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Compare career levels across companies

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Re: Compare career levels across companies

#341

Post by JustSomeNobody »

gregschlom wrote: post #222
morgante wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in Python); Most SWE hires are generalists at Google, not tied to a specific language. Unless you're being hired for a specialist role, you should absolutely be able to interview in the language of your choice. It's sometimes harder to put together an interview slate for a less popular languag…

> 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 was told I could use C# as that is the language I use the most. Thing is, I'm going to use Python anyway. If they're going to whiteboard me, I want a language that is easy to write on a whiteboard and, to me, Python would be that language. Besides, I'm over C#. Would love to program Python for a while.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#342

Post by twoquestions »

unionemployee wrote: post #338

As an average potential software engineer in the Midwest, it's at first exciting to see these salaries, but I also feel the need to check myself and realize that, in some ways, this is another universe to which I probably don't have access.

It seems getting access to this world requires either superlative ability, a network of people who can teach you the lingo, or university pedigree.

Probably a matter of time until programming is another power-law career like music or law is, where only the top hundred or thousand in the world can get by.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#343

Post by twoquestions »

rco8786 wrote: post #340
empath75 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to this thing if I had a similar level job at google I’d be making $150k more a year in total comp than i’m making now but I’m like 90% sure I can’t get that job at google.

That’s a pretty defeatist attitude

That's a funny way of spelling "realistic".

These companies want The Right Stuff, and it's easy to tell if you yourself aren't it.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#344

Post by bb611 »

kweinber wrote: post #332

Sites like this are recruiter-bait. (Notice that Triplebyte is a recruiter). They purport to have real salary info from the richest companies in the world to unsettle employees. (With no claim to even be telling the truth). This inspires people to be job flippers when they are closer to the average salaries that pay well but don’t compete at the high end. Changing jobs every year might get you quick raises early but…

> actually achieving meaningful results takes time and gets you bigger raises

Do you have evidence this is true? I agree with your point about satisfaction, but I've seen a lot of people who believed this about salary and got totally screwed as a result.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#345

Post by TACIXAT »

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 interview is mostly algorithms. It's not gonna be front end trivia.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#346

Post by bb611 »

taurath wrote: post #86
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?

Glassdoor doesn’t look at stock grants as income.

They have started collecting that data.

The real issue is they don't seem to properly weight responses to get accurate current year numbers. The estimated total comp for my position is about 1/3 low on Glassdoor, it's about 1/30 low on levels

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#347

Post by mathattack »

jasondclinton wrote: post #233
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.

Google SWE interviewer here. You can absolutely interview in Ruby. I have it listed on my language interviewing skills page. It is harder to schedule for more obscure languages because we have to find 4 people with that language who are available.

This is the key insight. The company seems to be language agnostic - the pool of interviewers isn’t.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#348

Post by foldr »

electrograv wrote: post #245
nemo44x wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bot…

> However, you get health care out of that and can retire early with a lowered risk in terms of health issues. I’m not aware of any major tech company in the US that doesn’t offer excellent health insurance and retirement plans. And the quality and availability of healthcare in the US is arguably the best in the world, if you are insured (that’s the ‘catch’ I suppose).

You still have to factor in the cost of medications, doctor's visits, etc. etc., which can run pretty high even with a good plan.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#349

Post by plumdot »

nouseforaname wrote: post #286
Nashooo wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you make the switch to working remotely for a big company in combination with a salary increase? Somehow it seems that remote jobs offer less compensation here in Europe.

I was directly recruited, for 2 remote jobs at once. The first one was because I hung out in an IRC channel for an open source project. The CTO of that company just offered me a job. At the same time a recruiter from a fortune 500 just directly reached out to me and it was a great fit. I ended up going with the big established company because: 1. Better offer 2. Long term product area I was more interested in. This w…

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#350

Post by njs12345 »

YokoZar wrote: post #322
seattleeng wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, S…

I agree in general with your comment, but..

> 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.

These are pre-IPO companies so you can't easily buy their shares.

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