Position: SDE1 Tenure: Beat my best bay area offer overall, so quite good with the low cost of living here. It does seem like you have to move companies every 2 years to keep climbing the salary ladder.
Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
481–490 of 717 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#482Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you should share your salary with as many people as possible. This "don't share" policy is just a trick used by companies to keep labor costs down. If employees know each other's pay, they will start demanding raises - Then you get in a situation like in the finance sector where companies will be forced to pay big bonuses to hold on to important employees. Companies don't want that - They want their engineers…
The problem is that when you share your salary people who make less than you start despising you and people who make more than you start looking down on you. It's less of a corporate conspiracy but more "this is why you can't have nice things". People just can not handle it in a mature and responsible way, which is why the 'don't talk about money' "common sense" developed.
My experience is that people tend to hate the employer, not the employee.
Less, "You make more than me? You earn too much!" and more "You make more than me? I should be paid more!"
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#4834+ yrs, syseng II, ~107k salary and stock push my total comp to ~145k.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#484Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on. Another principle is that you should always counter. So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to…
One technique I've tried that seems to get a particularly stubborn hiring manager or recruiter past the salary question is giving a generic number range. Before talking to anyone I usually do some basic research to get some idea of what a generally reasonable range is for the position, and adjust that based on my situation at the time. If pressed (I still don't give it up right away) I give that range. Example: today…
You're suggesting less than 100 for iOS Dev, and above you someone is suggesting 150+ for devops/sysadmin.
That ratio seems quite skewed compared to other sources of data on the web.
Are you very junior, or talking about a non-prime job market/locality?
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#485Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on. Another principle is that you should always counter. So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to…
One technique I've tried that seems to get a particularly stubborn hiring manager or recruiter past the salary question is giving a generic number range. Before talking to anyone I usually do some basic research to get some idea of what a generally reasonable range is for the position, and adjust that based on my situation at the time. If pressed (I still don't give it up right away) I give that range. Example: today…
You're suggesting less than 100 for iOS Dev, and above you someone is suggesting 150+ for devops/sysadmin.
That ratio seems quite skewed compared to other sources of data on the web.
Are you very junior, or talking about a non-prime job market/locality?
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#486Ex 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…
Pretty sure I know who this is and I'm happy to see you back in the role you deserved. Was your short leave to a German startup by any chance?
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#487Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you make as much as you do, it's a huge waste of everyone's time for you to interview for roles that just can't go there. By stating your compensation up front, you effectively make the recruiter your negotiator before you ever interview. You're getting them to get the company to agree to possibly paying you that much, assuming you meet some bar in their head that's worth it. More specifically to your next move,…
> Many are referencing Patrick's blog (kalzumeus.com), which is a great way to bump up your dollars. Which posts exactly? What is that blog known for? First time I see it referenced.
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Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#488The OP is being kind of cagey about what their role is. Nearly everyone at Amazon who does what we would generally be considered a primarily dev role is either an SDE (Software Development Engineer) or a WDE (Web Development Engineer). Are you a support engineer, by chance?
As for salary negotiations, the best piece of advice I got was to never say a number. You really don't have to, you can just keep saying some variation of "industry standard", their median salary numbers on Glassdoor, etc.
This is true for Amazon specifically: I never told them a number despite being asked by several different recruiters, and the offer I ended getting was slightly above their average. If you want more than that there may be some other technique involved, but if you're more concerned about being undercompensated, definitely don't get tied to any number.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#489Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sure. It's not a guarantee. But personally, I think if you get a PIP, your best next move is to start applying for other jobs.
By the way, you don't have to sign the PIP. In fact, you shouldn't, because if you do, you're basically admitting that, yes, your performance is indeed low and needs improvement. And that goes in your employee file.
The right thing to do is to take the paperwork and say, "thanks, can you give me a few days to review this?" and stall as much as possible while looking for another job.
If you're feeling especially ballsy (and very confident in your ability to find another job quickly) you can say, "I'm not familiar with these at all, and my grandpa (R.I.P) always told me to get everything reviewed by an attorney before signing it, so that's what want to do. Is that OK?"
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#490Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've only ever done this (caveat: in the US, where they can't legally check by calling the company directly). Increase your previous salary by 20-30%, even more if it's the norm. I've even countered with "my current co just countered to keep me..." Gotta have some chutzpah.
Shoot thats a good one I need to add to my list! Fake counteroffer from own employer. (Fake competing offer from a different company probably wouldn't work, because they would ask for an "offer letter". A counteroffer from current company isn't going to require proof)
I'm all for solid negotiating tactics, but if you consider telling an untruth, you are not welcome on my team.
You may still find other teams in the world that you can dupe, but in the end, I expect lies to hurt your overall prospects (in life as well as work.)