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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#321

Post by kzhahou »

more_corn wrote: post #319

You had me till you non-ironically referenced mchurch. Seriously if you ever see him start talking just turn around and walk away. Having worked at Google for 7 years and now at a startup, I have to say the big company bullshit factor is huge. Even at Google where where bullshit is gold plated and served with delicious, locally sourced, healthy and tasty side dishes. I learned a lot there, worked with brilliant peopl…

Mchurch goes to the extreme quite often, but there's still a ton of truth in his main themes. He's trying to get people in the SV/VC-funded world to open their eyes to the subtle and not-so-subtle deceptions told here.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#322

Post by foobarqux »

gniv wrote: post #275

There is valid criticism to be made, but the negativity in this thread is out of proportion. As somebody who worked at Google for 5+ years, I'd like to emphasize a point: If you sustain good work [1] for a few years, you will be rewarded well beyond expectations [2]. Your compensation will depend on your performance, and not on your starting salary. I think this is unique to Google and maybe a few other tech giants.…

Since the thread is about making career decisions, can you explain why you left Google?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#323

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

Google, Facebook, Apple, etc aren't the only game. You can easily make $250k with the right knowledge in all sorts of places.

I worked with a guy in a .gov billing $250/HR, with about $100 going to the upstream contract holder. He was an ITIL/process expert.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#324

Post by alexandercrohde »

balls187 wrote: post #131
tptacek wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

200k for sr in the valley is not weird. Remember: it's not year 5 of your career . It's year 5 of your tenure at one company . It's a little unusual for people to stay longer than 4 years at most companies.

What companies are paying 5 year senior enigneers $200k base salary in the Valley???

I hate to be put in this position, but I have to call BS. This entire thread is highly biased towards people who make more: people who make more want to chime in, people who make less are more embarrassed / discouraged from chiming in.

I'm a natural (coding since 3rd grade), out of college for 6 years, and I've only known 1 engineer in my career who made over 200k. Now if by BigCo you mean Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon, then I don't know them, so I can't comment.

But if by BigCo you mean IBM, Cisco, Intel, etc then I can guarantee you that I don't know a single person making 250k, and glassdoor generally corroborates (if you google STAFF (> senior) software engineer in SF for IBM your average is 132 base in SF)

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#325

Post by gozur88 »

bigcothrowa wrote: post #217
bambax wrote: post #150

I wonder what people do with all that money. If you're capable of earning $250k working 5 days a week, why not earn $100k working only 2 days a week?

It doesn't scale down like that.

Wouldn't that be nice, though? I'd do it in a heartbeat.

One of the guys tried to arrange that where I work, and he ended up retiring.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#326

Post by superuser2 »

lcr94 wrote: post #233
mrshoe wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That this is currently the top comment reinforces the author's hypothesis that many software engineers underestimate how much they could make at a large company. > 250k a year in 5 years at a big corporation, really? Yes, 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. Nope, not true. > So I think this art…

This style of reply is not constructive. How can we know with certainty whether or not you have a reasonable shot at making 250k/year after five years of working at Apple, Amazon, Google, or Microsoft? Provide an anecdote, links to articles, etc.

Yes it is, because its relative placement in the thread serves as a sort of poll on whether it rings true to people's experiences.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#327

Post by myanondev »

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…

I did an AMA on Reddit a few months ago. I worked for a well-known Sillicon Valley company for about a year and made around $200K/year and that's with about 5 years of programming professionally under my belt.

Just wanted to give you a heads up. I went back to startup work and my salary got immediately cut down to $125K.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#328

Post by ChuckMcM »

Jabbles wrote: post #271
ChuckMcM wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect its pretty certain, it certainly held true when I was working there and that was before Google was 50K employees. The flip side though is you may not make it to 5 years. A lot of employees don't (which is less commonly talked about) but Google has always tried pretty hard to not retain people who weren't providing what they considered an appropriate level of contribution. So if you start working at Google,…

> A lot of employees don't And what is your evidence for that? I hope it's not an estimate for the average time an engineer has been at Google, which is clearly not the same thing.

I don't know if it is still true but there was a lot of data available during the 4 years I was there to watch this in "real time". Lots of data sources and a number of people interested in the question. You couldn't easily pull apart terms vs quits but at the end of the day it amounted to the same thing.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#330

Post by aianus »

lilcarlyung wrote: post #232

Working in Europe I can never believe these fantasy numbers from the U.S. 250k USD after 5 years, seriously? A good Senior Developer here, with 5-10 years of relevant experience, might have a base salary of around 50-60K EUR, and perhaps another 0-2K EUR in bonuses. Then you have to pay around 30% income tax and another 20% if you hit a certain income bracket (which you do with 50K) in many Western European countries…

It's real and if you're willing to move to SV, they're always hiring.
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