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- Thread starter TheDutchSlayer
- Start date
I have never heard of manual testing jobs earning 6 figures. Automation, quality engineering, or software development in test? Absolutely, 6 figures easily.
Big ooof on these Blizzard numbers. Not great that I made more than a lot of these as an assistant manager at a phone store last year (granted I worked six days a week for five months out of the year and am a top commission earner for my company, but man, that seems absurdly low).
My own, cause its a good conversation to have
My newest numbers are a bit tricky because the cost of living in Spain, where Ill be doing my Scopely job, is much lower and the bonus structure is very generous so I'll be doing quite a lot better than any previous job.
For the lady making 160+k as a designer ... thats an insanely good paycheck for SF or LA. Great negotiating by her, you can get that kind of money by a combination of relevant experience, how badly they need you, how awesome you are and leveraging other offers against each other. Oculus was really, really aggressive with their hiring for a while and once you can capitalize on a number that high, it sets your value and contributions as "thats what we have to beat in order to get you to join"
Some companies pay a lot lower in cash because their bonus structure is much more developed, such as Blizzard, which is why employees were so vocal about bonuses being cut last year. Bear in mind bonuses get more heavily taxed so a 10k bonus = 5.5k. Still good ... just not quite what you thought.
My newest numbers are a bit tricky because the cost of living in Spain, where Ill be doing my Scopely job, is much lower and the bonus structure is very generous so I'll be doing quite a lot better than any previous job.
For the lady making 160+k as a designer ... thats an insanely good paycheck for SF or LA. Great negotiating by her, you can get that kind of money by a combination of relevant experience, how badly they need you, how awesome you are and leveraging other offers against each other. Oculus was really, really aggressive with their hiring for a while and once you can capitalize on a number that high, it sets your value and contributions as "thats what we have to beat in order to get you to join"
Some companies pay a lot lower in cash because their bonus structure is much more developed, such as Blizzard, which is why employees were so vocal about bonuses being cut last year. Bear in mind bonuses get more heavily taxed so a 10k bonus = 5.5k. Still good ... just not quite what you thought.
110 in Spain is like 200+ bay area or NYC for quality of life, nice work!
Lets hope I dont fuck it up lol
True but many households have double income these days and/or roommates to make it manageable. Making close to 100k in LA is a comfortable living as long as you dont have lots of kids
So I guess it depends on your definition of the "job" and responsibilities. We have QA Engineers at my company (Fintech) who are without a doubt being paid 6 figures as a base salary, not including other compensation such as bonuses (and I don't even live in a huge market). They do 100% manual testing (testing feature tickets/bug fixes, regression, etc). About as technical as the job gets, comes in the form of navigating git, and using IDE's like Xcode/Android Studio (if mobile) to build branches locally to test.
Some companies flip flop on the naming convention of their QA, so maybe that plays a part. (Some companies like to refer to QA as QA testers, some use QA Analyst, and others use QA Engineers but generally the job role is the same - from what I've seen)
Like you could plug a game tester into some of these QA jobs labeled as "QA Engineer" and they'd do just fine.
110k euros in Spain is a lot, congratz.
Is Scopely based in a big city?
Looking at this mostly makes me think that US roles are far better paid than here in the UK. Them again, cost of living is probably higher over there - earning over 80K here for example would put you in the top 5-10% of earners nationwide.
I think in this industry you have to be willing to move around a lot early in your career - as a new entrant to the industry, you'll learn a lot, and quickly. But if you don't switch studios a few times it's easy to let your pay stagnate and not reflect your expertise.
It's part of why I think places like this read way too much into people moving companies, or companies hiring for major roles at weird times. A lot of the time you just have to be aggressive to get better money - many places just don't want to bump experienced people up. Understandable for indies, less so for larger studios. But personnel moving often doesn't mean as much as people think it does.
I think in this industry you have to be willing to move around a lot early in your career - as a new entrant to the industry, you'll learn a lot, and quickly. But if you don't switch studios a few times it's easy to let your pay stagnate and not reflect your expertise.
