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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#511

Post by elzbardico »

1cvmask wrote: post #287
jedberg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple still uses that line to underpay people. Their compensation is famously lower than all the other FAANG companies.

Apple also famously hires from non-prestigious schools compared to the “elitism” at FB and Google. I have been in meetings at Apple with multiple people and not one of them was from an elite school (remember schools from Iowa and other parochial places). In contrast at FB and Google there were all the elite schools like Caltech, Stanford, MIT amply represented. I am not sure if Apple deliberately targeted such “lesse…

Steve Jobs never cared personally much about that, he dropped out from a less know school, worked menial jobs and traveled the world. Wozniak even managed to be expelled from Colorado for hacking the university system. For them, their colleges were not their entire life experience and social life when they founded apple.

It is very different from Brin and Page, that basically catapulted from campus to become billionaires. Their life experience before becoming founders was entirely shaped by Stanford, their identity tied to it. It makes sense that their company reflects this.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#512

Post by blaser-waffle »

oreally wrote: post #386
sanxiyn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is that while work is dull, people are not overqualified. They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. If they could refactor and get internal systems in order they could lower qualification bar, but that refactoring requires super duper overqualified people, etc.

> They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. Careful, that's the FANG SWE ego speaking. What you describe isn't smartness but a willingness and patience to put up with lots of bloat.

I'm not at a FAANG but am at a F500.

We're paid well because we have to shift gears a lot, learn a lot, fake-it-till-you-make it, and put up with oodles and oodles of BS.

From a technical standpoint a 16 year old could do my job. We're getting paid for patience and the ability to "code switch" in the socio-linguistic sense.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#513

Post by filoleg »

exdsq wrote: post #454
comp_throw7 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon, and Apple together almost certainly hit 100k by themselves. Facebook is a bit smaller than those 3 in terms of engineering headcount but not by much. Netflix is tiny, relatively speaking, I'll give you that. But, I mean, new grads at MSFT can get pretty close to 200k, even though the comp scales up poorly with career progression compared to FAANG. There are a bunch of other companies where you can hit…

Netflix don’t hire grads do they? Also this is specific to the Bay Area - they don’t pay these rates internationally or even everywhere within the US. And finally, it’s not every grad & stocks massively inflate this number. I’m sure some people reading this will have done it - it’s not ‘common’ and definitely isn’t the pay of the top decile of developers in the world, the West, or I bet even in the US.

>Netflix don’t hire grads do they?

Yep, they don't even hire mid-level engineers. They hire seniors and above. But their size is tiny compared to the rest of those top tier tech companies, so Netflix could be ignored for all intents and purposes here.

>Also this is specific to the Bay Area

Not really. Seattle has pretty much the same level of comp and no state income tax. And pretty much all of those companies discussed above have significant presence in Seattle too (minus Netflix afaik). But yes, still an expensive place to live in.

>stocks massively inflate this number

How is this "inflation" or an issue at all? You can sell stocks immediately as they vest and treat it just like cash comp. Or you can hold and hope they grow in price (which a lot of times is a valid strategy). But for all intents and purposes, stock compensation at publicly traded companies is just as valid as cash compensation. It isn't some stock options that "might be worth a lot when we go public, but currently is just a monopoly money you cannot do anything with" in a privately held startup.

>it’s not ‘common’

It depends on how you define "common". Among my peers who applied to those top tier companies and got the offers, around $200k starting out of college was way more common than not. And no, I didn't go to Stanford or anything like that, it was a public state college in Georgia (albeit a very good one, but still, nothing "exclusive" like MIT/Stanford/etc.). There were a couple of people who were truly exceptional, and their starting offers reflected that appropriately (closer to $300k than $200k), but $200k seemed to be the baseline.

And no, none of those companies require some wild credentials or experience to interview. Pretty much anyone can get a Google interview at some point (everyone I know from my school who tried applying, got at least one shot at the Google interview process; I also know a lot of people with either no college education at all or those that went to colleges that no one has even heard of, and they all got invited for Google interviews), the problem is that most don't pass. But it doesn't seem to be just pure luck (even though it is a non-insignificant element of it), given that the people I know who studied the hardest were also the ones who had the highest pass rate for those interviews (as well as the highest offers).

