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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

#381

Post by fingerlocks »

dan-robertson wrote: post #320
darknavi wrote: post #19

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…

Don’t Microsoft have a weird strategy where they’re willing to match pay at peer companies but only if you have a competing offer (either as a candidate or existing employee), which means you’re encouraged to look around and see what else is out there if you want to be paid fairly? And you need to repeat of course because Microsoft won’t increase pay at a comparable rate.

Their offer matched my FAANG comp for a 63/64 position without hesitation. Maybe that's a recent change? I hear all the time on HN that Microsoft has lower salaries compared to other big corps, but it doesn't match my experience.

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

#382

Post by tdeck »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #20

I'm amazed both with the number of messages I get from Amazon about job openings and the aggressiveness of them. Add on how many are for ill fitting or basically Hail Mary type positions (During the height of the pandemic I got one wanting me to move to Ireland to work in an Amazon office there. They even acknowledged the oddness of the situation but they were really desperate for people to fill those roles). Seems l…

> During the height of the pandemic I got one wanting me to move to Ireland to work in an Amazon office there.

There's probably some engineer out there who's always wanted to live in Ireland. That said, I imagine if you're in the "hire to fire" bucket it would suck extra to be in anouther country with no job.

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

#383

Post by jedberg »

ssfrr wrote: post #141
dymk wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the average tenure is 1.8 years, it certainly is working. That's nearly 50% of their tenure resulting in less than 20% of their equity vesting. The way Amazon does vesting is a scam for any engineer willing to work there, IMO. Big shiny number that they can dangle in front of engineers, and everybody thinks "Oh, sure I can do 4 years for that..."

The "waiting for my vesting" mindset only makes sense to me if your TC is back-loaded, but I think Amazon offers are usually pretty consistent TC over the first 4 years, it's just that the balance shifts from bonus to stock. So lets' say I start in January with 5% vesting after 1year, 15% after 2 years, and 20% every 6mo for the next 2 years. The signing bonus starts large and then shrinks proportionally to keep the…

Let's say Amazon stock doubles in the first two years you work there. So maybe your TC was $250K your first two years, but if you stay that third year, you'll vest in $500K in stock, and if it keeps going up, that fourth year might be $800K in stock (which up until 18 months ago was pretty common).

So you'll get people who can't walk away because they can't get TC of $500K somewhere else.

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

#384

Post by ab_testing »

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…

> Amazon seems to be at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent

Maybe, just maybe they can try and get rid of their crazy PIP policies to try and retain talent .

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

#385

Post by mrep »

sydthrowaway wrote: post #377
mrep wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Nope, I work for Google.

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

#386

Post by belval »

deltaonefour wrote: post #371
belval wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I actually had a talk with my manager about that, as I was curious about how it actually worked (yes you can ask your manager it's not illegal).

There IS an expectation of managers being able to identify the bottom performers in their team, but for the PIP part it's up to the manager. They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed. They would have to write a reason (i.e. "No one on my team is performing low enough that I'd prefer re-hiring") but that's pretty much it.

Anecdotes on the Internet make it seem like we are all scared at review time to see who is going to get PIP'ed, but that's just not how it is...

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

#387

Post by spywaregorilla »

munificent wrote: post #146
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…

> 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…

No that logic is a bit off. You shouldn't be benchmarking against your past self. You should be benchmarking against what you could get elsewhere and, more importantly, what you're actively getting now.

If you found yourself getting a similar TC excluding the signing bonus at another company, and have reason to believe that's actually a fair price for your labor, the cash signing bonus will still more than offset your switching costs. It's also, simply put, an absurdly high bonus. Nothing stopping you from collecting another one of those in a couple years at another company.

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

#388

Post by therealdrag0 »

optimiz3 wrote: post #273
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…

People are paid based on value created and responsibility. All else being equal, better to work for companies where you create more value.

Put another way, work-context can matter as much as work-content. A bartender in Manhattan is going to make more than a bartender in Puerto Rico for the same work-content. Same with an engineer from non-FANG to FANG.

Or another way, the revenue per employee at FANG-like companies is higher than non-fang-like companies, so the company can afford to pay them more.

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

#390

Post by spywaregorilla »

anonporridge wrote: post #27
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

We had an office near an Amazon office. I interviewed a lot of people trying to leave Amazon. I don’t ask candidate’s compensation, but a lot of them volunteered it anyway. I was always surprised at how effectively low their comp was in the first few years due to the vesting schedule. The internet is adamant that everyone with FAANG jobs is rolling in TC, but there are a lot of people out there who are getting into F…

Pretty much textbook abusive relationship. Get people feeling that they can't leave because of sunk cost and it's all going to be worth it soon, even though they're actively miserable.

That's the opposite of a sunk cost. That's a pending reward.
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