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Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

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Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#161
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company that treats you like shit because you negotiated a 5k bump over their first comp offer is a company you are better off not working for. And, please, read that sentence again. The worst case scenario is that you accept their first offer and don't find out until you've spent a year and a half of your life working there that the company isn't worth working for. That is the worst case.

There's a difference between giving someone extra work, likely "shit work" and treating someone like shit. More than one employee at excellent companies has been assigned more work due to having a higher salary than colleagues at the same grade. This is an easy, even somewhat logical rationalization for a manager to make. The "worst case" you put forward is still far from convincing. In work, black swans are generall…

missing a once in a lifetime opportunity due to over negotiation

I doubt it can be a once in a lifetime type of company if they would not hire you over a requested 4½% pay increase. If they play hardball over the requested raise, then you should accept the $110k offer.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#162
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a thread with all the charm of a Wikipedia Talk: page argument. Maybe we can just let it die.

Last remark on the issue: Let's all agree that, before saying something like "a portmanteau, if you want to get technical", you are 100% sure that it is correct. Maybe that should be in the HN guidelines ... I only brought up this issue because technically it's not a portmanteau (at least according to how OED and a bunch of other dictionaries define the word), and probably wouldn't have made a remark if the phrase "i…

How about instead we agree that you are interesting and appreciated HN commenter (I particularly enjoy your contributions to financial tech threads), and Patrick is an interesting and appreciated HN commenter, and neither of you are likely to make comments that warrant whole threads simply to correct.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#163
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding to the data pool: I'm also an under-30 engineer making ~250k in the Bay Area (at a publicly-traded gaming company, not at Google). My company has six pay grades for pure engineers; I'm at the second highest. My 2011 comp breaks down as follows: * 166k base * 45k bonus * 35k stock grants (RSUs) Note this does not include 401k matching, stock purchase plan, healthcare, or any other quantifiable perks. When I too…

Isn't a perfect math score very hard to get, something like the upper 1%ile? Do you know your IQ? I'm scandinavian and could do a traditional finance/consulting/management/accounting thing in my home country but the software industry seems far more fascinating. I'm afraid my 120 to 125 iq means I'm too stupid to do well in SV though.

I don't know if things were different when he took the SATs, but I know several people who got 800s in math last year. It's not that hard, especially if you're reasonably intelligent and study a bit. (I myself got a 770 and a 780 for two different tests without really studying for math, and I think those were both just one question wrong).

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#164
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: If your employer treats you more poorly because you negotiate a better comp package, you shouldn't be working for them; they are a bad employer. If negotiation costs you a "once in a lifetime" opportunity, the opportunity is "once in a lifetime" in the "boiler room pump and dump" sense, or the "late night infomercial" sense. A year of your…

> I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: Your previous comment was only four sentences, one of which was an exhortation to read the previous sentence twice! I'm sure your implication wasn't intentional, but I find the suggestion that you aren't speaking simply enough for me to understand your reasoning offensive. It's not that your explanation was too complex. I just don't agree…

No, it's not rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. Negotiations are two-sided.

If, for your $5,000 pay bump†, the company decides they'd like you to be closing 35% more bugs than every other employer in your pay band, they can demand that in the negotiation. You can then make a decision about whether or not the bump is worth the concession. If it isn't, you can decline the job, or you can negotiate the concession, or you can decide to accept the previous offer.

It is (word chosen carefully:) alarming how bad engineers are at negotiation. Beliefs like yours (aggressive negotiation entitles an employer to maltreat employees later on down the line) are alarmingly common. They're simply not true.

The detail-shackled brains of nerds†† seem unable to get past something here: no matter what employers say the feel about negotiations, surely they can register the tenor of the negotiation in the back of their heads, and then ratchet their expectations appropriately. Surely, nerd engineers think, that must occasionally happen. Answer: yes, it does happen. AT BAD EMPLOYERS. Good employers understand how salary negotiations work and allow for it. The best employers even account for how bad engineers are at negotiations and go out of their way to help educate candidates (Fog Creek, for instance, once said they often "top up" the best offers some candidates receive --- that should function as a big red flashing light to those people that they didn't negotiate well enough).

I am not telling you that employers won't do irrational things if you negotiate hard with them. I'm telling you that if they do, you should run run run away fast, because that's the canary in the coalmine. Those employers are also going to dilute the shit out of you, call you in to work on weekdays, swap your tolerable manager out with some douchebag they hire from a BigCo to increase productivity, lock you into a regimented COLA-based incentive comp plan, slash your health care benefits 8 months down the road, and never ever improve the hardware you're issued.

Don't believe me? Think of it this way: the best engineers are disproportionately likely to negotiate aggressively. Employers that get vindictive about negotiation don't get to hire those people. Why are you interested in working at an employer that shuns the best talent?

(Hiring manager, one of many at my company, speaking here.)

