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Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

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Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#41

Post by munk-a »

throwaway139481 wrote: post #38

Lyft employee here: I think part of the motivation for this is that internships are being conducted remotely, so interns do not have Bay Area living expenses. Another part of it obviously is that we're cutting costs due to the downturn (the layoffs and salary reductions for full-time employees were also part of that). This is not ideal, just explaining some of the rationale.

Can you provide a bit information about the general salary reductions? The snippet above doesn't mention or give any detail around those.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#42

Post by Aperocky »

cracker_jacks wrote: post #11

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller... Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups? The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

According to layoffs.fyi, Lyft laid of 17% of full time workers yesterday.

So not just pennies.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#43

Post by johnnyo »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #23
echelon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it would be smarter to not have an internship program right now. Very little of the work from internships contributes to active product roadmap, and you'd better be served by retention than new hiring. Especially of junior engineers. Although it's a generalization, interns are as a group probably better equipped to handle sudden loss of salary. Those with children, mortgages, and healthcare needs are less so.…

It seems as if they want to cancel, but put the onus on interns to make the proper decision. If you were negotiating a job offer, and right as it came time to sign the paperwork, would you take a 50% salary cut? You'd move on to the next company.

These are crazy times. Most companies are cancelling their intern programs outright, or switching to more limited, remote work options.

Finding a summer internship right now is going to be really difficult.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#44

Post by renewiltord »

Oh boy, that's rough. So that's a cut to 1/3rd of the total comp you would have made otherwise. Well, almost a decade ago when I interned in San Francisco I made less than 4000 dollars a month and stayed in a shared room with other kids. Haha, good times. Hard to remember those days. I bet with the hours I put in, I was actually close to SF's minimum wage.

I think it's the duration cut that's really rough. I would have taken a shot at proving myself for rent+food alone.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#45

Post by throwaway139481 »

throwaway139481 wrote: post #38

Lyft employee here: I think part of the motivation for this is that internships are being conducted remotely, so interns do not have Bay Area living expenses. Another part of it obviously is that we're cutting costs due to the downturn (the layoffs and salary reductions for full-time employees were also part of that). This is not ideal, just explaining some of the rationale.

That said, I'm sympathetic to your situation and wish we as a company could have done more for you. We're all going through a tough time right now.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#46

Post by kosigz »

Lyft engineer here.

I agree that this is an unfortunate turn of events — and I would be sad to be in your position.

To add a bit more context:

• we just parted ways with 23% of our staff (layoff + furlough) this week.

• remaining team members are taking a 3 month 10% cut in base salary.

• unlike many companies, we're still conducting our internship program — so it's good that you at least have the option to continue with your internship, unlike many others whose internships were canceled.

At $9600 per month, Lyft had one of the highest salaries for an internship; $4800 per month is still a decent chunk of change, particularly as you don't have to be in Seattle, NYC, or San Francisco anymore.

If you have other options, I think everyone would understand if you chose to pursue those instead. If not or if you choose to join us anyway, having an internship at Lyft can lead to a full-time offer and/or make you more competitive when applying for full-time jobs in the future.

The real value of an internship is more-so in giving you practical experience rather than the compensation.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#47

Post by empath75 »

thorwasdfasdf wrote: post #14
cracker_jacks wrote: post #11

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller... Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups? The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

as a graduate, you'd be extremely lucky to have any job at all, let alone a job at a tech company, let alone one as well known as Lyft. Let's face it, with the current vast oversupply of labor, employers have a lot more bargaining power. Back in my day, after the Tech bubble burst, I was a coder with little experience, and I worked for any start up that would let me, just so i could get more experience. One place, I…

Tech companies aren’t about to hire Joe Bartender from the local Hooters.

There’s not a massive pool of unemployed software engineers out there quite yet.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#48

Post by donio »

munk-a wrote: post #24
cracker_jacks wrote: post #11

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller... Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups? The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

I seem to recall that Lyft had some of the most insanely overpaid listings in the SF area in terms of raw compensation - maybe shave 3% off those salaries above 200k instead of half what the interns make. Edit, found it: https://www.levels.fyi/2019/

They did that too, search for "10 percent"

https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/29/21241351/lyft-layoff-furl...

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#49

Post by pavlov »

munk-a wrote: post #24
cracker_jacks wrote: post #11

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller... Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups? The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

I seem to recall that Lyft had some of the most insanely overpaid listings in the SF area in terms of raw compensation - maybe shave 3% off those salaries above 200k instead of half what the interns make. Edit, found it: https://www.levels.fyi/2019/

I find these “total compensation” member-measurement rankings very misleading because much of these reported sums is actually in stock.

Someone who was hired by Lyft in 2019 got RSUs at double today’s stock price. A quarter or more of their total compensation has vanished.

Going the other way, someone who joined Amazon in 2017 got stock at 1/3rd of today’s price. Their total compensation has probably doubled as a result.

I guess sites such as Levels.fyi like to report total compensation numbers without context because most of their viewers come there to gawk tabloid-style rather than for actual information.

Re: Lyft cuts internship salaries by 50%

#50

Post by formercoder »

echelon wrote: post #16
cracker_jacks wrote: post #11

Picking up pennies in front of a steamroller... Does it make sense to cut the salaries of the lowest-paid, zero equity groups? The same group of people you'll be competing to hire from when they graduate.

I think it would be smarter to not have an internship program right now. Very little of the work from internships contributes to active product roadmap, and you'd better be served by retention than new hiring. Especially of junior engineers. Although it's a generalization, interns are as a group probably better equipped to handle sudden loss of salary. Those with children, mortgages, and healthcare needs are less so.…

People need internship experience to get fulltime jobs. Cancelling internships is a terrible move for the future workforce.
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