Hacker News Reader

Comment by noaccntforhotpw | Hacker News Reader

So, huge mistake in the article right away... It assumes total comp at Google is 110k..... The reason startup pay is nonsensical for many people isn't because startups don't have big upside, but that the upside didn't keep up with the massive increases in pay the bigcos have driven. Eg starting sde I comp at Google is 180k... , Or 60% more than the article assumes.

There is also value that bigco provides in terms of stability, benefits, professional hr (hr isn't your friend, but bigco hr will probably at least follow the law)....

Dan Lu's articles on startup vs bigco pay are well worth looking in to.

View on HN

Is this base comp or final comp?

180 is mid senior according to levels.fyi.

For Google, that's entry level (L3). L4 (between fresh graduate and senior) makes $250k TC.

L4 is ~2 years out of school.

It is pretty near impossible to beat that at a startup...

Right. The big players have salary on lock down and small players can't compete on that front. You pretty much have to believe in your startup. It's a gamble.

That's why I'm at a big company now instead of startups, where I have most of my experience in my career (about 5 years). 2 years of working at a lower paying FAANG and I am getting ~$320k total compensation for a mid-level dev (granted, that is as a top performer) - that is double what my last job (startup) was paying me.

I think I'm now on a road of buying a house in the Bay Area sometime down the line, whereas my previous years of working brought me no closer.

The startup can get you hired at bigcorp at a higher level than if you joined and crawled up the ladder. This is never mentioned when discussing comp comparisons.

Yeah, but it's still a gamble. Unless you become a VP/Director it's tough to get to a sufficiently high level to make it worth it. It's rare, for instance, for someone from a start-up to come in as a Staff/Senior Staff engineer (L6/7).

While this is great pay for many, it's not especially easy to get a job at Google or elsewhere in FAANGM, Many who aren't top engineers have the option of startups or a c list firm.

L4 starts at 2-5 years out of school, and ends 5-30years out of school.

For salary sure, but it is 345 total comp and the stock is pretty much as good as cash considering it'll vest monthly and you can set it up to immediately autosell converting it to cash.

Total compensation [0].

[0]: https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com