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Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

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Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#31
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not necessarily a catch. Pay is not based on cost of living -- it's set by market rates, and the market rate for software engineers in these areas who can do the jobs required at these companies is high. All these companies operate at an immense scale where an engineer, through what is often a simple change, can add significant value to the company. So, yes. For now, these companies are giving college grads…

A senior position in the doc will probably get you ~2M in savings by 35. How do you retire with that?

you'd be in a position to invest too as you go.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#32
It’s worth nothing that most of these numbers are inflated from share price increases boosting the value of RSUs vesting over 4 years. New offers at the higher levels from those companies are unlikely to be that high unless you are coming in at the top of the pay band for the level.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#33
post #5

If this is for real, _everyone_ I know is getting completely screwed. I have a hard time believing any of these numbers. If I earned any of these amounts for 2-3 years, I could live off the interest for the rest of my life.

These are not salaries. It’s total comp. My total comp. calculating pension and benefits in the Great White North is similar, and that’s govt. to boot. Total comp is always a highly misleading number.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#34
post #11

I have never worked in the valley, so the answer to this question might be obvious to the people working there. What happens to all the experienced engineers? According to this, the Senior, Staff, or Principal titles are generally for people with 5+ year experience? Those roles make up 30%, 10%, and 3% of companies respectively. That leaves 57% of engineers in positions listed are usually for people with 0-5 years ex…

Most companies in the valley have a terminal level (a level at which you're not expected to progress to the next one) that's close to level 3 in the chart here. In my experience, a lot of people don't progress beyond that. For the ones that do, the number of years of experience plays a smaller role than the quality of the experience itself.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#35
It's important to compare apples to apples.

Lists like these are incredibly misleading, as they include non-cash bonuses. First off, these bonuses (say, RSUs) take a while to vest (incurring opportunity cost), can go down (there's risk), and so on. For example, being an early junior engineer at the next unicorn can make you orders of magnitude richer than working for FB or GOOG as a distinguished engineer (basically top 0.0001%). But that's kind of a silly data point, because you're probably making a 70k salary, whereas the distinguished engineer is making like a 250k salary.

So let's stick with cold hard cash or let's stick with bonuses, but it's misleading to conflate them.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#36

Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the cards. Better visibility into numbers will definitely help level the playing field. Collecting offer letters is an interesting way to build trust in data. What's the incentive for someone to upload their offer letter though?

> Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the cards.

What makes you think companies hold all the cards? Especially in tech.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#37
post #11

I have never worked in the valley, so the answer to this question might be obvious to the people working there. What happens to all the experienced engineers? According to this, the Senior, Staff, or Principal titles are generally for people with 5+ year experience? Those roles make up 30%, 10%, and 3% of companies respectively. That leaves 57% of engineers in positions listed are usually for people with 0-5 years ex…

A lot of Sr. engineers have way more than 5 yrs of experience. Or they go into management.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#38
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not necessarily a catch. Pay is not based on cost of living -- it's set by market rates, and the market rate for software engineers in these areas who can do the jobs required at these companies is high. All these companies operate at an immense scale where an engineer, through what is often a simple change, can add significant value to the company. So, yes. For now, these companies are giving college grads…

A senior position in the doc will probably get you ~2M in savings by 35. How do you retire with that?

You read through all the advice in these blogs [1][2]. Seriously.

If you are invested in low cost index funds, most assume you can safely withdraw 4% a year and not deplete your principal. If you're retiring at 35, you might want a greater safety margin, so let's say 3%. That gives you 60K a year.

How do you retire on 60K a year? Obviously take what I'm saying with a grain of salt as I'm a relatively young person and haven't done any of this yet. But...60K is the median household income in the US, so half of families in the US live on less. If you're retired, you can probably save in ways others can't. For instance:

* Housing. You don't need to stay in a high cost of living city, so move to a much cheaper area (maybe a college town).

* Education. You have much more time, so send your kids to all public education, and use your extra time to educate them further.

* Debt. You have a ton of assets. Why hold any debt?

* Automobiles. Bike instead, if you're physically able.

* Health. Probably the hardest one since insurance in the US is tied to employment. I understand the recommended approach here is to pay out of pocket for a plan, but many have trouble with this. Of course, the standard advice is to use the extra time you have due to retirement to stay as healthy as possible, but I acknowledge this isn't a perfect plan.

[1] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ [2] https://www.madfientist.com/

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#39
post #10
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not necessarily a catch. Pay is not based on cost of living -- it's set by market rates, and the market rate for software engineers in these areas who can do the jobs required at these companies is high. All these companies operate at an immense scale where an engineer, through what is often a simple change, can add significant value to the company. So, yes. For now, these companies are giving college grads…

A senior position in the doc will probably get you ~2M in savings by 35. How do you retire with that?

Easily by not living in the Bay Area. People FIRE at 1 million, which I always found a bit silly considering we're in the midst of an amazing market hyperinflated by some rather concerning fiscal policy, but with 2 you can weather a lot of bad years.

Family with kids in a big, expensive city? Probably not.

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