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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

#101

Post by discodave »

dymk wrote: post #75
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 only a scam if you assume the first year you work there you are as productive as the 3rd It's a scam when it's compared to how every other tech company does it. The standard is a 1 year cliff at which point you get 25%, then uniform vesting every quarter. > that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason This is exactly the standard in tech as w…

Do you get a sign on bonus thats like 50% of TC for the first two years at other companies? Because thats what amazon does.

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

#102

Post by CountDrewku »

_dain_ wrote: post #43
rootusrootus wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure a non-trivial amount of that is talk more than average reality. Which isn't to say that there aren't a bunch of people making a half million or more in total comp at a FAANG company, but there are almost certainly a whole lot more quiet people making 100-200K who aren't going to brag on HN about it.

100-200k is incomprehensibly large for me

No post body was provided.

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

#103

Post by shadowtree »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #23
caaqil wrote: post #3

About time, given the amount of horror stories coming out of The Forest . More money will definitely increase (at least to a certain extent) how much bullshit people are willing to put up with.

Is The Forest just a play on the name Amazon, or is it a reference to some content about Amazon the company? It's hard to google for.

Amazon built a literal rainforest for their employees:

https://www.seattlespheres.com/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2018/01...

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

#104

Post by ShockedUnicorn »

_dain_ wrote: post #31

US tech salary discussions always throw around incomprehensibly large numbers and complain that they are "small"

My first tech job I made ~8k$ a year, due to being under 25 years old. My second job as a programmer was 33k$ a year, about 40% more than a cleaner in my city.

It just feels ridiculous that US salary can be 10x this, when costs of living are very similar. Apartments in my city in Sweden is about 200k$, houses 500k$.

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

#105

Post by caaqil »

AlexCoventry wrote: post #23
caaqil wrote: post #3

About time, given the amount of horror stories coming out of The Forest . More money will definitely increase (at least to a certain extent) how much bullshit people are willing to put up with.

Is The Forest just a play on the name Amazon, or is it a reference to some content about Amazon the company? It's hard to google for.

> Is The Forest just a play on the name Amazon

Yes.

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

#106

Post by avrionov »

dymk wrote: post #39
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…

When the average tenure is 1.8 years, it certainly is working. That's nearly 50% of their tenure resulting in less than 20% of their equity vesting. The way Amazon does vesting is a scam for any engineer willing to work there, IMO. Big shiny number that they can dangle in front of engineers, and everybody thinks "Oh, sure I can do 4 years for that..."

The average tenure numbers are misleading when a company rapidly expands and hires many new people.

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

#107

Post by hemloc_io »

asd88 wrote: post #90
_trackno5 wrote: post #65

Finally Amazon is realising their trash comp won't get them any hires in the current market. They were not even close to being competitive with other FAANG before. Couple that with the bad culture and I'm sure they were feeling the pressure to get new hires.

My Amazon offer from last year was one of my highest ($500K first year TC for senior SWE in Seattle). Amazon has trouble retaining talent but I doubt compensation is the real cause (at least for recent hires).

Yep if you go on levels.fyi you can see that recent promos to SDE 2-3 make 100-200k less than external hires.

They probably were testing new paybands to see what stuck.

The bleeding has to be pretty bad for them to make an announcement like this though, otherwise they'd quietly bump up pay/bonuses for their top performers.

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

#108

Post by KKKKkkkk1 »

loeg wrote: post #51
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…

I’ve had a similar experience, albeit with lower TC numbers. The RSUs were backloaded, but there were big cash grants for years 1 and 2 that flattened it out somewhat. Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon values their stock grants as if it grows 15% every year. Obviously this is pretty optimistic and makes their offers not directly comparable to other companies that value their stock using current prices.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon values their stock grants as if it grows 15% every year. Obviously this is pretty optimistic and makes their offers not directly comparable to other companies that value their stock using current prices.

They're easily comparable because current prices incorporate all publicly available information (and even some non-public). If you accept the 15% assumption, you're letting them hoodwink you.

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