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Comment by salarythrow1234 | Hacker News Reader

My progression:

  23 - 45K  (University sysadmin, east coast)
  26 - 60k  (University research systems programmer, east coast)
  31 - 65k  (SWE, small IHV, remote)
  32-42 -- incremental raises up to $145K (senior SWE, same company)
  43 - 425k (Senior SWE, Google, Mountain View CA)
  44 - 390k (Senior SWE, Google, Mountain View CA)
  45 - 350k (Senior SWE, Netflix, Remote)
  46 - 400k (Senior SWE, Netflix, Remote)
  47 - 525k (Senior SWE, Netflix, Remote)
  48 - 600k (Senior SWE, Netflix, Remote)
  49 - 800k (Senior SWE, Netflix, Remote)

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What kind of genius does one have to be to earn $800k? Or do you possess rare knowledge and connections in your industry?

probably TC, including stocks accumulated that got more value over time.

AFAIK Netflix doesn't give stocks.

What do they give then? They must have some other sort of compensation other than the base salary...

According to their website [0]:

  Each employee chooses each year how much of their
  compensation they want in salary versus stock options.
  You can choose all cash, all options, or whatever
  combination suits you

And what's really freaking cool:

  There are no compensation handcuffs (vesting) 
  requiring you to stay in order to get your money.
  People are free to leave at any time, without loss of
  money, and yet they overwhelmingly choose to stay.
  We want managers to create conditions where people love
  being here, for the great work and great pay.

[0] https://jobs.netflix.com/culture

What's TC?

Total Compensation (stocks, bonuses, etc.)

Thanks!

What does TC mean?

Total Compensation: salary + shares + other perks

Thank you

Damn dude, what type of learning did you do from 32-42.

Yeah, also what company gives that many raises!?

Normally it seems it's 2-3% and if you want more you jump ship...

Having been to 3 corporations, all of them offer a raise of 7% - 10% every year. I'm not sure if I'm lucky but I thought this is a norm.

I'm in Europe and inflation is like 1% here so maybe that is why it's always been really low?

But a 10% raise is def. not a norm here - I've only gotten that when I was promoted and when I had a market correction raise (i.e. not the usual annual raise).

Yeah, you might be in the rare - and lucky! - case...I've worked for numerous large enterprises in northeast U.S. (in different industries), and all of them were 2~3% increases per year max.; and in some years such as during recession, they were 0~1%. Kudos to you good sir!

I've taken > 10% y/y for the past 4 years. I had one year in there where I was being jerked around as a sort of Mr. Fix-It between multiple teams and doing much more than just proving my worth. That year I took about 25% in pay raises _and_ negotiated cash bonuses for myself and two other team members who were carrying that product. I've nearly doubled my salary with my current employer over the past 4 years.

How did you get a remote job at Netflix? Were you hired as remote or did you get an offer and then negotiate remote? I will eventually need to move away from the Bay Area to take care of family but the company I work for (FB) has almost no remote options and no offices near my family.

800k remote at Netflix?! Wow. Respect.

Edit. Saw you are remote for netflix. Can you expound which location you work out of? And where the team is located? Am amazed by 800k.

I assume the 800k is because of vested stock with strong share growth.

An actual Netflixer can chime in, but as far as I know from friends who work there, Netflix is almost all base, no stock and no large bonus. My friends are data engineers with 3-5 YOE making about 400k base upon their hire, so I believe it. They thought folks in the ML group were in the 700-800k range. All hearsay though, so please take with grain of salt.

Can you share your friends backgrounds that go to data engineers?

wow, you really want to find out who these people are.

I mean I'm interested too, I thought my 150k was good but holy fucking god...

Maybe he just wants to find out if MSc in Data Science is worth it.

interested as well lol

Ex-Netflix here. I left at the tail end of 2016 & was making 320k then. No bonuses, but they did give you [an additional] 5% of your salary in options at I think 40% of the strike price. I assume it is still that policy.

At 800K, I am extremely curious how your work-life balance is? I am assuming after an age and salary number, a lot of your time goes into managerial tasks and at the rate you are compounding on salaries, I would bet it will be a hectic WLB. Further out of curiosity, at what age do you plan to retire?

how typical is that to be making 800k as an swe? Or even 425k - 800k? And what can one do to reach that point faster?

800k is no easy feat, at Google OP would have to have been Senior Staff or Principal, and there aren't many of those. Unless OP joined early and is including stock appreciation, then that would be more reasonable.

According to the itnernet if you aren't making that by 35, you're a failure.

Wow! Curious what kind of hours you've had to work for that sort of increase.

Do these amounts included RSU, bonus, etc? I'm curious what the base salary would be.

Netflix's salary philosophy is "top of personal market" and they are almost all base. If they want you, they aim not to lose you because you got a higher offer.

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