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Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

danielvassallo.com

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Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#151

Post by beefalo »

tyler- wrote: post #76
TACIXAT wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300k+ is senior. The higher ranges would be principal / individual contributor. This is a pretty common pay scale in the Bay Area. https://levels.fyi

Thanks! Roughly, what does is the difference between a senior and principle engineer? How common is it to reach senior for a normal dev vs principle?

Senior would be someone who takes the lead on projects in their domain across their team/other teams. Principal would be responsible for leading overall architecture for multiple teams/departments or a super expert in some domain. At Google, probably less than 1% will reach principle, I've heard around 25% of engineers are senior+.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#152

Post by jldugger »

tyler- wrote: post #15

What kind of companies pay software engineers 300k+? Is it realistic to make 500k-1 million+ at these companies as a developer? What sort of title/level are these developers at? How much is it in stocks/rsus vs salary at that point? Can someone lay out a traditional example at this level? What skillsets do these people have?

It's not realistic, but it happens. Especially with RSU appreciation. AMZN's up 88 percent in the last 2 years, so if you were issued compensation plus refreshers amounting to 300k, but 200k of that was RSU, you're looking at 500k in comp when the stock doubles your grant price.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#154

Post by ryanSrich »

icedchai wrote: post #110

Why not stay there and milk it for a few years? Once you have that safety net built up, there is little reason to care. So do as little as possible... Come in late, leave early. Do this a little bit at a time. With your good reputation, you can probably get another mil out of them.

Yeah. Or like why not build something on the side first? If he was in fact only working 40 hours (which is mind blowing, but I guess there’s no reason to lie), he could have easily bootstrapped an idea to revenue in 6-12 months all while making that insane amazon money.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#155

Post by towaway1138 »

OP is getting crapped on a bit here, but I think he's doing the right thing for himself. I've not done as well, but well enough to realize that past a certain point, money just isn't worth as much as a lot of other things in life. And if having money doesn't buy you the freedom to take some risks or time off, it might be worth even less than we think.

It's worth asking yourself regularly not only "Am I being paid enough?" but also "Am I being paid too much?".

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#156

Post by jldugger »

DVassallo wrote: post #63
TheShrug wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

Those two things are not equivalent to me. Yes I have savings, but I also have no income right now.

I mean, savings accts are paying 2.2 percent right now, and while it's a drop in the bucket compared to senior developer wages at AMZN, you're looking at 20k in interest accrued annually, which is basically what each of my parents live on in middle America.

Depending on where you live, who you support (or are supported by), and how capital intensive your independent business is, that could be plenty. Plus, you've already got a book deal worked into the business plan it seems.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#157

Post by [deleted] »

hinkley wrote: post #83
TheShrug wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

$20k a year in interest after taxes if he’s not a complete moron. I could survive on around $45k a year (including health insurance) so I could putter for a long time before I had to deliver something. But domain knowledge and contacts will probably be the biggest assets OP turns out to possess. Don’t undersell those.

[deleted]

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#158

Post by EpicEng »

DVassallo wrote: post #63
TheShrug wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you're looking for attention or validation, but I have a feeling you'll probably get more negative attention than positive when you seem to be equating having $1M in liquid assets to "starting with no income, no product, no business".

Those two things are not equivalent to me. Yes I have savings, but I also have no income right now.

You can easily make in interest what many people make in salary. Please just drop the "starting with nothing" part of your story. No one ever has viewed $1M as "starting with nothing".

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#159

Post by antisthenes »

startupdiscuss wrote: post #138
hprotagonist wrote: post #3

I’m going all in on independence, and I’m going to try to make a living with my own bare hands starting from nothing. 500k/year in your last year is "nothing", huh? It really undercuts the entire thrust of the post, because you're starting with a nice big war chest and a hell of a safety net, not "nothing".

You're looking at it the wrong way (i think). The point is not that he is starving, or that he is desperate. The point of that number is what he gave up! The point is he gave up a job of 0.5 million, potentially 1 million in a few years. To top it off the job had reasonable hours, great people and he was getting positive feedback. You would not expect people to give that up. The question is why? Instead, you're point…

> You would not expect people to give that up. The question is why?

I would absolutely expect people to give that up, as well as any senior economist student would tell you, the labor preference curve is backward-bending after you start making a certain amount of money.

> He was so lucky and is giving it up! Aren't you curious why?

Not in the slightest. There are multiple studies saying that happiness plateaus after a certain amount of income. It's his life and he probably found his own plateau.

Re: Why I quit a $500K job at Amazon to work for myself

#160

Post by halfnibble »

cowsandmilk wrote: post #72
halfnibble wrote: post #14

I've heard of Amazon paying between $200 and $300K for software engineers, but this is the first time I've heard of them paying $500K! Goodness, I don't have any work/life balance now, so it really makes me wonder if I shouldn't start applying at Amazon.

the 500k is due to Amazon's stock value going up. The amount of stock you'll be receiving is set several years out and is frequently a major portion of your salary. Amazon's stock tripling has put many people at high salaries. OP is an SDE3, which levels.fyi puts at $154,259 base, $150,648 stock, $19,227 bonus. The stock goes up 3x in the years between the grant and when you vest, you are making tons of money. Most p…

Thank you for clarifying!
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