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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#171

Post by georgefrick »

chucksmash wrote: post #151
georgefrick wrote: post #50

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?

Out of curiosity, how many companies have you worked at during that time period? My experience over the past 4 years as a developer and 7 years in the labor force has been that my biggest raises have always come either by switching jobs or by bringing an offer to my boss.

Three.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#172

Post by googthrowaway8 »

to3m wrote: post #163
googthrowaway8 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not true, although I thought it was before joining Google from a startup. I'm now two years in (after joining at entry level) and my compensation is ~220k. 250k for senior is pretty conservative, if the Googlers I've talked to at that level are representative (and we don't work in the Bay Area).

This is your take home pay? So after taxes?

Oops, that is not at all what I meant by take home - my bad. I meant total comp; this is very much before taxes.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#173

Post by ryandrake »

Retric wrote: post #158
ryandrake wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of starting fresh out of school at a company for $130K, doubling up to $250K seems to me ludicrous, besides for a rare few outlier roles at a rare few companies. I can say I've got close to 20 years of experience and I don't make anywhere close to that. Not saying there are no roles like this--just saying this probably several standard deviations from the mean, and not useful as a "back of the envelope estim…

I personally know someone that went from 130k to over 1 million in 7.5 years at a large 20,000+ person non valley company. Skills, luck, negotiation, and HR will get ignored.

Totally believe it, but he or she is a clear outlier, when considering the huge breadth of tech positions out there.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#174

Post by sutterbomb »

lhorie wrote: post #89
herge wrote: post #7

I'd recommend anyone looking for their first job out of university to consider strongly a job at a startup. Consider it a 'finishing school', where you'll have the highest chance to touch as many different technologies and tasks as possible (from system administration, to backend to frontend work), as opposed to the 'Big Company' where (especially for a first job) you'll be focused on one task. The important thing is…

I recommend getting into a small company (i.e. 80-200 employees and profitable), if possible. At this size, you have opportunities to wear different hats and moving sideways, but you also get opportunities to see and participate in workforce scaling (helping form new processes, seeing new departments emerge, etc). The important thing is to be vocal about what you want to do. If you came in as a frontend dev want to d…

This was my experience and it has worked out really well for me. I've seen a few levels of scale (~120 people to start, ~1500 now), have worked in several different departments and touched nearly every area of the business. Incredible learning opportunities and ability to drive real change/results (which is a main argument for startups) while also having advantages of larger companies in terms of resources, training, pay etc.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#175

Post by [deleted] »

chucksmash wrote: post #151
georgefrick wrote: post #50

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?

Out of curiosity, how many companies have you worked at during that time period? My experience over the past 4 years as a developer and 7 years in the labor force has been that my biggest raises have always come either by switching jobs or by bringing an offer to my boss.

[deleted]

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#176

Post by dsacco »

noname123 wrote: post #165
dsacco wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't undermine the author's point. As another commenter said, people are really underestimating the likelihood of earning a $250k salary at a large company. It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area. The author's core point is that you are much more likely to become a senior engineer at a large company (and thus earn ~$250k in salary)…

>"senior" is the last level that everyone is expected to hit, and at which you are "allowed" to not seek further promotions. I was under the impression that Senior is mid-level? I thought the ladder went, Junior/Associate, (Just) Software Engineer, Senior (some places have Senior I/II), then Principal, and finally (Optional for really big companies with R&D like Cisco/Juniper/United Technologies), Fellow or Distingui…

Yes, senior is mid-level if you look at a ladder. It's usually SWE I, SWE II, Senior, Staff, Senior Staff, Principal, Distinguished, etc. for large companies.

What I meant was that large companies expect all hires to eventually hit senior, give or take 3 - 6 years. If you don't, they have something of an "up or out" approach, where it counts against you in subsequent reviews. However, not everyone is expected to achieve Staff or higher.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#177

Post by sokoloff »

balls187 wrote: post #129
jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

$250k Total comp. That's salary, bonus, equity, and benefits.

When I use total comp, I exclude non-cash benefits, and I think that's the normal use of the phrase. Health care, vision, dental, long-term disability, etc are all excluded.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#178

Post by vonmoltke »

dsacco wrote: post #124
jarjoura wrote: post #96

250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yea if you're lucky to work on a project/team higher-ups care about and are also willing to bust your ass working long hours to meet insane deadlines. Also, you better be someone who is excellent at communication and charismatic if you want to get invited to the table of interesting work. There are a lot of brilliant hyper-competitive people who work at these big c…

This doesn't undermine the author's point. As another commenter said, people are really underestimating the likelihood of earning a $250k salary at a large company. It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area. The author's core point is that you are much more likely to become a senior engineer at a large company (and thus earn ~$250k in salary)…

> It's really, really doable at a large company within 5 years if you hit senior level and live in a metropolitan area.

So Dallas doesn't count as a metropolitan area? I can almost guarantee nobody here is making that kind of money after only five years. In fact, I'm willing to bet that this kind of compensation is extremely rare outside SV, NYC, and possibly Seattle.

In fact, based on what I remember of the salary bands at my former company, it was impossible to reach $250k/year in five years, anywhere in the country.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#179

Post by ksherlock »

georgefrick wrote: post #50

So I've been at this 9 years and I'm not making six figures. Fuck. I don't even understand where I went wrong. Part of me can't believe the article at all. His comment about cost of living was kind of an outright dismissal, very odd? I don't think Google will let me work from Milwaukee. Where is the information on travel, quality of life (owning a house?), etc?

California (and certain parts even more so) is an alternate reality where 3 weeks in a coder bootcamp learning to copy-paste from stack overflow entitles you to a job as a 6-figure javascript ninja. And you'll still be living in poverty. It might as well be a different country with a 10-1 exchange rate.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#180

Post by methodover »

> Moreover, the pitch that you’ll only need to work for four years is usually untrue.

Definitely, and not just for the reasons stated in the article. I believe it's pretty common for employees to get escalating stock options as they progress in the company. When I first joined my startup as the second engineer hire, I got something like 0.2%, under a four year vesting schedule. After a year I got a bit more, like 0.3%. After another year and a half or so, I was given enough to bring me up to what is currently 1% -- but again, under a four year vesting schedule. Most of my options vest under a four year schedule that started 2 1/2 years into working there.

Is it pretty common for regular engineers to get 1% options right off the bat? I thought it wasn't.

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