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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#251

Post by vonmoltke »

Avshalom wrote: post #246
vonmoltke wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 b…

That's as may be but what are your chances of making the equivalent of 5 years at Dallas BigCorp busting your ass to get to a senior X or X Supervisor in 5 year vs busting your ass at start up in Dallas?

That isn't the point I was addressing. I was concerned with the absolute numbers being floated in this conversation. They are thoroughly unrealistic for people outside a certain few areas.

On this specific point I don't have a good opinion. I don't know much about the startup scene here because nobody is doing things I am interested in, but from what I can tell they seem to be saner than what you get in the Valley because nobody has delusions of unicornhood there. Similarly, there are plenty of bust-your-ass BigCo jobs around here. So both camps seem to pay similarity and seem to have the same scattergun of stress levels.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#252

Post by Xyik »

The point of joining a start-up is to take risk and make more $. I'm not sure there is anyone who doesn't get that. Obviously joining a large stable company with consistent growth will net you high stable pay, the point is if you want to make an above average amount of money that moves the needle and makes your life feel different, a start-up is the way to go.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#253

Post by vonmoltke »

humanrebar wrote: post #224
vonmoltke wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 b…

Some cost of living calculators make $150k in Dallas equal about $250 in NYC. It's worth noting that $150k is high for Dallas, but not impossible for people with Principal, Fellow, or Chief in their job titles. It's worth noting that using a flat cost-of-living adjustment both overestimates and underestimates things. The kind of place you'd likely rent in Plano or Addison would cost ridiculous amounts in NYC, given c…

> Some cost of living calculators make $150k in Dallas equal about $250 in NYC. It's worth noting that $150k is high for Dallas, but not impossible for people with Principal, Fellow, or Chief in their job titles.

I'm not challenging that. There's a reason after all why I have not yet and never will move to California (well, a bunch of reasons, but most are irrelevant to this). As I said to my other respondent, I'm taking issue with the absolute numbers.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#254

Post by ercu »

johnward wrote: post #116
vlunkr wrote: post #106

Don't forget that there are other options. I work for a small consulting company. Our size allows us to have the agility of a start-up, but without the long hours and the stress of your product failing.

Consulting without long hours? Does that exist?

For my case, in a consulting company headquartered in a relatively 3rd world country, it is not allowed to work after 6pm. Because of family issues that employers value.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#256

Post by krschultz »

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…

It's $250k if you count the equity. The base salary in cash is not that amount, but if you include options/RSUs, and the company continues to do well, those numbers make sense.

If you do the math as base+equity you will often find startups that are giving out even better offers. I've seen $300k+ if you consider dollars in RSUs the same thing as dollars in cash. Unfortunately the math really is base+(equity*chance_it_pays_out). With that math, you are much more likely to come out ahead at Google, FB, Microsoft, etc.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#257

Post by krschultz »

peter303 wrote: post #84

I dont think these high salaries will last because we are in the midst of a startup bubble with too much VC money chasing too few good ideas. Echo 1990s. However even if return to the 2004 scenario of 80K/100K that is still comparable to other professional careers and better than most college majors. So I'd recommend staying in CS if you like it.

The counter argument is that now that the entire world is on the internet (unlike the 1990s), the addressable market for tech is significantly greater than it once was. Maybe there isn't a bubble at all, or maybe even if their is a bubble in VC the value of a single good engineer is still really freaking high.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#259

Post by loopbit »

eecks wrote: post #230
sbilstein wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can corroborate this. 250k is very, very attainable.

Just in the states? What about in Europe? FB, Google and others have headquarters in Dublin. I don't think they pay anything like that, do they?

I live in Dublin, don't work for Google but I have many friends that do (as well as in London and Zurich).

No, they don't pay anything close to that. Actually, AFAIK, in Dublin the salary that Google pays for developers is on the low side of the scale (they offset that, in part, with all the benefits like free food and the rest).

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#260

Post by arh68 »

Ocerge wrote: post #37
seattle_spring wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would trade my high salary for 6+ weeks of vacation and free healthcare.

Yup. I don't even have that large a salary for a software engineer ($75k in Portland OR, which is plenty for a 26 y/o, kidless, single male), but I'd take half if it meant I wouldn't be as chained to the desk as I am now.

Would you work for the government? A lot of people don't even show up in December, let alone Fridays. Let me know if you're interested in swapping desks ;)
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