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

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

#131

Post by stepny »

aluskuiuc wrote: post #114
yannickt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is a little disingenuous - that schedule only applies to the RSUs granted at offer sign time. Yearly stock compensation vests over a 2-year period 50/50.

We straight lined Amazon's stock signing bonuses for comparison with the other companies.

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

#133

Post by FmrAMZN_TA »

I won't go on about the work quality at Amazon, there are plenty of other places to read about that.

It _is_ important to note that the average retention at Amazon (even for excellent people) is ~50% for 1 year, and ~20% or lower for the 2nd year.

Therefore, these comparisons should really take that into account. Amazon MAY look higher than Microsoft (for example) but because you only see 20% of your total vest the first two years, and everyone in the company makes a max of $160k with anything else bringing you up to market rate being a yearly "bonus", you likely won't see the majority of your earnings.

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

#134

Post by pyrrhotech »

cpprototypes wrote: post #124

It's unfortunate that this practice of giving almost the entire base salary amount as additional stock (RSU) has not spread outside the bay area. In other regions (such as LA, NY, Seattle, etc.) engineers only get base salary and sometimes a very small bonus. These base salaries are often competitive with the bay area, but the lack of the enormous RSU makes the total comp often 2x or more worse. EDIT: After writing t…

It's strategic because they know that most candidates barely know what an RSU is and salary is the main factor they will take into consideration. So companies can get by with paying the workers half what they'd make at Google and still make it seem competitive because the salary may be the same.

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

#135

Post by FmrAMZN_TA »

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?

I'm a former Amazonian. Since you asked my opinion, I'll give it.

It's a truly horrible place to work and I would never ask my worst enemy to go work there. Engenders the worst in humanity (people review, anyone?), terrible technical architecture, many systems based solely on tribal knowledge that leaves the door every day, comp structure that is nearly outright lying... I could go on.

Some people say that it was just the group I worked in but I worked in retail (1 year), new businesses (1 year) and AWS (1.5 years). There's virtually no difference. I still have PTSD (or at least what feels like PTSD) about by 3.5 years there, and I'd give anything to get that time back.

BTW, I'm now at another 20k+ person company which is doing very well, and making 30% more than my total comp when I was there.

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

#137

Post by binarymax »

trelltron wrote: post #48
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.

Maybe, but on the flip side, I finished Uni with about £20k debt, in the most benign from that debt can take, and working in software I immediately earned more than that per year. I also never had to care about medical bills (still don't) because of the NHS. Just want to point out that there is a good reason for the higher taxes.

Not to mention the higher level of vacation time. Starting allocation in the UK is about 25 days plus 11 bank holidays. In the USA its typically 10 days plus 9 public holidays.

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

#138

Post by chris11 »

cpprototypes wrote: post #124

It's unfortunate that this practice of giving almost the entire base salary amount as additional stock (RSU) has not spread outside the bay area. In other regions (such as LA, NY, Seattle, etc.) engineers only get base salary and sometimes a very small bonus. These base salaries are often competitive with the bay area, but the lack of the enormous RSU makes the total comp often 2x or more worse. EDIT: After writing t…

And another bad thing is that I don't really find RSUs for most startups that attractive. I'd rather have RSUs from some public company like Amazon or Google than some non-public startup. At least I can easily sell Amazon stock.

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

#139

Post by cpprototypes »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #134
cpprototypes wrote: post #124

It's unfortunate that this practice of giving almost the entire base salary amount as additional stock (RSU) has not spread outside the bay area. In other regions (such as LA, NY, Seattle, etc.) engineers only get base salary and sometimes a very small bonus. These base salaries are often competitive with the bay area, but the lack of the enormous RSU makes the total comp often 2x or more worse. EDIT: After writing t…

It's strategic because they know that most candidates barely know what an RSU is and salary is the main factor they will take into consideration. So companies can get by with paying the workers half what they'd make at Google and still make it seem competitive because the salary may be the same.

I think another factor is the salary sites such as salary.com, payscale, glassdoor, etc. These sites often don't include RSU in comparisons among companies. If it was included, many could see just how underpaid they are and there would be more pressure on companies.

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

#140

Post by beamatronic »

FmrAMZN_TA wrote: post #133

I won't go on about the work quality at Amazon, there are plenty of other places to read about that. It _is_ important to note that the average retention at Amazon (even for excellent people) is ~50% for 1 year, and ~20% or lower for the 2nd year. Therefore, these comparisons should really take that into account. Amazon MAY look higher than Microsoft (for example) but because you only see 20% of your total vest the f…

Just to clarify - do you mean the expected year-over-year retention is 50% meaning that if 100 people are hired in a year, then 365 days later, only about 50 of them will still be there? How much of that is because they are leaving or being let go?
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