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#514

Post by elzbardico »

6gvONxR4sf7o wrote: post #141
ryandrake wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see this advice a lot, but it's never very specific. "Just negotiate better!" OK, great... how? Most of us have no leverage besides our willingness to walk away, and when the market is saturated with talent, it's usually fine for a company to just let you walk away. I bet for someone who happens to be the world's foremost expert in some niche skill the company needs, negotiating a higher comp is straightforward.…

None of us have leverage besides our willingness to walk away. That's not the difference. I see some people act like negotiating is an antagonistic game of chicken or something. In reality, it's just an amicable case of you finding your best options, communicating them clearly to everyone involved, then taking the best option. Think of it as more like an auction than some slick game of poker. What's wrong with this s…

Actually I sometimes answer recruiters from companies that I am not interested at working from, just to tell upfront how much I am getting paid and how much I would need to be convinced to change, just in the hope that the next guy they call and that actually needs this job will have a better initial offer.

Incidentally, that's why I don't like those "transparency" initiatives too much. Most people willing to share their salaries on twitter probably are on the lower side of the pay scale, thus biasing the results down.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#515

Post by comp_throw7 »

saagarjha wrote: post #419
comp_throw7 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google, Amazon, and Apple together almost certainly hit 100k by themselves. Facebook is a bit smaller than those 3 in terms of engineering headcount but not by much. Netflix is tiny, relatively speaking, I'll give you that. But, I mean, new grads at MSFT can get pretty close to 200k, even though the comp scales up poorly with career progression compared to FAANG. There are a bunch of other companies where you can hit…

> Google, Amazon, and Apple together almost certainly hit 100k by themselves. No way. Amazon might be coming close (I don't have a very good idea of their size, but my guess is they have like ~75k software engineers); Google probably has about 50k, Apple has like 10k.

Yeah, as the other response said, I meant combined.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#516

Post by comp_throw7 »

onion2k wrote: post #412
comp_throw7 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, FAANG compensation lets you trivially retire (or achieve financial independence) by ~40 (if you're single), and that's assuming you're budgeting for 200k/year with an extremely conservative withdrawal rate (3%). If you're willing to resettle somewhere cheaper and live a somewhat less extravagant lifestyle, you could do it by your early 30s no problem. And, again, this is if you're single, i.e. no second incom…

I imagine this is true in theory . The math checks out. But every FAANG company has been around for at least 15 years now and we don't hear many stories of their early hires retiring. Where does it break down in practise? Is it just too hard to give up the high paying role? Is it that retirees don't talk about it? Or is it that the theory is actually wrong for some reason, and working for $200k for 20 years doesn't a…

Sorry, when I said 200k, I meant withdrawing & spending 200k/year, not earning 200k/year. In today's environment you're more likely to be earning (at least) 400k/year by the time you retire if you're following that playbook.

If you take a pretty standard estimate of career and comp growth for an engineer that joined a FAANG company as a new grad and stuck around, generally speaking they'd get promoted to senior-equivalent within 7-8 years (faster for Facebook - 5 years there). Over that time, assuming annual expenses of ~50k/year (single, renting a 1-bedroom in the Bay, leaving you with 20-25k to cover everything else), and sticking everything that's left over into the market, you'd have well over a million by year 8. Let's then pessimistically assume your compensation never grows after it reaches 400k - at that point you'll be taking home ~225k after taxes, or 175k after expenses. Stick that into the market for another decade, you end up with ~5m.

You might say that 50k/year in expenses is unrealistically low for someone living in the SFBA - it's not, really, you aren't even living with roommates and you have five figures to play with after housing and transportation (remember, food is close to free, since most of these places will feed you 3 meals a day M-F if you want). But even if you bump that up to 60k/year that pushes out your retirement date... by a year. Maybe.

