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My Salary Progression in Tech

georgestocker.com

41–50 of 631 posts

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#41
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How common are these huge annual salary bumps at Amazon?

Those total comp bumps from 2015-2019 were probably due to massive stock appreciation more than salary increase.

Only 2016 and 2017. The other years had minor impact from stock appreciation (~$5-15K). In 2016 I got a big bump because I got a competing offer from Oracle at $380K, and Amazon matched it.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#42
post #17

This is very American centric. Whites in Europe are lucky to earn half that on architect positions (please don’t come up with „standard of living” and „social services and benefits”).

Don't forget that this is before taxes, retirement savings, healthcare and other deductions. You can't just hand-wave away "standard of living" and "social services and benefits". These may be things you take for granted but a large majority of the population has to have a large emergency refund in case they get severed from their company without any notice for any reason (Compare that with job security in France or…

> These may be things you take for granted but a large majority of the population has to have a large emergency refund in case they get severed from their company without any notice for any reason

This seems like somewhat of an idealistic view point when over half of Americans have less than 1k in their bank account.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#43

My progression: 2008: Graduated with a BS in CS from University of London. I grew up in Europe. 2008: €30K - Joined a small company in Europe as their only programmer doing vehicle GPS tracking. 2009: €30K - Still there. 2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team. 2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team. 2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promote…

Graduated in the late 90s with a degree in CS. I read this and I wonder, where the hell did I go wrong? If this is commonplace, then how did I fail so spectacularly?

It’s not commonplace.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#44

My progression: 2008: Graduated with a BS in CS from University of London. I grew up in Europe. 2008: €30K - Joined a small company in Europe as their only programmer doing vehicle GPS tracking. 2009: €30K - Still there. 2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team. 2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team. 2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promote…

How many RSUs did you walk away from?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#45
I am Asian but was born and raised in Australia. I have a Bachelor of Science and I work as a web developer, e.g. Spring, ASP.NET, React, WordPress, Drupal, etc.

2013 - 23yo - $45K - First job - Magento developer building eCommerce websites for clients.

2014 - 24yo - $54K

2015 - 25yo - $70K - Second job - Magento / Shopify / WordPress developer, building eCommerce websites for clients.

2016 - 26yo - $75K

2017 - 27yo - $80K - Third job - Full stack web developer - Predominantly using Spring and React to build bespoke solutions for clients.

2018 - 28yo - $85K

I don't begrudge people with their crazy salaries but I do get frustrated that I can't find success myself. I'm really struggling with savings and building up a nest egg for retirement.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#46

My progression: 2008: Graduated with a BS in CS from University of London. I grew up in Europe. 2008: €30K - Joined a small company in Europe as their only programmer doing vehicle GPS tracking. 2009: €30K - Still there. 2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team. 2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team. 2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promote…

Graduated in the late 90s with a degree in CS. I read this and I wonder, where the hell did I go wrong? If this is commonplace, then how did I fail so spectacularly?

I was just in the right place, right time. Ten years ago my target was to make $100K/year by 2020. Never would have I imagined these amounts were even possible. But once I attained a basic level of financial security, additional income stopped mattering for my satisfaction. It’s one of the reasons I left, despite everything was going well by every traditional measure.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#47
post #44

My progression: 2008: Graduated with a BS in CS from University of London. I grew up in Europe. 2008: €30K - Joined a small company in Europe as their only programmer doing vehicle GPS tracking. 2009: €30K - Still there. 2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team. 2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team. 2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promote…

How many RSUs did you walk away from?

About $650K that were going to vest in 2019 and 2020.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#48

Some random points of advice after 30 years in tech... First, decide whether you are more interested in pushing forward on technology or on earning more. Yes, you probably want both, but you should decide which matters more. Also, note that the answer will likely change if your personal situation changes, in particular, if you start a family. These points are primarily for those who put earning more above pushing tec…

Fantastic advice! I especially concur with your first bullet point - working to make my boss successful has _always_ paid dividends in the ways you describe.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#49

My progression: 2008: Graduated with a BS in CS from University of London. I grew up in Europe. 2008: €30K - Joined a small company in Europe as their only programmer doing vehicle GPS tracking. 2009: €30K - Still there. 2010: €50K - Joined Amazon in Dublin, Ireland as an SDE-1 (entry level) in the AWS CloudWatch team. 2011: €75K - Still at Amazon, same team. 2012: $120K - Moved to Seattle with the same team. Promote…

Care to share more about that retention bonus? Are those regularly used? Did they have a sense you’d be leaving?

No. I got that in 2016 because I had an offer from Oracle that included a $25K cash signup bonus and Amazon countered with an exact match.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#50
I have worked in Spain and Sweden. My salary as developer has been in the range of €32K-€45K in the past 15 years in Spain. It has been around €65K in Sweden (similar to what now friends make in Spain). And it is below €100K as an architect.

The cost of living in Sweden is higher than in Spain. And Spanish salaries in IT has soared. So, economically, it was not worth moving. But, the experience of living abroad is worth the money.

It is difficult to compare with USA salaries as here there is more taxes but you get better services. For me the deal breaker is the equality. I know that people around me makes a living wage. But, I will not discard to move to any other country in the future for the experience as every country has its own charm.

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