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We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

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Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#11

Post by ludamad »

zuhayeer wrote: post #4
lordnacho wrote: post #2

How do you verify the salaries, and how do you decide which firms to have in the site?

Hi, we collect both self-reported entries and proof documents such as W2s, offer letters, and pay stubs for verified entries ( https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html ). We also collect verified offers through our negotiation service. While we don't display these on our site or make them public, they anchor the data on our site to a ground truth. We've added thousands of companies recently for a push to get more informat…

Median compensation around Toronto for C$158,000 seems quite high. Real numbers of course might shed light on surprising facts such as this. How do you combat the bias of people feeling that higher salaries are more important to report, however?

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#12

Post by wc1b5ja »

Zaheer wrote: post #6
tester756 wrote: post #3

Is it possible to work for SV $TOP directly from e.g Eastern Europe? If yes, then how the salary would be reduced due to location adjustments?

Yes many of the top tech companies are now hiring across Europe (and in fact have been). Ex. https://eng.lyft.com/introducing-lyft-engineering-kyiv-2884d... Salaries are definitely adjusted. To get a feel for salaries: - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Netherland... - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ukraine/ - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/

Somewhat related - do you know if those companies will hire US-based engineers for the same European positions? Or are those positions primarily set aside for engineers already in Europe?

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#14

Post by zuhayeer »

bern4444 wrote: post #10
baby_wipe wrote: post #7

Why is stock such a big portion of compensation for the big tech companies?

I'm not from levels.fyi but I think some reasons are * Its cheaper for the company than cash (stock is the company's currency, they can issue more of it, decrease the supply, use it as collateral in financing etc) * It can be better for the employees (pay less in taxes, more opportunity for growth) * Incentives become aligned (I now care about the continued success of the company more so than I otherwise would)

Yup the higher you go in level, the larger your stock compensation is to tie you to company growth and align incentives. A company that's the exception to this is Netflix: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

They have one level and pay all cash with an option to convert some of it to equity.

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#15

Post by uyt »

How do you account for stock/option appreciation? Which number is displayed on the site?

There might be a huge difference between a person reporting their total compensation from their offer letter (according to the fair market value at the time) vs what it is after a few years of appreciation.

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#16

Post by arebop »

tester756 wrote: post #9
Zaheer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes many of the top tech companies are now hiring across Europe (and in fact have been). Ex. https://eng.lyft.com/introducing-lyft-engineering-kyiv-2884d... Salaries are definitely adjusted. To get a feel for salaries: - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Netherland... - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ukraine/ - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/

But isn't it like that e.g EU branch of $FAANG company does less cool stuff? e.g Google EU does CRUDs and maintains GCP meanwhile cool stuff is being done in MV?

No. The top managers are in silicon valley, but the key engineers and product people are distributed.

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#17

Post by barbazoo »

tester756 wrote: post #9
Zaheer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes many of the top tech companies are now hiring across Europe (and in fact have been). Ex. https://eng.lyft.com/introducing-lyft-engineering-kyiv-2884d... Salaries are definitely adjusted. To get a feel for salaries: - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Netherland... - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/Ukraine/ - https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/

But isn't it like that e.g EU branch of $FAANG company does less cool stuff? e.g Google EU does CRUDs and maintains GCP meanwhile cool stuff is being done in MV?

Acquaintance over at Google in the Pacific Northwest works on invoicing so I can believe that that's true without even leaving the country.

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#18

Post by bern4444 »

zuhayeer wrote: post #14
bern4444 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not from levels.fyi but I think some reasons are * Its cheaper for the company than cash (stock is the company's currency, they can issue more of it, decrease the supply, use it as collateral in financing etc) * It can be better for the employees (pay less in taxes, more opportunity for growth) * Incentives become aligned (I now care about the continued success of the company more so than I otherwise would)

Yup the higher you go in level, the larger your stock compensation is to tie you to company growth and align incentives. A company that's the exception to this is Netflix: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng... They have one level and pay all cash with an option to convert some of it to equity.

I thought Netflix let you pick the exact split between cash and equity no?

For example, for a 500k salary you could say, I want 200k cash, and 300k in stock

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#19

Post by zuhayeer »

ludamad wrote: post #11
zuhayeer wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, we collect both self-reported entries and proof documents such as W2s, offer letters, and pay stubs for verified entries ( https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html ). We also collect verified offers through our negotiation service. While we don't display these on our site or make them public, they anchor the data on our site to a ground truth. We've added thousands of companies recently for a push to get more informat…

Median compensation around Toronto for C$158,000 seems quite high. Real numbers of course might shed light on surprising facts such as this. How do you combat the bias of people feeling that higher salaries are more important to report, however?

Yeah fair point, we need to collect more salaries overall to present a more accurate picture of the labor market. One way we plan to tackle this is to provide more incentives to share your salary.

Perhaps this is more of a social stigma issue around sharing your salary, but we encourage everyone to submit their salary, it helps everyone else out: https://levels.fyi/addcomp.html

Re: We're Levels.fyi, the most accurate resource for tech salaries, ask us anything

#20

Post by cobookman »

bern4444 wrote: post #10
baby_wipe wrote: post #7

Why is stock such a big portion of compensation for the big tech companies?

I'm not from levels.fyi but I think some reasons are * Its cheaper for the company than cash (stock is the company's currency, they can issue more of it, decrease the supply, use it as collateral in financing etc) * It can be better for the employees (pay less in taxes, more opportunity for growth) * Incentives become aligned (I now care about the continued success of the company more so than I otherwise would)

For employees you pay the same in taxes. RSUs are treated as income just in Stock based compensation vs USD. RSU vest is the same as taking a USD based salary and purchasing the shares.

The Employees do get the benefit that between the grant date and vest date, the RSU value could increase. And the employee gets the benefit of capturing that growth.

E.g. if 100k of RSUs granted, and 25% of it vested each year. Say in year 4 the value doubled. So they'd get 50k of RSUs and when it vests the employee is taxed as if it is income, and pays income tax on the 50k value.

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