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Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

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Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#291

Post by jonhohle »

duaneb wrote: post #203
boren_ave11 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you taking stock into consideration? At current price, 104 shares of AMZN equals $57,408 which puts my total 2016 pay at $130,408.

You get stock annually? Otherwise, you have to vest that over several years, severely reducing your annual. AND you're locked in for years just to cash out at maximum value. Unless you get that kind of equity yearly—which is crazy, and brings up dilution questions—you're better off taking a higher salary and investing as much as possible. But—adding X market value for equity vesting over Y years with 40% capital gain…

Amazon's compensation model leans heavily on stock and tops out in the mid 100Ks for all job levels. It's not uncommon for senior roles to get more compensation from stock than salary, and at higher levels the majority of the compensation is in stock. For the majority of employees, once compensation RSUs kick in, vesting occurs on May 15th and November 15th. For L7 (IIRC) and higher, vesting occurs quarterly.

The annual and midyear review process takes this into account and attempts equalize total compensation depending on the value of the stock (basically, you want the stock to be down when the price is used to calculate your total comp at the end of January).

When I was there, it was somewhat difficult to recruit some higher level roles because they might only be offered $120-$150K salary and then 200 or so RSUs over the course of the first year. That doesn't always look as enticing to someone as $250K salary.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#293

Post by SwellJoe »

justinclift wrote: post #202
SwellJoe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading it thinking, "Hmm, do I really hate working for other people that much?" I've run my own companies since I was in my early 20s, and have never taken on more than contract work for others. But, I've very rarely been able to pay myself as much as even modest developer or IT salaries at big companies in major cities. But, that may mean I just need to stop trying to make a living out of Open Source software.…

Maybe pick Open Source Software which people pay good money for skills in? :)

There's always that one person...

I've done that, and my most personally profitable years were doing that, billing $125/hour the last year I did it (this was eleven years ago), and working slightly more often than I wanted to be. There was a lot of travel, as my particular specialty was something that was needed by companies with very large websites, but not by many others, which I suspect is gonna be true of most of the "which people pay good money for skills in" projects. Being a contractor has most of the same disadvantages of having a real job; maybe pays a little better, and maybe you work a little less because of it. But, it has some additional negatives that I found made me unhappy.

I haven't gone back to contracting not because it isn't profitable, but because it isn't what I want to do. I want to build things, not merely install and configure software (even being really good at installing and configuring complicated software leaves something to be desired in the "job satisfaction" category).

Anyway, I've been making my living on Open Source software for approaching 20 years, through two different companies, and a half dozen pivots and business models. I'm not making statements out of lack of knowledge of the topic.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#294

Post by arcticfox »

tristor wrote: post #55
hullo wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're not doing the math on the stock (which is currently over $550). e.g. $73k base + $21k bonus + $57k stock = $151k for an engineer in their second year (no info about previous experience). Absent a lot of other context it does sound fair to me, or at least not "shockingly low".

I value those things differently, because the bonus is only for the first two years, and the stock is a one-time grant. Just like there's 'no replacement for displacement' in engines, there's no replacement for base salary in compensation. What I'm seeing in that compensation package is no incentive whatsoever to stay after you finish your second year, and no real incentives to start in the first place. $150k in Seat…

Equivalent to $90k? Do you live in the US? The cost of living for most lifestyles is nowhere near $60k different between Seattle and anywhere in the US.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#295

Post by novocaine »

maxaf wrote: post #199
jmathes wrote: post #165

The most important thing you can do for your career is: * Accept a job somewhere * Get promoted (doesn't matter how) * let yourself get hired away from your current company Getting hired away from your current company is the only way to get a fair raise based on increased experience. Companies never give substantial raises to current employees.

This simply isn't true. I received a >$30,000 raise at one of my previous employers after they realized that I was being grossly underpaid for the work I was doing. Granted, I had to bring my managers' attention to this, but they were understanding & did right by me.

Yep, if it's technical work that requires a large amount of learning and investment in employees, the company will typically move mountains to keep you if you are good.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#296

Post by HR0000000 »

knite wrote: post #211
JoshDoody wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on. Another principle is that you should always counter. So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to…

I've wanted to share my thoughts and experiences regarding the "never be the first to quote a number" strategy for some time, but I usually see these threads when they're too stale to comment on. My background: I'm a senior-level engineer in my early 30s, in SF. After a consulting stint, I interviewed heavily in 2013, and again in the second half of 2015, and currently speak with 1-2 recruiter cold calls per week to…

When you make as much as you do, it's a huge waste of everyone's time for you to interview for roles that just can't go there. By stating your compensation up front, you effectively make the recruiter your negotiator before you ever interview. You're getting them to get the company to agree to possibly paying you that much, assuming you meet some bar in their head that's worth it. More specifically to your next move, your base salary just won't have a lot of room to grow. So you have some options. -become a consultant. Many are referencing Patrick's blog (kalzumeus.com), which is a great way to bump up your dollars. -transform a recently funded startup that goes public. They'll throw money at you to build their team, then hopefully the stock makes you rich. -Even outside the big 6 (Uber? Really?), at your level in your job most larger companies should be rewarding heavily in stock and performance bonuses. Take the time with the recruiter to truly understand what the total compensation strategy is. What is the vesting schedule for the initial reward? What about stock given as bonuses or for promotions? What % of possible bonus does the average employee actually receive? -create the next big tech and run with it. AUTOMATE ALL THE THINGS. I hear there's money in that.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#299

Post by jonhohle »

boren_ave11 wrote: post #235
st3v3r wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you deducting the taxes from that stock compensation?

No. I am also not deducting taxes from the part of my salary that comes in the form of base pay.

Unless you say otherwise, Morgan Stanley will deduct it for you, and IIRC, the don't take your exemptions into account - just 30% off the top. You get to decide if you want to take the tax liability or get the refund (assuming you're effective tax rate is not actually 30%).

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#300

Post by kybernetikos »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #184
deeteecee wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's my only question with the negotiation technique of not disclosing a desired salary. So is it expected that the other side should state the salary offer? That was my only problem with all these negotiation techniques saying "never mention your salary." Eventually, one side or the other needs to mention and at the end of it all, most articles online never closed it off with saying either side would state the exp…

The candidate could put their minimum acceptable salary in an envelope. The employer could put their maximum acceptable salary in an envelope. The two parties could agree with a third party arbiter that if the maximum from the employer is larger than the minimum from the candidate, the salary will be set to the midpoint between the two numbers, and otherwise, no deal can be reached so both walk away. That's one way,…

You don't need the trusted third party. You could share the hash of the numbers so they couldn't be changed during the process, then do the millionaires problem [1] to find out which number was bigger, and finally and only if the right one is bigger, share the figures (setting the salary at the midpoint is the same as sharing the figures in terms of information transfer) and calculate it that way. The only way to not reveal the offers after a successful round would be to introduce some randomness, maybe choose a number at random from some agreed portion of the range between the numbers. I don't know if there is a zero knowledge protocol for selecting a number at random from a range where the extremes are set by two different people.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yao%27s_Millionaires%27_Proble...

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