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Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

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Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#251

Post by yc-kraln »

whiskyant wrote: post #212
gamesbrainiac wrote: post #100

Looks like us over here in Europe are getting shafted. Even if you adjust for living expenses, European engineers are grossly underpaid.

Just join a FAANG company that has a branch office in Europe. They'll pay a bit less, but a senior engineer should still be able to get 250k+/yr.

Nah, I got an offer letter from Amazon in Berlin, and it was easily 1/10th the compensation they offered to people in NYC or SF (compared with Levels). I made sure with the recruiter that I understood the position and the internal salary ranking--then I told them I would not be taking the position as I found their offer insulting.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#252

Post by mabbo »

gnrlst wrote: post #190

What I find completely demotivating is working for a FAANG in Europe, and seeing the massive disparity between US colleagues. You can argue cost of living is different, healthcare is public blablabla, but recruiters have told me straight out: we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate. Therefore they dont give a rats ass about how much it costs to live in a specific country, they just pay based on t…

There are over 1000 engineers in Amazon's Toronto office. Every one of us knows we could make a huge increase in total comp by moving to the USA. Amazon would even help us make the move, relocation support, everything.

I know ~3 people who've done so after 7 years here. We just like it better here, money be damned.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#253

Post by marvin »

eru wrote: post #194
chillacy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all the cards but companies (recruiters) usually have information asymmetry on their candidates. Sites like levels.fyi are a good remedy, with the right info and counteroffers you can negotiate salaries/sign-on bonuses up by pretty large amounts.

A strategy that has worked for me is to interview in batches. Companies interview multiple candidates, too. That gives you extra leverage and extra information.

I tried this in West Norway recently, being as firm in the negotiation tactics as possible. Didn't yield higher offers at all! So that tells me the market here is actually not nearly as competitive as all the consulting companies try to make people believe.

In other words, the success of this strategy is market-dependent, but it certainly seems to have a huge effect in SV.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#254

Post by jamisteven »

throwaway713 wrote: post #236

Now imagine having one of these incomes but having a spouse who is hellbent on moving back to the southeastern U.S. in a year. It’s driving me nuts; I can’t find any company in the south that pays anywhere near my current compensation, and a rough calculation indicates that leaving FANG will bump my retirement age from 38 to 65 (never mind the amazing health insurance I’ll be giving up too). It’s like throwing a winn…

I would divorce before considering working an extra 27 years. If your spouse thinks this is justified then he/she needs to be replaced anyways.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#255

Post by naikrovek »

jamisteven wrote: post #254
throwaway713 wrote: post #236

Now imagine having one of these incomes but having a spouse who is hellbent on moving back to the southeastern U.S. in a year. It’s driving me nuts; I can’t find any company in the south that pays anywhere near my current compensation, and a rough calculation indicates that leaving FANG will bump my retirement age from 38 to 65 (never mind the amazing health insurance I’ll be giving up too). It’s like throwing a winn…

I would divorce before considering working an extra 27 years. If your spouse thinks this is justified then he/she needs to be replaced anyways.

Yeah because nothing is more important than the acquisition of wealth.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#256

Post by Plyphon_ »

zuhayeer wrote: post #196
thecleaner wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love levels.fyi. Will it be possible to specify which companies do or do not sponsor visas ?

Added to our list, will try to work on it!

Sorry to highjack - any plans to expand to Europe and/or the UK (Brexit looming...) ? Cheers!

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#257

Post by Pandabob »

rimliu wrote: post #229
Pandabob wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong here, but I think the biggest reason for this is that Europe hasn't really produced a tech company in the past ~25 years, with revenues (and profits) amounting to anything close to those of the FAANGs. OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European workers as well as they do the ones working in the US.

The only consolation is that Europe produced WWW and a number of programming languages creators :)

Sure, but that's small consolation if you're not able to capture the value. That said, as a Finn, I'm quite happy about Linus Torvalds.

Still, almost all industries will be tech-enabled in the future (software eating the world etc.), so one would expect European banks for example to up their game when it comes to tech salaries. Alas, it seems that they're are also quite poorly run [1], so I wouldn't hold my breath.

Also, apart from Spotify, European tech workers haven't been able to enjoy the benefits of the streaming wars. And even Spotify is hamstrung by relatively low margins due to high licensing costs [2].

I guess the one industry that might have already increased their rates for SWEs is the car industry and specifically, the relatively profitable German car brands. But it seems they're more focused now on producing electric cars rather than creating online services [3].

As a European tech worker, if you're not willing or able to move to the US, two good options can be to get involved with local startups or to go into independent consulting. Maybe a little ironically, the opportunity costs of starting or working for a startup in Europe might be lower than in the US, due to the smaller pay gap.

[1]: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/04/06/fixing-europes-...

[2]: https://www.statista.com/chart/13406/gross-margin-of-spotify...

[3]: https://www.ft.com/content/81a5030c-1a64-11ea-97df-cc63de1d7... (apologies for the paywall).

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#258

Post by Pandabob »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #243
Pandabob wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be wrong here, but I think the biggest reason for this is that Europe hasn't really produced a tech company in the past ~25 years, with revenues (and profits) amounting to anything close to those of the FAANGs. OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European workers as well as they do the ones working in the US.

> OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European workers as well as they do the ones working in the US. They don't, but they do compensate them similarly relative to the local average pay. They pay what they need to to get the talent they want. I work at Google Munich, the pay here is much higher than a regular company in Munich, similarly to how Google pays much more than a regular compa…

Sure this makes sense, and I've heard rumblings that the average pay in the Berlin startup scene has been climbing these past few years. But I guess we're still far away from someone with five years of experience making 400-500k per year.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#260

Post by philjohn »

naikrovek wrote: post #255
jamisteven wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would divorce before considering working an extra 27 years. If your spouse thinks this is justified then he/she needs to be replaced anyways.

Yeah because nothing is more important than the acquisition of wealth.

It's worth mentioning that retiring early is an important goal in and of itself. You can either spend the bulk of your healthy years working towards a far off goal in your 60's, or you can work hard in your 20s and 30s and then spend your only time on this earth doing things that interest you, with your spouse.
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