Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

blog.step.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 229 posts

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#81

Post by eulji »

hollander wrote: post #57
stepny wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not quite there yet with the data we have :). Anecdotally though, it seems like companies in Europe pay less and take out more taxes.

When I have a 200k income, I don't really care about getting welfare, and I can probably pay healthcare myself. But I don't have that kind of income, and then healthcare, pension and social benefits really count. We may pay more tax, but I'm glad we have the backup system that keeps you going when you're sick or unemployed.

I am from the ostbloc som my taxes are are being spent on bribing, corruption etc. We might not be paying that huge taxes but it's still a lot.

I am less compassionate than the other folks in Europe and would really prefer a more capitalistic system at least in my country. But we Europeans are....ehhhh.

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#82

Post by jtreminio »

chatmasta wrote: post #65
jahnu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but healthcare education and pensions ;) That tax is buying us stuff.

You could buy it yourself for a lot cheaper than you pay for it in taxes. The taxes you pay are buying healthcare for people who cannot afford it. (EDIT: I'm certainly not saying this is a bad thing.)

> The taxes you pay are buying healthcare for people who cannot afford it.

Which makes it worth it, imho.

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#83

Post by maccard »

eulji wrote: post #37
aioprisan wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to take into account things like quality of life in the city vs a long commute if living in the suburb.

Right. But a country as a whole is what I am interested in. I mean iphone costs about the same anywhere in the world ( okay it's sometimes more usually not less (Brazil?)) so there's that...

You can't do that really. Taking the UK, the cost of living in London is absolutely incomparable to say, Sheffield.[0]

[0]http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun...

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#84

Post by loeg »

vonmoltke wrote: post #72

I would like to see one of these analysis break down base salary versus total compensation. I have never received less than 95% of my total compensation in base salary. Neither has my non-technical wife. I have no idea what is "normal" in that respect. I'd also like to see a breakdown by market, as I have been led to believe that my salary is only slightly below market for Dallas, but the median compensation numbers…

Base salary vs total comp data from the research can be eyeballed from the first graphic in the article.

For anecdote, approximately 66% of my total compensation is in base salary. When I first started working 5 years ago, it was 92%.

These numbers are probably skewed somewhat by Bayarea salaries, which have to compensate a little for the high cost of living (compare for example Facebook/Google to Microsoft/Amazon, which are primarily Seattle-area employers). In general, I've found the Bayarea salary bump doesn't overcome the Bayarea cost-of-living bump. So these salaries are only higher on paper.

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#85

Post by chatmasta »

yannickt wrote: post #50
dsmithatx wrote: post #32

Amazon keeps asking me to interview and everyone tells me it's a terrible place to work. After seeing this compensation via equity I'm thinking it might be worth it. Anyone work at Amazon and loves it or think it's really worth it?

One of the tables has this important piece of information at the bottom: "Amazon's vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, and 40% over the 4 years" This is a significant deviation from the industry standard, which is to have a one year cliff, and have stock vest month-to-month afterwards. What happens if you leave in the middle of year 3?

The word for this kind of vesting schedule is "golden handcuffs," because once you cross the threshold of two years, it would be irrational to leave for somewhere else. Amazon is paying you in year 4 for value you delivered in years 1, 2, and 3 (otherwise you wouldn't make it to year 4). It works well for Amazon because they only pay you lots of money once they know you're a good engineer, and because you have an increasing incentive to stay each year.

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#86

Post by raverbashing »

chatmasta wrote: post #65
jahnu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but healthcare education and pensions ;) That tax is buying us stuff.

You could buy it yourself for a lot cheaper than you pay for it in taxes. The taxes you pay are buying healthcare for people who cannot afford it. (EDIT: I'm certainly not saying this is a bad thing.)

Of course, the USA is an example of that

Except it isn't, anything you want to do there is ridiculously expensive

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#87

Post by loeg »

dsmithatx wrote: post #32

Amazon keeps asking me to interview and everyone tells me it's a terrible place to work. After seeing this compensation via equity I'm thinking it might be worth it. Anyone work at Amazon and loves it or think it's really worth it?

Most teams require some on-call time every month or two. That's a big factor for me—I value my sleep.

Additionally, last time I interviewed there they did not have remote work in any form. If you get a 2am page, you have to drive in to the office. (And you have to commute.)

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#88

Post by loeg »

yannickt wrote: post #50
dsmithatx wrote: post #32

Amazon keeps asking me to interview and everyone tells me it's a terrible place to work. After seeing this compensation via equity I'm thinking it might be worth it. Anyone work at Amazon and loves it or think it's really worth it?

One of the tables has this important piece of information at the bottom: "Amazon's vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, and 40% over the 4 years" This is a significant deviation from the industry standard, which is to have a one year cliff, and have stock vest month-to-month afterwards. What happens if you leave in the middle of year 3?

"Backloaded." Amazon's average retention is 2-3 years so they mostly don't have to pay that out. It's pretty horrific for individual employee compensation.

If you leave in year 3, you lose 80% of your signing grants.

Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours

#89

Post by stepny »

vonmoltke wrote: post #72

I would like to see one of these analysis break down base salary versus total compensation. I have never received less than 95% of my total compensation in base salary. Neither has my non-technical wife. I have no idea what is "normal" in that respect. I'd also like to see a breakdown by market, as I have been led to believe that my salary is only slightly below market for Dallas, but the median compensation numbers…

The second chart should show the compensation breakdown across salary, cash bonus and equity.

In NYC and SF, there's high demand for and short supply of developers, which drives up compensation. Companies in these cities will recruit from across the country to get talent. Cities like Dallas though also have a much lower cost of living, so that should be taken into account. There was a Hacker News thread about this at one point.

We don't yet have enough data on each market, but we plan on breaking out the analysis by city once we get that data.

Post reply on HN