Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level • Hacker News Board

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#61

Post by eclipxe » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #33

tempire wrote: 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.

These numbers aren't including benefits (medical, dental, 401k match, etc). These are salary, RSU, bonus.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#62

Post by HenryKissinger » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:16 AM UTC

tempire wrote: 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.

Here in Canada entry level SWEs are getting paid 60k-70k CAD (45k-55k USD). It's worse in Europe.

These numbers are absolutely mind boggling. Even with a higher cost of living and California income taxes, you still have at least 100k of free money to invest. It's no wonder so many people apply for jobs at FAANGs. A job at a FAANG is practically a ticket to early retirement.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#63

Post by andreilys » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

glitchc wrote: post #33

tempire wrote: 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.

Really? I’m surprised. Every offer I’ve gotten in Canada has been 20-30% of US offers (and this is in high CoL cities like Vancouver and Toronto)

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#64

Post by almost_usual » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:17 AM UTC

tempire wrote: 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.

Most of the comp is RSU and bonus. If you’re working for one of the listed companies and aren’t in the pay band you’re getting screwed.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#65

Post by amznthrowaway5 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

HenryKissinger wrote: post #52

$175,000 at Oracle for an entry-level engineer? I mean... just... wow. You could retire at 35 and not have to work for the rest of your life. How hard is it to get these jobs?

Not that hard depending on your natural cognitive ability. Just grind leetcode questions. For higher level interviews, also study up on systems design questions.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#66

Post by creato » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:19 AM UTC

huehehue wrote: post #53

What I'm taking away from this is that many (most) companies are grossly underpaying their engineers. I've been through the SF/NYC Senior SWE interviewing gauntlet twice in the past three years, and received 10+ offers at half this rate. Levels claims to be checking offer letters, which is great IMO. It's really hard for people to know they're being undervalued when the employers are low-balling and the self-reporter…

> the self-reporters are lying.

I think it's less that self reporters are lying and more that there's a selection bias among self reporters. Engineers with average salaries probably don't bother to report.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#67

Post by georgeburdell » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

I don't have much to say except Zuhayeer your site's numbers are dead on from what I can tell of both my and my spouse's employers. Glassdoor et al. tend to low-ball by quite a bit, possibly due to stale information.

Keep up the good work!

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#68

Post by webo » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:23 AM UTC

the_arun wrote: post #58

How trustworthy are the numbers in levels.fyi? Who verifies numbers entered by anyone?

They claim they check the offer letters. Numbers look decently accurate from a few people I know. Remember this is total compensation, not just cash.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#69

Post by chubot » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:25 AM UTC

tempire wrote: 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.

You might want to look at

Is dev compensation bimodal?

https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/

i.e. can you draw a line between devs who get paid a lot and those who don't?

I wish there was a date on this article (and all blogs) but it looks like it's from 2015.

The conclusion isn't crisp, but to me it's plausible that the trends have continued since 2015, e.g. maybe it's more bimodal 5 years later (though I haven't really been paying attention). I would be interested in a followup.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#70

Post by milesskorpen » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 5:26 AM UTC

pxx wrote: post #42

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.

Even if liquid, these salaries probably reflect people vesting stock from years ago - and the high end would include people vesting stock offered at a much lower valuation. In this kind of ranking there’d be a bias towards companies with rapidly growing share prices ... and remember that last performance is no indicator of future returns.