I've been in the software industry for idk, 9 or so years now and nowhere have I worked where there was like a level up system. You're judged - and paid for - by merit and personality (the last one is unfortunate, I'm a bit autistic and cynical so I'm nowhere near where I could be income-wise). We do have people with job titles from time to time beyond 'developer' but they seem like exceptions - like, having to invent a CTO title because the guy hit some income ceiling for the software development department.
Compare career levels across companies
301–310 of 428 posts
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#302Huge 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…
There are two problems with these: 1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on. 2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (p…
I'm not particularly interested either; I like to think I'm in the top x % of developers in my country, but that's not enough. For Google I'd need to pass (iirc) some CS tests, which I'm just not good in (I couldn't remember what bubblesort is let alone how to implement it, mostly because it's not relevant / important in my day to day job).
Second reason is that I'd have to relocate abroad. No thanks.
Third reason, politics. I doubt I'd be able to climb up the proverbial ladder - or be promoted / paid more based on merit alone - without playing the game. I heard something about getting commendations or something? Just as easily you can get shafted by the mob who push their own people up the ladder.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#303Huge 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…
There are two problems with these: 1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on. 2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (p…
I wholly disagree. Even if the results are depressing (and they can be depressing for people at those companies who see the ranges that others at their same level make -- maybe even more depressing), it's so important to have information when negotiating for a raise or for a new position.
Information is power and it is in companies of all sizes best-interest for workers not to discuss wages. That's fine -- I understand why from a business perspective, the corporation doesn't want to share this information.
But for workers, this information is extremely important and it should be discussed. Sadly, it often isn't because of cultural/social norms that deem talking about money "rude" and because plenty of people are embarrassed to admit they make more/less than their peers.
But it's important we know this information. This is even more true for underrepresented groups, who historically are worse at negotiating and get paid less as a result -- and may not have the networks to know what they should be asking for/expecting.
When I worked in media (where the pay is considerably different than tech), I used to ask more junior co-workers that I had a good rapport with what they made -- not to be nosey -- but to help them negotiate better. It took me a long time to figure out my own worth and ask for it.
AND STILL, even knowing this, I fucked up when I switched careers because I knew how much I was worth in my old career, but not in the new career. Glassdoor only goes so far and until you're in the system, you don't understand the intricacies. I stupidly didn't negotiate my offer -- in part because it was substantially more than I made in my old career -- but I'm underpaid -- compared to my team members at my same level and got a shittier sign-on/stock package as a result. That sucks for me (and it's 100% my fault. I don't blame the recruiter in the slightest), but the more data I can gather about what the mean -- or even median -- is for my company/position, the better I can negotiate in the future, either at my current employer or somewhere else.
Knowledge is power and having resources like this -- even if they carry an implied asterisk because of things that charts like this can't necessarily account for (division of a company, demand for certain skillsets, area of expertise, etc.), I'm glad stuff like this exists.
It's certainly better than looking at Blind, where most of the posters are quasi-sociopaths and liars with negative intentions.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of these reported salaries would come close to that, if you include social security and medicare: For a $500k income in CA 29.59% Federal Income Tax + 10.48% CA Income Tax + 1.59% Social Security + 1.99% Medicate ---------------------------- = 43.65% total tax rate. (Source: https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-paycheck-calculator )
The California tax rate is off - you get taxed certain percentages up to a certain amount (progressive tax). The effective tax rate for $500k in California should be about 9.44% pre-deductions (should be effectively lower than this). Should be roughly 42% pre-deductions/writeoffs. ...But in truth, if you're making around the $500k ballpark, you're doing pretty well financially.
People not understanding marginal tax need to get educated and not spread misinformation like claiming you pay nearly 45% taxes. You pay that on the top half of your income.
Also yes; just pay the tax, and then some. It helps everyone. If the country is sane in terms of politics of course, and doesn't have the military as its biggest expense. That makes it clear they're more concerned with international affairs than their own people.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You forget that many of these compensation numbers include a large portion of equity that many people hold for 1yr to get long term capital gains tax of just 15%. Actually for RSUs you are taxed at vest, so it's your pay tax rate (probably in the realm of 35%+). What's taxed at 15% after a year is any additional gain from vest time. So if you get 4 google stock at $1000 a piece, they sell 2 to cover your tax liabil…
That's brutal is the not any CGT allowance? Looks like we are getting an EMI option scheme her in the Uk and the EU. This is the one where employees do not have to pay the income tax that would normally be charged on the market value of any shares or options granted to them. If employees are given options under an approved EMI, they are only charged capital gains tax at 10% on the increase in value over what they pay…
Options and rsus are different. I don't buy my rsus, the company just gives them to me, so I pay tax on any shares they give me, because they're income.
If I purchased them as options, different things would apply. But I'm happy paying tax on income of it means I get the shares for free.
The change in price if the shares is taxed as capital gains though.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you have strong competing offers? From the discussions on Blind most folks get strong offers from Google only if they have another really strong offer. Keep in mind most of our data presented right now is Bay Area-centric. We're working on filtering all views of data by location still.
What's "Blind"?
It's just like the old app "Secret" -- except huge tech companies are on it, meaning its only slightly less toxic than /pol.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#307Here'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'…
The UK is just very skewed, due to finance. I studied in the UK, and there was a 6 month placement internship programme. Engineering firm (industrial measurement) wanted to pay me $11K to be an engineer. Marketing department at a major semiconductor said £15K. So I took it. My friend at Goldmans got £37K. So guess what I did after uni. I even met loads of people in finance with engineering degrees who said they were…
My understanding of finance as vaguely magical makes this easy to believe. Buy why does does engineering pay so low in UK?
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is evidently false. Stock has pulled total numbers comp up significantly. Employer is not going to give an engineer refresh that brings tc lower (in $ value) than the year before unless it wants to lose that engineer.
This is false - employers do give less. My own FAANG stock for my initial compensation when I joined my company was at $105k in RSUs, and they jumped up about 35% (was even higher, but the market is a little volatile currently). My refresh grant after a little over a year was $125k in RSUs, which turned out to be less stock by a not insignificant percentage compared to my first grant! My read of the numbers floating…
Is the stock posted here a full package (vesting over several years) or yearly vest amount?
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's always better if you come in new.
right but thinking for instance. would it make sense to leave to facebook just for the comp bump at l4 even if you really like your job at google? just because being a new hire would give you more comp?
yes, that's a really good way to grow your comp. You have actual leverage when joining a new company that you can use to negotiate.
Obviously you can't really do it too often but whenever you do, your earning potential can be increased by quite a bit.
Re: Compare career levels across companies
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two problems with these: 1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on. 2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (p…
So what you're saying is that this tool is bad because it makes you sad ?. Information is empowering use it to make informed choices about your career. If you're taking less money, make sure there is some trade off you're happy with. Also, most Google jobs are language agnostic. You can code in pretty much one of C/C++, Java, Python, Google hires for generalists. Your Ruby experience is not what's holding you back, s…
Right now, Google wants to interview me as a front end dev (I have an on site in a couple weeks). Thing is, I'm not; I'm a backend/ infrastructure person. But of their languages I knew Javascript the best. So they gave me a phone screen in that, which I passed; but can I handle an on site in something I haven't really touched in 5 years?
Will I read as senior even if I pass?