311–320 of 462 posts
Does ANYONE in amazon see culture changes occurring at all? I'm willing to respond to the 5 recruiters contacting me BUT only if there is a huge drive to change culture as well.
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I'm pretty sure a non-trivial amount of that is talk more than average reality. Which isn't to say that there aren't a bunch of people making a half million or more in total comp at a FAANG company, but there are almost certainly a whole lot more quiet people making 100-200K who aren't going to brag on HN about it.
100-200k is incomprehensibly large for me
There are a lot of people making 100-200k salaries.
There are also a lot of people making subsistence wages in a system with no universal public health care and meager government benefits.
Those are two very different voting blocks. The first group doesn't want to do anything too radical to rock the boat and mess up the good thing they have going. The second group wants radical change but has trouble organizing against the high paid lobbyists and campaign donors.
And then the really mind bending thing is those two groups often vote for the opposite party you would expect, considering their economic position.
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If you are a Mexican citizen, then a TN visa for a software engineer is pro forma - should be about $50, no caps/quotas and adjudicated in a few weeks. If from further south then why not have an employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time and you either get it or you don't? The employer handles the cost and paperwork. You don't start until they do. If this really is life changing money it seems like the risk…
briton, just making a joke about how you sometimes see people from all corners of the world land in mexico and take their chances with los coyotes for the journey north
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Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want. If your children hate you or you lose the love of your life -- or you ruin your health -- then what's the point of all that money and free time?
Doesn't that kind of depend on having kids or love? There's probably a fair number of people out there skilled enough to do the work that doesn't have those things to distract from having a demanding job. Ultimately it's a decision that you'd have to make depending on what you care about. You could turn your question on it's head; what's the point of having children or a significant other if you are incapable or unwi…
That's a good point, actually.
Which I will bookmark as the perfect description of the kind of personality profile that is most suited to working at Amazon-- and perhaps the only personality type that can thrive there, actually.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are a Mexican citizen, then a TN visa for a software engineer is pro forma - should be about $50, no caps/quotas and adjudicated in a few weeks. If from further south then why not have an employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time and you either get it or you don't? The employer handles the cost and paperwork. You don't start until they do. If this really is life changing money it seems like the risk…
try 50% less once you factor exchange rate and culture of underpaying engineers.
For instance, folks doing well-paid jobs in let's say China or Hong Kong aren't underpaid, they're paid well, relative to their local market. The same is true in Canada, it's just that Canadians live very close to a very different market with a very different cost structure and externalities - but 'feels' about the same from the other side of the fence. Consider 50% more folks live below the poverty line per capita in the US than in Canada so clearly it's not all bad.
Remember, Canadians can show up at the US border with $50USD and an offer letter in a SWE job and get a 3-year TN status adjudicated on the spot. There's clearly more to it.
Judging from what an insider in the HR org told me, we're going to be hearing a lot of stories like this going forward. Apparently, Amazon scale is so large and their attrition rates are so bad that in some markets, every potentially qualified candidate has already applied and failed an interview, or previously worked at Amazon and quit. As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be a…
1. They give cash that is generally 20% higher than average market price.
2. If you convert your cash into options, you don't pay the income tax for the forfeited cash. It's your choice on how much cash you'd like to convert. And of course, if you joined company by 2015 or so, and consistently converts, say 40% (or whatever percentage other FAANG companies use) of your cash, you should be have enough money to to retire and focus on angel investing.
3. They give you a discount of the options. It used to be 5X. That is, if you forfeit $1 of income and the strike price of options is $1, you get to have 5 options instead of 1. That is, if the stock price increases by 25% compared to the strike price, you'll make even, roughly speaking.
4. They options expire in 10 years! I mean, 10 years!
5. Options vest every month. The strike price is the the price of stock of that month (not sure if it's average of the month or at the time of vest). Combining this and #4, employees will make money as long as Netflix stock has volatility. The only scenarios that employees will lose money is that the stock price keeps going down for 10 years or there is not enough volatility.
6. They don't give bonus. If you perform really well, you will become more important to the company, and you get a hefty raise. The raise stays.
If this is not fair, I don't know what is.
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.
this the dude who just bought a 500mm yacht?
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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?
Let's say you're applying for a position where usual FAANG TC is 300k. 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 relativ…
From your example, they offer you 220 units, valued at 13+46+140+160 = $359k.
However, if the stock stays perfectly flat, the actual value is $264k (220 * 1200).
US tech salary discussions always throw around incomprehensibly large numbers and complain that they are "small"
My first tech job I made ~8k$ a year, due to being under 25 years old. My second job as a programmer was 33k$ a year, about 40% more than a cleaner in my city. It just feels ridiculous that US salary can be 10x this, when costs of living are very similar. Apartments in my city in Sweden is about 200k$, houses 500k$.
Those $350k jobs exist, but are very rare and hard to get.
As a low-ish level MSFT employee I laughed at this line: > The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. As a ~62/63 (almost senior or senior) at Microsoft my peers at Facebook, Google, and Amazon can easily make literally twice as much compensation a year in salary, stock, and cash bonuses. Microsoft isn't even in the ballpar…