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Good on the author for making the decision based on his and his family's needs and not "but it's a top-tier company, man, you gotta work for the best be the best do the BEST." People often don't consider cost-of-living when making job decisions. I think the way to do it is to equalize the salaries based on cost-of-living across each company you're considering. So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's…
It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…
It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…
Good on the author for making the decision based on his and his family's needs and not "but it's a top-tier company, man, you gotta work for the best be the best do the BEST." People often don't consider cost-of-living when making job decisions. I think the way to do it is to equalize the salaries based on cost-of-living across each company you're considering. So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's…
> So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's the same as making $120k in Seattle or the Bay Area. Not true at all. I made almost that exact jump when moving from the Midwest to Seattle. You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Sign-on bonuses and stock benefits are common out here but rare in the Midwest. Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, ot…
That's actually not true. I'm referring to cost-of-living, which includes housing, gas, food, etc. All the things you list. Here's a calculator you can use to try it for yourself [1]. Using that, if I live in Columbia, MO (which I chose at random) and make $60k, I must make $111k in the Bay Area to maintain the same standard of living.
[1] http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-l...
> You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Not to mention sign-on bonuses and stock benefits, which are rare in the Midwest.
That is definitely correct. But you can certainly find companies offering good (signing and regular) bonuses and 401k matching; I did. Stock is much rarer, as you say.
It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…
But this one does build search engines or whatever.
Good on the author for making the decision based on his and his family's needs and not "but it's a top-tier company, man, you gotta work for the best be the best do the BEST." People often don't consider cost-of-living when making job decisions. I think the way to do it is to equalize the salaries based on cost-of-living across each company you're considering. So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's…
> So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's the same as making $120k in Seattle or the Bay Area. Not true at all. I made almost that exact jump when moving from the Midwest to Seattle. You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Sign-on bonuses and stock benefits are common out here but rare in the Midwest. Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, ot…
That is not what I see. Food seems to be about 10% - 15% higher than here in Dallas. Sales tax is slightly higher. Gas is definitely higher (about 20%). Travel from SeaTac is more expensive and less flexible than travel from DFW. I spend maybe $5000/year on online purchases and other things that would be the exact same price regardless of geography.
Everything, with the probable exception of insurance, is more expensive in the PNW than it is in the Midwest. It certainly is not as big a part of the calculation as housing, but it is not a wash.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's the same as making $120k in Seattle or the Bay Area. Not true at all. I made almost that exact jump when moving from the Midwest to Seattle. You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Sign-on bonuses and stock benefits are common out here but rare in the Midwest. Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, ot…
> Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, other expenses don't. Food costs, gas, vacations, and everything on Amazon is the same. I actually spend a lot less on transportation because I can take public transit instead of a car. We were able to sell one of our cars too. That's actually not true. I'm referring to cost-of-living, which includes housing, gas, food, etc. All the things you list. Here's a calculator you c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So if you make $60,000 in a small midwestern town, that's the same as making $120k in Seattle or the Bay Area. Not true at all. I made almost that exact jump when moving from the Midwest to Seattle. You're forgetting things like raises, bonuses, and 401(k) matching that are a % of your salary. Sign-on bonuses and stock benefits are common out here but rare in the Midwest. Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, ot…
> Plus, even if your housing cost doubles, other expenses don't. Food costs, gas, vacations, and everything on Amazon is the same. I actually spend a lot less on transportation because I can take public transit instead of a car. We were able to sell one of our cars too. That's actually not true. I'm referring to cost-of-living, which includes housing, gas, food, etc. All the things you list. Here's a calculator you c…
It's wasteful for companies to focus so much on implementing data structures for front-end coding jobs when they're packaged commodities nowadays. If you're going to be building search engines or whatever, OK. And, time complexity questions should be asked. But chances are, the broad majority will end up doing line of business apps that require three data structures of which you will never write a better version than…
but programmer has to know what ds/algorithm to choose, of course you can look up complexities and stuff but it doesn't help in cases where performance tuning of caches ect is necessary. you have to understand what that particular algorithm/ds is actually doing to tune it properly.
I'm glad to hear that Amazon kept the textbook-style questions light -- it's not what you usually hear about happening in interviews with big tech companies.