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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

#141

Post by ssfrr »

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 "waiting for my vesting" mindset only makes sense to me if your TC is back-loaded, but I think Amazon offers are usually pretty consistent TC over the first 4 years, it's just that the balance shifts from bonus to stock.

So lets' say I start in January with 5% vesting after 1year, 15% after 2 years, and 20% every 6mo for the next 2 years. The signing bonus starts large and then shrinks proportionally to keep the TC constant. In my mind the only change is that my salary gets more "lumpy" at the end because I'm getting paid every 6mo instead of every 2wks.

So right before a vest I'm thinking "it's worth it to stay for 1 more week for 20% of my stock" but right after a vest the question is "is it worth it to stay 6months for 20% of my stock and 6 months of base pay?". That latter question seems the same whether my TC is cash or stock.

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

#142

Post by azemetre »

hobo_mark wrote: post #44
xiphias2 wrote: post #13

As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.

Google started the same way: > Brin and Page filled the garage with desks made of old pine doors set on sawhorses, a turquoise shag carpet, and a Ping-Pong table. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-...

I mean there's nothing wrong with this. A solid wooden door is nearly the perfect desk size and width.

I feel like the OP was being a little too drastic, there are many reasons to dislike Amazon but one being that Bezos used a door as a table is a little out there.

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

#143

Post by StillBored »

rootusrootus wrote: post #38
_dain_ wrote: post #31

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

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.

Lol, I got an offer from one of the more coveted companies a couple years back for a position in TX (where i live) and while it was a few $$ more than what I'm currently making at a company that is considered "cheap" (although like everyone else they claim their compensation is market rate), it wasn't enough to make me jump for a job that sounds like its 3x as stressful as the one I've got.

I'm guessing the San Jose, pay scale for the same job was probably 3x+, the HR person who gave me the offer letter actually apologized and suggested I negotiate for more.. Which I found pretty funny, but they wouldn't budge on the PTO vesting schedule, and I'm at an age where I refuse to be in a situation where I have two weeks of PTO, which isn't even enough to take the kids on a couple trips a year during spring break, summer break, etc.

Plus, for a company with 10's of billions a year in profits, I've never seen so many red flags... From the HR department to the inexperienced parts of the team I met with (and the experienced guys who where apparently "lifers" and unaware of the outside world if you will).

It surprises me that a company will pay someone $$$$ and work them like dogs rather than paying $$$$-10% and hiring another 1/10th of a person so they don't have to work 50+ hours a week with 2 weeks vacation.

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

#144

Post by dymk »

avrionov wrote: post #106
dymk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't believe it is. My understanding is the 1.8 years average figure is how long those who already departed had stayed for. I might be wrong though, where I heard it from didn't specify.

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

#145

Post by lhorie »

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 at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent, given their extremely poor reputation.

With this said, from reading the article, this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity. Some people here already mentioned that this was already sort of the case with a sign on bonus compensating for the backloaded vesting structure. From my experience interacting w/ professionals outside the FANG bubble, equity tends to be a bit confusing, so I wonder if a move towards bigger cash portions is a way to try to lure people who wouldn't otherwise be looking at big tech as a prospective career choice.

What's also curious to me is that bumping up cash comp is in direct opposition to the trends from some other tech giants, where they are frontloading equity vesting. My sample size might just be small, but it feels like cash comp seems to correlate somewhat with bearish stock feeling and that frontloaded equity tends to correlate w/ bullish stock feeling. Would love to hear whether I'm off the mark here or not.

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

#146

Post by munificent »

yanslookup wrote: post #15
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…

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 received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k.

I don't understand the appeal of cash signing bonuses. This just seems to me like another way of saying you got hired for a $485k annual salary while giving Amazon the freedom to cut your salary a year from now by up to ~67%. Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base salary that is stickier over the long term?

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

#147

Post by latenightcoding »

arcticbull wrote: post #77
_dain_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hard to get visa. and I don't fancy trekking across the mexican desert to get in the other way.

If you are a Mexican citizen, then a TN visa for a software engineer is pro forma - should be about $50, no caps/quotas and adjudicated in a few weeks. If from further south then why not have an employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time and you either get it or you don't? The employer handles the cost and paperwork. You don't start until they do. If this really is life changing money it seems like the risk…

try 50% less once you factor exchange rate and culture of underpaying engineers.

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

#148

Post by dymk »

discodave wrote: post #101
dymk wrote: post #75

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'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.

First sign on was ~25% of my base salary, and ~15% for every subsequent year.

That does change the math if Amazon is giving $100k bonuses each year for the first two years.

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

#149

Post by AlwaysRock »

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…

I think an important point here is that Amazon is viewed as an easier interview to pass than other FAANG+ companies. Being able to go from 50K-100K as an entry level non faang engineer to 150K-200K+ is a massive jump for many people and a very big name on their resume. Its a lot of folks first faang job.

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

#150

Post by rootusrootus »

isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #76
f6v wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize that’s before taxes, right?

You realize that it's incomprehensibly high in most of the countries in the world regardless of how it's taxed?

I don't think it's quite that simple. Cost of living has to be factored in, at least. Buying a bog standard middle class house in my city is $850K. And this isn't California, obviously.
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