Tech industry is full of entitled prima donnas living in an alternative reality valid only in their heads. US median wage according to data for 2016 was about $32k [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...]. According to Payscale Kickstarter pays its employees an average of $96,897 a year. Salaries at Kickstarter range from an average of $62,662 to $142,634 a year.
Deciding to treat tech management in an adversarial fashion or being more woke than the management while making 3x is going towards the mean, not away from it.
Not recognizing that making over 100k/year sitting in $800 chairs, eating company provided organic snacks, having subsidized meals ( or fully free ) in lovely offices and complaining that the management is not woke enough that it dared to pull the "It is always a good time to punch a nazi" project before reinstating it not to offend the woke employees is the definition of privileged set.
Yes. Compare it with an average office in Manhattan:
Windows 10 on computers with 4Gb RAM slinging Acrobat Pro, where you are in NYC and your files are on a network drive in France, company does not do Dropbox or Google drive, there's one printer on the other side of the 25k sq feet office full of cubicles, you pay for your own coffee, there are no snacks, the chairs are $50 ones you typically see in the office supply stores and you are paid cool $49k/year.
As discussed recently, cubicles would probably be preferred by most engineers to open offices. However, they are virtually an industry standard at this point and it's not exactly something that a tech worker can escape by changing companies:
As far as snacks and coffee go, this subthread goes into a good discussion about how most of the perks are relatively cheap for management to shell out for, and elides that the money could instead go into providing individual offices as was the case in the industry in the '90s- or just paying employee salaries:
Tech workers are relatively compensated well, no doubt- but as mentioned in the Quora link, they are not exactly paid commensurate to the value they bring. Perks such as snacks or fancy furniture are simply window dressing, not to mention provided meals are also seen as a way for the company to maximize time spent in the office. The tech industry is very good at providing double-edged benefits- unlimited PTO is another example, as it nearly always comes with some strings attached and often leads to less vacation time taken than if allotted vacation time is given. It's an industry that's very good at selling products that are only free at first glance- is it any wonder that many employee perks/benefits are no different in principle?
Deciding to treat tech management in an adversarial fashion or being more woke than the management while making 3x is going towards the mean, not away from it.