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Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

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Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#141

Post by twblalock »

joshuamorton wrote: post #104
esoterica wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are no companies where refreshers exceed or match the initial grant. At Google, they're between 25 and 50%, depending on a lot of stuff. My initial grant was ~150k, my first refresher was ~40k, and it's a wash if my 4th year refresh will match my first year, that will likely come down to if I make L5 or not.

I’ve received refreshes larger than my initial grant, so there is at least one company that does it.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#142

Post by nickm12 »

nodesocket wrote: post #7

I've never worked for a public company (such as Facebook, Netflix, Google), when it says $120,000 in stock is that essentially free shares at a given price? I.E. you are open to sell them whenever? I worked at a small series B level startup, and when I left I had the option to buy my shares at the last valuation price, but at just over $20,000 total I declined. I decided I could use that capital better than waiting a…

With RSU (restricted stock units) the price is not given; the number of shares is. Basically, you are granted a number of shares to vest on a particular date (the vest date is the date the shares are yours).

For public companies, the vest date is also the release date, which is when the shares are recognized as income. You have to pay taxes when they are released, which is basically 25% federal tax plus whatever your state's tax rate is for this (10% in CA). To pay the taxes you can either deposit cash to cover the amount and keep the shares, or sell some fraction of the shares on the release date.

If you keep the shares, then any gain after the release date is taxed as capital gains. Basically, from a tax perspective it's equivalent to the company paying you cash on the release date equal to the stock price of your shares and you buying shares with it.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#143

Post by taurath »

briandear wrote: post #132
taurath wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, so you want a single family home now. And it has to be in San Mateo->Mtv. And it must have /CENTRAL/ AC, one would assume. I'm not going to look for houses for you, except to note there are over 100 houses available right now under $5k in that region, all of which you could install central AC into for a couple grand if you wanted. If you MUST live in the San Mateo->Mtv corridor, with all those amenities, why woul…

You can’t install central ac for $2000 and certainly not in a rental.

$4k-$5k you can, and maybe even get a break on the rent. Add an extra month to getting your 30% down payment.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#144

Post by 1000units »

throwaway98121 wrote: post #105
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…

What company are you at? I’m at a company who people consider 2nd tier among the FANGs in a senior developer role and my salary + stocks are > $300K this year in Seattle. Also be careful what you wish for. I’m not sure if the stress and personal impact are worth it. I have constant anxiety. Some of the people I work with are really smart but manipulative and generally not great human beings. It’s not for everyone. I’…

> Some of the people I work with are really smart but manipulative and generally not great human beings.

It was really shocking to me to learn how disgusting some very intelligent people can be. It rewrote some of my philosophies of life in the first half of my twenties. Turns out we don't all have cathedrals in our heads when we have the tools to build them.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#145

Post by scalesolved »

ryandrake wrote: post #53
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.

I'd bet the inverse, folks pulling in the huge compensation packets have no reason to want to advertise this via a self reported site.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#146

Post by scalesolved »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #72
jldugger wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually not, but there's a certain logic to it: they valued your work high enough to pay you in SV, why would the same work be less valuable just because you moved offices?

because the cost of living is different? lol

Brb while I move to Vatican city, I look forward to my salary going up significantly.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#147

Post by vshan »

warp_factor wrote: post #130

this whole leveling thing is very sad. It makes you realize you are simply a number: a small pawn that falls into a predefined category and that will do a predefined job without too much opportunities to go out of its way. I'm missing the craziness of studying at university where I felt everything was possible. I had sometimes similar feelings in startups. In big companies that created that level structure it's shock…

I feel the opposite way. When I was studying at university, I found it quite hard to motivate myself to do boring assignments, but after joining a BigCo and talking to customers who are direct beneficiaries of my work, it is much more rewarding and I feel more naturally motivated.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#148

Post by a1pulley »

person_of_color wrote: post #134
a1pulley wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

How long did you prepare for the interview?

This was my third time doing big-N style interviews in the last few years, so I didn't have to study as much as the first time. YMMV, but my process is to solve the classic expository problems in CLRS - like lecture hall scheduling, max subarray, and rod cutting - without consulting the textbook. Of course, I fail horribly at some of the problems and end up consulting the textbook :-)

After I reread the things I forgot about - implementing things I was hazy on, like Dijkstra, on the way - I solved a handful of leetcode questions, read a few system design analyses, attended an onsite at a "practice company," and finally scheduled my big-N onsites. All told, I studied about 4 hrs per day for five days. But I think it's really important to be honest with yourself; this process seems to work well for me, but your ideal process might be different.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#149

Post by scarface74 »

taurath wrote: post #93
scarface74 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is kind of depressing. My wife would swear I was joking if I told her that we could rent a house for $3,000 more than our mortgage that was less than half size and looks like something built in the 70s. And people on HN wonder why software engineers living in other major cities in the US have no interest in going to the west coast.

OTOH, they do - frequently. If you can bank half your take home which is totally doable you get to move out and buy whatever home you like nearly wherever you like and retire.

Or if you are married dual income earner you can get a job anywhere else, not have to spend $5000 a month rent just to live in a small 35 year old house, live off one income and save the other.....

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#150

Post by Bahamut »

joshuamorton wrote: post #104
esoterica wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There are no companies where refreshers exceed or match the initial grant. At Google, they're between 25 and 50%, depending on a lot of stuff. My initial grant was ~150k, my first refresher was ~40k, and it's a wash if my 4th year refresh will match my first year, that will likely come down to if I make L5 or not.

At Apple, they are very generous with refreshers - my initial grant was $105k, and my refresh grant was $125k and I expect at least similar, if not more, for my refresher in a couple of months. The only reason my refresh did not exceed my initial grant was because my initial grant climbed almost 40% in value in that time.
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