Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level • Hacker News Board

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#501

Post by evrydayhustling » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 7:45 PM UTC

_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.

Those are low taxes, to start. You can use SmartAsset [1] for effective total tax rates (40% leaving you $238k in SF, 30% leaving you $90k in NC).

Then you can use NerdWallet for cost-of-living excluding taxes (SF is 211% of NC). So after you've replicated your $90k take-home in SFO, you have about $48k surplus to invest. Not bad, but also probably not what you were expecting!

[1] https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes [2] https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#502

Post by dorgo » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

beefalo wrote: post #485

robrenaud wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to account for savings. A dollar saved in a high COL area is as good as one saved in a low COL area. If compensation triples and cost of living triples, your savings also triples. If you are saving 100k/year in a place that is very expensive, and are happy to live in a place with low COL, work for 10 years in the high earning/high cost of living area and retire in the low COL area.

Just to back you up on this, the savings should more than triple. 3x the compensation probably more than offsets the 3x in costs, so your savings may be more like 5x or more compared to low COL areas.

Assumption: cost + savings = income

3 * income - 3 * cost = 3 * ( cost + savings ) - 3 * cost = 3 savings

Is my assumption wrong? Otherwise it's 3x and not 5x.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#503

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

mvc wrote: post #431

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

Worst thing is when one of these average fuckers from FAANG decides they want a change and is now your director of engineering at $medium_startup despite knowing fuck all.

[deleted]

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#504

Post by ng7j5d9 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:21 PM UTC

Tehchops wrote: post #494

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gitlab famously publishes a bizarrely micromanaged & comprehensive policy on how they will reduce your salary based on where you choose to move, and they are a fully remote company. It never ceases to amaze me how companies try to argue they shouldn’t pay their top wage everywhere, and how workers are willing to accept this. Especially for a remote-only company where your salary should literally not be based on costs…

>a bizarrely micromanaged & comprehensive policy Perfect description. I've always been amazed by that blog post. It reads like a textbook case of bike-shedding(seriously the number of words and engineering thought spent on it is asinine) for what ultimately amounts to faux virtue-signaling about how you're going to get paid 20% below market.

I wonder if GitLab's policy is actually more bizarrely micromanaged than most large companies, or if we just get to see it since GitLab defaults to everything being open. I mean, I'm sure Apple has had countless debates about how to pay their people in many different locales, they just aren't open about it. If you get an offer from Apple, you just see that offer, not all of the policy and philosophy that drove why that particular number made it onto your offer letter.

It's kind of interesting to see how the sausage is being made, even if I feel like GitLab would underpay me in my current location.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#505

Post by choppaface » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

vonseel wrote: post #307

jypepin wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently interviewed and got 5 offers. Those numbers check out.

All SF/CA numbers I suppose? Any idea how these differ in Austin?

yeah pretty sure these were all CA. offers I've seen for Seattle are a bit lower, not sure about Austin.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#506

Post by scrumbledober » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:25 PM UTC

noelsusman wrote: post #310

vonseel wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if your spouse wanna spend her 20s and 30s with you, in a place that has a normal cost of living, doing a job that doesn't require you to be on 60hours a week? I'm not sure 'bout the exact number of hours, but the top comment in this thread already said "In fact you'll typically find significantly better work-life balance at a FAANG than a startup." .

"Better than a startup" is a very low bar.

I work at a startup in San Mateo and feel that the work-life balance is great here. Not all startups are created equal.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#507

Post by choppaface » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:28 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #500

choppaface wrote: post #95

Another point of reference: here are some offers recently aggregated on Blind. In 2019, I got an offer almost identical to one of those listed below, and a friend got an offer a little higher than listed below. So I believe the reports are legit. While the raw salary data on levels.fyi is useful, other context about the candidate & team is pretty important. For example, my friend has no college degree but matched to…

Do you know how many years of experience these companies need to place someone in these levels?

For my offer, I had 10 years of experience and they slotted me as Senior. Generally I've seen people with as few as 2 years of experience slot as Senior. I think it has less to do with the years of experience you actually have and more to do with your panel.

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#508

Post by pc86 » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

Bahamut wrote: post #400

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…

100% agree - I joined a FAANG company 2.5 years ago and was given a $280k package as a mid-level. After two annual review cycles, I currently make $318k. My initial RSU grant is about to hit double what it was ($105k initially), and my refresh RSU grants are close to hitting 50% above their initial value (two grants of $125k) still as a mid-level. Benefits like 401k matching and ESPP stock purchasing also push up eff…

Does Netflix have a true "unlimited PTO" policy or do they enforce a minimum PTO usage per year? I've heard of places with unlimited PTO but they require their employees to take a minimum of 2 weeks a year (and strongly, strongly encourage 4-5 weeks a year).

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#509

Post by jiveturkey » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:37 PM UTC

how does this compare to the data at levels.fyi ?

Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

#510

Post by nilkn » Mon, Jan 06, 2020, 8:42 PM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #376

nilkn wrote: post #357

I'd be interesting in seeing something like this for engineering management. I'm a director outside of a major technology hub and am largely in the dark about what I should be getting paid.

Maybe you need to think differently about this: What's your contribution to the company and what is your replacement cost? In non-hub areas, it might be very difficult to replace you, thus your value increases. Likewise, if you are driving significant revenue / cost savings, you can justify a significant piece of the action. Point being, rather than just making a comparison to bay area comp (for example), negotiate y…

I don't disagree, but I think this applies to engineering salaries too, not just management salaries. Sometimes it's just useful to have a reference point.