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Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

cnbc.com

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Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#31

Post by svachalek »

bradlys wrote: post #29

Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular feel like slowly ramped up in pay but capped out. They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either. Usually only enough to make it such that your TC at startup would be equal to that of a big company IF the company IPO's/sells. (A big IF!) I don't se…

Yeah, I get recruiting emails from startups all the time but I don't even want to talk to them because somehow it feels rude to bring up the elephant in the room - I'd have to win the lottery at your startup to make up for the loss in joining it. I'm not sure if this is saying big techs have too much money or VC investors are not willing to compete for talent.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#32

Post by rhizome »

bradlys wrote: post #29

Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular feel like slowly ramped up in pay but capped out. They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either. Usually only enough to make it such that your TC at startup would be equal to that of a big company IF the company IPO's/sells. (A big IF!) I don't se…

>They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either

It's even worse than that, since the NPV of options is zero.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#33

Post by mangotrees »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

I'm in management at a FAANG company.

Total comp for my college hires averages around $150k.

Total comp for my career level ICs averages a smidge over $200k.

My top 10% have total comp in the $350k neighborhood.

The very few folks who are at the staff/principal range (depending on which companies titles you're using) are taking home $500-800k (mostly in stock). If we consider attrition, it's probably only 1 in 150 of the engineers we hire who ever hit this tier or above.

The levels.fyi info seems pretty accurate to me. Their estimate for my personal role is within 2% of my actuals.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#34

Post by MuffinFlavored »

clintonb wrote: post #26
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

Location matters. $140K in a low cost of living area is not the same as $140 in the Bay Area.

I am in South Florida (somewhere in between Miami + Fort Lauderdale cost of living)

levels.fyi shows people making $300k in Austin, TX (which as far as I know, is not a high cost of living area)

What are some areas that are comparable to South Florida that are listed on levels.fyi?

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#35

Post by H8crilA »

Zaheer wrote: post #18
notgivingemail wrote: post #14

I tried this on mobile and it never fully loads. When I click on the chat button to report it, it asks me to enter my email address. Not sure what that's about, but I'm not doing that.

Maker here, what device & browser are you using? The email in chat is optional. You can ignore the input message for it if you would not like to share email address.

I had that once or twice (that it never fully loads), but for example now it loads perfectly fine. Android with latest Chrome.

PS. bro you're great for making this happen. levels.fyi is like "software eating the world" for labor unions. Clean, elegant solution avoiding all the nasty labor unions politics. Now if we could also bring awareness around work/life balance!

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#36

Post by newfangle »

mangotrees wrote: post #33
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

I'm in management at a FAANG company. Total comp for my college hires averages around $150k. Total comp for my career level ICs averages a smidge over $200k. My top 10% have total comp in the $350k neighborhood. The very few folks who are at the staff/principal range (depending on which companies titles you're using) are taking home $500-800k (mostly in stock). If we consider attrition, it's probably only 1 in 150 of…

Which FAANG? That matters apple and amazon are not anywhere as competitive as the rest.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#37

Post by MuffinFlavored »

bradlys wrote: post #24
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

Are you working at the companies that show that level of pay? Are you located geographically the same as those offers? levels.fyi does not say everyone makes $300k+ - it says people at specific companies in a specific region make that much. It makes that quite obvious from how you have to select the companies, the level, and then you see where those offers are geographically and with how much experience/tenure.

Is there a map that shows the data geographically? It's hard to tell given the list of salaries + cities to find data the compares to my city.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#38

Post by MuffinFlavored »

mangotrees wrote: post #33
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

I'm in management at a FAANG company. Total comp for my college hires averages around $150k. Total comp for my career level ICs averages a smidge over $200k. My top 10% have total comp in the $350k neighborhood. The very few folks who are at the staff/principal range (depending on which companies titles you're using) are taking home $500-800k (mostly in stock). If we consider attrition, it's probably only 1 in 150 of…

> Total comp for my college hires averages around $150k.

What cities is that number for?

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#39

Post by a1pulley »

bradlys wrote: post #29

Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular feel like slowly ramped up in pay but capped out. They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either. Usually only enough to make it such that your TC at startup would be equal to that of a big company IF the company IPO's/sells. (A big IF!) I don't se…

I've actually had the opposite experience with Google. I'm currently negotiating a job offer at Google; my initial offer was significantly lower than my four other ones. It's TBD whether they'll end up matching, but my recruiter has been trying to systematically deconstruct the argument for working at a local competitor to make the case that 0.67 * other offer = Google offer. I'm not sure if they'll end up matching - we'll see!

TLDR: in my current experience at non-staff levels, Google comp lags behind "Big-N" comp as well as "near-IPO company" comp. Maybe they just lowball everyone though.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#40

Post by taurath »

bradlys wrote: post #29

Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular feel like slowly ramped up in pay but capped out. They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either. Usually only enough to make it such that your TC at startup would be equal to that of a big company IF the company IPO's/sells. (A big IF!) I don't se…

Okay though, if you joined Big Co now and made $400k/yr, you'd be taking home $260k post-tax. Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably.

In 2-3 years you'd have your $300-400k for a down payment - thats 30% of a $1.2mm house. 2-3 years to buy a median priced place. Thats not bad. Also, prices in say, Santa Clara CA have gone -5.5% YoY, and are forecasted by zillow to go another -8% in the next year.

It sucks for anyone who doesn't work at BigCo right now who isn't already wealthy from the previous work.

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