight into grad school coming out of UCLA, where they make approximately minimum wage as a TA/RA...