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Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

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Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#81

Post by chillacy »

ameen wrote: post #47
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.

The visa situation is just terrible, I knew so many smart coworkers who were afraid to move because of H1B uncertainties. Ultimately this hurts everyone in the industry because labor markets require a liquidity to function properly.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#82

Post by eclipxe »

milesskorpen wrote: post #70
pxx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, these are roughly inline with new hire offers

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#83

Post by saagarjha »

ameen wrote: post #47
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.

I'm curious: you've chosen to tie this pretty closely to your real world identity. Aren't you concerned at all that a company that you're beholden to and is willing to underpay you will just let you go if they find this?

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#84

Post by zuhayeer »

nrp wrote: post #48
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.

Yeah good point! we’ve actually been thinking about how to support it - potentially collect the number of shares / RSUs so that offers can be more dynamic

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#87

Post by thatsenough »

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…

I think these numbers are accurate.

Some of the numbers are skewed by the unicorn startups: since employees at Airbnb and Stripe (and Lyft and Pinterest, at the time these numbers were reported) can't sell their equity, and since the equity may drop considerably after IPO, these companies compensate by offering more of it.

LinkedIn is widely known for paying extremely well (to the chagrin of people at parent company Microsoft). Same with Netflix.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#88

Post by [deleted] »

chillacy wrote: post #81
ameen wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The visa situation is just terrible, I knew so many smart coworkers who were afraid to move because of H1B uncertainties. Ultimately this hurts everyone in the industry because labor markets require a liquidity to function properly.

[deleted]

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#89

Post by solveit »

meritt wrote: post #80
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…

> many (most) companies are grossly underpaying their engineers. No, that's simply unfair to the companies who don't have billions of dollars in free cash flow or effectively infinite amounts of VC money. The top firms have gotten themselves into an insane bidding war which has a side effect of creating an oligopoly on talent, as it's simply unrealistic to impossible for many firms to compete. Not to mention they app…

Under/overpaying has nothing to do with how much any particular firm has and everything to do with what other companies are willing to pay. If there's a bidding war, then whatever that produces is the fair market rate.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#90

Post by chillacy »

HenryKissinger wrote: post #62
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.

At one point I fancied the idea of working abroad for fun, I could learn a language and try something new. The income disparity was far too great compared to the US, so I never did it.

The one exception: Google pays pretty well in Switzerland, but I hear it's hard to land.

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