301–310 of 462 posts
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Previously you could not make more than ~$160k in salary at Amazon at any level. Now they are raising the cap.
AIUI, the 160 max only applied below L8.
As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.
I’ve been talking to close to a dozen current and former Amazon employees since the end of 2021, and reached out to people publicly sharing attrition observations. Amazon attrition is really bad, even in AWS (Amazon employees all agree that AWS is a much better place to work in tech than Amazon retail). At the same time, Amazon has had to pay very high for new hires. Hiring managers used to need to get L10 approval t…
This one is interesting to me, as my anecdata is the opposite. People tell me not to go to Amazon, but if I do choose to go, refuse any job with AWS on the basis that they refuse to staff it properly.
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Is Microsoft a really cozy place to work? Shopify in Canada is similar with weak comp, but it is considered a great place to work.
Most teams at Microsoft these days have great work-life balance. Just stay away from the hardcore teams like core Windows development teams, compilers, Xbox.. The company will support you in any personal goals you have, you'll be able to find internal clubs for just about anything, and at least pre-pandemic, lecturers were frequently invited to campus to give talks on a huge range of topics that anybody could sign up…
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Amazon recruiting is a disaster. I’m used to receiving a reach out once or twice a year, but late last year I had at least four recruiters reaching out, three simultaneously. I think one even attempted to automate the process because I received two separate emails from him along with follow ups on each in a matter of four hours, and my replies never got through as they were completely ignored as he continued to follo…
Amazon Recruiting is indeed a disaster. I got approached by an Amazon recruiter, and instead of just ignoring him, I decided to see "what's out there". I'm a staff SWE level at a decent company, so not exactly desperate to leave. He proposed a hard time for a phone call later that week. I replied saying that I have conflicts at that time, how about we do it next week? Didn't hear back from him for a couple of days, a…
You didn't meet that criteria otherwise you would have bent over backwards to adjust your schedule to make the proposed time, so "obviously" you don't really want this job enough.
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The signing bonus is some N shares of stock. The $xxx figures in their comp packages are inflated in years 2, 3, and 4 by optimistically valuing those shares.
So, if the recruiter says $500k in RSU, and the stock stays flat for 4 years, the grant is actually only for $425k (or less with compounding)? Or, are you saying, they justify small grants by telling you the stock will grow?
Then Amazon recruiter wants to "match" that, so 300 * 4=1200k over 4 years.
Base pay is maxed at 160 (until today's announcement), so 1200k-(160 * 4) = 560k to come up with with stocks and cash bonus.
Let's say Amazon 30 day moving average share price during negotiation is $1200 a share
So now recruiter must make math such that:
- TC stays relatively flat. On year 3 & 4 you get 40% of award, but only 5% year 1 and 15% year. (so a cash bonus to offset year 1 is ~35% of grant amount, and cash bonus offset year 2 is ~25% of grant amount)
- TC assuming 15% growth of stock
So, they'll offer you 220 units:
Year 1:
with only 5% * 220 * 1200=$13k from RSU, you need (300-160-13)=127k cash bonus , now your TC year 1 is 300k.
Year 2:
15% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15=46k from RSU So cash bonus of 94k.
Year 3:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^2=140k RSU that's 300k of TC
Year 4:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^3=160k RSU That's even more, 320k TC \o/
So all the math here is done using fictional share price that grew 1.15^n for each year. But in concrete, your offer says 220 units. If Amazon grew much more than 15% a year, on year 3 you're still making 40% * 220 units, no matter what the share price is.
But the final offer is:
160k / year base, 220 units over 4 year with 5%/15%/40%/40% vesting, and 127k cash bonus year 1 + 94k cash bonus year 2.
Amazon is one of rare FAANG where the RSU offer is given in share count in offer itself, not in $.
As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.
Google started the same way: > Brin and Page filled the garage with desks made of old pine doors set on sawhorses, a turquoise shag carpet, and a Ping-Pong table. https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-...
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Yes, that's how labor markets work.
At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.
Most of the reason those big companies can pay software developers so we’ll is that they are worth it, and they can be worth it because they have more leverage: if you do something that causes a small company to be 1% better, and if that same thing would make a small part of a massive company 0.5% better, the latter can be worth a lot more just because the denominator is so much bigger. It feels harder to explain why they must pay so much. The first order argument is that there is lots of demand for software developers and that pushes up the price, but these companies are active in markets where developers are paid less well (e.g. Europe) and they could adjust hiring to favour candidates who are good but less competitive (e.g. because they are bad at a particular kind of interview) so I don’t understand why market forces haven’t lead to things being more balanced.
This is good news for tech workers, but the income disparity between Amazon tech workers and Amazon warehouse/delivery workers is absolutely obscene. Understandably, skilled vs unskilled labor, and supply and demand, and all that, but as Jon Stewart recently recounted telling Jeff Bezos at a dinner party, “sounds like a recipe for a revolution.”
it seems like learning how to code would be easier than overthrowing the govt (at least it did to me back before I had any skills)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The signing bonus is some N shares of stock. The $xxx figures in their comp packages are inflated in years 2, 3, and 4 by optimistically valuing those shares.
So, if the recruiter says $500k in RSU, and the stock stays flat for 4 years, the grant is actually only for $425k (or less with compounding)? Or, are you saying, they justify small grants by telling you the stock will grow?
Yes, exactly (less with compounding, about $370k -- see sibling thread).