There. You got a prolix response from me. Happy? :)

† (about which Patrick is right: its a rounding error, and it's the kind of rounding error that --- unlike, say, a better- but- out- of- spec laptop, which might incur a huge companywide "new laptops for everyone" shitstorm --- is particularly easy to concede to a new hire.)

†† (see my about:)

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#166
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know how much more simply I could have said it, but I'll take a shot: Your previous comment was only four sentences, one of which was an exhortation to read the previous sentence twice! I'm sure your implication wasn't intentional, but I find the suggestion that you aren't speaking simply enough for me to understand your reasoning offensive. It's not that your explanation was too complex. I just don't agree…

No, it's not rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. Negotiations are two-sided. If, for your $5,000 pay bump†, the company decides they'd like you to be closing 35% more bugs than every other employer in your pay band, they can demand that in the negotiation. You can then make a decision about whether or not the bump is worth the concession. If it isn't, you can decline the job, or you can negotiate t…

I'm more familiar with how BigCorp engineering works than startups, but I haven't heard of a place that doesn't use pay in performance reviews in some way or another, maybe unofficially, the idea being that what constitutes "good performance" for someone making $200k has to be a higher bar than for someone making $100k, or else why would you not just hire more of the $100k people? They have to be doing more or better work to justify their higher cost, which should then get factored into the review. Not necessarily closing 30% more bugs or whatever; it could just be that they're the go-to person for the hardest problems, or a repository of institutional knowledge (for long-term employees), but it has to be something. I would guess $5k doesn't register on that scale to get you kicked into a higher bar for reviews, though; $115k and $120k look like roughly the same kind of compensation tier.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#167
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. (d) in particular is worth stressing. There is no difficulty in attracting and retaining talent. There is simply an unwillingness to pay them what they're worth and give them an environment in which they'd want to work. Supply and demand. It's pretty simple. Yet so many (typically business types) want to treat engineers as an interchangeable cost center. "5 years ago an engineer cost $100k so I refuse to pay…

Hi! This is the Market Economics Fairy! I help supply and demand equilibrate everywhere! If nobody can find good programmers to hire, it means that programmer salaries are too low! Raise programmer salaries until... ...erm, actually, students are remarkably goddamn insensitive to their future salaries when it comes to picking a major. And the other way S&D could equilibrate here is by fewer companies even trying to h…

That was amusingly written but I'm not sure it rebuts the comment it responds to. Yes, you can also work to increase underlying supply instead of bidding up the price. And?

Smart companies already do things to skirt credentialized recruitment paths, because credentials (especially academic ones) are extremely inefficient, at least in software.

This isn't so much "insightful" as it is a basic obvious direct result of the law of supply and demand.

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#168
post #62
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you or anyone else know how much/little Google outsources their development work? I was having a discussion with a fellow engineer about the outsourcing model and innovation.

Outsourcing? Not even a little bit. Not only that but AFAIK contract engineers are incredibly rare and nonexistent in many product areas. This isn't to say that Google doesn't have partnerships with external vendors. We do. But engineering in general is a core competency, something far too valuable and of strategic importance to outsource.

Are we counting Google Account Managers hiring third-party contractors to do ad-hoc work for major clients?

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/pylons-discuss/asqBrrEEhNo...

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not rational to demand more from someone who you pay more. Negotiations are two-sided. If, for your $5,000 pay bump†, the company decides they'd like you to be closing 35% more bugs than every other employer in your pay band, they can demand that in the negotiation. You can then make a decision about whether or not the bump is worth the concession. If it isn't, you can decline the job, or you can negotiate t…

I'm more familiar with how BigCorp engineering works than startups, but I haven't heard of a place that doesn't use pay in performance reviews in some way or another, maybe unofficially, the idea being that what constitutes "good performance" for someone making $200k has to be a higher bar than for someone making $100k, or else why would you not just hire more of the $100k people? They have to be doing more or better…

Current pay is used in salary reviews everywhere. But that's obviously a terrible, terrible reason not to negotiate today. How can you possibly be worse off in a salary raise negotiation than by having the money you deserved at entry held by the employer as a concession at your employment review?

The go-to person for the hardest problems (who you generally want to be) is usually not chosen by the person who controls you comp, but in either case it's reflective of your title, not your salary, right?

Re: Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up)

#170
post #145
post #48

I have no clue why people are obsessing over 250K. If you care about money as a programmer, you are better off working at a hedge fund. My programmer friends at hedge funds (all between 22 and 26) are averaging 500K salary with 100K bonuses (note: as a programmer, base is much higher but bonus is lower). So if google isn't paying those types of numbers to people, then money cannot be the only factor at play.

i think what's happening here is that no one really envies hedge fund programmers. sure, they make a lot of money, but the job itself is perceived as unpleasant, unfulfilling, boring, stressful, or some combination of those. google, on the other hand, is a standard[1] software job - the type that most people in the hacker news demographic are probably doing, so it is seen as directly comparable. [1] i don't mean that…

A /lot/ depends on the fund. I know some that are extremely tech focused as it makes the difference between profitable and not.
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