Programmers' salaries at Google $250k (and up) • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by vidarh » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

endtime wrote: post #129

vidarh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are, but consider that they are very volatile. When I worked at Yahoo, my stock added an equivalent of about $50k/year to my total compensation for the period I worked there. But I was lucky - I joined at a low and left and cashed out all my options with Yahoo trading at one of its highest amounts of the last 7-8 years. At the same time I had people working for me who had 10 times as many options, but had been i…

I'm not sure Google gives out options...I think they generally give RSUs.

The issue is the same in principle - just less extreme in that barring a total meltdown you have an easier time assessing the lower end value of the package. But to take the Yahoo example: When I joined, a share was worth about 1/10th of the strike price of the bulk of the options of several people that worked for me. 1/10th would've been a lot better than getting nothing, but still.

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

#262

Post by Bikepump » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:23 PM UTC

rachelbythebay wrote: post #201

At Google, Sr. SWE makes about $155K if female, about $180K if male. Base salary. Bonuses and refresher grants are also skewed accordingly. These are 2011 numbers, personally researched.

This must be partly a team-specific culture issue, because my observations are different. In my area of the company there are quite a few women engineers who are highly regarded, extremely influential, and well-compensated. The gender ratio is still poor like most places in the industry, but I haven't seen any evidence of women doing worse in career advancement.

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

#263

Post by hn_reader » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 4:42 PM UTC

wtfcisco wrote: post #195

Maybe I can shed light on why some of us are "shocked" about this number, while others seem to think it's no big deal. I work for Cisco, which is certainly not considered a Google or Amazon, these days, but still a fairly respectable place. I'm a software engineering doing embedded work for the last three years out of my BS in CS. I got hired on at $73k with 300 options (now underwater). I have had consistently good…

I'm in a similar situation (except with an even bigger tech company) but I work in a geographic area with no other tech employers. I do believe this cuts down on the number of people leaving for greener pastures and helps keep salaries down.

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

#264

Post by z303 » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 6:05 PM UTC

lsc wrote: post #237

rachelbythebay wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So check this out. I finally have a data point to use to prove this. I've been out of there about six months. One of my friends recently transitioned male-to-female. This is a unique opportunity to find out, right? She is now being passed up by people visiting her team's cube to ask about things regarding the service. Their default response is to go ask the guys in the cube instead. "Welcome to my world", I said.

I'd expect discrimination against transexuals to be much stronger than anything else, so I'm not sure that proves anything about how women in general are treated. One of the things I notice is that the satisfaction levels of men and women I know working at google, even normalizing for skill level, is vastly different. You don't sound particularly happy; why are you still there? my impression is that there are other p…

My experience at work but not at Google, has been your standard sexism really accounts for most of discrimination, which I've put down to being seem as not a man. Yes you get get some extra problems being trans but way less than I expected pre transition

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

#265

Post by stef25 » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 6:54 PM UTC

div wrote: post #179

stef25 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without wanting to sound stupid, when you talk about salaries do you always mention the amount before or after tax? Here in Europe it's almost always after tax.

I'm from Belgium, and I've never heard people talk about their salary after tax. edit: to answer your question, the 250k is before tax.

I'm Belgian too. So if your Brut salary is 3k and your Net 1.5K you say during discussions that you make 3K? Everyone I know does the opposite.

EDIT: Actually I see what you mean. In the above scenario I would never tell a friend I make 3K but during salary discussions and in writing I guess you would quote the Brut.

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

#266

Post by tsotha » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 7:06 PM UTC

danssig wrote: post #256

tsotha wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I've heard. And yet, I can guarantee you Google has hired at least two dim bulbs. Well, that can happen. After all, it can only be so efficient, and some people sound a lot more intelligent than they really are (which is why we hired them). But it all makes me wonder how good Google's internal processes are, and how long it's willing to wait for people to become productive.

>And yet, I can guarantee you Google has hired at least two dim bulbs. No you can't. I really hate this kind of attitude people have. A person is not a static thing that is always X. Maybe they didn't like your company. Maybe they were suffering from burn-out, or had some kind of personal crisis. It could very well be the case that they're absolute rock stars at Google even though they were worthless at your company.

It's not hard to distinguish a person with problems from a person who just doesn't have a knack for programming. These two will never be "absolute rock stars". And they weren't "worthless" at my company. Just... a bit below average.

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

#267

Post by krzyk » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 7:11 PM UTC

stef25 wrote: post #130

raldi wrote: post #37

Speaking as a Google engineer: There are three components to compensation here. Base salary, annual cash bonus, and stock grants. When he says he "takes home" $250k, he probably means the sum of all three. When the author says he thought the average Google salary was $130k, he might be referring just to the base. Most of the comments in this thread are similarly ambiguous. If you post a comment, please be clear about…

Without wanting to sound stupid, when you talk about salaries do you always mention the amount before or after tax? Here in Europe it's almost always after tax.

In Poland it's always after tax. Moreover we almost never mention yearly pay, always a monthly one.

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

#268

Post by krzyk » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 7:18 PM UTC

xytop wrote: post #247

googlethrowaway wrote: post #42

As a point of data, I work at Google and am at a similar point in my career. My base salary a year ago was $136k, but there was a companywide 10% raise last winter, and now my base is $150k. You get a cash bonus each year that's around 15% of your base, but if you're a superstar it can be double that, or if you're a total disappointment, it can be nothing. But if I perform as expected, that's another $22k. Finally, I…

I'm web developer, 25 years old, I'm raising 21000 euro/year. What I'm doing wrong? :/

Welcome to the club, I'm also from Europe and make few percents more and I'm 31.

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

#269

Post by tomkarlo » Mon, Nov 07, 2011, 10:12 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #197

tomkarlo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not. If you talk to folks in law, in particular, the partnership system is broken. It basically results in a situation where it's in the interest of the existing "partners" to have as many "non-partner" employees as possible, dangle the carrot of partnership in front of them so they work really hard, but in reality only promote 1% or so to partner. That maximizes the return to existing equity holders but it me…

Yet the partner/director carrot in law/banking/consulting convinces tons of Harvard, Yale, etc, grads each year to work 80 hour weeks for their 20s for a shot at equity (which realistically is more like 5-10% at big NYC type places and upwards of 30% in secondary markets).

This is really mostly a law thing - banks and consulting firms, by and large, aren't partnership models any more and haven't been in a long time. Any large bank or consultancy is public now, which means they give equity to employees out of a huge pool and it has relatively little effect on the comp of their managers. That's different from a law firm, where even in fairly large ones the addition of new equity partners can have a material impact on the existing partners' comp.

As for making partner in a BigLaw firm, folks I've talked to describe it as "a longshot" to "nearly impossible." A firm like Skadden will hire 500+ new associates a year (worldwide) and name maybe 4-6 partners, not all of whom started as associates. Unlikely the chance of going from associate to partner breaks 1%.

(Updated #s after asking someone who worked for Skadden.)

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

#270

Post by endtime » Tue, Nov 08, 2011, 2:21 AM UTC

danssig wrote: post #249

endtime wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is highly relevant. I had an offer from Google with a base salary lower than a competing offer from a startup...but when I factoried in benefits, stock, etc. on both sides Google's offer was about 50% larger. Of course, you're eating the same food as you get promoted, so some benefits/perks become a smaller fraction of your comp as your total comp goes up, but they're still significant around 250k.

Did it actually amount to 50% more or did it have the potential to? Because if it's only potential than it's worth less than 50%. The other offer is money "in the hand" as it were.

My expected value is 50% higher. That's assuming I get the standard bonus (rather than the superstar one), keep eating roughly the same amount of food, etc.