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Compare career levels across companies

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171–180 of 428 posts

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#171
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that new hire salaries at the same level are typically higher than folks internally who have been at that level for some time. The market rate has actually gone up significantly in last 1-2 years.

I have 16 years of engineering experience and Google has made me two offers (original and revised) for a T4 position in NY that are well below the numbers reported on Levels (in fact, below the average on the site). So, either I am getting low balled like hell or there is skew in the numbers. Edit: there is skew in the numbers, not some in the numbers.

My company is allegedly aligned with Google’s levels here, and people routinely make Senior within 4 years. Spending more than 2 years at Eng I or Eng II is considered a cause for serious concern.

So T4 after 16 years is very surprising. Something is off.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#172
I left Amazon just 5 months after being employed there as an SDE, it was terrible. It's not all about the money. The levels have nothing to do with tech or experience. It's the ability of person to navigate his career through corporate bureaucracy and politics.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#173
post #7

Here's a slightly related open question: Are Engineers in the US just much richer than in the UK? For perspective, I started my career with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Hardware Design Engineer at £35k (I out-earned most of my fellow graduates). It seems like these salaries are just comically disjointed from my entire experience of life. Can anyone here speak to the differences? Everything I'…

Yes, I think they're more well off in general. The UK in particular pays developers very poorly. That being said housing costs in California are no joke, although you can find some analogies in London. Not sure how devs can afford to live there tbh. It makes sense that they would get paid this much, and quite frankly I think even the FAANG devs are drastically underpaid. The companies are printing cash and almost ent…

I mean, the engineers can leave and start their own companies. This is the whole thing about SV...

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#174
post #101
post #20

Wow, I'm 40 year old director at big fortune company... and I find this mildly depressing lol. Why is this so different than Glassdoor?

Missing stock grants and RSUs, which make up a majority of Big 4 total comp.

This, faang stocks

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#175

Huge fan of this site, for two reasons: - It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of th…

And to the "outsiders" from outside US, it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. This should be written in bold on this website. Actually i would say, instead of having these charts which compare total comp, its better to have a survey on how much people save after rent, taxes, and basic living expenses (not including loans et…

> it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k.

Are you confident about this? My experience as a single guy in that total comp range is closer to 25 percent taxation. The marginal rate is that high, but only a small chunk of a 200k income is taxed at that rate. In fact, Social Security caps out before there. And if you're married, it's even lower.

But my impression was that Europeans are taxed at an even higher rate; is there some reason listing pretax salaries would be deceptively high?

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#176

I left Amazon just 5 months after being employed there as an SDE, it was terrible. It's not all about the money. The levels have nothing to do with tech or experience. It's the ability of person to navigate his career through corporate bureaucracy and politics.

[deleted]

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#177
post #77
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is the data sourced from? Is it all self-reported?

Yup, you can add your own here: https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html

I work for a company that was marked as "New" but there was no compensation. The levels were correct (close enough). Was wondering where you get the levels data from? Job postings? Or someone submitted levels w/o submitting compensation.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#178

Amazonian here. Can anyone else from Amazon speak to whether you think these numbers look accurate? I'm sitting here in almost disbelief at how little I apparently make at AMZN. I don't think I have anyone to ask that would know and would be willing to give any kind of answer. I've been fairly content at Amazon. I've done good work, and have been a resource to others on my team. But if these numbers are right, I don'…

I've been an L5, L6, L7 and L8 at Amazon over the last 10 years. My experience is that once you've been here a while the total comp is a rollercoaster that follows the stock price. I haven't had a salary increase since I was L6 (and don't want one!) ... so for me it all comes down to when I got stock and how it performed over the next few years. Personally I've done very well that way, as it's nearly always outperfor…

Is the reason you haven't received a salary increase since L6 because you reached the max base pay?

Why do you say you don't want a salary increase?

Regarding your last point, my focus is actually not on what I make vs my colleagues, but rather what I make vs what I could potentially be making elsewhere. You're of course right about the risk of a job change, but I wouldn't leave unless I felt confident that I found a good fit.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#179
post #7

Here's a slightly related open question: Are Engineers in the US just much richer than in the UK? For perspective, I started my career with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Hardware Design Engineer at £35k (I out-earned most of my fellow graduates). It seems like these salaries are just comically disjointed from my entire experience of life. Can anyone here speak to the differences? Everything I'…

As a hiring manager (not at Google) I would say yes, and significantly so. EU employees make far less than equivalent USA colleagues when factoring in job title and location. It costs a lot to employ someone in the EU and the workers are well protected. I can not easily terminate an employee in the EU like I can in the USA. Taxes paid to employ someone in the EU are significantly higher than in the USA.

This cuts both ways as you can see. You'll make far less in the EU generally but you have better job protection and the additional taxes we pay to hire an EU employee hopefully go to government programs you like. However, if you're an in-demand employee who does good work you're going to make significantly more money in the USA generally speaking.

The good news is the UK is compensated better than most EU countries in my experience. But still significantly lower than USA employees in the same role.

However, you get health care out of that and can retire early with a lowered risk in terms of health issues.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#180

Huge fan of this site, for two reasons: - It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of th…

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