How do these numbers carry over to non bay area places like Austin? I've got an offer for 86k base, 4000 RSU, no sign on here in Austin for an L2 at one of those companies in the top 5 and it seems like a joke.
My offer numbers from big companies
71–80 of 295 posts
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#72I guess I need to move to Silicon Valley. These numbers are insane for two years and an undergrad degree. I have 32 years experience and I don't get these kinds of offers. This is either complete BS or the guy is a savant. Something smells fishy here.
No, they're par for the course in the bay area (well, among the set of companies that are oft-discussed on HN: FAMG and well funded startups).
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#73I live in the UK, to me these numbers are insane. How are these salaries at that work experience possible? Is the pay increase from then on slow? Are these salaries sustainable for the industry long term? I know experienced professionals who would be considered successful in the UK who finish their careers nowhere near this level of salary (not programmers but certainly engineers). I’m astounded.
In Switzerland my salary is a lot less (in terms of numbers only). However, I feel like my quality of life is much higher here than it was in the US. You could pay me 300k a year and I'd never want to go back to the Bay Area ever again.
Yeah and I would never want to work in Switzerland.
Switzerland is such a hypocritical country it is not even funny.
Everyone and their dog is such a rude creature that you cannot even shower at 2.00 am when you arrive from a business trip because it annoys your neighbors.
Sure there are quadrillions of other positive things in Switzerland but not all of us would change money for "european social equality lalaland"
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#7410 years ago I was working for VMware in Palo Alto as an intern and my salary was $5.5k per month. They offered me a permanent position for $75k per year, but I decided to move back to Finland. I would say that those numbers in the article sound believable. Housing costs in the bay area are crazy.
Housing costs shouldn't really factor into what the company is willing to pay staff though. It costs the company the same amount regardless of how much it costs the employee to live.
Housing costs come in to play when trying to recruit and maintain talent. All cities do not have enough tech talent. Migrant tech workers consider housing costs when deciding which city to move too.
In addition, if salary does not increase with cost of living workers will leave.
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#75Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#76I think the numbers are ok considering you have almost not experience.
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm somewhat confused by your question, but generally it's not a secret what gender someone is based on their resume/application. You may also be able to glean race from this. This information is rarely anonymized. That said, the "numbers game" doesn't really start until after you pass the on-site, and any inherent bias likely occurs more frequently there since there are more opportunities (likely a single phone scre…
Well, with Western names, I guess a recruiter can guess at the gender, but with some Sub-continental or Asian names - that can be hard to do. Which leads me to another question - Do people use pseudonyms to increase their chances of getting through initial screening of their applications? (Anecdote: I had a (female) business mentor many years ago who said that she had trouble getting businesses to meet with her. Unti…
I suppose depending on where you're located, a name may be difficult to pinpoint gender. Though I think it's more common than not to be able to tell (or guess).
I think it's important to understand the context of SV, and especially the larger companies. Most companies are flooded with applications (less so on the referral side, which I think this post points to being useful a bit).
Because of this, most people applying seem to shotgun apply to many companies in hopes of having a good one respond in a reasonable timeframe.
It seems rare to have a tweaked resume per position, let alone per company. I would not be surprised if there were some people that choose to leave out some details from their resumes to avoid early bias, but I personally don't think it does much to help them, as they would likely face that bias eventually anyways. I don't, however, think it's particularly common to see this.
You do see the occasional "American-ized" name from time to time, where an individual from an Asian/South Asian, or other area where pronunciation differs greatly from the common US English, will adopt a pseudonym to be more easily accepted, pronounced, or not hear their name butchered by every person they work with. I also don't think this is overly motivated by avoiding hiring bias.
(Anonymized anecdote: a previous fellow I know is Chinese and his name is 'Xiang', but he goes by 'Jacob')
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#78> Thankfully I had FB and Google referrals else I doubt I would have gotten a reply at all.
This is one of the things that really sucks about the industry. It is a new "boy's club", and if you know people in the club then the barrier to entry is easier (if you can code at a reasonable capacity).
Yeah, but that just reflects the sad fact that working together with someone is a much better indicator of their quality than any interviewing process.
So a referral saying "I worked with X and he/she is really good" should outweigh most other things.
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you have the flexibility, most of the companies on this list recruit regularly in Australia for roles in the US. You may need to fly state-side of an on-site but the initial round can be done in Melbourne or Sydney. Tech companies love E3 visas.
I may look into this, I'm in need of a change of scenery
I'll be in Melbourne renewing my E3 visa in late Dec/early Jan. And maybe doing some recruiting for my almost-unicorn company too. Message me if you'd like to get coffee or something. My email's in my profile.
Re: My offer numbers from big companies
#80I live in the UK, to me these numbers are insane. How are these salaries at that work experience possible? Is the pay increase from then on slow? Are these salaries sustainable for the industry long term? I know experienced professionals who would be considered successful in the UK who finish their careers nowhere near this level of salary (not programmers but certainly engineers). I’m astounded.
The numbers are meaningless without knowing the cost of living. Here in the Netherlands I also make a lot less (Ph.D. working in bioinformatics) and probably pay a lot more taxes. But my mortgage is my only dept and if I get cancer I can stop working for the treatment and have no other worries than the actual cancer. When I lose my job I can still pay for my house and food and school for both kids. University is abou…
Agreed. Nobody takes into account the total loss of social security in the US. Healthcare, retirement, child aid, education, .... If anything, I'd be upset if I were living in the US about other jobs not earning at least that much, to make ends meet, particularly given the huge risks everyone has to shoulder on their own.