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Comment by fwiwm2c | Hacker News Reader

These numbers are ridiculously low. Here is what a typical FAANG setup pays you in the bay area (Source: I have worked in a couple of them):

IC5 Eng (~5 yrs exp): $350k/yr all in (cash+stock+bonus) IC6 Eng (~9 yrs exp): $550k/yr all in IC7 Eng (~12 yrs exp and you are exceptional): $800k/yr

As you go from IC5 to IC7, your stock and bonus goes up (as expected). A typical IC7 will earn around $250k in cash, ~25% bonus (on the base cash salary) and the rest in stock.

Now those $2M houses don't sound too expensive right?

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The competition for these roles is extremely intense. Even doing well isn't sufficient in pandemic times. The baseline of prepping every night + weekend for 3+ months still isn't enough to guarantee you'll get in. Get unlucky and join an org like Ads at FB and you're gonna be miserable AF. Add in the general huge amount of luck that is involved with what interviewer you get, the hiring environment going on, and it's possible you'll spend years in purgatory waiting to get into FAANG.

I think if you're really into spending your free time doing competitive programming, reading about system design, and making sure to have some interesting tech on your resume then it's not a big deal. Personally, I'm not any of that - so, getting into FAANG has been a real PITA. I still try but it's sooo painful now. The difficulty has just skyrocketed for someone who doesn't do those things in their free time.

> Even doing well isn't sufficient in pandemic times.

Ask anyone hiring at a FAANG co and you will find that it's a massive struggle to hire now. Pandemic isn't making anything harder for applicants and, given the relative success of tech during it, may be making it harder.

Arguably if you need to prep that much it might not be a good fit. YMMV.

> Arguably if you need to prep that much it might not be a good fit. YMMV.

Dear candidate - do not pay attention to this person’s comment. This behaviour is called gatekeeping (not withstanding the backbone-free cop-out at the end with the “ymmv”). It does not account for varied life circumstances & starting points. Prep for as long you need to - and more importantly - want to. In the interview the duration of prep won’t matter.

What's so miserable about working on Ads at FB?

Ads org is big but the general take I get is - the WLB is bad and there is a lot of pressure to deliver. I'll quote blind too: "It's great. Satan himself writes your evals."

I was in ads and I would disagree with this. Ads is a great place to be if you are data driven and are in FAANG - who enjoy excellent competitive advantages.

Prepping for 3+ months is definitely not the baseline. I'd really need some convincing that you're getting any real incremental benefit past a week of interview prep. There's not that much ground to really cover and at some point you're just solving different versions of the same problems over and over again.

It just depends on how close you are to college education and how much you've learned interviewing over time.

A majority of the time is spent on the "LeetCode grind." You can evaluate your own progress while you solve practice problems by checking time and checking how many solutions are correct on the first submit. Most likely 1 week would barely be enough to establish your baseline performance per category (DP, trie, etc.).

Worth keeping in mind lots of engineers in the bay area are working at startups for lower salaries (closer to median in this chart), bodyshops, and large companies that are not known for as good pay.

Also at higher levels it's not just the number of years you work. Average Joe with 9 years of experience is not going to be IC6 - the yoe:level relationship is also governed by pedigree, network, career history (where, what), projects led, previous roles, etc.

IC6 is rare (15%ish) even among people working there, even ignoring people at less flush companies. IC7 is even more rare.

And those years of experience are for the fastest ladder climbing superstars. Multiply by 1.5x for the average.

No, they are expensive. Consider average software eng pay for Duolingo (Pittsburgh) is ~180k/yr total comp, but houses there go for like $120k. IC7 is like top 5-10%. Also, CA income taxes are high.

IC7 is top 2-5%

I'd need to study math just to get a managerial job that doesn't use any of these math and academic skills. I'd need to answer questions like, how many marbles would it take to reach the moon. I'd be surrounded by aspie workaholics who rank low in creativity, high in analytical skills and are fully deficient in sense of humor. Literal-minded math nerds fronted by a smattering of HR people who portray the company as enlightened and woke. And all that, I can live in a high-tax, car-oriented, earthquake and drought and mudslide and forest fire-prone state that decriminalized shoplifting and prevents rezoning to solve its housing issues.

Oh my God, where do I sign up?

I'll eat my downvotes and live in my crumbling NYC neighborhood with a semblance of mental and cultural diversity. A lower salary but a good one, and I don't have to work for advertising monopolies run by marketing people.

Ok, I get it. You need to be contrarian and repeat some California is bad talking points. But let’s be honest, life in California is way better than NYC. Nobody sipping Russian river pinot while overlooking Lake Tahoe has said “I wish I was in NYC”

I was harsh but replying to the, we make so much more money here, original post. My point is there's more than money for consideration, a very pedestrian observation.

All that said, if the news reports are any indication, there are a lot of people exiting California for other states, so a lot of contrarians.

I do love the Sonoma Chardonnays myself, the Cali Pinots are a lot riper/sweeter than the Burgundy ones.

Those news reports are full of shit

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/California-SF-Ba...

L7 is rare though, and most of them have more than 12 YOE (or maybe they have 12 YOE at the company). Levels.fyi seems to only have 38 data points for FB for example (https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En...) and 47 for Google (https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...) vs. 490 and 457 L5 entries. It's probably safe to say if you get to L7 you're in the top 5% of engineers at the company and L8 is probably top 1%. So sure, $2M house isn't too expensive if you're both a good engineer and great at navigating company politics and selling\presenting yourself in a way that both gives you high value (to leadership) projects and peer recognition, but most employees won't get there. Going the EM route is generally considered to be an easier way to get to L7 comp.

What does EM stand for? Something with management, I presume?

Engineering Manager

Where are all the people with 15-20y experience?

Depends, is it winter or summer?

> Now those $2M houses don't sound too expensive right?

After taxes and living expenses it would still take years to save for a 2M home as an IC7.

Those homes peaked in 2018 anyway, bad investment.

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