My Salary Progression in Tech • Hacker News Board

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#241

Post by throwaway031419 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:43 AM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #210

throwaway031419 wrote: post #192

* 2018 $1,155,000 * 2017 $1,259,000 Senior Staff Software Engineer * 2016 $661,000 time off 2015 $1,543,000 * 2014 $1,465,000 * 2013 $1,241,000 * 2012 $876,000 Threatened to quit, got a bunch of stock * 2011 $368,000 * 2010 $318,000 * 2009 $244,000 * 2008 $192,000 Staff Software Engineer * 2007 $167,000 * 2006 $165,000 * 2005 $157,000 Senior Softare Engineer, Norcal * 2004 $246,000 stock sale 2003 $80,000 * 2002 $76,…

Still in VA? Is it typical for senior SWE to make 1.2 million? How can one reach that point faster?

Staff Engineers at FAANG typically make 400-500k/pa. What made the difference was a retention grant. I got a competing offer and they gave me millions in stock, which I accepted and stayed. After I was fully vested, I basically got lucky and found another big company that had a department that was doing some pretty undisciplined hiring and brought me in at Senior Staff. I'm not really doing the job at that level, but they don't want me to leave, so we're in stasis. After the initial grant runs out this will stabilize at ~700k.

I don't know how to repeat what I did. I think retention grants are rarer than they used to be. However, once you get to Staff, you have a lot of negotiating leverage. I received multiple offers with initial grants over 2 million.

Build relationships, progress your career, get good at whiteboard interviews, and change jobs more often to make progress.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#242

Post by anth_anm » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:43 AM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #144

soulnothing wrote: post #141

Honest question has anyone else seen salary decreases. I peaked at ~190k w2 contractor so no benefits. But after death march after death march and canceled projects. I got down to ~105. One of my biggest stress right now is due to money. Contributed to by a foreclosure that has a monthly payment. I've been east and west coast and tried FAANG, but unless I waited the vesting it was a drastic pay cut, and the midst of…

Most FAANGs pay well even without vested stock, Amazon in particular relies heavily on stock for compensation but provides bonuses the first couple of years to compensate.

It's not so much compensate as much as it is structuring their comp so that they can get away with never actually giving you a raise.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#243

Post by anth_anm » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

nicolashahn wrote: post #33

DVassallo wrote: post #27

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 common are these huge annual salary bumps at Amazon?

It's stock increases.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#244

Post by AnotherGoodName » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

tvphan wrote: post #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…

You get paid 3 times as much working in the US. You also get treated well rather than as a cost centre which was my experience back in Aus.

I'm an Australian developer earning triple that+stocks on top at one of the FAANG. Trump, guns and shitty healthcare don't affect you day to day in the states. The E3 visa for Australians to work in the US is trivial.

The funny thing is that Sydney real estate is comparable to silicon valley despite no one earning anynear as much.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#245

Post by burlesona » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:45 AM UTC

throwaway031419 wrote: post #192

* 2018 $1,155,000 * 2017 $1,259,000 Senior Staff Software Engineer * 2016 $661,000 time off 2015 $1,543,000 * 2014 $1,465,000 * 2013 $1,241,000 * 2012 $876,000 Threatened to quit, got a bunch of stock * 2011 $368,000 * 2010 $318,000 * 2009 $244,000 * 2008 $192,000 Staff Software Engineer * 2007 $167,000 * 2006 $165,000 * 2005 $157,000 Senior Softare Engineer, Norcal * 2004 $246,000 stock sale 2003 $80,000 * 2002 $76,…

Woah. I’m assuming this comp is mostly stock but wow this still seems insanely high. I suppose “threatened to quit” is the key here?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#246

Post by chillacy » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

s_t_away wrote: post #208

Googler1234 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, which level? L8?

Hired at L3 2008 - L4 2009 - L5 2010 - L6 2014 - L7

How much more work do you do at every level? Do you feel like there's an optimal level to reach for your time investment / pay ratio?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#247

Post by salta2019 » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:47 AM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #218

tastyface wrote: post #187

Here's my fairly unusual salary progression, since we're all sharing: • 2011 — $80k at a startup in CA, a year out of college • 2012 — $90k, and we got acquired by an industry big fish • 2013 — $90k, but got laid off in the middle of the year • 2013 through 2018 — making random software, traveling, and using up my savings; made some money, but not enough to count as "salary" in any real sense • 2018 — $240k ($180k ba…

What is Blind? Do you think your degree helped? Is $240k a lot or a little as a senior SWE at a FAANG? Don't freshers hired out of school get offered tht much? Any advice for others?

Blind is an anonymous messaging app where people talk about their salaries, employers, and other topics. It’s somewhat toxic.

$240k seems in the range of normal for most of the FAANGs. Of course it can go much higher.

It doesn’t seem like the typical new hire just out of undergrad gets that much to start.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#248

Post by chillacy » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

throwawhale wrote: post #160

peripitea wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without knowing your skills, there's a good chance you've just been working for the wrong companies. There are lots of companies in Canada that pay absolute garbage to software engineers. And if you don't have the skills that higher-paying companies look for (mainly coding+algorithms+data structures in interviews), you can get that without going to college. Also look into working remotely for US companies.

The company I worked for was a software shop. Most people there were developers. I don't really have algorithms and data structure skills. I almost never have to do these things in real life. I have done mostly front-end stuff (web and mobile). Should I go all-in on LeetCode? Will that guarantee a good paying job? It seems like 4 more years without income to get a bachelor's degree would be worth it considering the c…

If you can solve a leetcode medium in an hour _and_ get a work visa in the US, then you can easily double or triple that salary. Just throwing this out there: grinding interview problems sucks but it's the best thing you can do for your income in industry these days.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#249

Post by DVassallo » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #226

DVassallo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. But I'm not optimizing my life to make as much money as possible. I'd like to work on my own terms, doing things that intrinsically motivate me. If I can do that while covering my family expenses, I think I would have improved my life.

Any advice for someone like me who IS trying to optimize for as much money as possible? Being self taught, will I ever get to be as fortunate as you working at FAANG and seeing salaries and stocks like that?

Yes. I'm self taught. Plenty of self taught people at Amazon, with non-CS degrees, or no degrees at all. That definitely won't be a blocker.

My advice would be to not try to seek satisfaction from "earning as much as possible"... because "as much as possible" is an unreachable destination. I worked with lots of unhappy people earning $350K/year because they felt they should be doing $500K. How do you think they'll feel once they're making $500K? I bet they'll still be miserable because one person they know is their age and making $600K. And so on. Same with promotions and job titles. Once you clear a certain level of financial security (bills on autopay, some savings), more income stops mattering for satisfaction.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#250

Post by chillacy » Fri, Mar 15, 2019, 4:51 AM UTC

minhaz23 wrote: post #230

sytelus wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median total compensation at FB is $240K and at Google $197K as per SEC filings. Folks with $1M figures are probably in top 3-5% in these companies. I would also add that if you are in bay area with $240K total comp and have family, your standard of living is probably not all that enviable. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2019/01/15/median-p...

How can one see these compensation data's in the SEC filings themselves? Where do I look? Are you saying some of the people here with 400-800k salaries are top 5% at a FAANG?

Managers will usually pull 400k+, I wouldn't say that's a top 5% salary. Above 300k isn't unusual at all. Check out levels.fyi for some examples of top-of-band salaries in each level.