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Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

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Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#371

Post by deltaonefour »

belval wrote: post #367
deltaonefour wrote: post #311

Ok. amazon has a high attrition rate because of it's culture. Making the pay higher won't necessarily fix that. 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.

Disclaimer: I work at AWS. I see comments about the culture a lot and I feel the need to chime in and say that it's not actually bad? At least in my team, the work life balance is fine, my manager is great and the projects are interesting. Not saying that it's the same for every SDE, but some of the stories you read online make it seem like they shackle you to your desk and PIP you into submission.

What about during review season where someone on your team MUST get pipped?

I know that there are teams that are doing well. But if one person or more on your team gets pipped every year something is wrong...

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#372

Post by cheeze »

stephenboyd wrote: post #55

Now let’s see if they can give more than 10 PTO days

Uh, what?

At least when I worked there in Seattle, I got 48 hours of personal time, a few days of sick time, and a month of PTO every year.

Granted, my managers never cared about what I used (personal==sick==pto, use whatever) and I rarely actually recorded vacation.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#373

Post by jedberg »

drewg123 wrote: post #263
lhorie wrote: post #145

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…

FWIW, Netflix basically has a slider, where you can take from 0% to 100% of your salary in options vs in cash. You get to decide once a year during a sort of "open enrollment" (like how you choose health care plans).

FYI they changed it to 50% max a few years ago, but otherwise yes.

I had a few friends who went 100% stock (which meant that they technically qualified for food stamps and medicare since it was pretax dollars) and some went 70%.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#376

Post by nebula8804 »

ndstephens wrote: post #236
nebula8804 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do? For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that giv…

"I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities." reference didn't go unnoticed. nice one.

If I put a smile on at least one person's face, I consider that a big win! :D

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#377

Post by sydthrowaway »

mrep wrote: post #337
grogers wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't you just show your N most recent W2s to your bank? Why would they care about your comp breakdown?

Not for US mortgages, here is what my mortgage broker sent me as a requirement for the second home I am looking to buy: OK – we can use the RSU’s with the following conditions: Your borrower will need to have a 2-year history of liquidating the RSU account and evidence the RSUs are received as part of the borrower's regular income. Fannie Mae requires you obtain the issuance agreement, schedule of share distributions…

This seems extreme.

I think FAANG will get waived. This is probably RSUs for some SPAC company.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#378

Post by jedberg »

nebula8804 wrote: post #220
yanslookup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't match my experience. I guess it depends on the role but for engineers it's well known Amazon has been throwing large sign on bonuses to close the vesting gap for years. For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Is it possible that when folks were voluntarily…

>For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs. Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do? For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that giv…

> Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?

I worked at the N in FAANG for four years. It's not that we did anything so much differently, it's the people we did it with. When I worked for non-FAANG, there were some people who I'd have to work with and think, "boy, how does this person get/keep their job?". They just were not great to work with, had a hard time understanding hard concepts, and didn't produce great work.

I never had that at Netflix. Every person I worked with was someone I'd want to work with again and could trust and depend on. When a hard problem presented itself, everyone had a great solution, and we'd discuss the pros and cons, and then someone would implement that solution.

Also, many of our internal tools were best in class. Sure they had their warts, but not like the ones other companies had. Even our corporate directory had cool features and was actively developed.

So that's really the difference. It's the people you get to work with and the tools you get to use.

> Is there like some open source project or code samples that give an idea of the complexity of code that 510k developers are writing?

https://github.com/Netflix is a good place to look. Again, it's not that it's more complex, it's just the way it came about.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#379

Post by akomtu »

md_ wrote: post #241
munificent wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. I don't understand the appeal of cash signing bonuses. This just seems to me like another way of saying you got hired for a $485k annual salary while giving Amazon the freedom to cut your salary a year from now by up to ~67%. Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base sala…

One way to look at this is a way for employers and employees to cope with uncertainty. The employee is likely to underperform for the first few comp cycles after being hired, due to the new role, new context, etc. So the employer is willing to guarantee an "optimistic" salary up front for the first year (or, with equity vests, perhaps longer). But the employer is unwilling to guarantee this indefinitely ; after a yea…

There are no guarantees: it's an at-will employement. In the worst case, the employer needs to soend 6 months building a case to fire the employee.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#380

Post by ehaughee »

mihaigalos wrote: post #347
rybosworld wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European labor laws are a major factor. It's much harder to fire people and a company like Amazon loves to fire people. I imagine Brazil doesn't have enough of a talent pool to draw from.

> European labor laws are a major factor. It's much harder to fire people and a company like Amazon loves to fire people. Not sure why I keep reading this over and over. Yes, it can take up to 6 months to fire somebody here in Europe (usually 1-3 months though). The 6 months is usually for >15 years of uninterrupted work with the same company. Justifying that "the company cannot easily fire because of labor laws" is…

Speaking only for my own org's stated goals, they try to hire within the same timezone or close-by. So South America, for a west coast team, would theoretically work but Europe would be a tougher sell. Amazon also hasn't historically done a lot of remote work (as far as I've seen anyway) so, pre-COVID, an office would likely need to exist in a given area.
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