431–440 of 614 posts
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
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…
Netflix is a little different from other companies. Netflix pays entirely in cash plus a small stock option bonus on top. You can opt to get any amount of your salary as stock options if you choose. There are no vesting schedules, you get everything immediately (including 401k). Netflix has unlimited vacation.
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…
I don't think that universally true. I work for G in Munich, and salaries post cost of living are competitive with the Bay Area (maybe 10%-20% off, but OTOH consider quality of life). From what I can tell, Zurich beats the Bay Area.
Yes, with the similar salaries and a 1:1 exchange rate between CHF and USD and the only tax is the Cantonal tax of 13% vs 50% for Bay Area, it makes Zurich way far ahead.
The offices in Zug down the street get only 7% tax.
And healthcare is free, but its a negligible concern at these compensation ranges. It just shows how the American arguments fall apart, since most of them are based on "how much Europeans must have to be taxed"
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I can see what it costs. Getting $800k/yr means a house of about $1,600,000 should be affordable, but that gets you trash. Getting a "house" that PHYSICALLY TOUCHES the neighbor's house will go for more than that in a semi-tolerable San Francisco neighborhood. That is substandard living conditions.
Briefly looking at redfin shows that my 500kish house would be 3.5 millionish in Mountain View. Similar in SF but it's a lot harder to find a directly comparable house. That's a 14k monthly difference in the mortgage. Equivalent to 240k annually after taking taxes into account. Using that number means I'm roughly at par with a FAANG salary given my level. But it's not like the FAANG engineer is setting fire to that 2…
[1] https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/apa/d/cupertino-3-bedroom-3...
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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.
Does $1.2M put you within walking distance of any of the FAANG headquarters? I'm looking at Mountain View, and it appears it's more like $3M to live close to Google. There isn't anything listed (Zillow) close to Infinite Loop, Cupertino. What is listed is $1.8M+. Just curious, as I currently walk to work and that's a massive QOL issue for me. Sitting in traffic even 60 minutes/day would be awful.
If you highly value walking to work (and to other amenities) then NYC is a great option. $1.2M won't buy you a place, but you can certainly rent a great apartment within walking distance of the Google or Facebook NYC offices for significantly less than $72k/year.
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…
Also we don't get free heathcare, we pay for it through taxation. I believe this is morally right, but that's beside the point: These well-paid American employees are also probably getting a great healthcare package as part of their contract, so they don't even have to pay for it.
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>It makes me feel bad how many people see these figures and immediately start trying to find ways to rationalize why they must be overstated. Some of the numbers can be hard to comprehend... for example, tech salaries weren't great until about the last decade. And, it used to be that the eye-popping numbers were not for everybody, and certainly not for entry-level / new-grads. Heck, just the amount of transparency in…
> for someone not working at a FAANG and not in specific geographic locations, these numbers are other-worldly. Yes. other-worldly is a good word for it. It's not so much that people don't believe these numbers, I think. It's more of a sense of disappointment and feeling left out. So many experienced professionals work their whole adult lives and end up maxing out at only a 1/10th of the compensation of a "principal"…
OTOH, being forced to live in California is a huge downside to any FAANG job (for me, anyway).
It would be really nice to see more companies that aren't the top 5. What do 6-20 look like? I'd like to know when companies start getting to average pay levels. Is it only the top 5 companies that pay this? Or do the top 50 companies all pay really high? Is that data even available, or is it just that this represents some of the most attractive offer letters at top of bands for some of the most well funded startups…
We have plans to publish more information, but for now you can view salary information for a number of other companies on our main website: http://levels.fyi
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Good advice. Just one nitpick: The 4% rule, which states you can as a rule of thumb safely withdraw 4% of the starting capital per year in real dollars (IE increase it each year to account for inflation), is intended for a standard retirement period (65+) and does expect the principal to decrease. There's more debate as to what would be a safe withdrawal rate over the long term without depleting principal, but I expe…
That's a bit incorrect. Returns from a typical investment portfolio have been over 4% for the last 10-20 years, so that's the amount you can withdraw without depleting any principal. If you're looking to consume your whole principal by the time you die you can go way ahead of 4%, easily double that.
Past results do not guarantee future performance. People in the FIRE community generally look at market performance since the final decades of the XIX century. For many, even these numbers do not guarantee anything, as the growth during these days reflected USA entering its golden age. Who knows if it will last through XXI century.
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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.
Presumably the ones who wanted to move already have so you’ve never met them.