The article (which is paywalled) says average compensation is $190,000.
They also have 600 technologists on staff, which is massively higher than comparable news organizations. I think this is the real elephant in the room: They're hiring (and therefore spending) at a rate that already far outstrips comparable news organizations.
Comparing to other "news organizations" might not make sense if we're including Wirecutter and the games division (e.g. Wordle) on the NYT side. They should be compared to other types of media orgs.
Not that NYT hasn't done some interesting innovative technical stuff within their journalism.
The concerns are not around excessive pay but future demands related to seniority. 170k sounds reasonable today, but when you add in a yearly 5% pay raise AND inflation adjustments AND overtime and sick time and retirement contributions it adds up to be a lot.
For example there was a cop in Massachusetts who had "retired" twice and was getting 280k/year due to the way the union rules were set up.
My simplified equation for stress is:
```
(workload) * (giving a shit)
```
Workload is set by company, giving a shit is set by you. You may not last long, but nothing is stopping you from letting those Jira tickets pile up. It's especially a promising strat if layoffs are market-based instead of performance-based.
Of course I imagine most engineers enjoy feeling productive, and wasting everyone's time does take a psychological toll.
Salary is 140-155k USD.
For reference, here's levels.fyi's breakdown of the New York city area: https://www.levels.fyi/t/software-engineer/locations/new-yor...
Median total comp is 185k.
It seems like their total comp for NYT is slightly above the mark based on reported salaries: https://www.levels.fyi/companies/the-new-york-times-company/...