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This is an incredibly nearsighted approach for reasons other responses partially point out.

First you have confused uncertainty with a bad scenario. For all you know the offer from the first company would end up much higher than from the second but you won't know.

Second, and this is probably a bigger deal - lack of exact range often indicates flexibility in seniority, skillset and scope. So in your case, your only good scenario is if you match exactly the picture of an employee company 2 has in mind for the role/comp. If you are just a little under, you won't make the cut. If you are any over, they will underpay you.

Comoany 2 gave themselves more flexibility with hiring and paying you. Eg if you aren't quite on the level they thought, they could level you down as a say in, which you would appreciate. Similarly if you are beyond what they expected they may offer you more than you'd think, and more than company 2.

Mainly, you have cut yourself off from valuable information and potentially leverageable competing offers because you couldn't hang with a bit of uncertainty.

> Second, and this is probably a bigger deal - lack of exact range often indicates flexibility in seniority, skillset and scope.

The flexibility should be reflected in the job title or level; salary bands are vital to ensure that people at the same level are being compensated equitably and know what they're interviewing for up front. It's totally fine to tell candidates they're going to aim for a L4 position with the possibility of L5 (or higher) depending on interviews.

Jobs are less cookie cutter than your post implies though, especially at the higher levels.

Personal example - my last job (hedge fund) really wanted me. It took them forever to find someone of my profile - a mix of background, technical skills, domain knowledge, and personality so they wanted to have me. The way they set my salary was like this: they looked at what I was making and added enough on top that I couldn't refuse.

The first and last conversation we had about money was at the end of the interview process when they made me a really good offer. I didn't bother negotiating.

If I asked them during the 1st call what the salary was, they wouldn't be able to say because the salary was based on how much they wanted me and my circumstances. You can think that's inequitable and that's valid, but from a persona standpoint I'd be a fool if I had ended the conversation at that time.

> a mix of background, technical skills, domain knowledge, and personality

What kind of position did you get hired for? An IT related role, or something more exotic? If it is the latter, I would be delighted to have a chat if you would be interested. See my contact details for my profile.

I am in product but my background is in engineering management.

The only way to know your value in the market is to get multiple offers and then negotiate against them. You'll do much worse if you just pursue one option, especially the option where they tell you that everyone gets the same (low) pay.

> we'll work it out when [we] give you an offer

Maybe I'm a cynic, or I've read too many books with a powerful cabal that lies while telling the truth.

But one interpretation of these words is that you are going to be a test subject in that 'work it out' activity.

I wouldn't be surprised after all the hemming and hawing about how they don't have remote compensation numbers in place. "How much less can we pay people who don't live in SV? Let's bring a bunch of chumps in and low-ball them to find out."

I think we underestimate the amount of self-deception that goes on with these deceptions. As evil as some people can be, I think more often we are just unwilling passengers on someone else's delusion.

Waking up every day thinking that things aren't going to work out is hell. At some point you have to do something about it, or you can't keep going on. Hope doesn't care if it's objective or not, and evolution preserves it if it actually works slightly more than never.

I mean you can just go on levels.fyi and see the comp for yourself. Recently FB has been giving ~350k for a senior developer working remote. Thats great money for someone in the mid west. Studying a few months for a job that could set you up financially for a long time is a great deal.

Call me cynical, but they are supposed to be trying to recruit me. I say "That doesn't sound like more than I currently make, what about other forms of compensation?" If they say "well we're not sure...", I'm going to be pretty reluctant to jump in. For all I know they are "re-leveling" and those 400k paydays are going away.

Yeah but they arent though. 350-400k is actually somewhat low for senior. They have been paying this for a long time. Its great money remote. I really dont understand the issue

> Yeah but they arent though. 350-400k is actually somewhat low for senior.

I wouldn't say this. It's solidly middle of the road for a Google or FB senior, and high/unreachable for an Amazon or Microsoft Senior. Its probably(?) on the lower side for Netflix.

This is all before stock growth. Someone who has been a Senior for 5 years at Google or Facebook will be vesting shares that doubled in value, so the take home pay will be higher.

