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Tech compensation in 2021

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Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#11

Post by bpodgursky »

zz865 wrote: post #6

> Chris can expect to make $300k at a non-FAANG company, but nearly double that if they’re willing to compromise on that “no-FAANG” stance Is that really a good rule of thumb? FAANG pays double non-FAANG?

Base comp probably... but the OP is discounting equity almost entirely:

> and those are likely to be the kind of complex instruments that I treat as a gamble, not guaranteed salary

Idk, opinions vary, but the majority of my early startup total comp in my career has been equity payout. Maybe I just got super lucky, but I think this is too firm a stance and tips the scales against non-FAANG too heavily.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#12

Post by rodonn »

rodonn wrote: post #8
zz865 wrote: post #6

> Chris can expect to make $300k at a non-FAANG company, but nearly double that if they’re willing to compromise on that “no-FAANG” stance Is that really a good rule of thumb? FAANG pays double non-FAANG?

It's not a good rule of thumb. There definitely are some tech companies that pay less than half of FAANG (especially among small startups and eng roles in less tech centric companies), but there are also a lot of companies that have similar salaries to FAANG.

Levels.fyi has a nice chart showing salary ranges at different levels of seniority for a variety of companies https://www.levels.fyi/charts.html

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#13

Post by enahs-sf »

claudiulodro wrote: post #5
btheshoe wrote: post #2

The best way of doing this is to just use levels.fyi and ask on Blind (which is a toxic place, but a bit of toxicity is needed to maximize tc).

Those really only cover giant tech co's though. Clearly it would be better and more accurate to get real data points, but I think the approach the article describes works well if there isn't a bunch of public data for a company already.

The outliers are pretty tough to get significant data for. Also my sense is startups tend to pay towards the 50-75th percentile of radford (read: not great) cash comp and balance with equity lotto tickets that the author values at zero. While startup equity is obviously not worth nothing, he is correct in noting it’s quite tricky to negotiate since there’s an inherent information asymmetry there as well.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#14

Post by KronisLV »

As someone who works in an Eastern European country, i also did a writeup on how much i've made over the years and how that figure has changed, while working for a local company: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings

In short, this year i'll probably make around 18k Euros, in total.

I guess that just goes to show how different the situation is depending on where you live and where you're employed.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#15

Post by VRay »

Man, every time I think I’ve finally caught up to the market rate, I find out I’m behind again

I’m a senior FAANG coder making 350k TC, and it looks like I should be able to net 400-600k at this level if I go to Apple or Google. Hoo boy, looks like it’s leetcode time again…

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#16

Post by paxys »

There's a huge difference between early stage and mid-late stage private companies. For the latter, you are almost always getting RSUs rather than options, so you don't have to pay taxes out of pocket to exercise them. It's also wrong to automatically consider all stock grants to be worth $0 just because you can't immediately sell them. If Stripe or Databricks offers you a million dollars worth of shares today it'll be foolish to say no.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#17

Post by beaconstudios »

Etheryte wrote: post #3

While I don't have doubts about this being a good way to find rough outlines for compensation, I'm yet to find a reliable source of data for Europe. Has anyone else had better luck?

in the UK, junior is £20-40k, mid-level is around £40-60k, lead can be around £60-100k. Very rough numbers, and adjust upwards slightly for London. The big money is in contracting in the UK, which would be our accessible FAANG-equivalent.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#18

Post by gpt5 »

KronisLV wrote: post #14

As someone who works in an Eastern European country, i also did a writeup on how much i've made over the years and how that figure has changed, while working for a local company: https://blog.kronis.dev/articles/on-finances-and-savings In short, this year i'll probably make around 18k Euros, in total. I guess that just goes to show how different the situation is depending on where you live and where you're employed.

It's crazy to me that you can basically make a lifetime of earning doing the same job in Silicon Valley for one year

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#19

Post by VectorLock »

I wonder how having so many companies moving to remote-work are changing this equation.

I've been asking people how much they'd take a pay cut to go for full-remote and most people say 10% is a no-brainer.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#20

Post by websap »

VRay wrote: post #15

Man, every time I think I’ve finally caught up to the market rate, I find out I’m behind again I’m a senior FAANG coder making 350k TC, and it looks like I should be able to net 400-600k at this level if I go to Apple or Google. Hoo boy, looks like it’s leetcode time again…

500K is the new 350K in 2021.
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