After reading some of these comments... Holy shit, I am under paid.
It certainly is making me regret my life decisions.
Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
321–330 of 717 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#322This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. My wife and I bought an 1800 sq ft house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k. I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3 years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.
Compared to an engineer at a startup in SF making $150,000/year and paying over $3,000/mo [1] for a one bedroom apartment + California income/gains taxes, you're not doing too poorly at all. Your quality of life is also likely better and you're less exposed to crime.
[1] https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-ren...
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#323This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. My wife and I bought an 1800 sq ft house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k. I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3 years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.
Don't seem THAT underpaid. Check glassdoor or other stats for regional average.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#324Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't praise Google for that, considering they actively participated in suppressing tech workers' wages: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
Can't I praise one thing without necessarily agreeing with another? I'm not saying Google is this shining company without a single flaw, but I'm definitely impressed with the way they seem to take their employees as adults that have strong opinions that need to be addressed. Far from trying to apologize for anyone related to that lawsuit, but in my opinion what happened was a set of people thought they could get away…
No, they did not fail at all - far from it. They collectively paid only a $400M settlement, which is likely only a small fraction of how much they got out of the scheme.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've wanted to share my thoughts and experiences regarding the "never be the first to quote a number" strategy for some time, but I usually see these threads when they're too stale to comment on. My background: I'm a senior-level engineer in my early 30s, in SF. After a consulting stint, I interviewed heavily in 2013, and again in the second half of 2015, and currently speak with 1-2 recruiter cold calls per week to…
FWIW I am basically in the same situation. My base pay is in the same region you describe for yours, and I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is, let alone other forms of compensation and other benefits. I am in scientific computing and machine learning, and I actually love being an implementer and a coder. I don't want to be a people manager (mostly because I think all companies force…
> I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is
I'm suspicious that this is a silent-evidence phenomenon. I'd assume that the duration a job listing is up correlates inversely proportional to the compensation. If that's true, all the great paying jobs are optically invisible.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 (…
There IS another solution to this. When someone asks how much you are currently making, you should flat out lie. They won't check. I've job hopped a bunch, and usually I just take whatever I was currently making, and add 15%, and say that that was my base. If employers are going to play negotiation games, you shouldn't feel bad about playing them too.
I have been asked for proof of current salary (paycheck stubs, etc.) to be included with all my onboarding and HR forms when the current salary formed a basis for my new salary, FYI.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is another reason for a PIP: the employer thinks the employee has been doing their job badly but could do acceptably well. The PIP is the last available tool to get them back up to speed.
Most of the time, when your employer truly thinks that about you, they'll work on your improvement informally. I don't like saying this, but I think most people's best interests are served by the assumption that a PIP signals their employer's transition from "working to retain them" to "working to manage them out of the company".
On the off-chance they're doing that because your performance is abysmal and you haven't improved enough from their informal intervention, if in PIP you managed to finally recover your performance, maybe they will let you stay a bit longer.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#328Here is an offer for someone with 5 years of experience in San Francisco: Base 180k Sign on 80k over two years 189 RSU over four years with 5-15-40-50% vesting schedule.
Is that 189K RSU?
Almost certainly not.
https://www.google.com/search?q=amzn&oq=amzn
$552 $/share * 189 shares = $104,328 over 4 years = +$26,082 per year.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just adding not all Googlers make that much. I have 7 years in industry, L4, and make 117 base with 40k of stock a year in San Francisco (was 30k at grant time). If you can convince Google you're worth more they will pay it but not all Googlers are making crazy cash (btw wish I was in Seattle given CoL difference).
I believe 117 base is low for SWE3.
Not SWE is the catch. Still primarily coding role though.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#330Ex amazonian here, but in Ireland, I left (thankfully) at the end of 2015. I was a systems engineer in Dublin and the only significant payraise I got was after I left the company for 4 months to then rejoin, my salary was bumped up 12k euros, for a total of 62k/yr, with 150 shares over 4 years (sorry I do not remember the vesting scheme). The HR department in AMZN has the tendency to screw internal employees upon pro…
> a Systems Engineer will always be paid 15 to 30% less than a Software Development Engineer at the same level, despite the fact that the skills and duties are not that much different, why?
In the past couple of months this was fixed by the creation of a new role called 'Systems Development Engineer'.