How do other roles in the companies mentioned here, compare to these numbers? Meaning Data Scientists, Product Managers and Designers? Would it be correct to assume that a PM with five years of experience would have roughly the same compensation as a SWE with similar experience?
Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
191–200 of 614 posts
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#192What I find completely demotivating is working for a FAANG in Europe, and seeing the massive disparity between US colleagues. You can argue cost of living is different, healthcare is public blablabla, but recruiters have told me straight out: we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate. Therefore they dont give a rats ass about how much it costs to live in a specific country, they just pay based on t…
> we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate.
This is true everywhere.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#193I do the job of a senior engineer and yet am paid a bit less than what's listed for an entry level engineer. And I live an incredibly comfy life. What's the catch? Are these for more than 40 hours a week? Is silicon valley really that expensive? Or are they literally giving college grads enough money to retire by 35?
As others have said, the catch is incredibly high cost of living. The housing market has grown by something like 10%-15% annually, for years.
Obviously, it can't grow like that forever - even professional couples have problems pooling together money for a down-payments on decent median priced homes.
And while you're building equity by owning, you're also kind of stuck to keeping up with salaries / career trajectories.
But you know, with higher salaries comes more purchasing power. And then you also have foreigners parking their assets in the housing market, similar to what's happening in NYC and Vancouver.
It's hard to compete even with a nice $500k salary, when some foreign investor can casually overbid you with millions in cash.
Sounds a bit dramatic, yes, but that's life in most cities with hot markets and high salaries.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the cards. What makes you think companies hold all the cards? Especially in tech.
It's not all the cards but companies (recruiters) usually have information asymmetry on their candidates. Sites like levels.fyi are a good remedy, with the right info and counteroffers you can negotiate salaries/sign-on bonuses up by pretty large amounts.
A strategy that has worked for me is to interview in batches. Companies interview multiple candidates, too.
That gives you extra leverage and extra information.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let’s say you’re the median American SWE getting paid $80k a year. You’re saying you wouldn’t move to SFBA for less than $800k/yr in total compensation? I find that hard to imagine.
I can see what it costs. Getting $800k/yr means a house of about $1,600,000 should be affordable, but that gets you trash. Getting a "house" that PHYSICALLY TOUCHES the neighbor's house will go for more than that in a semi-tolerable San Francisco neighborhood. That is substandard living conditions.
$1.6m will get you 2,200 square feet of sweet, sweet detached single family living in Pacifica, Berkeley, or Marin. Double an $80k annual income will get you a 640 square foot home with $250/square foot land and construction costs, so not a particularly high end or spacious place.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
We have plans to publish more information, but for now you can view salary information for a number of other companies on our main website: http://levels.fyi
I love levels.fyi. Will it be possible to specify which companies do or do not sponsor visas ?
Added to our list, will try to work on it!
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#197If this is for real, _everyone_ I know is getting completely screwed. I have a hard time believing any of these numbers. If I earned any of these amounts for 2-3 years, I could live off the interest for the rest of my life.
Here in Canada entry level SWEs are getting paid 60k-70k CAD (45k-55k USD). It's worse in Europe. These numbers are absolutely mind boggling. Even with a higher cost of living and California income taxes, you still have at least 100k of free money to invest. It's no wonder so many people apply for jobs at FAANGs. A job at a FAANG is practically a ticket to early retirement.
The housing prices you see SF are unheard of in Europe, outside maybe only London. And even then, we're talking about the most gentrified areas of London.
FWIW, I make a "meager" half of those starting salaries, but I'm able to save around $80k / year. Why? Because I pay next to nothing in housing.
Purchased my home for $15k. Dropped another $15k in renovations, and that's gonna last a good time. I'm on the track to early retirement, and it's completely possible other places too.
I took a huge pay cut moving away from a big and expensive city, but I can save a lot more, and with a ton less work-related stress.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
The way I understand it, it's the number of RSU that are offered each year, at the time of them being offered. If so, then the movement of the stock price is irrelevant.
Per zuhayeer’s comments elsewhere in the thread, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
I only saw one relevant comment from him and it doesn't address this question?
Others have mentioned that it's primarily based on offers, in which case my interpretation stands.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see what it costs. Getting $800k/yr means a house of about $1,600,000 should be affordable, but that gets you trash. Getting a "house" that PHYSICALLY TOUCHES the neighbor's house will go for more than that in a semi-tolerable San Francisco neighborhood. That is substandard living conditions.
How do you afford housing wherever you make $80k? Unless literally everything comparable costs 10x in SF, there's no logical way you can say 10x is the mark at which SF wages are pegged at.
In accounting, this is an idea known as operating leverage.
Re: Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The top firms have gotten themselves into an insane bidding war. That may be true, but there's more to it than that. The first wave of successful IPOs (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, etc.) caused a spike in housing prices as employees purchased houses. On top of that, companies have added tens of thousands of new jobs, without proportional growth in the housing supply. So housing prices are now absurd, and thes…
Yeah I think this part is a stretch. Just look at Vancouver as a far more extreme example of how local property prices can be out of whack with wages. House prices are a function of wages (or, more accurately, have a floor set by wages if land is constrained) not the other way around. Also, the level of entitlement by a lot of such engineers I find to be borderline disgusting. Why do you think you're entitled to a $1…
> House prices are a function of wages (or, more accurately, have a floor set by wages if land is constrained) not the other way around.
I guess if you state it as a fact, that makes it true?
But if that’s the case, why would the company pay an engineer more when she moves from the Austin office to the NYC office? She has become more valuable to the company overnight? And the most valuable engineers just happen to live in the most expensive cities?
Sorry, but salaries are impacted by cost of living. Because if they’re paying top talent too low relative to cost of living, those engineers will just move elsewhere, as you suggest.
Yes, this puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing market, affecting everyone in the Bay Area. I’m not claiming this is good.
Vancouver is a different situation entirely.
> Why do you think you're entitled to a $1.5m house at all let alone 3 years out of college?
This is not at all what I said. And most people I know here cannot afford a house 10+ years out of college, unless they’ve worked at a top-paying company all those years.
Who is claiming they’re entitled to it? I’m saying companies are offering it to retain employees, because it’s in the companies’ best interest.
> it completely ignores people with real problems, like, oh I don't know, the people who drive the shiny white buses who need to live 2+ hours away.
And there are plenty of people less fortunate than the bus drivers. By your logic, if they don’t like it, they can just move somewhere cheaper. Maybe it’s just too late in the evening, but I’m not really seeing your point here.