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$900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

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Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#261

Post by quadcore »

WinLychee wrote: post #235
quadcore wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you quantify best? The bests have cool stories to tell.

Right, but you have to be in a position where you get to do the work in the first place , which requires passing some reputational and skill bar. Or, you could do something which is cool to you personally and someone might not share that feeling and be unimpressed. As a concrete example, I've gotten more accolades for silly personal projects that sound impressive, like training a convolutional network to pilot a simu…

convolutional network to pilot a simulated car on the GPU

Seems silly enough to get you somewhere cool. Though the best pass is recommendation. Impress your colleagues so bad, they will recommend you somewhere one day.

than for impactful work at my actual job

Oh you have to fight hard to get one of those. You cant just do what you're told. Ive got a cool story to tell from my time at amazon but I fought heroically to get it (I was younger though).

I guess hiring is just incredibly noisy

Careful what you believe because your belief becomes your reality.

If you want to be great, you cant just act and think like anybody else. Work on yourself and be great. Get the mindset first.

"life has strange ways"

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#262

Post by yieldcrv »

29athrowaway wrote: post #260
yieldcrv wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A) Donating illiquid assets to your own non-profit helps a lot. I typically have acquired or bought or created something in prior years that can offset this year's income. That one is up to a 20% tax deduction on this year's income without spending any of this year's money. and it rolls forward 5 years if its value is greater than those percentages of your income. so it adds up if you keep incorporating that into you…

I am just going to say one thing: what's the fair market value of art? or an alpaca? It's subjective.

yeah, you have to get a third party appraiser but they’re mostly just checking a box

and you can use the last known price as well, the real beauty is that it is not volume weighted

so you get the last price for 1 of that thing, and use that to donate 1,000 of that thing to keep more of your cash, even if it was not possible to realize it for cash

(for the 20% deduction in my example that one relies on cost basis, unless the price has gone down, then its current value)

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#263

Post by scarface_74 »

moralestapia wrote: post #245
deanmoriarty wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you are just not aware. C-Level folks make many millions a year, either liquid or paper. I am at FAANG and virtually everyone at L6 (staff Eng level, many thousands of people) is paid at least $500k, with monthly liquidity (no cliff). With a bit of luck stock wise, it’s also not uncommon at all to get to $500k+ at L5 (senior eng level, many dozens of thousands of people). Everyone in my SF network (hundreds…

>Everyone in my SF network (hundreds of people) virtually make above $500k. Wow, great to hear that. Do you know of any "outsiders" (people not living in the valley, working remotely) making that much money as well?

I know plenty of people in my department at BigTech - cloud consulting - working remotely who are making $350K+ a year in senior position.

There are also people working in the office making that much as software developers working in Nashville, the DC suburbs, Dallas, etc.

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#264

Post by dheera »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #239
Solvency wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What SF family with children are paying 4K a month on "rent" and what exactly do you envision this rented abode to be that is even remotely liveable with children? Are you living in anything close to reality?

I'm really not understanding this comment. Go on Zillow and find all the 3-bedroom rentals available under $4k/mo in the Bay Area that are within 45-min commute distance from downtown SF via Bart/Caltrain/Muni. I count at least 1,000. I live in a modern 1-bedroom apartment within biking distance to work (major FAANG campus) and pay $2,500/mo. My apartment complex offers 3-bedroom units, with private patios, for $3,50…

> I live in a modern 1-bedroom apartment within biking distance to work (major FAANG campus) and pay $2,500/mo. My apartment complex offers 3-bedroom units, with private patios, for $3,500/mo.

What complex do you live in?

I'm actually looking to move apartments, want something a bit more modern, and I'm seeing mostly 1-bedrooms for $3500 and 2-bedrooms for $4500 in south bay for anything modern (e.g. anything from Prometheus) and located in a safe area (e.g. not East Palo Alto).

