I’m a senior FAANG coder making 350k TC, and it looks like I should be able to net 400-600k at this level if I go to Apple or Google. Hoo boy, looks like it’s leetcode time again…
I hate studying leetcode just for these interviews, but with these numbers it seems foolish to not put myself through hell...
Mid-stage companies like Convoy are also going very high, but there is an upside with those companies.
Don't know much about early stage, but a few of my acquaintances are moving from FAANG companies to early stage companies to play the lottery.
Last time I was looking for work 8 years ago the gap was nowhere near this large.
I used to buy into the whole risk vs reward of startups, but the numbers are far too biased towards founders and big tech salaries now for any individual contributor actually paying attention to the market to think about a startup job.
Half a million a year for a developer or architect is bonkers.
That's the equivalent of AUD 800K a year. That's more than what the Prime Minister and a cabinet member put together make here!
How can that possibly make sense? For that kind of money you can easily hire 4 senior developers here! Any company "hiring local" at those prices isn't exploring their international staffing options properly...
> the recent 'they need to return to the office'
Which is counterfactual, unless I totally misunderstood the statement.
This is why I'm not responding. I have a feeling their Canadian offers won't look anything like the article suggests.
Google too: they just bought a large new building in NYC, yet they're also growing a lot in markets where they pay much less (e.g. India).
Very curious how this will play out over time.
But at the scale they operate at, it is also relatively easy to justify such salaries. For example, just last month, I saved the company more than a million a year of cloud costs by doing 1 week of cost optimizations for just one of our services. I will create many times that in new revenues/cost savings in the remaining 2 months of the year.
My total comp for year? Barely over half a million. So I'd say they are getting a good value.
I just saved $500K per annum for a customer, after working on the most critical part of a merger between two 10K-user organisations, and I get less then half that.
It's not like it's impossible to get someone that knows how to optimise infrastructure or do complex projects for less than a decent chunk of a million dollars a year! Like other people have commented, they're often making just tens of thousands in Europe, despite having comparable education, experience, and English language skills...
If $$ is what you optimize for, you can probably find the top 1% of compensation for businesses in your field and work there. For a lot of office workers, there are firms that value their skills and firms that do not. Remember that the comp numbers for Bay Area tech salaries are legit the top 1% globally or some very small percentage.
Consider the difference between an comp "analyst" at a local bank and an "analyst" at an extremely profitable hedge fund.
It's just money in the end and if you make enough to be happy, then the rest doesn't matter. If you want to compete for the top < 10% of compensation locally/globally in your field, then things have to change and it comes at some cost.
It is also about what the US President ($400k) and a cabinet secretary ($196.7k) put together make in the US. But far, far, less than the CEO of any public company.
https://www.thoughtco.com/presidential-retirement-benefits-3...
Well, here is the operating profit for the US tech giants:
Apple $100 billion | Microsoft $70b | Google $62.6b | Facebook $44.5b | Amazon $29.6b | Intel $22.7b | Oracle $15.7b | Cisco $13.7b | Qualcomm $10.3b | IBM $8b | Texas Instruments $7.7b | Broadcom $7.6b | Nvidia $7.3b | Micron $6.7b | Applied Materials $6.4b | Netflix $6b | Dell $6b | Adobe $5.5b
SAP is one of the primary tech giants in Europe. Their operating profit is $6.2b by comparison (they fit in Microsoft's pocket these days).
Now on top of that, throw in the US banks which are generating enormous profit compared to their European peers, and they also hire tech talent. Throw in Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Square, PayPal, Stripe, etc. Then throw in the US defense contractors. The large pharma & biotech companies. Insurance companies. Huge retailers like Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Target, Lowes, Walgreens, CVS, etc. Big real-estate companies. Various large conglomerates and manufacturing firms. All of these companies - which generate outsized profits as well - have to compete for tech talent too. The point being, all that demand drains availability and pushes up the salaries that tech talent can command (including outside the bay area).
Over $200k per year in take home pay after most expenses.
Rough numbers, my monthly salary is ~$10k/mo (after tax) and I vest ~$50k in stock every 3 months (also after tax)
In Californian coastal city, that is, or in NYC. It’s $305k in New Jersey, and $335k in Washington. And that is if you’re single. If you’re married, with $500k you’re looking at $325k after tax in California/NYC, $338k in NJ, and $366k in WA.
L6 at Amazon, single, no kids:
~$400K TC $33,333 per month gross
About $100K in federal tax, no state income tax in WA. $8333 per month
Healthcare: $34 a month for an HSA plan. $3,650 over the course of the year goes into the HSA, including the employer portion. That ends up being about $205 out of my pocket. This is a bit complicated if you're not American and familiar with the different account types but it's basically money you're saving that's not taxed, but you can only use it for healthcare expenses.
$3000 max out of pocket per year for medical expenses. For all intents and purposes you can assume that's the most I'll ever pay. Out of network stuff makes it more complicated, but my network has essentially everyone. $250 a month, but you can use the HSA funds from above, so net $0.
