Hacker News Reader

Comment by capableweb | Hacker News Reader

So the person interviewed is lying then, you claim? Inflating the number?

> I got to the point where they offered me a job, and I was going to quit. But I had a huge stock investment coming up. So there was no way I was going to rock the boat in any way, shape, or form just trying to get to this date.

> If you walked away during the Pivot or anytime before you had your investment before it was there for you, you would lose it all. And I'm not talking a little bit of money. I'm talking: I had a couple hundred thousand dollars coming to me.

> I played along, and I'm good at playing along when I have to be. So then the money is in my account. That next day, I called my manager and I told them I was resigning.

View on HN

No, she isn't necessarily lying but just making it seem as if she would have received $200K over a single vest while it would have likely happened over at least 2 years and 4 vests.

I have £110K coming up if I look on the stock portal, but it's over the next two years, so 25K at a time, and I don't consider it as money I already have.

You’re just out of touch with how much people can make in the US.

An IC software dev L6 offer I reviewed for a colleague 4 years ago was TC comprised of 180k salary and a little over $1 million of stock with a 4 year vest that Amazon backloads so you get most in the last 2 years. $200k in a single 6 month vest cycle is definitely possible in that offer depending on timing of amzn stock.

This article was from someone who had been at Amazon 6 years and who was managing people. They were HR, which obviously doesn’t comp like software, but once you’re managing a team the stock may be similar.

I'm very aware with how much people can make per year in the US.

A principal engineer that is tenured will be on around 550K a year. An HR person that administers PIPs is at most L6 and unlikely to be on more than 250K a year.

6 years in Amazon means a salary was low, not that it was high. Managing people doesn't mean anything, you can earn less than $100K TC in Seattle and be managing people.

Additionally, compensation has been reworked a lot 2 years ago to increase a lot the cap on salary and reduce a stocks.

> principal engineer that is tenured will be on around 550K a year.

You ignored what I wrote

> I have £110K coming up

The currency symbol is the tell. At FAANG, people get paid a lot more in the US.

A former manager of mine moved to another (non-FAANG) company and was given a $500K sign on bonus. If it vested annually over 4 years, that's over $100K each vest. Start adding annual RSUs provided, and I can see a single vesting event going over $150K.

And as others have pointed out, Amazon backloads the vesting. 40% in the 3rd year. Another 40% in the 4th year.

I know exactly the salary bands of Amazon in the US, no HR PIPer is earning even $100K in a single vest, let alone $200K.

IIRC, truly well performing employees there can get very good stock. Amazon hates giving out cash. For a time, even during interviews, they would brag that even Bezos himself didn't make more than about $160k in base pay annually. Stock, stock, and stock are used for incentivization, and Amazon has indeed had some very good market performance over time.

Well, it seems what the interviewed person is saying is that "Day X I didn't have the money in my bank account. I waited for Day Y, and now I have \"couple hundred thousand dollars\" in my bank account", which sounds like it didn't happen over 2 years and 4 vesting occasions. But maybe it's just worded weird.

They had direct reports in HR so you might be on the mark in terms of ladder just more in the HR camp with OP as a senior manager where they combined their bonus and vest payouts? You'd just have to be a bit above Staff to hit 200k with bonus and a single vest.

Good eye, and accurate original observation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com