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Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

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Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#421

Post by asdf21 »

nixgeek wrote: post #151
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?

Bachelors in CS from Stanford. Pass the interview. Decent GPA. Internship somewhere interesting certainly wouldn’t hurt. That’s not an unusual offer for smart software engineers coming in from top colleges, where you’re being hired to work at Redwood Shores or Seattle. Having a Masters or PhD will push it up a bit higher again.

What about a MBA? I was on the business side before learning to code..

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#422

Post by rolltiide »

bovermyer wrote: post #326
monoideism wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make $130k right now. If you're in a reasonable COL area, you're probably closer to FAANG salaries than you think. I make about that in a relatively low COL city in the south. After receiving some recruitment emails, I thought about FAANGs but ran the numbers and decided against it. $400000 is not nearly as awesome as it sounds if you're living in the Bay area or similar tech mecca. Note: it's an immense salary,…

Honestly I don't think I'd switch. My current job is comfortable and interesting, despite the "low" salary. It also allows me the freedom to explore my own ideas and projects while maintaining really nice work/life balance. Numbers on paper don't tell the whole story.

if accredited investor status accounted for Cost of Living I would agree with you

but the reality is that hard numbers, especially when they are 300% more, really do matter

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#423

Post by treis »

thatsenough wrote: post #46
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…

>The very first thing I noticed was how young the average employee is. It was a little startling. I've heard different theories

These salaries come with a big gamble on SV real estate and the market performance of these companies. The first one is a big difference between young and middle aged people. In my 20s I averaged a new home every year as my financial situation changed and I wanted to live in different parts of a city. Now in my 30s with a wife and kid I don't expect to move for 10+ years. The only way to achieve that is buying a house. Which, in SV, means plunking down 3-4 million. That's doable given the salaries, but it's a huge bet that the real estate bubble won't burst.

Same thing with the market performance. Sure, the FAANGs + MS (and minus Netflix) make a ridiculous amount of money and that likely won't change. But what about companies like Snap, Pinterest, Lyft, et.al. that lose money? There's a huge risk that these companies (1) go bankrupt or (2) decide to focus on profitability and slash their engineering workforce.

If you're a 20 something renter you ride the gravy train as long as it keeps coming. If you're a 30 something with small kids and a mortgage you want stability.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#424

Post by esoterica »

TomVDB wrote: post #178
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

I do the job of a senior engineer and yet am paid a bit less than what's listed for an entry level engineer. And I live an incredibly comfy life. What's the catch? Are these for more than 40 hours a week? Is silicon valley really that expensive? Or are they literally giving college grads enough money to retire by 35?

I find it hard to believe that you're reading HN while still being surprised about the cost of living here? By the time you're 35, you'll probably have a family with kids. You don't want a long commute to spend more time with said family so your 2000 sq.ft. house on a 7000 sq.ft lot will cost between $1.5M to $2.5M. You won't get any needs-based financial compensation to send your kids to college, yet chances are tha…

It’s incredible that people think you need seven freaking thousand square feet to raise a family.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#425

Post by rolltiide »

textfoo wrote: post #295
cletus wrote: post #171

As a FAANG engineer going on 9 years now, let me address the usual rebuttals: - There is a selection bias. Nope, this is pretty much accurate. - These aren't real. Yes, yes they are. - Self-reporters are lying. Maybe some do but these numbers are pretty accurate. If anything, I question Lyft and Airbnb as such outliers. I wonder if this factored in Lyft's post-IPO stock performance and makes unrealistic valuations of…

> Some FAANGs have caps on 401k matches. Some don't. Federal contributing limits at 19.5, no?

No.

401K limits are separated into 2 limits, the second being a bit more obscure.

There is the employee limit of ~19,500 which is reviewed by the IRS every year, and there is the employer limit which is an additional number where the total of both is reviewed by IRS every year. It is currently ~$56,000 or so

Many employers only barely flirt with this number, offering a few thousands here and there in various schemes.

Any software engineer doing a little contracting can pump $30,000 into their own self directed 401k acting as their own employer. You can have multiple 401ks as long as the total limit doesn't exceed that super max.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#426

Post by tristor »

esoterica wrote: post #408
overcast wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he's still renting then?

So? Not everyone is brainwashed by their banal suburban upbringing into thinking that home ownership is the highest state of enlightenment a human can achieve. I can afford to buy a place outright in cash but I still rent because I like the flexibility and have no interest in betting a large fraction of my net worth on the direction of real estate prices.

Home ownership is the strongest correlating factor with financial independence and overall net worth. Even in the Bay Area, owning a home and the equity in it is generally the most critical asset financially independent people have.

I'm not going to claim renting is universally bad, as it has some upsides (mainly flexibility), but it's definitely financially less savvy than buying, and is generally something you wouldn't want to optimize for at high salary.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#427

Post by [deleted] »

overcast wrote: post #396
esoterica wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s not “stuck” renting, he’s choosing to rent because he wants to save money and doesn’t mind having roommates. You can absolutely afford your own apartment on far less than 400k/year in the Bay Area.

So he's still renting then?

[deleted]

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#428

Post by thorwasdfasdf »

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…

are you kidding? that's the dream. Just work for the FANG for 5 years and save 75% of your salary. then you can retire for the rest of your life in the Southeast US. I'd love to be in that position.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#429

Post by tristor »

esoterica wrote: post #424
TomVDB wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that you're reading HN while still being surprised about the cost of living here? By the time you're 35, you'll probably have a family with kids. You don't want a long commute to spend more time with said family so your 2000 sq.ft. house on a 7000 sq.ft lot will cost between $1.5M to $2.5M. You won't get any needs-based financial compensation to send your kids to college, yet chances are tha…

It’s incredible that people think you need seven freaking thousand square feet to raise a family.

That's a lot size, not a house size brotato. That's 0.16 acres, which is actually below the standard lot size in the US for most houses. Standard lot size in the US is around 0.25 acres.

2000sqft is a larger home, but not absurd if you're married and have two kids.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#430

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #346
monoideism wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I make $130k right now. If you're in a reasonable COL area, you're probably closer to FAANG salaries than you think. I make about that in a relatively low COL city in the south. After receiving some recruitment emails, I thought about FAANGs but ran the numbers and decided against it. $400000 is not nearly as awesome as it sounds if you're living in the Bay area or similar tech mecca. Note: it's an immense salary,…

I mean, by the numbers: 400k salary - 129k taxes - 72k housing (~1.2M dollar house) = ~200k left over Just off that alone, the 400k blows the $130k out of the water, no matter where in the country the $130k is living.

1.2M house? Assuming you want what's going to be pretty typical in the midwest, that's not at all realistic.

https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/filter/mi...

If you really want a house comparable to what's affordable on 130k out there, you're talking at least double that.

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