It's part of why I think places like this read way too much into people moving companies, or companies hiring for major roles at weird times. A lot of the time you just have to be aggressive to get better money - many places just don't want to bump experienced people up. Understandable for indies, less so for larger studios. But personnel moving often doesn't mean as much as people think it does.
I'd argue in many industries you have to be willing to move around a lot. It's tough to leave your comfort zone and many are hoping loyalty is rewarded. But imho unless you have decades of experience you are just as good one place vs another and loyalty isn't worth anything that early on. Just diversify your experience so you don't just learn how one company does things vs another. At the same time if you make it to one of those rare companies that is top of their game and also happen to pay the best then you can start looking into how much are you willing to sacrifice pay and/or prestige for anything else you are needing for happiness. In this case working in your city of choice, working hours, etc.
I think Barcelona? It is the most expensive city in Spain iirc, but it is still damn good.
$34/hr is our base intern pay as well, it's a very common number because that's where many of the FAANG settled several years back, and if you want to compete with them that is what you need to offer. That said for engineering it's completely reasonable because landing talented engineering candidates is still very hard and internships give you a valuable ramp for that.
When I was 19 I found a Community Manager gig that I was a perfect fit for. It was an online game and I speak 4 languages so that gave me a nice little edge. I did the interview and even had a "work for us for a day to see if you fit the culture" interview. Overall it went well.
Sadly the pay was minimum wage - was about 500€ at the time.
Now, I was 19 and at first it seems like not too bad (living with parents) but the office was far so I would have to spend a lot in transportation. Then there's the meal allowance which was non existant. In the end I'd be almost paying to work.
When I said "no thanks" I was accused of not being a culture fit and overall it was really my fault.
10 years later, still not in Game Dev.
Sadly the pay was minimum wage - was about 500€ at the time.
Now, I was 19 and at first it seems like not too bad (living with parents) but the office was far so I would have to spend a lot in transportation. Then there's the meal allowance which was non existant. In the end I'd be almost paying to work.
When I said "no thanks" I was accused of not being a culture fit and overall it was really my fault.
10 years later, still not in Game Dev.
Sorry, thats in dollars, not Euros so I make a bit less. Its in Barcelona which is expensive but nothing compared to the bay area
Quite right, one of the biggest victories won by the elites was making discussing compensation taboo.
Wow the disparity between game development and any other industry in tech is bonkers. The pay disparity alone is silly. Then you factor in the work hours/overtime/crunch involved with game dev (that generally does not happen as frequently in other sectors); it is not surprising that the game industry is generalized as just a churning of the youth until they burn out. Glad I was never interested in making games. My sympathy goes out to those that do.
A major US city (LA,SF, NYC, MIA etc) tends to pay 2x+ of london, yeah. NYC & SF hit 3x.
I think these numbers are probably not as unfair as they seem, nobody is listing the cities they live in. Income disparity is broad across the US too - there are plenty of cities where 60k affords a good quality of life and houses on the outskirts are 250k.
i'm on 120 here but would probably be on around 50 gbp in london for the same job. I remember being able to buy lunch in london for around $5 - here not bringing your own is $15 easy. a parking space near an office is $200/mo, insurance is $1500/yr no matter how long you've been driving, etc etc.
the amount of money I have left over at the end of each paycheck has remained pretty much the same for about 10 years now - its around 15%. 15% now is more than it used to be though, and i've got a 401k matched so long term I'm better off.
Basically what i'm getting as is you could move to SF and earn 200k+ and have the exact same quality of life (and inability to buy a house) as you do in london on 50kgbp. You can take a huge payrise and be worse off very easily. The only time you'd notice a difference is when going on vacations (being able to save up for a vacation within a single paycheck or two is dope) and leaving to move somewhere cheaper with your savings.
The US's top 5% earners are on around 300k, 10% is above 160k. those numbers are totally unheard of in the UK without being an MD or having residual income.
however my tiny house is worth 3x my parents house yet is around 1/3rd the square footage.
Living in the US should set me up for retirement in the UK pretty well - when it comes time to liquidate my 401k and sell off assets i'll be pretty well off.