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Comment by logicslave | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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