Software engineers tell Glassdoor that Walmart pays more than Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Software engineers tell Glassdoor that Walmart pays more than Facebook

washingtonpost.com

34 pointschwolfe71 comments

Walmart has a division called Walmart Labs that is based in Silicon Valley. They are working on many complex projects, especially around Big Data.

Not sure how big that engineering group is compared to the rest of Walmart IT, but I would assume that group is nicely paid and working on interesting problems.

Entry level (i.e., junior dev) salaries at Walmart Labs are $100k. This is based off of multiple data points.

> multiple

Approximate number? Are we talking 2, 20, 200?

I don't know anyone who has joined at rank Junior Software Engineer I (doesn't necessarily mean you are wrong though). Everyone I know who joined young (and there aren't many...) came in at JSWE III which requires prior experience and is roughly commensurate with $100k industry-wide.

Not surprised really. Wal-Mart (labs I'm guessing) knows they need to put up significantly more cash to attract talent given the negative/boring/un-prestigious way most people perceive the brand.

This won't apply to everyone, but before applying to Walmart/Walmart Labs, do remember that Walmart will ask you to pass a drug test.

You may not know, but does the Dept. of Justice announcing they won't challenge state medical marijuana laws have any effect on pre-employment drug testing? Why or why not? Most employers seem to be moving away from it, in my experience.

Independent of state (medical or otherwise) marijuana laws, employers still drug test (even in WA, where personal pot use is legal, for example). Pot users aren't a protected class for discrimination purposes, afaik. I agree that it seems silly.

Things are a bit different in the software world, where employers are moving away from drug testing because they need all the talent they can get. It turns out some potheads are actually pretty productive members of society if you give them a chance.

I read somewhere that among Silicon Valley engineers, the usage rate is like 40% or so. If that is true, then when almost 1 in 2 engineers smokes, you can't afford to discriminate.

Yep. Among the US population as a whole, lifetime illicit drug use is something like 50%. So I wouldn't be too surprised if it was that high among SV engineers.

Most tech employers never had it to begin with. I don't understand how it's legal, honestly.

I dont understand why private businesses discriminating even matters. They just put themselves at a disadvantage by limiting their applicant pool based on whatever tests/discrimination they want.

Also remember that they are evil.

I don't toss this around lightly, but Wal-Mart is one of the very few companies (I actually can't think of any others right now) that I absolutely will not do business with no matter what.

Could you elaborate why?

They severely mistreat their employees when it comes to on-the-job injuries.

Friend of mine injured his knee while working in one of their warehouses. A perverse company policy gives bonuses if the crew is injury-free for a certain amount of time. This is supposed to improve safety, but what it does is cause management to put intense pressure on workers not to see a doctor when injured, because if they don't see a doctor then it doesn't count.

In my friend's case, this exacerbated the injury greatly. By the time he got medical attention, it was a $20,000 surgery. Wal-Mart then denied responsibility, saying it was an old football injury and thus a preexisting condition not covered by their health policy. This basically bankrupted him.

Beyond that, they achieve low prices by leveraging their massive size difference to completely screw producers. Examples:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MF1qnjm...

http://www.fastcompany.com/54763/man-who-said-no-wal-mart

In short, Wal-Mart will make big promises that generate big commitments from suppliers, then break their contracts in ways that are difficult to fight in order to save money and make the suppliers ever more dependent on them.

But, to be honest, the way they personally affected me by fucking over my friend is by far the bigger reason behind my judgment.

I'm not generally troubled by the way that companies act as amoral profit-maximizers. But they're supposed to do it within the law. Wal-Mart actively screws over people by playing outside the rules, far beyond what I see other companies doing.

Thanks for that.

When this kind of comment comes up, I am always concerned about a slippery-slope as there are many other companies / practices that do worse things than Walmart and thus boycotting only Walmart would be a hypocrisy. You could say similar things about Apple products, or the random T shirt one would pick up from a cheap store. The personal angle in your comment makes a lot of sense.

That would be the same of accusing Apple of being evil for overlooking environmental laws, while other companies (Samsung, etc...) use the exact same practices and end up getting a free pass. Walmart gets labeled as "evil" simply because they are the big ones and therefore the media likes to make them the example, but every retailer acts like them.

This is a problem of corporate-capitalism and the lack of labor protection in the US more than anything else.

(I agree with you that this is bad behavior. My point is simply that this kind of behavior should be enforced by the system)

Are the others, in fact, just as bad? If so, I've not heard of it. Sure, there are certain routine abuses that are rampant everywhere, but Wal-Mart takes it to a uniquely high level from what I know. I could be wrong, of course, but that's what I know.

> Are the others, in fact, just as bad?

Well, just one example that came to my mind from a documentary I watched recently:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/viewfinder/asia/2013/07/...