Rent: In the Seattle area a newish one bedroom that's about 50-60 m^2 will run you say, $2200 a month. You can go cheaper or more expensive, but that will get you something that's plenty nice. Commute is extremely dependent on exact location, but if you're in the city, the majority of it has a commute time of less than an hour.
$33,333 -$8333 -$34 -$205 -$2200 = $22,561 income remaining.
I think you'd be able to survive :)
Obviously doesn't account for internet, a phone, a car, utilities or anything else, but that's maybe another $2K a month on the high end.
My salary is just above $200k. After 6% contribution to retirement (max my employer will match), and $25k a year set aside for employee stock purchase program (max I can set aside - our ESPP is really good), I get just under $10k a month in direct deposit.
My rent is $3k a month. My discretionary spending is also around $3k a month. So I save $4k a month (in cash).
I also get around $350k in stock compensation. A bunch get sold off to cover taxes, but I don't sell anymore, as I believe in the company, and it has done well in the last 2 years.
Altogether, I save above $250,000 a year - in vested stock, and cash.
Yeah that is playing on easy. Now try with a big suburban home, private schools, and wife who needs a lot of healthcare.
Add two kids, each 2k/mo/child in daycare.
That's 7k/month extra.
Still leaves you a nice chunk though.
That’s if you’re buying $1.3M house. There are plenty of good houses to be had in Seattle for $900k.
Maybe you are right, then the math changes, but only slightly?
Note I didn't even get into IRAs, 401k, Megabackdoor Roths, etc.
For one healthcare is usually not an issue because you have a good health plan with an out of pocket maximum. Your employer pays the premiums. Out of pocket you’re looking at about $10k/yr on the higher end, barring big medical problems or issues with your insurer (sadly, always a possibility). Let’s call that $1k/month.
Rent also depends a lot on how many bedrooms you need and how fancy you want to go. Let’s say it’s $2.5k/month (including utilities).
At $300k/yr in California you’re taking home about $180k/yr. So that’s about $15k/month after tax and $11.5k/month after rent and healthcare (you really aren’t likely to spend that much on healthcare. More on rent if you have kids). Not including of course things like 401k which can both lower your taxable income and get extra money from your employer
Are all these good-paying software jobs behind the "leetcode firewall", even for non-FAANG? I guess my willingness to practice on leetcode would be partly driven by potential TC reward, but I really would like to be judged on the merits of the development I've already done for previous companies instead of having to memorize solutions to esoteric problems I'm never going to have to solve on the job.
After a certain level, leetcode is 30% of your interviews. Your level is decided by system design and behavioral, which IMO you’ll do naturally better at with experience
Google did not bother to match at the same level. I guess Google is not drowning in money anymore (in comparison).
An E4/L4 (the level right below senior) easily makes 400k right now depending on which company they joined. Their typical offer was 160k base and let's day 82k RSU (325k over 4y).
With the usual (~15% of base) bonus, that's 160 * 1.15+82=266.
But now let's assume they joined 2 years ago, so they got refresher of stocks that are roughly 20k per year extra (80k vesting over 4y), 266+20+20=306k.
Here's the catch though, the 82k/y from the in-hire grant are now worth 160k/y: it's {stock price today} * 1/4 * 325k / {stock price at join date} , and look at FB, GOOG, AMZN etc trajectories.
Same for the refresher, the oldest one is probably worth around 40k/y, and most recent one probably worth 30k/y,
So this year exact TC could be (bumping base with 2 usual raises to 170): 170 * 1.15+160+40+30 = 425k.
That's ignoring extra (~10% of base) for on-call compensation.
That E4 doesn't need promo to E5. The math can be repeated for E3 or E5, the higher the stock number was, the higher the effect.
That's the effect of stock compensation and alignment of employee compensation with company performance. Of course if those share prices go down, so does the TC. There's a company in FAANG known for their frugality famous for not offering refresh "because the stock price is doing so well", but even without the refresher, someone's initial stock award from 2-3 years ago is worth a lot more today.
Some companies are starting bad trend these days due to them offering only 1 year vesting stock awards, instead of typical 4 years (smaller on-hire awards but bigger refresh), where an employee cannot benefit from the compounding effect of stock growth anymore. The employee can "hodl" their vested shares, but the vested shares are usually less, since ~1/3 is removed to pay for the tax the vesting represented.
> That's ignoring extra (~10% of base) for on-call compensation.
What FAANG companies do this? I haven't heard of it.
> There's a company in FAANG known for their frugality famous for not offering refresh "because the stock price is doing so well",
To be clear: Amazon does this. They also value their stock packages to the expectation their stock will grow 15% YoY. It means their offers are inflated relative to the same nominal figure from other employers.
Money.
What will you do with all that money?
Retire comfortably.
When is it enough?
When I can retire. Why not change jobs to earn 30% more for the same amount of work? You're essentially speeding up your retirement every time you increase your total compensation.