My offer numbers from big companies • Hacker News Board

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#231

Post by scarface74 » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:09 AM UTC

ChicagoDave wrote: post #174

cjhanks wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They seem a bit higher than what I would normally expect for 2 year experience; sometimes a successful startup and some salary negotiations can give you a boost. But recall: $1 USD (SFO) != $1 USD (Almost anywhere else). And there are some other downsides, you work very long hours in a company of 70%+ men. I think quality of life in South Bay for most isn't as nice as much less affluent places. It depends on your cup…

According to that site, I'd need to make over $200k to meet my same standard of living, but I still think someone with two years experience can't come close to my knowledge of software development. There are inherent limitations. Of course if the job is to write code without any comment about the big picture and without complaint about hours, then maybe it is competitive. And that signing bonus? That just doesn't tra…

We just bought a 5 bedroom, 3-1/2 bathroom house with a nice size separate office in the northern suburbs of Atlanta with about 2800 square feet. Brand new build for $335,000 with all of the niceties. I've looked on Zillow, the same square footage, much older home, would be around 2-4 million at least in San Francisco.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#232

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:19 AM UTC

doktrin wrote: post #93

gonehome wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to the US having lower taxes and fewer services I think there’s some sort of status thing going on in Europe/the UK with engineer salaries being lower than they’d be otherwise. Engineers there seem to be viewed as the lower rung on the status ladder compared to management/sales/finance and are paid less on that metric alone. I think the US (particularly Silicon Valley) is better about respecting engineer…

One of my biggest surprises when moving to Europe was that engineers earn less (and are IMO less respected) than all types of managers, including but not limited to PMs.

That shouldn't be surprising. You will find this much with little research. Engineers are treated as blue collar workers in majority of world. There are couple of exceptions such as notably Silicon Valley and most big metro areas in US (New York for example), perhaps London in Europe. But these are just anomalies, prevailing consensus around the world is that engineering is blue collar work, just instead of shovel you use keyboard.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#233

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:22 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #85

simonbarker87 wrote: post #4

I 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.

It's nuts compared to UK money isn't it? But then the UK pays its programmers peanuts, more or less considers them blue collar, and wonders why it can't retain 'talent', AFAICT.

Well, but you cannot just compare with UK. That's just like comparing Silicon Valley with rest of US.

Compare Silicon Valley with London. It's still much worse in London but engineer salaries in London have been going up lately and it's definitely best place in Europe to be a software engineer.

£80-£100k is something you can get in London if you are good at your profession. It's not Silicon Valley obviously (mostly because concept of bonuses and RSUs does not really exist in London compared to SV). But as base salary, it's not bad.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#234

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:25 AM UTC

hocuspocus wrote: post #183

40acres wrote: post #101

It always strikes me as odd at how much HN complanies about hiring practices in tech. Spend a few weeks with Leetcode and CTCI and you have a decent shot at salaries in this range at the BigCo's (depends on location of course). What other industry has it's interview process so transparent with such high rewards?

If you have a job and any kind of social life, going through 200~300 questions like OP is going to take you more than a few weeks. A lot of people complain because this is the very example of cargo culting, you hire people who went through the same questions and reject those who haven't, even though it has no bearing on their ability to do the job.

Sure but you are forgetting a key factor. Once you get Google/FB/Amazon (or to a lesser extent even a unicorn like Netflix/Airbnb/Dropbox etc) on your CV, that will help you tremendously in your career.

You will get shortlisted for top jobs and bombarded by opportunities by recruiters forever and you will be able to skip any screenings and phone interviews and just go for final onsite interview mostly.

Investing several weeks or couple of months once might be worth it as you will reap benefits for a long time, perhaps until retirement.

You need to consider this before you decide not to spend the time to go through CTCI etc.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#235

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:37 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #224

richardknop wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is good for us (software engineers). I have noticed the same thing in Europe. Even though it's nowhere near Silicon Valley, I have noticed salaries in London rising faster than they used before. So there's definitely shortage of talent and market (supply / demand) seems to be reacting to this and driving salaries up.

Definitely. Incomes and growth are starting to pick-up in Europe and Japan (finally) as well. Much of the globe is in sync on this expansion. I'm not sure if that means we're getting close to the next recession pull-back, or if the global economy is finally fully pulling out of the great recession era. There are some indicators aggressively pointing both ways right now. I'd like to see it continue for a while yet jus…

I hope Japan finally gets a break. They have been in a stagnation for such a long time and it had to be really tough for young people. There is already a sizable lost generation, Japan really needs to get some growth going so the new generation gets some economic boost (and is able to afford to raise a family) and doesn't become second lost generation in a row. That would be really bad.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#236

Post by Nursie » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:38 AM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #233

Nursie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's nuts compared to UK money isn't it? But then the UK pays its programmers peanuts, more or less considers them blue collar, and wonders why it can't retain 'talent', AFAICT.