It's nearly impossible to link a single case of cancer to a particular cause, since the whole process is deeply probabilistic. Absent evidence of routine abuses at this factory and a significant increase in cancer incidence among workers, it doesn't really work.

A knee injury, on the other hand, is trivial to link to the on-the-job accident that caused it in many cases.

There is also their aggressive anti-union tactics. They have a anti-union response team that flies in on a corporate jet to deal with any stores that are threatening to organize.

I don't toss this around lightly, but Wal-Mart is one of the very few companies I absolutely always do business with because it is cheap, reliable, and I hate going to multiple stores on a single shopping trip.

try costco

Costco targets the high-middle-class families, who have the income and space to buy bulk. And by making up in volume and high-end products [1] Costco can afford to "not be evil".

[1] - One not very well-known facts about Costco is that a big part of their profit comes from the high-end "novelty" stuff that they put in between the cheap bulk items. That works for them because people who shop at Costco have high disposable income.

This is a good example of why libertarians are evil.

Facebook is to privacy as Wal-Mart is to small retail business.

s/small business/small retail/

quite

Has it actually been proven that Wal-Mart is detrimental to small retail business?

I know, it seems obvious on the face of it. Wal-Mart comes to Mayberry, and Walker's Drug Store and Foley's Grocery and Weaver's Department Store can't compete and go out of business.

...except weren't those already nailed before Wal-Mart got there by Walgreen's and Safeway and JC Penny?

I suspect that when a place is big enough to support a Wal-Mart, it's already attracted enough big national chains that the small guys are dead or dying.

Wal-Mart is able to survive and thrive in environments where other chains can't. They can be the first, not the last, big national retail chain to move in.

The town where I went to high school got one. Before they showed up, there were no other big chains of anything in that sort of business. The closest were some of the standard big chain fast food joints and gas stations. Walgreens, Safeway, JC Penney, none of them existed there.

I left before the Wal-Mart came so I didn't really see how things changed with it. I have no idea if it was good or bad for small businesses (of which there wasn't much to destroy anyway) or the town as a whole. I'm just addressing the idea that Wal-Mart would somehow be a latecomer.

But I bet you'd shop Amazon without thinking twice.

Yep!

Care to tell me why I shouldn't?

For anyone wondering why this might be, you may benefit from looking up the term "compensating differential" on Wikipedia. The general idea is that if a job has less appeal (because it is less pleasant or prestigious, which it's reasonable to believe SWE for Walmart is), you have to pay more to get the same talent.

"Where there's muck there's brass"

I was about to say the exact same thing before I read your comment. It doesn't matter if you get more money, you will still be a software engineer at Walmart!

Hmm, that said, this could easily just be a reflection of biases and preconceptions software engineers have about Walmart. For all you or I know, those guys over at Walmart Labs/Walmart Ecommerce are having a blast and getting paid a bunch to do it.

I know a few people here who say that it is their "dream" job. But, that's mostly because @WalmartLabs is treated like an independent startup with its own management, ecosystem, and philosophies. The employees who can make a huge impact and have awesome bosses are very happy - this would be true at any company.

Odd. I'd say the same thing, except s/Walmart/Facebook.

I have an old saying: "If you want to make good money you can do something that either: a. no one else can do or b. no one else wants to do but if you want to make really good money, do something no else can do AND no one else wants to do."

I asked the recruiter multiple times if what Fox (the movie studio) was offering was legit. They offered me $20,000 more than Microsoft.

which is a huge difference. you can hire half-time maid/cook with that. Did you take it?

You forget to take into account the tax bracket!

Why does that matter?

$20K extra if you are already $100K+/year is heavily taxed. You can lose about 40% of it (social security, medicare, federal income tax, state income tax).

Sure did. It's sort of bittersweet because I really wanted to work for Microsoft since I was a kid but to me my salary is part of my worth and I don't want to undermine the value of my career by taking a lower pay. I don't think the work is as challenging as it would have been at a tech giant (I'm pretty much a glorified UI/front-end web developer) but I do get to work alongside the Hollywood crowd which IMO is as exciting as working at a "cool" Silicon Valley gig. Also, I don't think startups pay much anyhow, especially in LA (I've had to laugh off some offers from the Santa Monica startups, sorry but $80k for a Senior Engineer is just ludicrous) - those jobs are better suited for the college grads. Anyways, the above average pay in my case has to do with the fact that the studio makes a ton of money and are willing to put their money where their mouth is when it comes to talent (IT or otherwise), and that the area we work at has a very high cost of living.

Isn't Glassdoor data purely self-reported? Is there any central or peer review process on the data?

How could a reputable newspaper like the Post do a article on the basis of that alone?

