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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

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being paid in equity is just plain annoying. It makes your taxes far more complex and, at least at Google) unless you set up an autosale program a year in advance, your money is tied up in company stock until the next trading window. The taxes on equity are a huge PITA when equity is a large fraction of your salary. This is because they withhold at only 25%, even if your tax bracket is higher. This means you have to…

Perhaps I am missing something, but the idea behind getting paid partially in equity is that your total compensation is higher.

As long as the company('s stock) is doing well, yes.

But it's also a tax hassle...though it's hard to complain about it.

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

#162
post #109

A given company should pay everyone the same. But, ego.

That seems like an interesting viewpoint. I don't think ego is really the only thing that drives pay distinction. I think that many people consider that different individuals contribute differently and that those who contribute more value should get more pay. Isn't that realization independent of ego?

Nope. Ego is behind the whole thing. Remember "from those according to their ability, to those according to their need"? The problem was always ego.

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

#163

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 love it. You either love it or hate it. Read the leadership principles. If you align with what they're saying, you'll enjoy it. If you don't like them, you won't like Amazon.

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

#165

What about retirement/pension plans? This also has cash value and should be part of the comparison.

I'd be surprised if any of the big companies didn't provide at least 401K and as much matching as the law will allow. There really isn't a lot of freedom to innovate in this space that I'm aware of.

With that said, Google did have this odd thing where you could do an in-plan Roth conversion, and put post-tax dollars into your 401K. I did this in 2013 or 2014, and I think Google was one of the few companies to offer this at the time.

One interesting area of differentiation is health care. When I left Google in 2015, they were cutting health benefits to avoid Cadillac plan taxes. Lots of people were saying that Facebook had better plans.

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common fallacy. Even for a married couple earning 500k in high-income-tax California, effective tax rate (as opposed to marginal tax rate) is only 30-35%, and that includes the employee portion of Medicare/social security (the latter of which cuts out around 110k). The exact effective tax rate will vary mostly with your mortgage interest deduction.

quick calculation comes to about a 45% tax rate for single in CA and 42.4% for married. So 50% is a small exaggeration, but it's definitely closer to reality than 30-35% underestimate.

Note that these numbers are likely the marginal tax rate, the tax rate that the very last dollar was taxed at. However, all of the income is not taxed at that rate. That is why the commenter above mentioned effective tax rate, which is the calculation of (total tax paid / total income).

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

#167

Holy cow! Facebook's median signing bonus for Level 1 (new grad) engineers is $75K! Why is that higher than for experienced engineers? How can the other companies compete with that?

The expectation, I've heard from recruiters, is that as a new grad you have a higher need for cash immediately (to buy furniture for your first apartment, e.g.). As an industry hire, you are probably already established and don't have a particular need for a lump sum right out of the gate (especially since relocation is provided for separately).

If you are buying $75K worth of furniture, you're doing it wrong.

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

#168
I would love to see something similar for Finance IT (i.e. the Global Banks and Insurance Firms). It would also be nice if there was a country breakdown as well, but from reading the comments I see that data is not available in your current analysis.

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

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you able to have a life outside work? How many hours do you work in a typicaly day/week ?

Yes. I probably work about 45-60 hours in any given week. I have a family that I see for breakfast and dinner every day, and spend all day with most weekends. All-in-all, I work less, and have a far better work-life balance than I did a few years ago, when working for the small company. In that company, I had sole responsibility for an entire product area, and often worked over 80 hours per week. As an afterthought,…

Do you mind sharing your contact details? I literally burned out by working at a SmallCo (24x7 on-call) and developed multiple diseases due to stress and unhealthy sleep patterns. I'm currently rehabilitating (from an unrelated surgery) and thinking of getting back into the game.

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

#170

Signing Bonus offered by FB for level 1 is $75,000, disproportionately high compared to other companies, in all the levels. Why is that?

Good question. We checked the raw data again, and the signing bonuses are all consistently high for Facebook Level 1. We also know a couple of people at Facebook who have received signing bonuses in line with the $75K. But we don't yet know why it's so high compared with the other companies.
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