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Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

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Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#251

Post by insaneirish »

boring_twenties wrote: post #185
LatteLazy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a scam if you assume the first year you work there you are as productive as the 3rd. It takes most people at least 3 months just to get started, let alone actually contribute. Based on that, I don't think it's unreasonable to pay less for the first X months etc. That's all this is really. It's pretty standard in Finance that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full yea…

> It's pretty standard in Finance that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason. I don't think I've ever heard of this? I started at a bank in Q4 and got a pro-rated bonus.

Yep. Especially common to negotiate a "make whole" which compensates for whatever equity and annual bonus you're leaving on the table to jump.

And to put it another way, if you're moving jobs in financial services without negotiating a make whole, you're not getting the best deal.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#252

Post by vmception »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #243
throwawayboise wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.

You work there 3 years and you'll earn a million bucks. Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want. Many people are willing to make that tradeoff, perhaps not you though.

and you get to say "ex-Amazon or ex-FAANG" on any of your future projects to a completely non-discerning audience that will drown out any nuanced discussion from cynics.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#253

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

nebula8804 wrote: post #220
yanslookup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't match my experience. I guess it depends on the role but for engineers it's well known Amazon has been throwing large sign on bonuses to close the vesting gap for years. For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Is it possible that when folks were voluntarily…

>For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do? For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that giv…

If only the code was the hard part.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#254

Post by JCM9 »

throwawayboise wrote: post #227
ramesh31 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's how labor markets work.

At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.

$350k is just the max base salary (cash). Comp packages have multiple components and then the actual total compensation including the value of shares awarded would typically be higher, veritably much much higher for anyone getting $350k base. For a lot of senior tech employees “cash salary” is a small minority of total comp.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#255

Post by vanusa »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #243
throwawayboise wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.

You work there 3 years and you'll earn a million bucks. Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want. Many people are willing to make that tradeoff, perhaps not you though.

Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want.

If your children hate you or you lose the love of your life -- or you ruin your health -- then what's the point of all that money and free time?

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#256

Post by slaymaker1907 »

lhorie wrote: post #145

Judging from what an insider in the HR org told me, we're going to be hearing a lot of stories like this going forward. Apparently, Amazon scale is so large and their attrition rates are so bad that in some markets, every potentially qualified candidate has already applied and failed an interview, or previously worked at Amazon and quit. As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be a…

I actually did some statistical analysis of what is supposed to be their hiring strategy and found this exact problem. They apparently use the strategy of always hiring above the mean (so new hires are better than the average employee). This does have some advantages, but I found that it ends up severely limiting growth when you take attrition into account.

It would probably be a lot cheaper to change their hiring practices to be less strict and reinvest some of that money in training.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#257

Post by vmception »

nebula8804 wrote: post #220
yanslookup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't match my experience. I guess it depends on the role but for engineers it's well known Amazon has been throwing large sign on bonuses to close the vesting gap for years. For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Is it possible that when folks were voluntarily…

>For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do? For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that giv…

Its not different, its not more complex, the employees are unremarkable, the hours are 10am-6pm, the engineers are still undervalued to the organization.

You can easily be in a team or circumstance that is more demanding, inspiring on your engineering journey, or even toxic. But you can just as easily coast.

The compensation is supposed to make it worthwhile not to do your own startup or project. So expect comp to continue rising.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#258

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

dvtrn wrote: post #215
potatolicious wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base salary that is stickier over the long term? You're exactly right. Signing bonuses - and even equity compensation - are designed to lower your TC over time. The idea is that companies offer a high TC to entice you through the door, with the understanding that at the end of your 4 years your TC will drop precipitously but at that point you'd be…

Only because I'd rather ask and make sure I'm tracking acronyms properly while reading comments: TC is "Total Compensation" right? As in salary + equity and other benefits and etc? Or does it usually refer to just cash salary?

TC includes salary, stock, and bonus pre-tax. It doesn’t include 401k, medical, food or other fringe benefits.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#259

Post by mrep »

hardolaf wrote: post #242
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

We had an office near an Amazon office. I interviewed a lot of people trying to leave Amazon. I don’t ask candidate’s compensation, but a lot of them volunteered it anyway. I was always surprised at how effectively low their comp was in the first few years due to the vesting schedule. The internet is adamant that everyone with FAANG jobs is rolling in TC, but there are a lot of people out there who are getting into F…

FAANG was a coping mechanism for Amazon employees. It was always just FANG.

The original single A was for amazon: "FANG was an acronym coined by Jim Cramer, the television host of CNBC's Mad Money, in 2013 to refer to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Cramer called these companies "totally dominant in their markets" [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FANG,_FAANG,_and_MAMA...

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#260

Post by axg11 »

vanusa wrote: post #209
lhorie wrote: post #145

Judging from what an insider in the HR org told me, we're going to be hearing a lot of stories like this going forward. Apparently, Amazon scale is so large and their attrition rates are so bad that in some markets, every potentially qualified candidate has already applied and failed an interview, or previously worked at Amazon and quit. As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be a…

As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent, given their extremely poor reputation. So rather than address the problems that are giving rise to this extremely poor reputation and commensurate attrition rates -- the only "fix" that Amazon can think of is to offer people more cash so that the net…

N.B. I have a strong conflict of interest in this conversation, will leave the reason as an exercise for the reader to figure out.

Amazon have launched more successful non-core businesses than any other big tech company. I suspect there's a belief throughout the company that qualities of the culture that lead to high attrition rates are the same qualities that breed revenue growth and success. In turn, that explains the reluctance to address those issues.

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