Compare career levels across companies • Hacker News Board

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#371

Post by octorian » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

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.

I feel like there are two ways to get access...

1. Get hired by an SV-area startup that cares more about how interested you are in them than the other way around (assuming you're good).

2. Relocate (or pretend you've relocated) to the SV-area, and suddenly you appear on recruiters' radar.

I did #1, but interest from random recruiters before/after the move was practically like a step function. I've heard stories of people doing #2, and it working out for them.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#372

Post by titanomachy » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:17 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #244

nemo44x wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The truth is, in my experience, people in the major cities (and even some outside them) in the USA are the most highly compensated people on Earth. Canada and the EU have a lot of social systems that cost a lot of money. They have a lot of worker protections. This means it costs more to hire someone there and it is very difficult to get rid of them meaning more risk for the company. Because of this (and other reasons…

Canada doesn’t have anywhere near the worker protections of the EU. It’s not quite “at will” employment but... I live in Canada and work remotely for a US tech company which has helped keep my comp competitive. It not about laws or taxes really (ours aren’t much more than California really), it’s that the wage inflation / talent war hasn’t quite made it up here yet.

Seconded, I don't think it has anything to do with Canada's social programs. And it's pretty easy to fire someone, you just have to give them a small amount of severance depending on how long they've worked for you. I think the biggest factor is that it's much, much easier to import workers from Europe and Asia. I worked at a major tech company in Canada and the office was 50%+ foreign nationals who wouldn't have had authorization to work in the US anyway. A lot of the Canadian citizens eventually left to take 2-3x salaries in the States (there is a visa category that makes it really easy for Canadian engineers to work in the US.)

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#373

Post by JimboOmega » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:20 PM UTC

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #356

TACIXAT wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The front-end interviews at Google are about half algorithms and half details about how web front-ends should work, be structured, web technology problems, browser performance, etc. It's an entirely different interview track from General SWE.

How hard is it to ask them to switch me to something more backend? Is it impossible unless I know Another one of their languages?

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#374

Post by fhrow4484 » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

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

Really cool website!

One thing that seem to be missing is the signing bonus.

It's different from the yearly bonus since it's a one time event, but it can be significant.

Averaging it per year would only make sense if a person leaves the company and divides the signing bonus by the number of years worked

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#375

Post by oculusthrift » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:21 PM UTC

khalilravanna wrote: post #367

I'm not super familiar with big companies, having worked mostly at startups with less structured "levels", but is there a separate scale or set of levels for managers? Or can you be "Senior SWE" and a manager at Google for example?

It’s essentially the same in internal levels just different title. For instance at Microsoft most managers are Principal level. And google most are atleast l5. (with some exceptions). But instead of being called principal engineer they are called principal engineering manager.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#376

Post by mrep » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:33 PM UTC

JimboOmega wrote: post #313

rco8786 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve written extensive ruby at 2 of the companies listed on this site (including my current job which is 100% ruby)

Which? I've had conversations worth Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon that all got weird about Ruby. If there are hidden Ruby jobs, I'd love a referral to them

Amazon has definitely got ruby code. Their somewhat new continuous deployment/infrastructure automation/configuration tools are all ruby which means every team actually ends up writing some ruby since everyone has infrastructure they need to set up. There are also some other scattering of teams that use it.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#377

Post by influx » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

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.

I disagree, if you had the work ethic, you could study for a year on leetcode.com, and have a hell of a good chance at landing a FAANG job.

Just practice those types of problems, apply to a bunch of different companies, do the phone screens, get rejected, practice some more, get through the phone screens to the onsite, get rejected, repeat until you get an offer.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#378

Post by TACIXAT » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:41 PM UTC

chaosphere2112 wrote: post #356

TACIXAT wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The front-end interviews at Google are about half algorithms and half details about how web front-ends should work, be structured, web technology problems, browser performance, etc. It's an entirely different interview track from General SWE.

Good to know!

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#379

Post by influx » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:48 PM UTC

arminiusreturns wrote: post #280

nixgeek wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the new hotness is being a Site Reliability Engineer, or a Production Engineer, and for both you’re interviewed against SDE competencies (you must be able to write software). Roles which don’t involve software seem to be withering on the vine.

This drives me a bit nutty tbh. I dont feel like getting into it at the moment, because the entire subject deserves a proper gothrough.

Why? One "sysadmin" who can write software can manage far more machines than one who can't. Source: started my career as a Solaris Sysadmin with a CS degree.

Re: Compare career levels across companies

#380

Post by akhilcacharya » Thu, Nov 01, 2018, 4:56 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #292

akhilcacharya wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Amazon in particular it is standardized such that there are only 2 different regions, 1 for SFBA/NYC and 1 for everywhere else in the US.

Amazon operates in countries other than the US.

It's basically understood at this point that tech salaries are going to be orders of magnitude lower outside of the US, no matter the company, country, or cost of living or economic health of the country.