Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level • Hacker News Board

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#41

Post by thegoleffect » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:07 AM UTC

vosper wrote: post #12

I get Airbnb and Stripe being up there for entry-level engineers, those companies are almost printing money. But Lyft, haemorrhaging money, is top of the list, and Oracle - the company no-one in the Bay Area or on HN seems to work for, and everyone seems to hate - is 5th? Are there legions of quietly-well-paid Oracle engineers out there just keeping their heads down and getting on with the job? Why isn't Oracle in th…

Netflix only has one tier for all engineers (equivalent to Senior Engineer III).

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#42

Post by pxx » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #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…

At Facebook, Google, and Snap, at least, the RSUs start vesting immediately (no cliff) and are as good as cash as the stock is liquid. It's not very clear what your distinction is.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#43

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:08 AM UTC

vosper wrote: post #12

I get Airbnb and Stripe being up there for entry-level engineers, those companies are almost printing money. But Lyft, haemorrhaging money, is top of the list, and Oracle - the company no-one in the Bay Area or on HN seems to work for, and everyone seems to hate - is 5th? Are there legions of quietly-well-paid Oracle engineers out there just keeping their heads down and getting on with the job? Why isn't Oracle in th…

[deleted]

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#44

Post by amznthrowaway5 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #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…

It's true, but for most people they consider the yearly (or monthly) bonus and liquid RSU vests as equivalent to salary, so it's mostly apples to apples. RSU can go up or down, but you take the value at current market price as part of the offer.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#45

Post by patrickyeon » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:09 AM UTC

slg wrote: 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…

That took me by surprise too. One hypothesis could be that so many companies that levels.fyi tracks have grown so quickly that they've chosen to stuff themselves full of relatively junior SWEs. I think there are lots of reasons people in strategy positions would choose to do this, whether I agree with them or not.

But re-read the description of "Software Engineer (II)" closely:

> Typically 2-5+ years of experience. [...] At many companies, this is considered a 'career-level', as in you can spend the rest of your career operating at this level without being pushed out for not being promoted.

So, it doesn't suggest it caps out at 5 years, and this could be where people who do "good, but not outstanding" work end up. Also the next level says "Role shifts more towards design rather than implementation depending on size and expectations at company.", so maybe the big break isn't "seniority and how good you are at your job" but rather "can you, and do you want to, work at the next level of design abstraction?"

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#46

Post by thatsenough » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

slg wrote: 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…

I started working at FANG recently, after spending 15 years in a different field. The very first thing I noticed was how young the average employee is. It was a little startling. I've heard different theories:

* Today's big tech companies are still relatively young, so the workforce is young.

* The companies have grown exponentially in recent years, and they've hired many new grads to meet hiring targets. This would also shift the average employee age lower.

* The people who joined these companies 15-20 years ago would likely be very well-off financially by now, so they don't need to keep working. They've retired early, created start ups, left the Bay Area, etc.

I think there's likely some truth to these claims. But Silicon Valley also has a reputation for ageism, so who knows.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#47

Post by ameen » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

corporateslave5 wrote: post #4

For everyone who doesn’t know, you’re getting shafted at that medium size startup/company. Most of these FAANG engineers are not geniuses, they just studied for the interviews

I know. I get paid lower than an entry level engineer while managing, developing and maintaining the entire web presence for our company - public site, e-commerce store, etc.

I get paid 1/50th of what the company made in e-commerce sales (similar amounts through other channels).

I can’t quit and prepare for a job interview as I need to maintain visa status. And my workload averages ~60h/week.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#48

Post by nrp » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:10 AM UTC

cbanek wrote: post #15

I'm not sure about the salaries, but I'm more sure Amazon isn't in Seattle, CA. (Staff engineer slide). I'm also wondering how much of the salary (which certainly contains a lot of stock) is due to stock appreciation. If someone joined Amazon in late 2016, the value of their stock awards has more than tripled. Do offers for these companies go this high, or is this only after a few years? This seems it's more "what I'…

Assuming this is the levels.fyi dataset, it is “what I’m getting paid now” rather than offers. Levels.fyi doesn’t seem to filter based on offer vs ongoing salary, and the submission form doesn’t include flagged offer vs ongoing.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#49

Post by rhexs » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #19

glglwty wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Using the 5% drawdown rule, 2M in savings is enough to have a 100k/year income in perpetuity without adding to savings. Idea being that average market returns are 7%. So if you use 5% per year, you will never run out.

5% is not a safe withdrawal rate for "in perpetuity". 3% is much more realistic if you want to be conservative.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#50

Post by andreilys » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

dvt wrote: post #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…

Yeah it seems to be an incomplete comparison.

I know some companies like Facebook have crazy signing and relo bonuses ($50-100k+), however the base may be much less (Taxes are also different as I recall)

Also a couple of the companies listed (Airbnb and stripe) have yet to go public so those RSUs are not exactly liquid cash like with goog/FB stock