Well, but you cannot just compare with UK. That's just like comparing Silicon Valley with rest of US. Compare Silicon Valley with London. It's still much worse in London but engineer salaries in London have been going up lately and it's definitely best place in Europe to be a software engineer. £80-£100k is something you can get in London if you are good at your profession. It's not Silicon Valley obviously (mostly b…

Oh I agree it's a fine salary, but it is at the higher end (if we disregard contractors (like me)).

But the post is about someone two years past graduation! That's the mind-boggling thing to me. Those high-end London salaries are probably people with 10+ years behind them. I could be wrong about that but... I don't think so.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#237

Post by akhilcacharya » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:39 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #221

akhilcacharya wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the school matter? I thought this industry keeps crowing about how “school doesn’t matter”?

Because Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and Harvard produce radically superior computer science students vs the average community college. That doesn't mean no talent comes out of community colleges. It means the average ability level is far lower and the elite students are far more rare. The school doesn't matter much if you have the ability and can demonstrate it. The kind of grads coming out of elite schools that Google &…

As someone that didn’t work at Google/FB and goes to a state school, Well, thanks for the vote of confidence!

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#238

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:43 AM UTC

Nursie wrote: post #236

richardknop wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, but you cannot just compare with UK. That's just like comparing Silicon Valley with rest of US. Compare Silicon Valley with London. It's still much worse in London but engineer salaries in London have been going up lately and it's definitely best place in Europe to be a software engineer. £80-£100k is something you can get in London if you are good at your profession. It's not Silicon Valley obviously (mostly b…

Oh I agree it's a fine salary, but it is at the higher end (if we disregard contractors (like me)). But the post is about someone two years past graduation! That's the mind-boggling thing to me. Those high-end London salaries are probably people with 10+ years behind them. I could be wrong about that but... I don't think so.

You are right. I am a long time London contractor too but am close to accepting a perm offer :)

I have even seen £120k offers for lead engineers but you have to be really talented and have exceptional record behind you.

Regarding experience I think 2 years is definitely not enough to reach that salary, you are right it's probably around 10 years of experience.

Unless you go contracting and then you can do it even very young. But then again, you get no RSUs, no bonus, no paid vacation or other benefits, have to deal with taxes and admin of your company, can be fired at will, high levels of stress...

I think that's a much worse deal than working for one of the FAANGs in Silicon Valley.

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#239

Post by richardknop » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 11:54 AM UTC

cyberferret wrote: post #57

bruxis wrote: post #41

Earlier 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…

Depends. With Chinese people applying for jobs, for example, Chinese people have English first name as well as their Chinese first name. And they would use their English first name when applying for a job at US or other large international company. So you could definitely guess gender there.

Sub continental names I would agree, if you are European or American it might be difficult to guess the gender from name. But from the resume you might be able to guess it based on other information (lots of people put their photo on their CV which makes this a moot point obviously).

Re: My offer numbers from big companies

#240

Post by piva00 » Mon, Dec 04, 2017, 12:43 PM UTC

richardknop wrote: post #218

shubhamjain wrote: post #29

It seems standard way to get a great compensation is to sit down and exercise all the run-of-the-mill algorithmic questions because that will matter the most in the end. Further optimisation could be made by being less fearful about negotiating the offer. Asking for 10% more would never hurt [1]. I am not a fierce critic of BigCo. interviewing practises but it seems a little disappointing that coding side-projects, c…

This is true. I have around 6 years of experience and when interviewing recently I tried two approaches: 1) Not preparing myself by reading on data structures and algorithms. Just relying on my solid experience to carry me. 2) Spending couple of hours evening before interview to quickly go through data structures (array, linked list, hashmap, stack, queue, binary trees), algorithms (searching binary search trees, mer…

Even though I've not been in interviews for a couple of years now I still read from time to time something on the basics of algorithms and data structures to keep it "fresh" in my mind.

I go from re-reading Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual (I prefer his writing style over more formal textbooks like CLRS or Sedgewick's) to a more easy to digest piece when I'm really not in the mood for formality (last one was this week with "A Common-Sense Guide to Data Structures and Algorithms").

It helps me to refresh it with different styles of writing as I can go from a very broad overview to the details if/when I want but I always have the basics in my head.

I hope I won't go for another interview soon though, it's really tiring, I have 12 years of experience now and I still dread just thinking about going through the process again.