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Compare career levels across companies

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Re: Compare career levels across companies

#321

Post by test1235 »

Bahamut wrote: post #235
gregschlom wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you should absolutely be able to interview in the language of your choice. Except the choice is between Java, C++ and Python. They are very clear about that, asking what your preference is during the scheduling phase. I went through the interview process this year, and even tried to ask my interviewers if it was ok to do Kotlin instead of Java. It wasn't.

I have interviewed with Google 7-8 times over the past 3-4 years (Google has mostly rejected me, but last time I cancelled the process with an onsite scheduled due to personal reasons) - every single time, Google has let me interview with JavaScript.

why do you keep re-interviewing? Is it for different roles?

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#322

Post by YokoZar »

seattleeng wrote: post #167
JimboOmega wrote: post #109

Earlier 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…

I agree that there are tiers of companies when it comes to compensation, and this site tends to skew towards recording datas for higher tiers (but many of the companies this site provides levels for do NOT pay as much as FAANG - as more salary data is added this will become clearer). And this can certainly be frustrating/depressing when comparing with individual compensation. It should be noted that the pay different…

> 2) Work for a company who you believe will have equity growth. There is a wide spectrum here between 5 person startup lottery tickets and established behemoth that have 0.5% YoY growth stocks. A good recent example of this is Square, which gave out equity grants that were something like 50% lower in cash value than the equivalent role's offer from a FAANG company (this is based off of personal anecdata). However, Square's stock exploded over the past year and that equity today outcompetes many of the equivalent FAANG-level offers. Of course, the opposite could have also been the case -- I've heard stories of underwater options being granted pre-IPO by Square. Sure, a few years later they're worth a lot, but at the time, employees weren't happy.

If you can already tell ahead of time which company's stocks are going up, just take more cash and use it to buy those stocks.

You can probably figure out why telling people to pick a single winning stock isn't good repeatable advice.

When you do get equity, sell your shares as soon as you're allowed. Don't bet on a single company more than you have to -- you're already staking a large chunk of your salary and career on them.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#323

Post by christopher8827 »

thundergolfer wrote: post #259
wingerlang wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Thailand and mine looks -extremely- low.

Unfortunately for Sydneysiders their cost of living is just as high as Bay Area. At least Thailand is much cheaper.

True, Sydney is Soo expensive I have 3 years experience as a JavaScript developer and I haven't made six figures yet.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#324

Post by mav3rick »

JimboOmega wrote: post #310
mav3rick wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The hiring committee will not hold JS as the reason to keep you from being hired as a senior. Language is not a factor in hiring let alone level calibration.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#325

Post by eeks »

tytso wrote: post #205
eeks wrote: post #146

The IBM ranks are inaccurate. Fellows are not above DEs. Both are the highest ranks indeed, but of two different tracks. DE is the highest rank of the engineering track, while Fellow is the highest rank of the research track. Fellowship have also be granted to non-research people over the past 20 years, diluting the merit of the title IMHO. Examples of fellows are: John Backus, Gene Amdahl, Ken Iverson, Benoit Mandel…

I was at the IBM LTC from 2001--2009 as an STSM, and my understanding was that DE's could absolutely get promoted to Fellows. So assuming that Fellows are "just" the highest rank of the research rank is not really accurate. Perhaps that's what you mean by "diluting the merit of the title", but that sounds like you're coming from the Research side of IBM. :-) Yes, it's rare for a DE to get promoted to be a Fellow, but…

You may be right about the DE -> Fellow promotion, although I only heard of it once, and that person was pretty spectacular. The Fellow -> DE path is unheard of. As is the RSM -> DE. All the DEs I know came from SWG and were STSM.

Re: my “dilution” comment, i was not thinking about DEs. I was thinking about non-technical people (management, law, accounting, ...) that have been creeping up the Fellowship lately. Also the bluewashed executive that were given a fellowship package to seeeten the pot.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#326

Post by eeZah7Ux »

dilyevsky wrote: post #88
pcurve wrote: 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?

I suspect Glassdoor mostly gets money from employers so it reflects what they like to see =)

Spot on. Glassdoor is paid by companies so it's not surprising it became very biased towards low salaries.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#327

Post by slivym »

whiskyant wrote: post #87
slivym wrote: 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'…

To answer your question, yes, pay in SF/CA/USA definitely outweighs the increased cost of living. Software engineers here are paid more than anywhere else in the world. It makes sense though since the wealthiest tech companies in the world are here, the most talented engineers gather here for that reason, and companies can afford to pay high compensation packages in order to get the best talent. I don't expect other…

The reason it doesn't make sense to me is that there are clearly engineers in the UK who are as talented as the average engineer in silicon valley and are unwilling to move to the other side of the world. There are also many many many companies in the US that have offices in the UK. Given that UK engineers appear to earn no where near their US equivalent I would have thought there would be a strong incentive to hire more in the UK and therefore drive up wages rather than continually pump money back in silicon valley.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#328

Post by vonmoltke »

morgante wrote: post #211
closeparen wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is not especially unusual for industry hires (even those with plenty of experience) to come in at T4 for Google. Being productive and effective within Google is an additional skill which is not identical to the outside, so it's a risk avoidance measure on both sides. Assuming your experience translates well, people frequently go for promo within a year or two.

> Being productive and effective within Google is an additional skill which is not identical to the outside

I don't buy that. I get that Google has a whole lot of proprietary stuff they have built their business on, but being in that situation is not unique to Google.

> Assuming your experience translates well, people frequently go for promo within a year or two.

If that's the case, I'm not going to feel bad rejecting this offer.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#329

Post by Game_Ender »

puranjay wrote: post #272
Zaheer wrote: post #34

Maker here, posting this as a top-level comment for visibility. Lots of folks are interested in the salary information alone. We have a dedicated page for compensation information: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html There's also a short url: http://www.comp.fyi :) Edit: You can also contribute by adding your comp here: https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html

With compensation like that, I have to reconsider my drive to be an entrepreneur. If you can make a million bucks working for someone else, why work for yourself?

Statistically if you can get into a tier 1 company you’ll be better off. You get 10-20 years at $200-$400k by default, so $2-8 million. You have to weigh that against the exit success chance and size of a 5-10 year (as typical) startup run to an exit.

It’s not all about money of course, and if you can run your own place you can probably get into into a tier 1 tech company.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#330

Post by bradleyjg »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #297
taylorhalliday wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I interviewed and passed at google. Through 6 interviews I used JS, C, Go, and Swift. One of the tougher Qs was to make a pretty full-featured promise library from scratch in whatever language I wanted in one of those interviews. Chose Swift because I'm a fan of the syntax for blocks (esp when whiteboarding). Feedback was that was my best interview of the day. My experience - they wanted to know I could program, didn…

What is a promise library? Sounds rather complex, how does that even fit on a whiteboard?

It’s a js async idiom.
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