The article says the this data is self-reported: "Web site Glassdoor compiled self-reported salary data of more than 33,000 software engineers over the past year"

But I bet they don't have a foozball table or all the Red Bull you can drink! They aren't COOL!

Are they?

ARE THEY?!

Technically, there is a foosball table and a vending machine with Red Bull. Employees prefer Cola & Coffee though (those are free).

Say it ain't so - Walmart has the cool and cachet of SV's hottest startups? You mean I took a 40% salary hit for 0.00001% of worthless equity (and free Red Bull that makes me jumpy) for nothing?

Noooo...

They would have to pay me more to work there too.

On this note, what is a good source of salary information for series A and series B companies?

For various reasons, I would imagine that comparing salaries in large mature companies and Series A/B startups to be like comparing apples and oranges.

Source: http://www.glassdoor.com/blog/15-tech-companies-software-eng...

This is article and data from last year, published: October 18, 2012

What about years of experience. Was that factored in ? FB attracts younger folk. Networking code needs a bit more experience than JS/html/css !

Right, but that doesn't include the extremely valuable equity grants given to engineers at these high-growth tech companies.

Would you call FB high-growth? At least from a VC standpoint "high-growth" is a 10x return, and not 2.5x like FB (on a good day)

Publicly traded companies are not measured by the VC yardstick.

Facebook is certainly high growth. And even if you don't want to use the traditional Wallstreet "growth stock" measurement, try this one out: If you were a facebook engineer hired 1 year ago given a (relatively small) $100k RSU grant that vests over 4 years, that grant today is worth $285,000. And today, on your 1 year anniversary, your first 25% chunk would've vested, giving you $72k in pre-tax income. As somebody who experienced this recently in another "high growth" dotcom IPO, the term I'd use for that is "down payment on a house."

You forgot to subtract the amount you "paid" for the RSUs by not making an optimal salary.

Interesting comment. Can't say I agree with it. There are a lot of benefits to having an equity grant as part of a total comp package for highly paid employees like software engineers and management. Even more so if you're fortunate enough to get non-qual options and not RSU's.

Among other things, if that employee had insisted on no equity all salary, he'd have POSSIBLY gotten that extra $25k a year. The guy next to him would be the one with $72k. You'd rather earn the "optimal" salary? And sure, share price can go down but if you don't believe a company is going to continue building wealth, why work there?

I also get RSUs as part of my compensation package (as any other tech company offers, by the way). The difference is that I am not getting a pay-cut for receiving RSUs. In other words, I am not making less for having the "opportunity" to maybe hit the lucky jar in the future.

> And sure, share price can go down but if you don't believe a company is going to continue building wealth, why work there?

My point is simply that IMO FB employees are not being fairly compensated for the amount of risk they are taking. If my future employer is asking me to accept a salary pay-cut in exchange of RSUs, my upside needs to be more than that. If we are talking about a revolutionary company, then sure, I'd agree with you, but Facebook?

OK, but how on earth would you know if FB employees are fairly compensated or not? I have only a single data point but a friend, surely between 7 and 12 years experience in the industry, is earning a base around $150k w/ a Sr Engineer title. Now, I have no idea what his equity grant is specifically but a $150k base is, IME, competitive for somebody with that level of experience. I'm closer to 15 years myself but that is more than I was making with similar experience and title.

My take on this is pretty simple: There are very few labor markets I've heard of that are as liquid as software engineering talent in the bay area. If Facebook was paying below market rate salaries and trying to use their equity grants as justification, I think they would face a lot of difficulty recruiting top talent. Because the companies Facebook competes with ALSO have the equity card to play. And in fact, until recently, you could argue FB equity was not nearly as attractive as some of FB's major competitors. Specifically, they were underperforming publicly traded competitors like google, apple, linked in, and netflix, and they are at a disadvantage compared to non publicly traded companies simply because the potential upside is more limited. As an engineer you'd probably make more money in equity joining Twitter today than FB. Facebook's stock has plenty of room to grow, but to what? Possibly it will double in the next year, and triple in the next 5 years. Possibly. Compare that to the under-$20 strike price you'd get joining Twitter today and it's not as attractive.

All that said, I bought a few hundred shares of FB in the mid $20's and still see it as a good investment.

Glassdoor data is useless, especially if you are trying to get "averages" from it.

For entry level it might be okay. Non-entry level or positions where bonus is a large percentage of total comp it is useless. Listed compensation for non-entry investment banking or trading is widely inaccurate.

Base salary isn't everything.

It's just too bad they can't pay their retail employees a livable wage!

I believe they are transitioning to full time positions for exactly that reason.

To avoid paying livable wages?

Are they rebuilding RetailLink? It is the most horrible piece of software ever.

They should hire some usability engineers and shot the ones who did design RetailLink user interface.

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