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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

#521

Post by mdpopescu »

enraged_camel wrote: post #353
JoshDoody wrote: post #120

Earlier 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…

I interview techies, and I always make a point to ask them to give me their expected salary range. The purpose behind this isn't to one-up them and pay them as little as possible. It's just in both parties' best interest to avoid wasting time if the expected pay is too high. Neither we nor the candidate want to go through several rounds of interviews for something that ultimately won't work out. And at the opposite e…

On my phone interview with an US company in 1999, they asked me what salary I wanted. I told them "in my previous remote job, I was making $3.25 an hour; I would like $4". They replied "we'll give you $6". (Romania, Eastern Europe - this was about 8 times the average salary.)

This was the only time someone offered me more than I was asking :)

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

#522

Post by nommm-nommm »

stale2002 wrote: post #449
wheaties wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do this and they catch you, you will be fired. I am a manager who believes in pay people more. Pay them what they want, not what they were making. That said, if you lie to me, I don't take it well.

There is literally no way for the employer to find out... What are they going to do? Call up my old workplace and ask exactly how much I am making? It is against the law for employers to reveal salary numbers. I could sue them, lol. Employers play games way worse than this.

It is not against the law for employers to reveal salary information. Some people's salaries (government employees for example) are public information by definition. Non profits have to file paperwork which discloses salaries. We talk about actors and athletes salaries all the time. There is also third party employment verification services that salary information is disclosed to by employers. Your employer can use such third party verification services to see if you are lying about your salary or not.

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

#523

Post by darksim905 »

At my old company, I was a "Jr Sysadmin" in title, but really a mid level Syadmin. I started at $42k/yr, then moved up to around $49k/yr. I should be making $55-65k/yr given my certs, experience: 8 years as generalist IT, mostly Windows Sysadmin, some Linux. Familiar with ShoreTel, comfortable with security -- really REALLY want to make a lateral move to it.

I'm also an SME & do reviews for a certain book publisher to see if I think it is worthwhile, accomplishes the goals set out by the author & is technically correct. I'm unfortunately currently unemployed, so things suck, but I have no qualms about sharing my salary, where I think I should be & why.

Yes, I may not be using crazy automation stuff & yes, I need to learn something as ubiquitous as VMWare, but it's not hard. A monkey can do those things. What I want to get into is SCCM & serious Windows automation. It's just, the positions are few & far between :-(

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

#524

Post by mdpopescu »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #399
enraged_camel wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interview techies, and I always make a point to ask them to give me their expected salary range. The purpose behind this isn't to one-up them and pay them as little as possible. It's just in both parties' best interest to avoid wasting time if the expected pay is too high. Neither we nor the candidate want to go through several rounds of interviews for something that ultimately won't work out. And at the opposite e…

A lot of recruiters say that it's not about ensuring the candidate gets the lower end of their expected range, but that's just what they say. I actually have a friend who worked at one of the aggressive boutique recruiting firms who mostly focus on the New York investment banking jobs. He told me that almost always, their client companies would tell them that if they were able to get a candidate to come in with a sal…

Agreed. I had two different recruiters offer to increase my contract rate when I told them I had accepted another offer. That suggests to me that they're paid amount $X and were offering me $Y < $X, with their commission being the difference.

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

#525

Post by cname »

jwatte wrote: post #490
stale2002 wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Really? Because people are so honest? Everyone on your team tells lies every single day, I guarantee it.

What you're saying contradicts the common advice to oversell yourself (AKA "fake it til you make it").

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

#526

Post by darksim905 »

knite wrote: post #211
JoshDoody wrote: post #120

Earlier 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…

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…

I don't want to be rude, but at that salary is it easy to survive, or hard? Do you rent, or own a home? That salary can buy you a castle out in Texas, Florida, or anywhere else. Looking for anything beyond that (IT Director in Santa Monica makes $180k, maybe more depending on where it is) -- at that amount of pay, not only are you close to being a dreaded top 1% person, you're getting paid out the butt for what everyone else already does. :|

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

#527

Post by grogenaut »

diskcat wrote: post #507
ftwynn wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

That's because he's talking to you. He's not gonna tell you he despises you to your face. But secretly he wonders: "why does he get more than me, im smarter than him!!". This is then bottled up under 10 psi of pressure until the perfect moment when the slightest thing sets it off and creates a scene in the office.

Fyi standard temp and pressure at is 14 psi, so 10 is actually a slight vacuum. Or 10 over current is still not very much. Usually not enough to even explode. people can blow up to about 20psi, eg 6 psi over stp (otherwise we couldn't breathe). So it'd be more like a birthday baloon that flubbered around for 4 seconds and then went flat.

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

#529

Post by epicureanideal »

frandroid wrote: post #356

It would be interesting if people also posted how many hours they work a week, to get a sense of the work/life balance.

And also any unique educational background or special talents, like if they're working in a niche of machine learning or something like that.

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

#530

Post by ipsin »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #96
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 (…

I've heard the same advice, and frankly I think it depends on how strong you feel your position is as well, and so I think it's really important to have a realistic model of your prospects.

If you feel your job prospects are generally weak, you might not be comfortable standing firm on things like keeping salary history hidden. That seems reasonable to me, as long as you're not selling yourself short. "Impostor syndrome" is a thing.

I would actually reveal salary history if it's a "favorable" history -- if I would be happy taking a similar amount, because I value something about this new job more than my previous employment.

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