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?
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Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
191–200 of 229 posts
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have any data to support this?
No, we don't have hard data on this. We just notice that of the engineers on our platform, we find that the people who make more money generally don't seek out this kind of data. And the people who are more uncertain about what they should be making tend to be more curious and willing to share.
If you are selling data, you will need to be extremely thoughtful, quantitative, and specific about the statements you put out, and be prepared to back them up.
There is a market for doing user submitted comp analysis, but the real value is building trust, which takes a very long time and is expensive.
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#193Earlier 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?
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 inc…
> It works well for Amazon because they only pay you lots of money once they know you're the type of person that will put up with their unending stream of shit.
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
>which means total compensation for the first year is actually closer to $123,000 No, $172,000 is the median for year 1. Even $200k+ total comp at year 1 is typical for Google in the bay. The significant increases in bonus pay for higher levels reflect stock vesting for year 2/3/4/5 employees. Edit: "Google" in the bay
This "fact" keeps getting repeated here. While it may be typical for Google, it is in no way typical for "the bay". Median salary is around $110K for sw developers, and I highly doubt people are getting 100% of their salary in RSUs and bonuses their first year.
Huh? $110k is low. $90k is the starting salary at a lot of companies in the Bay Area for an entry level software engineer.
Myself, I make $160k base salary at a small company in Palo Alto (was offered that at 2.5 years of experience), and know I could've gotten a lot more elsewhere.
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#195Amazon 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 jus…
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Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#196Amazon 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 jus…
You wrote the following in a previous comment:
> I am a former Amazon employee. I worked there for exactly a year. I assume I was doing well, I was offered increase bonus and base after my initial year. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10413966
Just to clarify, did you work at Amazon for 1 year or 3.5 years? It seems like these messages are contradictory, but perhaps I've misunderstood. In the message I'm replying to now, you wrote:
> I worked in retail (1 year), new businesses (1 year) and AWS (1.5 years)
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#197Earlier quoted context omitted.
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).
All of those numbers seem wrong. My effective tax rate in CA was around 38% for 2015. 30-35% is too low for $500k.
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Corruption is a problem by itself - it doesn't make the social democracies wrong. And expect corruption in the private system, too. There's no other explanation for $500 aspirins :-)
A free market is denoted by the absence of intervention by government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. Under what circumstances are these $500 aspirin being purchased? I have a strong suspicion that some sort of cartel is involved. If not, I'd be happy to supply the market for far less.
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It's almost as if standard and cost of living are incredibly complex equations that you can't boil down into an HTML table.
Let's throw schools in there... no use taking a 20k raise to move to Chicago if you have a child for instance. You'll pay more than that for the cheapest private school. If you want to use neighborhood schools you can move to Oak Park... and pay 20k in taxes instead...
Re: Open Source Project – View 689 Salaries Posted on Hacker News, Share Yours
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Corruption is a problem by itself - it doesn't make the social democracies wrong. And expect corruption in the private system, too. There's no other explanation for $500 aspirins :-)
A free market is denoted by the absence of intervention by government, price-setting monopoly, or other authority. Under what circumstances are these $500 aspirin being purchased? I have a strong suspicion that some sort of cartel is involved. If not, I'd be happy to supply the market for far less.
Cartel, like in a corrupt system, right? Maybe just what I've said?
If you can get in the healthcare industry in the US you'll be a genius. Or probably a criminal, there's no legal way to get out of the current status quo without government intervention.
I like the free market, but you're oversimplifying reality.