Also: Lance is almost certainly working more than 40 hours a week. Also, he isn't just a systems administrator. He's a mentor, fundraiser, any literally everything else that is needed to keep the lab running. There used to be more staff, but it's hard to retain qualified individuals. He's been there for 17 years, he's not doing it for the money, he does it because the OSL is important!
$107k in 2017 and $124k in 2023. I don't know about you, but someone with 17 years experience could easily be making 2-5x that depending on the company and role.
And it's $124k on the west coast, specifically western Oregon. Coastal PNW is notoriously expensive to live in - sure, Corvallis isn't Seattle, but it's not cheap, either. Folks like to balk at numbers when it comes to publicly (or FOSS-donation-ly) funded salaries, but also balk at tying context to those numbers. It happens almost every time anyone dares try to pay their bills on open-source work: a flame war over "you don't need that number, you could move to your parent's basement in Arkansas and survive on $20k instead!".
I grew up near/around/in Corvallis. $124k is quite a bit there. Food is cheap, you can find pretty cheap land/realty, etc. Overall it's pretty reasonable.
That said, $124k is not a lot for what Lance does.
Maybe it was at some point in the past? I have friends who currently live there and it does not sound cheap. Again - not Seattle bad, maybe not even Bellingham bad, but still not "124 is quite a bit" levels (from the sounds of it).
Regardless, we can definitely agree: Lance could be making a ton more elsewhere, but is a saint who cares about his work, and I appreciate his dedication!
I have indeed lived life wrong. I work in HPC as a Systems Engineer (right now, in 2025, with graduate degrees in engineering, and 25 years of systems admin / engineering experience) and do not make what this person made in 2017, much less in 2025, OR 2-5x that amount for that matter (total dream salary, geez)... at one time I was the data center manager and teaching CS classes, at the same time, working 80 hours a week.
How the heck do these people secure these high paying jobs? There is some club, and I am not in it. Sorry to rant, but that 1FTE salary is huge.
Wow, I read your informative link. Where are these jobs? I went through a round of interviews last year for Sr. positions, across a number of locations in the U.S., and quite frankly, the average salary for the positions interviewed for was $80k less than most of those in the list, and $230k less than the SWE manager in the list.
The page lists the locations, and the businesses, where these jobs are placed. Unless you live on the coast (or end up in Denver/Austin), you're going to have a harder time reaching these salary numbers.
Also: Lance is almost certainly working more than 40 hours a week. Also, he isn't just a systems administrator. He's a mentor, fundraiser, any literally everything else that is needed to keep the lab running. There used to be more staff, but it's hard to retain qualified individuals. He's been there for 17 years, he's not doing it for the money, he does it because the OSL is important!