This is all inflation-adjusted, mind you. 5m in today's dollars is enough to retire on extremely comfortably, and unless you decide to drastically increase your spending in retirement it'll be growing faster than your draw-down.

I imagine most people who do this either keep working or start working on their own projects. I'm not aiming for this just so I can watch TV all day, let me tell you :)

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#517

Post by comp_throw7 »

Pfhreak wrote: post #497
comp_throw7 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does it mean that they underpay their workers, except that they pay them a smaller percentage of the economic value produced by their labor than you think they should? Is that just a deontological claim? Because I imagine "my moral system says software engineers should be paid more, no, don't worry how much more, I'll tell you when to stop" is not very convincing as an argument.

I'm of the opinion that workers should retain 100% of the value they produce. Not for deontological reasons, but because I hold the belief that the outcomes of paying the "leaf nodes" in an organization maximally results in a healthier economy, a healthier population, and more democratic workplaces. This is not limited to software engineers. I believe the same is true for any worker, from fast food to manufacturing t…

How do you imagine this working, in practice? Do you want to force companies to have 0 cash holdings at all time? That seems like it might lead to some, ah, undesirable fragility.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#518

Post by idiotsecant »

rhodozelia wrote: post #152
idiotsecant wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who does industrial controls wastewater treatment is one of the worst industries because it's so low-margin. It's a 'barely pay for it the first time and run it until it breaks down' type of industry because municipalities and rate payers are usually quite cost sensitive, but pedantry aside your point is largely accurate. As a side note - In my experience the best paid but most mind-meltingly dangerous ind…

I’ve done private and Public hydro and the private projects were still stressful with liquidated damages hanging over my head if i caused a delay in the project and all of the environmental considerations which dramatically complicated the machinery and the controls.

Oh, right as a contractor it's no doubt still stressful. I'm talking from the point of view of an owner's engineer - utility companies tend to be pretty relaxed for internal employees.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#519

Post by oblio »

tharkun__ wrote: post #360
koyote wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Western European salary is taxed for around 40% You'll only get that tax rate at very high salaries and it's also of course marginal. In the UK the first 12k (~$17k) is entirely tax free for example. After that it's 20% up until you have earned 50k (~$70k). Only after that does the 40% tax kick in. So on a $75k salary, only $5k will be taxed at 40%. For a $75k salary you would be paying just over 16% tax and 9% nat…

Careful with the "of course marginal" and lumping all of Europe into one bucket :) E.g. Germany has a progressive tax rate system and the salary ranges this applies to are rather small. Quoting from: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per... For a single taxpayer: Free amount: 9744 EUR Progressive tax from 14-42%: 9744-57918 EUR 42% on your entire salary from: 57918-274612 EUR 45%: > 274612 EUR…

I think you're misunderstanding his post. "Marginal" doesn't mean "small", it means "at the margins/edge". He's saying the same thing you're saying, that's how a progressive tax rate works: there are multiple tax brackets, each of them is taxed at an ever increasing tax rate, but always lower than 100% (so the more you make, gross, the more you get, net, too).

In your example, even in Germany, the total tax rate for someone making more than €274 612 is not 45%. It's lower because the lower brackets get taxed less. Realistically, it seems like the actual tax rate for someone making over €274 612 would be somewhere around 36-38%.

And anyone making that much in Germany will live like a king, anyway.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#520

Post by socialist_coder »

oreally wrote: post #389
whoisjuan wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fair take, but modern gaming companies have similar margins as other consumer tech companies since they are operating on profitable business models such as subscription and micro-transactions. The gaming industry has been playing the same card movie studios play which is “This is a passion industry. Come and work for us but we can only offer this range of compensation and this type of contracts because we a…

> The gaming industry has been playing the same card movie studios play FWIW, the mobile games industry takes a different route. Unfortunately the media loves to shit on them while not being too hard on how the AAA movie-like industries operate.

I would also argue freemium mobile games aren't nearly as fun as PC/premium games. Freemium developers are a different crowd and more like a typical SW engineer. I've done both. I'm looking forward to going back to premium games from freemium.
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