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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

#91

Post by dilat »

swiftcoder wrote: post #83
dilat wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn’t retiring early exactly what it offers? A 500k job would pay the equivalent of ten years of work (ish… taxes).

Not for most people. A silicon valley job means a silicon valley house and mortgage - you're in for at least a couple of million for a house in those parts, and it'll be fairly modest by US standards. If you have kids, you have silicon valley school fees and activities. And since all your new friends are silicon valley friends with silicon valley money in their pocket, all your own activities are going to grow more e…

Ah, I confused this a bit with another remote thread. My intended point is that you can get that TC full-time remote from at least F and G now. They scale down salary based on the market, but not that much, for a 6+ position I think you’d definitely still be at that TC.

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

#92

Post by evo »

b20000 wrote: post #30
mercutio2 wrote: post #24

My observation, as a hiring manager, is that levels.fyi data for my company is consistently representative of the highest compensated 10% of my team, but presents itself as reflecting something closer to median compensation for a given role. Is this deliberate?

my observation is that most companies present offers that are 30% lower than they should be to have a comfortable lifestyle in tech metros and not worry about school, housing or retirement costs. is this deliberate?

I wonder if this problem flows both ways. I suspect that at least housing and school (or the overlap, housing in good school districts) is to some degree a zero-sum game whose costs are set at the margins.

In tech metros, where those marginal market-clearing prices are set by those tech salaries, it makes sense that they would settle at precisely the point where they're no longer quite comfortable to the average tech worker. Otherwise, what's to stop you from paying a bit more for that house than the second best offer?

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

#93

Post by bern4444 »

extesy wrote: post #87
pumaontheprowl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something doesn't add up here. Levels is showing that the average senior engineer at Netflix is only getting $11k stock though. If employees were allowed to choose what percentage stock they wanted, I'd expect most employees to choose a larger percentage than that. Stock is likely to grow in value over the course of the year while cash is almost guaranteed to lose value due to inflation. You'd have to be pretty pessi…

You can always buy NFLX with cash in your brokerage account. It's not like you are going to get any discounts if you choose to receive part of your salary in stock.

If you're granted stock on a vesting schedule (even if its 1 year), doesn't it qualify for long term cap gains if you don't sell? So you only pay potentially long term capital gains.

versus

If you get cash, pay income tax on it, and then invest it, and then pay cap gains, that's another round of taxes you pay no?

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

#94

Post by 908B64B197 »

zests wrote: post #25

It feels like there are two classes of engineers in the US. One class of engineers makes 60k-120k and the other makes 150k-500k. Is this just a really well kept secret? I don't really see many engineers trying to migrate from the first class to the second class. I'd expect most software engineers would jump through hoops at the prospect of doubling their salary.

> I don't really see many engineers trying to migrate from the first class to the second class.

I don't think they can in the first place. It's like law, where compensation is highly bimodal.

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

#95

Post by Mandatum »

borroka wrote: post #61
zests wrote: post #25

It feels like there are two classes of engineers in the US. One class of engineers makes 60k-120k and the other makes 150k-500k. Is this just a really well kept secret? I don't really see many engineers trying to migrate from the first class to the second class. I'd expect most software engineers would jump through hoops at the prospect of doubling their salary.

For every job that it's open in one of the FAANG, recruiters get thousands of applications. It sounds like many are trying, but the vast majority never gets a call back. Others cannot pass the interview. Others again are not interested in working in a very demanding environment. I worked at a FAANGs, now I work in lower-tier tech company. I make 3/4 (low-ish upper tier) of what I used to make, I work 1/8 of the hours…

Weird, it was the opposite for me. Went from 60 hours in consultancies and low tier to 30ish at FAANGish. Remote probably helped with COVID, but the output is consistent.

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

#96

Post by weeblewobble »

arwhatever wrote: post #49
kyawzazaw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people wrong associate high pay with bad WLB at top paying tech companies

I’ve wondered about this myself - might you have any more information or be able to point me/us to any particularly good data sources?

I've done both, in my experience at a FAANG you choose your own WLB. If you want to go for a promotion, you're going to have to work a lot. If you want to just get by for a couple years and vest stock, that's an option too. I think people also put a lot of pressure on themselves because it's unclear where the bar is and they don't want to get fired for performance reasons.

At a smaller company there simply isn't that much work to do, nor is there much of a path for promotion (when your boss is the CTO...)

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

#97

Post by reidjs »

sxp wrote: post #66
zests wrote: post #25

It feels like there are two classes of engineers in the US. One class of engineers makes 60k-120k and the other makes 150k-500k. Is this just a really well kept secret? I don't really see many engineers trying to migrate from the first class to the second class. I'd expect most software engineers would jump through hoops at the prospect of doubling their salary.

https://danluu.com/bimodal-compensation/ covers this well. This skew is not obvious to people outside Silicon Valley, but it's discussed more now that sites like levels.fyi are providing data. Even more shocking is the split between SV/NYC/SEA salaries and the rest of the world. When the Google internal Salary Spreadsheet was created, people were amazed and the difference in salaries between LON/EU SWEs and US SWEs g…

Equally skilled at engineering, but is there something special USA engineers bring to the table to warrant a higher salary? Easier to work with? More business sense? Longer hours/less holidays? Better understanding of the target market?

Don’t get me wrong. it might just be that life’s not fair.

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

#99

Post by borroka »

Mandatum wrote: post #95
borroka wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For every job that it's open in one of the FAANG, recruiters get thousands of applications. It sounds like many are trying, but the vast majority never gets a call back. Others cannot pass the interview. Others again are not interested in working in a very demanding environment. I worked at a FAANGs, now I work in lower-tier tech company. I make 3/4 (low-ish upper tier) of what I used to make, I work 1/8 of the hours…

Weird, it was the opposite for me. Went from 60 hours in consultancies and low tier to 30ish at FAANGish. Remote probably helped with COVID, but the output is consistent.

I can see that. My point is that there are many reasons for not wanting to work at a FAANG, even for someone like me who has worked in one and could work, I guess, in others. My reason is that I make enough money currently not to want to work there. I was working a standard 35-40 hours per week at a FAANG. There are also many others in non-FAANG tech who make half my salary and work much more. And maybe I will be one of them at some point, there are no guarantees in life!

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

#100

Post by LadyCailin »

bern4444 wrote: post #93
extesy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can always buy NFLX with cash in your brokerage account. It's not like you are going to get any discounts if you choose to receive part of your salary in stock.

If you're granted stock on a vesting schedule (even if its 1 year), doesn't it qualify for long term cap gains if you don't sell? So you only pay potentially long term capital gains. versus If you get cash, pay income tax on it, and then invest it, and then pay cap gains, that's another round of taxes you pay no?

No, pretty sure not. First of all, the “buy” date is the date it vests, not the date it was initially granted. Secondly, you pay normal income tax on stock grants. So if $100 of stock vests today, you pay normal income tax on $100, and the cost basis and “buy” date are set to $100 and today. If you hang one to the stock for a year, then sure, you get long term gains, but then it’s the same boat as if you just got cash then bought it for $100.

ESPP can be a bit different, because you get a discount on the stock, but that discount is also taxed at normal income rates, and anyways is capped at like 15% or something.

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