That's true, but stock growth influences new-hire offers as well. Google's valuation doubled in the last year, so someone who joined Google 1-2 years ago (and had the equity piece of their compensation double) will require a stronger offer to entice them away from Google.

Actually Amazon commonly beats Google comp, and matches FB. Senior employees at Amazon see the highest comp in the industry. Its less discussed, and really only at the lower levels that Amazon gets its reputation for being cheap and having lower talent. AWS Senior Engineers are top talent bar none.

L6 salaries (equivalent of FB/G L5) are 20-60K lower than those at FB/G (you cap out at 160K or 175K in the bay, which is below the minimum L5 salary at FB or Google). As I understand it, the stock grants can be similar but refreshes are harder to earn than FB/G (since if the stock goes up, you simply won't get a refresh unless your performance is stellar), and you don't get annual bonuses (which are another 30-50K in comp at FB or G).

This is also complicated because the Senior title at Amazon compares to L5 or lower band L6 at G/FB. So your peak Senior at Amazon should be compared to the compensation of a middling L6, which will usually start with a 4.

Perhaps at Principal and beyond the stock grants grow quickly enough to overcome the deficit, I honestly don't know. But I know they don't at Senior.

This is a misnomer. Go look at levels.fyi, L6 at Amazon is either matched or beats L5/E5. People dont know how much money Amazon really pays, they just hear about the mediocre performers. Amazon absolutely pays huge sums for top engineers, they just dont talk about it. I know of SDE2s making 450k before equity appreciation

> Go look at levels.fyi, L6 at Amazon is either matched or beats L5/E5

Looking at SF offers (to avoid the price differential between bay/Seattle), the median seems to be 300-350K for, with a few offers at like 450K and then 2 at ~650 (also some data entry errors like a 300K signing bonus).

The 650 offers are matched by FB/G L6 offers, and the 450K are high L5/low L6 at G/FB. 330 is approximately the floor for a G L5, and new hire offers will be higher due to the relatively larger sign on grants. Like I said, perhaps for peak performers the Amazon grants are larger, but they're not consistently beating G/FB, they're maybe matching.

Its also difficult to tell because the data in levels.fyi doesn't match my understanding of how amazon's stock refreshes work (or like its difficult to tell). My understanding is that you don't normally get a stock refresh, unless your existing one ran out, or the stock didn't grow "enough" (or, as mentioned, your performance is stellar). So if we're seeing the once-every-few-year-grants at Amazon and comparing to the annual grants at G/FB, that's even more against Amazon, but I could be wrong there. I don't know enough senior people at Amazon (though I do know more junior people at amazon, and the levels.fyi methodology doesn't seem to make a distinction when it asks for data).

> I know of SDE2s making 450k before equity appreciation

Fwiw I'm aware of these kinds of hires at most companies.

I'll admit though that my initial statement, that 350-400K was unreachable for an Amazon Senior was flawed. It is, but mainly because the the level is wider than the comparable level at G/FB.

> It's solidly middle of the road for a Google or FB senior, and high/unreachable for an Amazon

What is the logical conclusion you take from this about the people that can’t get into fb or Google but do work at Amazon or Microsoft?

I recently went through a job search, and no recruiter was willing to pitch big numbers to me up front. I used levels.fyi and word of mouth to figure out who would be most likely to negotiate.

The market seems superheated compared to last time I did this (~3 years ago). Lots of capital flying around, and a lot of it ends up in tech. Hard not to feel like we're in some kind of bubble.

I’d say it’s not too hard to get offers right now but the offers are bad as far as I’ve seen. Especially at startups. Every startup I interviewed at completely lowballed the shit out of me on either salary or equity or both. Even public companies did the same - there is literally no interest in giving a good offer upfront. You need to pull teeth and have competing offers. Walking away isn’t enough! They want to hear companies and numbers and see proof.

I went with an offer in the 350-400k range like above. Hard to get above that without going into staff or getting lots of high competing offers. Even then, it’s risky.