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#265

Post by scarface_74 »

tyingq wrote: post #132
dheera wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be realistic ... 300K in the bay is barely livable if you're targeting a middle class life with kids and targeting retiring at 65. First, ~46% of it is gone in taxes including federal tax (~25%), state tax (~8%), FICA (~4%), and sales tax on everything you eventually use the money for (~9%). So that's 162K left. Not a lot to pay sky-high rents, car payments, insane medical bills despite insurance, lawyers to fight…

I get what you're saying, but the median income for SFO is way below what tech people get paid. "barely livable" is perhaps a bridge too far for the $300k+ crowd. :)

Maybe. But I had a big house in the “good school system” in the Atlanta burbs built in 2016 for $335K. Even today that would cost around $550K. It would take more than $300K to duplicate our lifestyle in the Bay Area.

I’ll take my former $150K in the burbs of Atlanta over $300k in the burbs any day.

And before the usual responses implying I’m disdaining what I can’t have, I current work for BigTech remotely.

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#266

Post by scarface_74 »

Zetice wrote: post #184
bluedevilzn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median person in SFO lives a way worse life than a median person in Ohio

Eh, you'd be surprised how much being able to walk to things, and generally being in a major international city improves your quality of life if that's the kind of thing you prefer...

I’ve been to San Francisco and I’ve been to Ohio. I would much rather be a median income earner in any part of Ohio than a median income earner on the west coast.

How many people making the median income in San Francisco are living in a walkable area?

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#267

Post by scarface_74 »

QIYGT wrote: post #199
bluedevilzn wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The median person in SFO lives a way worse life than a median person in Ohio

Only if you define "good life" as having a big house with a big yard.

If you have children, you want to be in the “good school system” at least. If you are working from home, you also want a separate office.

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#268

Post by scarface_74 »

Firmwarrior wrote: post #144
dheera wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be realistic ... 300K in the bay is barely livable if you're targeting a middle class life with kids and targeting retiring at 65. First, ~46% of it is gone in taxes including federal tax (~25%), state tax (~8%), FICA (~4%), and sales tax on everything you eventually use the money for (~9%). So that's 162K left. Not a lot to pay sky-high rents, car payments, insane medical bills despite insurance, lawyers to fight…

Yeah, take home of $13.5k a month can get a little tight if you're looking at an $8k mortgage on a crappy little shithole condo You surprisingly (considering you're making 5x the median household income for the US) end up having to lightly adhere to some sort of budget. With car payments, sending money to your family, and local inflated prices, it's easy to find yourself not saving enough for early retirement I think…

And I on the other hand had a 3200 square foot house, two cars, in the good school system and my wife and I had date nights and the occasional vacation with a household income of $170K in north metro Atlanta in 2020…

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#269

Post by 908B64B197 »

moralestapia wrote: post #213
QIYGT wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That person could probably be making 500k+ at a FANG with less variance in the stock component.

I read this here and there and don't doubt it, but then again I've never seen/met anyone IRL (outside of C-level) making this much money as an employee. Are they just extremely rare cases or am I just not aware of the valley and their customs?

> Are they just extremely rare cases or am I just not aware of the valley and their customs?

Not aware. That's not unusual compensation for key contributors. Especially in AI or other niche fields. Even outside the valley.

We acquired something a while back in Montreal, Canada and it sure wasn't cheap. Salaries were in the same ballpark as our positions in the valley. We actually got most of the team to relocate to California on O-1s but still have some guys over there.

Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI

#270

Post by [deleted] »

dheera wrote: post #264
deanmoriarty wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not understanding this comment. Go on Zillow and find all the 3-bedroom rentals available under $4k/mo in the Bay Area that are within 45-min commute distance from downtown SF via Bart/Caltrain/Muni. I count at least 1,000. I live in a modern 1-bedroom apartment within biking distance to work (major FAANG campus) and pay $2,500/mo. My apartment complex offers 3-bedroom units, with private patios, for $3,50…

> I live in a modern 1-bedroom apartment within biking distance to work (major FAANG campus) and pay $2,500/mo. My apartment complex offers 3-bedroom units, with private patios, for $3,500/mo. What complex do you live in? I'm actually looking to move apartments, want something a bit more modern, and I'm seeing mostly 1-bedrooms for $3500 and 2-bedrooms for $4500 in south bay for anything modern (e.g. anything from Pr…

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