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Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

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Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#51

Post by ryandrake »

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.

A lot of people forget that. They see a few people at a FAANG company making $400k and conclude that everyone at that level makes about that much.

People also disregard the infamous “4 year cliff”: At most of these companies, your initial stock offer fully vests in 4 years, so your 5th year, your take-home comp nose-dives. Even if you get modest raises and “refresh” stock grants (which not all companies do), you’re likely taking a huge hit in year 5. I’d be interested in a levels.fyi filtering out people’s first four years.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#52

Post by Zaheer »

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…

Hi, you can view the full list of data points on the Comp page [1]. Only a few tech companies are able to pay top dollar. We released a report of the top paying tech companies of 2018 recently which highlights a few of these [2]. Also, keep in mind most of the data we have is for the Bay Area where cost of living is very high. We're working on more detailed location filters to surface this better. Let us know if you have feedback on how we might be able to make this more clear!

[1] https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html [2] https://www.levels.fyi/2018/

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#53

Post by ryandrake »

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…

Don’t forget that not everyone at these big companies are making these outsized compensations. If the data is self-reported then I’d bet dollars to donuts that this skews the averages super high. Few people feel the urge to log their below-average salary for the world to see. I’d take self reported salary data and anecdotes with a huge grain of salt.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#54

Post by taurath »

bradlys wrote: post #45
taurath wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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% i…

It's $230k after tax. > Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. You really might want to expand on "extremely comfortably". We all have very different definitions. I'd like a home with AC, good transportation, close enough to SF to actually make it up on weeknights (30-40 min drive), a retirement plan that works with the assumption I live in this area indefinitely, and a <=20 minu…

$115k/yr is $9600/mo.

You can spend $5k/mo on a rental with all of those properties, and have $4600/mo for food, utilities, bi-annual trips to europe, the payment for your porsche, and a housekeeper, all whilst saving half of your income to buy a house in the most expensive region of the US in 2-3 years.

You can literally have all of those things.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#55

Post by esoterica »

bradlys wrote: post #45
taurath wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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% i…

It's $230k after tax. > Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. You really might want to expand on "extremely comfortably". We all have very different definitions. I'd like a home with AC, good transportation, close enough to SF to actually make it up on weeknights (30-40 min drive), a retirement plan that works with the assumption I live in this area indefinitely, and a <=20 minu…

Unless you want a 5BR SFH you can definitely have that on much less than 130k/year.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#56

Post by AndrewKemendo »

svachalek wrote: post #31
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.

If you are a top talent there really is no upside of joining a startup anymore - even as a founder. It's terribly depressing.

FAANG pays orders of magnitudes better, has better benefits, has flexible work locations and schedules, is working on the most leading edge stuff (autonomous everything, AR, VR, GreenTech etc...) contributes to FOSS, gives leadership opportunities etc...

I'm not sure when this shift happened, but I do remember the tipping point in 2016 when Apple recruited the best PhD away from my company after 6 tries and gave him a 3x pay raise (400k/yr - what startup can afford that for one person?), with the ability to work on self-driving cars.

I'm not sure how it would be possible to compete with that, and don't blame him for leaving.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#57

Post by paxys »

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…

Apart from founders and very early employees, people used to take a chance in small startups due to the prospect of their RSU/options being worth a ton down the line. Nowadays, though, VC ownership in these companies is getting so large that very little is left for founders themselves, let alone employee number 50. Makes zero sense not to take a guaranteed $500K at Google or Facebook over a tiny chance at $500K at a startup.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#58

Post by twblalock »

ryandrake wrote: post #51
bradlys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people forget that. They see a few people at a FAANG company making $400k and conclude that everyone at that level makes about that much. People also disregard the infamous “4 year cliff”: At most of these companies, your initial stock offer fully vests in 4 years, so your 5th year, your take-home comp nose-dives. Even if you get modest raises and “refresh” stock grants (which not all companies do), you’re l…

At most big companies the refresher grants are large enough to prevent a cliff.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#59

Post by cdkee »

taurath wrote: post #54
bradlys wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's $230k after tax. > Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. You really might want to expand on "extremely comfortably". We all have very different definitions. I'd like a home with AC, good transportation, close enough to SF to actually make it up on weeknights (30-40 min drive), a retirement plan that works with the assumption I live in this area indefinitely, and a <=20 minu…

$115k/yr is $9600/mo. You can spend $5k/mo on a rental with all of those properties, and have $4600/mo for food, utilities, bi-annual trips to europe, the payment for your porsche, and a housekeeper, all whilst saving half of your income to buy a house in the most expensive region of the US in 2-3 years. You can literally have all of those things.

After taxes 115k is more like 5-6k a month, depending on how much you’re putting into retirement accounts, healthcare, etc.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#60

Post by esoterica »

ryandrake wrote: post #51
bradlys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A lot of people forget that. They see a few people at a FAANG company making $400k and conclude that everyone at that level makes about that much. People also disregard the infamous “4 year cliff”: At most of these companies, your initial stock offer fully vests in 4 years, so your 5th year, your take-home comp nose-dives. Even if you get modest raises and “refresh” stock grants (which not all companies do), you’re l…

No company is stupid enough to make their employees take a >50% paycut in year 5, unless they are intentionally signaling that the employee is not desired and should leave. If they did everyone would quit on their 4th anniversary. Refreshers typically exceed or match the initial grant.

Even if they DID make you take a paycut you could jump ship every four years anyway, so why would you care about comp past year 4?

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