Got a half dozen or so offers. It was a terrible time. So many startups withdrew at random stages because comp would come up and they realized they were too cheap to even bother sending an offer. Huge waste of time.

Great time to raise capital, terrible time to join a startup.

Anything other than the rate at the main campus is not a serious offer.

Why? Say you live in or near Atlanta, the rate paid to (on site) employees in Atlanta is less than the rate paid to (on site) employees in SF (I think this is true for pretty much every FAANG).

Why should a remote employee in Atlanta make more than an onsite one?

> Why should a remote employee in Atlanta make more than an onsite one?

Not more, but why shouldn't they be paid the same if they're doing the same work?

Markets don't care about justice. It's all about supply and demand. If a company needs people on-site in SF and also needs people on-site in Atlanta, it will have to pay the former more than the latter. If they don't, they will either be paying more (if they give the Atlanta folks extra money) than they have to or they won't be able to fill the positions (if they don't give the SF folks extra money).

Well, in the scenario you're responding to, you're actually asking why an onsite Atlanta employee should be making less than an onsite SF employee (based on the statement that remote should get main campus salary).

And the answer is market rates but a lot of people don't like that answer.

If the hiring pool is remote, then the local market rates don’t matter. Perhaps an open cost of living difference could be ok, but there is no market rate justification.

Isn't remote a disadvantage in that case as the pool is larger?

If I'm the employer I don't need to hire everyone.

I just need to hire a small subset of people, relative to the overall population in the pool who meets the qualifications of the job, who are also willing to work for X.

The bigger the pool the bigger the competition and the easier it is to find the matching subset, no?

Two reasons to open a satellite office. First is to cut costs, second is to grow the business and recruit from an untapped talent pool.

I'm not a cost cutting person, so I'm not interested by the former. Trying to play games with CoL signals that instead of putting money in growing the product, they would rather try to squeeze as much as they can.

By that logic, why don't they just pay everyone five million dollars a year? Doing anything less is just squeezing employees. I learned from my first startup CEO, the number one cost for almost any company is payroll. If you can't manage it, you won't survive as a company. There's a difference between compensating people fairly, or even generously, for a job well done, and just leaving money on the table.

If there are more people who are equally qualified and willing to do the job remotely for less than the on-site team in Silicon Valley is, then the market for remote people to do the job is more employer-favorable than the on-site market.

Why should they pay person X more than needed to get the level of talent they want under the conditions they're willing to offer?

I have been asking this question for years, and also been downvoted on multiple sites (including HN) for asking it.

Will I at least make the same insane TC CoL adjusted? Or am I more likely to be paid what an average developer in Atlanta can take home or just a bit more?

> Will I at least make the same insane TC CoL adjusted?

There's enough disagreement about what this means that its difficult to say. If your goal is to buy a house, you'll be making more CoL adjusted. If you're happy to rent, its less clear cut but still probably close.

> Or am I more likely to be paid what an average developer in Atlanta can take home or just a bit more

More.

> There's enough disagreement about what this means that its difficult to say.

I remember a talk HR was giving about remote work. Someone asked about COL and salary adjustments. HR didn't mention cost of living, but they did mention cost of labor. That was a new term to me.

At least where I work, I come out drastically ahead by not working in the Bay Area. Even though my compensation is maybe 10% lower, it's really more like a 5-6% pay cut when I take my marginal tax rate into consideration. I'd be spending waaaayyy more than an extra 5% of my income if I wanted a similar lifestyle up in Silicon Valley (owning my home relatively close to work)

You can say that for yourself, but it's just not realistic. Lots of people are about to learn this the hard way as SV companies start to roll out their remote-work plans. Companies are going to pay you less money if you choose to live somewhere other than Silicon Valley, or perhaps NYC. Odds are, you'll still come out way ahead.

I can see how you’d like that deal as a remote employee, but do you really think the company is going to hire you if they can hire someone locally for the same price? The only way this makes sense is if the local market is completely tapped out.

Many immigrants working at SV HQs would love to relocate to the offices in their home countries with the same pay.