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My Salary Progression in Tech

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Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#261

Post by s_t_away »

chillacy wrote: post #246
s_t_away wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For me at least, there was little correlation between level and pure number of hours worked. In general, I probably worked the most hours in the first year, mostly because I was just out of college and didn't know any better. These days, I would say I probably average around ~50 hours a week.

But there is definitely more "stress" as you go up levels. You have more responsibility, the problems get harder and more ambiguous, more people issues to deal with, etc. Part of me misses the "L3/L4 me", when all I really had to do was come in, work on relatively scoped technical problems, and not worry about a lot else. But I think I'd also probably feel bored after a while if I somehow managed to went back to that.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#262

Post by tastyface »

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?

My degree surely helped, but what got my foot in the door was a particularly interesting project I worked on the year before.

As for salary, it depends on the company. In many places, this number would indeed be low. (See Netflix with its $300-$400k starting salaries.) At my company, it's maybe on the low-mid of the scale for employees who've had my position for a few years. (Last I checked, the range is approx. $200-$300k TC.) However, I considered it a very high offer indeed, given the large "gap" and general lack of corporate experience on my resume. I actually got in one level higher than I thought I would. (Though I've since come to realize that it was definitely the right slot for me.)

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#263

Post by bitcoinmoney »

kilbuz wrote: post #201
kuhhk wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume the 800k is because of vested stock with strong share growth.

An actual Netflixer can chime in, but as far as I know from friends who work there, Netflix is almost all base, no stock and no large bonus. My friends are data engineers with 3-5 YOE making about 400k base upon their hire, so I believe it. They thought folks in the ML group were in the 700-800k range. All hearsay though, so please take with grain of salt.

Can you share your friends backgrounds that go to data engineers?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#264

Post by saryant »

- 2012: $60k and a Big 4 consultancy

- 2013: $65k, first employee at a startup

- 2014: $70k

- 2015: $130k, SWE1 at Twitter

- 2016: $155k, SWE2 at Twitter

- 2017: $180k

- 2018: $222k, Senior SWE

- 2019: $280k

BS from a relatively unknown college. Working out of the Colorado office.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#265

Post by jmchuster »

Software engineer

  Year) Salary - Bonus - Company
   1)  50k - 10%  - Company 1 - small private tech consulting firm (NYC)
   2)  60k - 10%  - Company 1 (NoVa)
   3)  70k - 15%  - Company 1
   4)  80k - 15%  - Company 1
   5)  90k - 15%  - Company 1
   6) 100k - 15%  - Company 1
   7) 105k - 15%  - Company 1
   8) 135k - 15%  - Company 2 - series C startup, sales software (SF)
   9)  25k -  0%  - Company 3 - seed round, business tools, co-founder (SF)
  10)  60k -  0%  - Company 3
  11) 160k - 10%* - Company 4 - series A startup, transportation, acquired a year before (peninsula)
  12) 180k - 15%* - Company 4
  13) 220k - 25%  - Company 5 - series D startup, fintech, acquired a year before (peninsula)
*Actual bonus payout was about a quarter of it

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#266

Post by tastyface »

salta2019 wrote: post #247
minhaz23 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agreed that Blind is a crap community, but their numbers are more accurate than I've seen anywhere else (including levels.fyi).

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#267

Post by bitcoinmoney »

throwaway031419 wrote: post #241
minhaz23 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How often you changed jobs? And what kind of work do you do?

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#268

Post by salaryanony1 »

beambot wrote: post #163
salaryanony1 wrote: post #54

Salary progression, no college degree. Cash only comp, no RSUs or anything like that. 20 - $65k (Office Rural NY, SE) 21 - $65k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 22 - $75k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 23 - $85k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 24 - $85k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 25 - $225k (Remote, SF Series B Startup, Lead SE) 26 - $225k (Remote, SF Series B Startup, Lead SE) 27 - $393k (Office, SF Series C/D…

You paid yourself $150k in your first year as startup founder? Huh.

Yeah, weird situation, good business opportunity + good funding. The barnacles that come with a high income means that it's hard to cut back. I would have trouble living on less than this.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#269

Post by salaryanony1 »

isuckatcoding wrote: post #59
salaryanony1 wrote: post #54

Salary progression, no college degree. Cash only comp, no RSUs or anything like that. 20 - $65k (Office Rural NY, SE) 21 - $65k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 22 - $75k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 23 - $85k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 24 - $85k (Remote, 10 Person Startup, SE) 25 - $225k (Remote, SF Series B Startup, Lead SE) 26 - $225k (Remote, SF Series B Startup, Lead SE) 27 - $393k (Office, SF Series C/D…

What how did your salary jump so much between 24/25? Bonuses? Or base?

New job, good negotiation skills. $225K was base. IIRC, I negotiated a bonus (not included in the 225) that was like ~30K when then next funding round closed.

Re: My Salary Progression in Tech

#270

Post by bitcoinmoney »

DVassallo wrote: post #191
bitcoinmoney wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share what sort of skills related to cloud would net me 380k/year? Got a phd ee doing C++ mostly.

5 years experience at one of the leading cloud companies (AWS, Azure, Google) will very likely put you right in that market. Nothing special to join. It’s very hard to enter directly as an SDE-3 (or equivalent) without having experience at one of the big companies. I think in 8 years at Amazon I’ve only seen 1 person doing that. With a phd and some work experience you can likely join as an SDE-2 and get to an SDE-3 l…

Do SDE3 interviews still do it leetcode style?
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