691–700 of 968 posts
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Anecdotally, I know plenty of 66s and 67s at Microsoft that are pulling $300-500k in TC. Microsoft’s stock rise has also made this decade extremely nice for grants. Course, with the average house going for $1 million in Kirkland, they have to spend it.
If you’re making $300k-$500k a year, a $1M house is extremely attainable.
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That's where I am. I'm pushing $300k total comp at Twitter as a senior SWE out in Colorado. Before this I was first employee of a startup that eventually sold to Google. Even if I'd stuck around for the acquisition I'd have gotten $0 from my stock options—employee options were wiped out completely. Why put up with that bullshit when a big publicly-traded company will reliably deposit large sums of money into my bank…
how did you get that much? Hired as senior with a lot of rsu? is it mostly rsu after the jump the last few weeks? If I got to senior I wouldn't be making that much based off what Im being told about comp increases. I must have gotten a shit deal when I joined lol
Plus I joined as a SWE1 so there are two promos in there.
Equity Liquidity -- I can't wait 10 years to get liquidity on options. YC could offer to purchase some employee equity when the company raises additional rounds.
Employee Branding -- FANG on a resume looks better than working at a startup. That really helps when it is time to look for a new job.
As a former startup founder, I tend to agree that most startups are low-balling early employees. These employees over-value their stock by imagining what it would be worth if the company reaches $1B valuation. It really is a lottery ticket. But in my opinion, the answer is more pay, not more equity. Employees should get market comp, period. Doesn't matter how early-stage the startup is. If a founder can't afford empl…
> If a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring yet. That's a little bit too strict, and as such is not a position founders are likely to accept. Sometimes they need employees before they can pay market rate, and market rate is pretty steep for a senior engineer in the Bay, for example, and most other areas startups are heavily recruiting. It's reasonable to offer generous equity for ea…
Herein lies the problem. Founders are uniquely well-placed to evaluate the risk, and uniquely psychologically motivated to evaluate optimistically.
Because of that, founders sell equity dear.
If the generous equity offer is reasonable, then would be reasonable to make two offers, one with only cash and one with generous equity, in an "I cut, you choose" scenario. If a company has taken funding and isn't willing to do this, then employees are being asked to take risks that the financial backers are not willing to take themselves.
[Edit: removed something about a typo]
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> Many early startup employees work intense 12-14 hour days. Are you saying founders work 1,200-1,400 hour days Hours and days don’t capture the value. I have risked my house, every minute of spare time, I have put Heroku bills on my personal credit card, paid contractors out of my pocket and had to create something out of nothing within a difficult market vertical. Comparing that to a “long day at the office” doesn’…
> Hours and days don’t capture the value. I have risked my house, every minute of spare time, I have put Heroku bills on my personal credit card, paid contractors out of my pocket and had to create something out of nothing within a difficult market vertical. Comparing that to a “long day at the office” doesn’t even compute. First of all, kudos to you for being so dedicated and courageous. Most startup founders that I…
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I don't quite understand. On the one hand you're saying that early employees should "demand market comp" and on the other you're saying that equity basically doesn't matter (and if you feel this way, it doesn't really make any sense to be joining a startup anyway). Are you conflating "compensation" with "salary"? "Market comp" for a good engineer with several years of experience in the Bay Area is something like 250k…
250-350k is low for Google and FB. It's more like 400-500k if you are senior, 500-700k if you are staff. This is including RSUs
http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Senior+Software+En...
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I don't quite understand. On the one hand you're saying that early employees should "demand market comp" and on the other you're saying that equity basically doesn't matter (and if you feel this way, it doesn't really make any sense to be joining a startup anyway). Are you conflating "compensation" with "salary"? "Market comp" for a good engineer with several years of experience in the Bay Area is something like 250k…
250-350k is low for Google and FB. It's more like 400-500k if you are senior, 500-700k if you are staff. This is including RSUs
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> If a founder can't afford employees at market rate, they shouldn't be hiring yet. That's a little bit too strict, and as such is not a position founders are likely to accept. Sometimes they need employees before they can pay market rate, and market rate is pretty steep for a senior engineer in the Bay, for example, and most other areas startups are heavily recruiting. It's reasonable to offer generous equity for ea…
> Sometimes they need employees before they can pay market rate, But you don't get to have something just because you need it. That's not how it works. You need to raise more money, so that you can afford to pay the employees. It's not fair to make the employees act as unofficial investors in your company, and then give them a deal that the real investors wouldn't accept. > giving out 0.01% even to earliest employees…
Which is why I'm saying they should be offered a deal that investors would accept.
Demanding everyone pay market rate is just unrealistic. Never going to happen. I'm proposing a realistic, possible change.
> I hope that's an exaggeration and no one actually goes that low.
First ad I clicked on from Angel List front page:
https://angel.co/everlane/jobs
$130k salary and 0.01% equity. But that's OK, I'm sure their CEO will be happy to tell you about their surefire $Xbn exit.
Last I checked Angel List, 0.01% equity was quite common, even for early engineers at very early stage startups. It almost always goes hand in hand with blatant lies about the certain $Xbn exit.
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250-350k is low for Google and FB. It's more like 400-500k if you are senior, 500-700k if you are staff. This is including RSUs
How do you explain these numbers? http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=&job=Senior+Software+En...
Try:
http://www.h1bdata.info/index.php?em=Google&job=Staff+Softwa...
And keep in mind that base salary (what's reported on that page) is usually about half of total compensation. (Bonus and stock being the other half.)
Also this appears to be the H1B database. I'm not sure how H1B salaries compare to the overall average.