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Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

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Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#121

Post by Zaheer »

elvongray wrote: post #109
zuhayeer wrote: post #30

One of the founders of Levels.fyi here – wish we were cited on here too! But we also did a pay report for 2020 with a breakdown of companies and locations which was covered in another IEEE post: https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-... In our report, we account for total compensation including equity. Feel free to check it out: https://levels.fyi/2020/

One of your cofounder's, Zaheer, set a date and time with me for a phone interview and proceeded to ghost me even after sending multiple emails asking why he didn't appear for the call. I'm really glad I didn't join the company whose cofounder can do something like that.

Hey Zaheer here. There’s no excuse for ghosting. I totally apologize. I just checked back in my emails and it seems like our meeting and subsequent emails were around the same time I was out of town for a wedding a few things fell through the cracks. I generally make it a point to respond back to everyone but this was a period of time where there was a lot going on in my personal space and I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get back to you. I’ll DM you separately.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#122

Post by draw_down »

walrus01 wrote: post #85
sharkweek wrote: post #52

I cannot believe how high tech salaries are right now in my city (Seattle) versus even three years ago the last time I had a "real" job. What would have been a low 100s salary three years ago is easily pushing over 200k now. This is all well and good except for when one of those folks tries to go to buy a house here and is outbid by 15 people all offering cash with 200k in escalation clauses...

> I cannot believe how high tech salaries are right now in my city (Seattle) they had better be, to keep up with cost of living, have you priced real estate in seattle recently?

The whole point is they’re two sides of the same coin

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#123

Post by notJim »

Justsignedup wrote: post #119
zuhayeer wrote: post #30

One of the founders of Levels.fyi here – wish we were cited on here too! But we also did a pay report for 2020 with a breakdown of companies and locations which was covered in another IEEE post: https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-... In our report, we account for total compensation including equity. Feel free to check it out: https://levels.fyi/2020/

Just looking at this data I question why even bother working for a startup. Getting paid 200k at a startup is a rarity, usually with poor health benefits. Lots of work and a hope that you can make up the difference in case of a huge sale. Am I looking at it wrong?

For me, startups helped me establish a track record and learn practical skills that helped get into bigger companies. I don't have a CS degree, and didn't go to a fancy school, so experience helped a lot. But now that I'm past that period, the value proposition of most startups seems really bad. Especially given ageism in tech, I think it really makes sense to maximize earnings while you can.

The really only reason I can imagine doing it would be if I really liked the team and product, such that the actual experience of working there was going to be really fun. But the startups I worked at were similar or worse than the larger companies on those fronts.

I think this Dan Luu article is a good look at it: https://danluu.com/startup-tradeoffs/

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#124

Post by dmode »

zuhayeer wrote: post #30

One of the founders of Levels.fyi here – wish we were cited on here too! But we also did a pay report for 2020 with a breakdown of companies and locations which was covered in another IEEE post: https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-... In our report, we account for total compensation including equity. Feel free to check it out: https://levels.fyi/2020/

Quick question: does this account for recent massive stock price inflation ? My comp at one of these places matched what you have here early to mid last year, but since then has gone up quite a bit due to the stock market

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#125

Post by legerdemain »

jjjeii3 wrote: post #108
legerdemain wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. Is that the Ukraine that has an active war zone, multiple provinces annexed and mostly abandoned by Russia, and a comedian who played a president on TV... actually serving as president? The Ukraine that's mostly used as a punching bag in disputes between other countries? If someone would rather live in the third most corrupt country in the world than in Germany, well, they can have it.

It's not a war, but a frozen conflict. Even Wikipedia says that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frozen_conflict

I'm not sure I understand the point of this hair-splitting. There is a front line with land mines, ongoing armed conflict, and recent soldier casualties.

Saying that what Ukraine has is a "frozen conflict" and not a war zone is like a real estate agent calling a crappy house a "renovator's dream."

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#126

Post by [deleted] »

closeparen wrote: post #120
standardUser wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confining your thinking to well-known companies you can name. For every company you can name, there are 20 you've never heard of and they sure as hell aren't paying average developers $200k.

I am refuting the blatantly false claim that only FAANG compensate like this. I agree that some employers lowball like crazy, and that some engineers don’t know better, have reasons to live in low-productivity regions that are worth six-figure opportunity costs to them (family, etc), or couldn’t pass the interviews. But it is worthwhile to remind people that this whole world is out there and they could pursue it if t…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#127

Post by 908B64B197 »

pugworthy wrote: post #6

I wonder how common it was for companies to not give out any raises due to economic changes from the pandemic. It depends I suppose on what the business is and what the impact is. Our Fortune 50 company late last year announced no raises based on the annual review cycle because of "things", but did give out bonuses. Of course then we had record earnings announcements recently, so it's not clear what the "things" were…

Just get a stock comp.

If they don't raise your base rate (and get stingy with employees to get better profits), your stock will appreciate.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#128

Post by codeisawesome »

opportune wrote: post #97
bradlys wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The competition for these roles is extremely intense. Even doing well isn't sufficient in pandemic times. The baseline of prepping every night + weekend for 3+ months still isn't enough to guarantee you'll get in. Get unlucky and join an org like Ads at FB and you're gonna be miserable AF. Add in the general huge amount of luck that is involved with what interviewer you get, the hiring environment going on, and it's…

Arguably if you need to prep that much it might not be a good fit. YMMV.

> Arguably if you need to prep that much it might not be a good fit. YMMV.

Dear candidate - do not pay attention to this person’s comment. This behaviour is called gatekeeping (not withstanding the backbone-free cop-out at the end with the “ymmv”). It does not account for varied life circumstances & starting points. Prep for as long you need to - and more importantly - want to. In the interview the duration of prep won’t matter.

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#129

Post by darkwizard42 »

dmode wrote: post #124
zuhayeer wrote: post #30

One of the founders of Levels.fyi here – wish we were cited on here too! But we also did a pay report for 2020 with a breakdown of companies and locations which was covered in another IEEE post: https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-... In our report, we account for total compensation including equity. Feel free to check it out: https://levels.fyi/2020/

Quick question: does this account for recent massive stock price inflation ? My comp at one of these places matched what you have here early to mid last year, but since then has gone up quite a bit due to the stock market

Usually what will happen when a company's stock increases is that new offers have a lower # of stock units in the hiring grant. Basically, even if Google is worth $1.5T or $15T they don't change the "total compensation" value of the offer at hand.

Ultimately, if you join and the stock goes up, congrats on your "free" raise!

Re: Silicon Valley stays on top as tech salaries climb across U.S.

#130

Post by savanaly »

_2d30 wrote: post #94
savanaly wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also incredible that it could have been predicted over 200 years ago [0]. The law of rent, one of the most firmly established in economics, is that all the bounty of our efforts will accumulate to the holders of fixed assets, namely land and human talent. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_rent .

You've misinterpreted that greatly.

It's certainly possible, could you elaborate? To clear, I haven't read that wikipedia article recently, or maybe ever. I'm going off of what my understanding is of Ricardian rent from wherever I learned it-- I don't remember maybe an economics class, maybe a blog.
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