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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#291

Post by mtrpcic »

jedberg wrote: post #286
sgerenser wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that really true? Levels.fyi shows Apple right about inline with GOOG, FB and AMZN and significantly higher than MSFT for mid to senior levels.

Everyone I know who moved from another FAANG took a pay cut (and everyone who left Apple to another FAANG got a fat raise). So my data is anecdotal but consistent. Also MSFT isn't part of FAANG.

> Until 2017, FANG was limited to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet. Another variant of this acronym is "FANGAM," which includes Microsoft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG

I think Microsoft is up there and competitive in the same landscape, and calling out their lack of inclusion in the original acronym is just pedantic. Everything discussed in this thread applies just as much to MSFT as it does to any of the other FAANG companies.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#292

Post by bcrosby95 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Yeah, this is sorta why you sometimes find the same big box store within a few miles of eachother. It's not that they think they need that other store, it's that they think they need to keep that location out of the hands of competition.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#293

Post by balls187 »

glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

I would take a pay-cut to work in games.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#294

Post by Aliabid94 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Something that also plays a big factor in the general over qualification of FAANG employees is that mistakes can be very very costly. It’s worth paying one engineer that gets things right 99.99% of the time twice the salary of engineer that gets things right only 99.9% of the time.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#295

Post by mrtksn »

1cvmask wrote: post #287
jedberg wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple still uses that line to underpay people. Their compensation is famously lower than all the other FAANG companies.

Apple also famously hires from non-prestigious schools compared to the “elitism” at FB and Google. I have been in meetings at Apple with multiple people and not one of them was from an elite school (remember schools from Iowa and other parochial places). In contrast at FB and Google there were all the elite schools like Caltech, Stanford, MIT amply represented. I am not sure if Apple deliberately targeted such “lesse…

I suspect that this is not just about paying a bit less salary. Steve Jobs is known to value liberal arts and non-formal education talents which might have become part of the Apple culture.

After all, being MIT or Stanford means that you passed specific type of filter but that filter might not be the silver bullet and even bring monoculture.

Despite the fact that the elite schools have elite opportunities, more often than not, the most impactful things don't come from elite alumni.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#296

Post by filoleg »

jholman wrote: post #269
moksly wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your advice is only solid as far as pay goes. Nobody should work overtime for free. If you want to throw 80 hours a week on game development, at least make sure you own part of the company. But for anyone working normal hours with normal benefits in a decent environment you are absolutely right. Money can be an excellent goal, but so can working on something you like, or working less to spend more time on som…

> Nobody should work overtime for free. > Just never work for a company for free. Screw you, buddy, I'll do what I want to! (Okay, my aggressive tone is a joke, but I do actually mean the underlying point. I've worked for free many times, for at least two totally different reasons in different situations, and I'll do it again, and it's ridiculous to say that people should "never" do this. Different people have differ…

After reading the parent comment, I have a feeling they didn't mean it as "nobody should work overtime for free [even once or ever]", but more like "nobody should work overtime for free [as the norm, on a regular basis]".

If that was indeed what the parent comment truly meant, would you still disagree with it?

Because I am of the same opinion as you that complete outright rejection of overtime, even if it is only once in forever during a critical time period, is not the move. I am absolutely ok with overtime once in forever and for a great reason. But I am absolutely against overtime being the norm or a regular thing.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#297

Post by tayo42 »

thewarrior wrote: post #261
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

There’s some truth to this I’ll admit. But if most of the work is dull why do you need the “best” ? I saw an explanation later in this thread that made more sense. FANGs do have a lot of good employees. And if they didn’t pay high salaries other companies would simply swoop in and free ride on all the hard work they do to find and groom talent. FANGs spend a lot of money scouring the entire globe and interviewing so…

Theres no reason to not pay for the best. Engineer's provide so much value compared to an individuals cost. I can give an a example of what I'm working on. I'm doing maybe 2-3months of work, the project cut a one time cost in half saving 10million dollars. I make about quarter million in a year. A tiny fraction of the value I provided this year alone. Why penny pinch on pay and risk having employees that might not be as good? 100k is 1 percent of that value.

Now that I type this out I feel like I'm getting ripped off. BRB to demand a raise lol

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#298

Post by darth_avocado »

the_only_law wrote: post #279
darth_avocado wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near big cities, the remote ones at least pre covid never paid that much. Second, yes after taxes your take home pay per month is ~8k, and a little more if you have dependents. But here's a couple of things to put into perspective: 1. It's not a lot of money if th…

How do people who aren’t a software developer, doctor, or in a high paying financial sector get buy in CA metros. From what I’ve seen, even other highly technical engineering fields rarely make it to $150k

The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single person.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#299

Post by sanxiyn »

glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is that while work is dull, people are not overqualified. They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. If they could refactor and get internal systems in order they could lower qualification bar, but that refactoring requires super duper overqualified people, etc.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#300

Post by rxhernandez »

Aliabid94 wrote: post #294
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Something that also plays a big factor in the general over qualification of FAANG employees is that mistakes can be very very costly. It’s worth paying one engineer that gets things right 99.99% of the time twice the salary of engineer that gets things right only 99.9% of the time.

From what I recall of the training I received from a somewhat well-known Chief Quality Officer, you don't get things right more often by getting better people, you get things right more often by making better processes for people to follow (the latter of which isn't as directly tied to better people as you may think).

Frankly, I don't get the hype. I've interviewed FAANG engineers and have given a thumbs down almost as often as I did for engineers from other companies.

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