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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

#91

Post by boren_ave11 »

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…

Stock isn't a one-time thing.

RSUs are frequently given during annual performance reviews to employees with good reviews. For my first annual review I received a score of "Exceeds" which is second from the highest. For that, I got 35 RSUs worth roughly $19K when they vest (at current price).

In theory, good employees will continue to receive stock grants that vest over time, thus creating incentives to both stay and to perform well.

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

#92

Post by TheCowboy »

nickff wrote: post #42
dsp1234 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be simple economics and negotiation tactics to me. Backed up by the fact that it's such a taboo subject among coworkers, almost always for reasons of 'don't want to rock the boat' and 'don't want to get fired'. From a negotiation standpoint, the employer (generally) wants to hire, or give raises to, the employee at the lowest possible total cost. Whereas the employee (generally) want to be hired, or get a…

People value transparency, and it might be that they would prefer a lower salary at a more transparent workplace. In addition, providing wage transparency allows for further transparency in other business areas, such as gross margins, R&D costs, etc. which may be valuable in allowing employees to understand the business better and contribute in more meaningful ways. You are also only addressing the workers with below…

If we focus on Amazon, lack of information is going to be asymmetric, with Amazon as a large employer holding the informational advantage. Amazon can see what the salaries are, what people accept, and what people were making when they left. If people want to try bargaining up because they think they deserve more, Amazon knows better if it can ignore the request and find the same talent for less.

And I don't see how it's relevant to mention how workers have "above median wages" compared to national figures. If anything, wouldn't that imply that Amazon is blindly giving out too much money and ignoring this very public information? That's implying an unlikely level of incompetence, when it's really about variation within the labor market.

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

#93

Post by throwaway75383 »

Position: SDE III Tenure: almost 1 year Job level: 6 Base Pay: $150000 Signing bonus $50k year 1, $40k year 2 Stock: 450 shares, spread over 4 years, 5%/15%/40%/40% No promotions or reviews yet Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes Location: Seattle

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

#95

Post by djb_hackernews »

seattle_googler wrote: post #46

Seattle Googler here (throwaway account). Position: Senior Software Engineer (level 5) Tenure: 4 years, no prior experience Comp: $300K (160 salary, 40 bonus, 100 stock) Male, native English speaker P.S. We're hiring.

Any connections in the Cambridge, MA office?

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

#96

Post by p4wnc6 »

JoshDoody wrote: post #14

I'm not an Amazonian, but I wanted to chime in here to say I think this thread is a great idea and I would love to see more like it. I write about salary negotiation and coach people through it, and I think sharing salaries publicly will encourage more people to negotiate and get paid what they're worth. I recently coached a new Amazon employee, and he got a very good offer, which he increased by about 15% using VERY…

I'm interested in what your negotiation principles are.

I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their initial offer.

However, I've repeatedly used all of the "business-professional" and "HR approved" sorts of conversational techniques to enact this advice, and the only result that has ever occurred is either (a) the company literally refuses to even conduct a single interview with me before knowing salary information, or (b) the company finally makes a job offer and it is extremely low, something around 50%, of what I have earned previously in similar roles.

95% of the time I say I am more focused on assessing cultural and technical fit for the position, making sure I would jell with the team, finding out more about the company, learning more about the trade-offs required for the role, etc., as reasons for not providing salary information as literally the first point of communication with HR, it results in an instantaneous rejection.

I still believe candidates should not agree to unfair information asymmetry by revealing their salary or wage preferences first. The problem is it just seems that something like 95% of all hiring managers will outright immediately reject you, on principle, if you don't agree to bear that unfair information asymmetry.

All the great techie blog posts on being a better negotiator, like this:http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ > -- they sound great and give me a pumped up rah rah feeling, but in practice they basically never work.

My interviewing experience with this has covered large multi-national companies, tech firms, small boutique quantitative finance firms, start-ups, consulting companies, and education technology. There certainly are industries I am missing, but it has seemed like a universal phenomenon to me.

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

#97

Post by chm »

You're not getting "ripped off" by having a base salary of 125K USD (with benefits and equity) fresh out of college.

Tell you what, with a Bachelor's in Chemistry (in my year 176 people started, only 42 finished the degree so it's not a free lunch) I can expect to make between 40K and 60K CAD out of college and pay higher taxes than in the US. With a master's that I'm working towards, I'd be on the upper end of that spectrum. So boo-hoo to those making only 125K with equity and benefits.

:/

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

#98

Post by qaid »

I work in Portland, have 5 years of experience, and I'm making about 90k after bonuses (no stock or sign-on bonus). I love Portland, my hours are very nice (~35hours), and I have a good amount of technical freedom. But boy....Maybe I should make the move up to Seattle.

It'd be nice if people mentioned how many hours/week they work for me to get a good idea of what to expect. Especially since we're talking about Amazon.

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

#100

Post by dang »

lolidaisuki wrote: post #28
AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #11

I worked for Amazon (Audible.com) from 2011 to 2014. 1 - Full-time freelance audiobook editor. $30/hr 2 - Post-Production Associate - Level 6/4 $50,000/yr 35 shares of AMZN per year for three years 3 - ACX Production Coordinator - Level 7/5 $65,000/yr Additional 20 shares of AMZN per year for three years I am no longer ashamed to write these figures out to the public because I now make more than twice the salary that…

> I am no longer ashamed to write these figures out to the public because I now make more than twice the salary that I was making before I left the company. You should be ashamed for thinking that money is this fucking important.

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