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Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

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Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#341

Post by ryguytilidie »

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.

How is it any less constructive than the person he is replying to...?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#342

Post by throwaway_goog »

foobarqux wrote: post #316
throwaway_goog wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway because I don't want my salary history to become public. I spent 5 years at Google. My AGI (as measured by the IRS) during my time there went $130K, $200K, $280K, $280K, $300K, $356K (for my last 5 months there...it also includes unexercised stock options for the last 5 years, though). The bump to $280K was upon promotion to senior SWE; the one to $200K was largely because of a generous stock refresh grant.

When you say unexercised you mean unvested, right? Can you redo the numbers and break-out the vesting stock? Also, since the thread is about making decisions about your career, considering compensation, why did you leave Google?

By unexercised I mean unexercised. Stock options vest continually (well, usually monthly or quarterly usually, after the 1-year cliff); when they've vested, you have the right to exercise them, and they're considered your property. You only exercise them when you choose to, and it's at that point that you're taxed on the difference between the current stock price and the strike price.

Many of my coworkers would auto-exercise-and-sell their options immediately as they vested. If I'd done this then it would've added between $15K-$60K for each of the first 5 years, but the last year would've been about $130K instead of $350K (I benefitted significantly from the stock price appreciation of GOOG, even if I did screw up nearly everything tax-related).

I left Google because five things happened within a year or so: #1 I started feeling bored at work #2 My existing project ended and I couldn't find one that really excited me #3 I passed a million bucks in liquid net worth #4 The outside tech world started entering what seems to be a period of high uncertainty and #5 I started thinking seriously about marriage & kids and realized I only had a few years left. So, in the spirit of YOLO and with immediate financial concerns taken care of, I figured it was time to do some things I'd always wanted to do.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#343

Post by fbthrowaway9479 »

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.

Here's what my comp has looked like at FB over the years:

2012: ~75k (internship + first half of sign on bonus + relocation bonus)

2013: ~100k (salary for ~6 months + second half of sign on bonus)

2014: ~225k (~110k base salary + stock)

2015: ~265k (~130k base salary + stock)

I believe myself to be around average. From what I've heard about some of my peers' comp they sound comparable to this as well.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#344

Post by pzone »

aianus wrote: post #330
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.

But also get ridiculously lucky or be past the 95th percentile of coders.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#345

Post by serge2k »

fredkbloggs wrote: post #286
School-Cotton wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People get $100k of stocks a year? As in, not RSUs - vested stocks? I suspect you're confusing the two, though I admit I'm not certain

Obviously, it matters very much what the market price of the stock is. Your grant will be for a certain number of shares on some vesting schedule, not for a certain cash value . Remember kids, stock prices don't always go up. Some stock prices go down, and sometimes all stock prices go down together. Those RSUs that, if fully vested, would have a market price of $400k at time of hire, may well be worth anything from…

When talking about companies as well established as these the risk is a lot lower. In some cases since the goal is to give you a set number in compensation they will factor in a poor stock performance and give you an adjustment to make up for it.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#346

Post by throwawaysf123 »

throwaway_goog wrote: post #248
lcr94 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Throwaway because I don't want my salary history to become public. I spent 5 years at Google. My AGI (as measured by the IRS) during my time there went $130K, $200K, $280K, $280K, $300K, $356K (for my last 5 months there...it also includes unexercised stock options for the last 5 years, though). The bump to $280K was upon promotion to senior SWE; the one to $200K was largely because of a generous stock refresh grant.

does it vary by what part of the stack you work on? The impression I've got is that Google tends to value infrastructure engineers more than others (like frontend engineers).

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#347

Post by throwawaysf123 »

throwawayabcer wrote: post #305
throwaway_goog wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway because I don't want my salary history to become public. I spent 5 years at Google. My AGI (as measured by the IRS) during my time there went $130K, $200K, $280K, $280K, $300K, $356K (for my last 5 months there...it also includes unexercised stock options for the last 5 years, though). The bump to $280K was upon promotion to senior SWE; the one to $200K was largely because of a generous stock refresh grant.

Also throwaway for obvious reasons. What you say sounds totally in line with my experience: I am Senior SWE at an Alphabet company. Came to MTV in middle of 2015 from a company in the midwest where I made over $200K last year (much of this was profit-sharing bonus), and I was definitely at top of the market for my city. My total compensation for this coming year (based on current value of GOOG, obviously this can var…

what part of the stack did/do you work on (machine learning/AI, infra, web services/APIs, frontend, other)?

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#348

Post by serge2k »

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)…

> This is so doable within five years that at large companies like Google and Microsoft you are expected to hit senior level, and if you don't it begins to reflect badly on your record. More explicitly, "senior" is the last level that everyone is expected to hit

Not at Amazon. They are fine if people cap out at SDE 2. It's a bit of an odd thing IMO, and it's resulted in a comparatively low number of senior and above level SDE.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#349

Post by serge2k »

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…

> I was under the impression that Senior is mid-level?

Yes and no. It's a middle level in that there are levels above it. It's not in the sense that it is where most people will cap out. A senior engineer is expected to be exactly that for most teams, but you will see principles (or whatever) there for the harder/bigger problems.

Re: Big Company vs. Startup Work and Compensation

#350

Post by serge2k »

mpdehaan2 wrote: post #212
jbeda wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook and Google don't really do Work From Home and don't have a lot of remote locations for development depending on where they are. I don't know what they offer datacenter staff, but in many areas, that's all they have for "not CA". This is just untrue. I haven't looked closely at Facebook recently (beyond watching the [office in Seattle]( http://www.geekwire.com/2015/sneak-peek-facebook-plans-epic-... ) grow…

It's completely accurate - hence the location part. If you sought to add clarification, the first sentence was unneccessary. Let's confine this to "they won't hire in most of the Continental United States". Even for exceptional candidates, remote is also completely out of the question for them. That's obviously their right and I don't hold them against them. (But it's worth contrasting with someone like Red Hat, who…

> Facebook is often avoided by some very sharp kernel (and other) folks, because they greatly insist on a boot camp and can't guarantee what department you are going to work for. They lost some brilliant folks as a result. I wouldn't work for them for that reason, as I think the team and the manager are the most important parts of the hiring decision.

That sounds better than Google's "work on what we tell you to" approach.

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