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Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

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Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#411

Post by fleitz »

tamana wrote: post #376
mdip wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's certainly true, and for most of us in the US, it's also true that as an at-will employee at a company, you're only protected by what the law covers . The list of things it doesn't cover is long enough that it's not terribly difficult to find a reason that is legal to cover-up the real reason. There's the bigger problem with sharing your salary openly: raises. My dad told me when I started working "Don't talk a…

Right. If you are underpaid, make noise. If you are overpaid, you deserve a target on your back for profiting off your coworkers.

The funny thing is I once asked for so much that they fired two other people.

Smart people make more money, then save it and then use the fact that they have 6 months expenses saved to leverage getting even more money.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#412

Post by JoshDoody »

DINKDINK wrote: post #325
p4wnc6 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW I am basically in the same situation. My base pay is in the same region you describe for yours, and I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is, let alone other forms of compensation and other benefits. I am in scientific computing and machine learning, and I actually love being an implementer and a coder. I don't want to be a people manager (mostly because I think all companies force…

> I rarely see offers that are even 80% of what my salary expectation is I'm suspicious that this is a silent-evidence phenomenon. I'd assume that the duration a job listing is up correlates inversely proportional to the compensation. If that's true, all the great paying jobs are optically invisible.

This seems very, very plausible to me. Jobs in this experience level and pay range aren't generally posted publicly, and don't stay posted very long if they do go public. This reminds of the same sort of phenomenon with "the good houses"—they never make it to market because someone knows someone knows someone who wants a house like that, so they get first shot at it.

These sorts of jobs are best found through one's network. Not only does this open up better opportunities, but this sort of "back channel" opportunity usually comes with more details than a public job listing (such as the "I think they're probably paying $YYYk or so").

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#413

Post by ryanobjc »

snake_plissken wrote: post #94

Ieee FML this has been a depressing read. Is anyone else realizing they are severely underpaid? Passes the virtual whiskey

Am I correct in thinking you feel underpaid compared to Amazonians?

Because, man, I won't even tell you what people in the real industry get paid :-)

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#414

Post by p4wnc6 »

lovich wrote: post #408
p4wnc6 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the handful of cases where the company was OK with my non-answer about salary, and I went on to get all the way to a job offer, the salary ended up being entirely miscalibrated to a candidate of my skill and experience, and the overall interview process (which usually included some technical screens, programming tests, take-home tests, and long on-site technical interviews) was a massive waste of my time, not to m…

I know it's anecdata, but to confirm your experience I have had recruiters and hr reps tell me explicitly that either they will not continue without salary information or that the software their company mandated that they use would not allow them to continue with no salary or a $0 salary

lol, that software answer is great. I would offer to write some software for them that treats salary info as optional.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#415

Post by new2amzn123 »

* Area: Seattle, WA

* Position: SysDE II

* Base Pay: $120k

* Signing Bonus: $75k over 2 years

* Relocation: Fully paid + $2.5k

* Stock Units: $115k [200 RSUs] (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on)

* Gender: M

* Native English Speaker: Yes

I have ~2 years of experience.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#416

Post by examazonthrow »

I am an ex Amazonian, worked for a year and a couple months from 2014-2015 for AWS. I was a straight-out-of-college hire. Base: 93k Stock: 177 options over 4 years. bonus: 30k signing bonus upfront + relocation to Seattle, additional 25k after 1 year tenure spread out in 12 payments, one per month Review: Exceeds, and Rolemodel for Amazon leadership principles. Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes

More info: I was promised a promotion and raise, but the problem was they only do promotions once a year, in april. Once I said I was going to leave, I was offered $120, but I left anyways. Now I moved out of seattle and am making more, but in a lower Cost of living location. Also, I had to pay about 8k for "relocation" back to amazon because I left before 2 years.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#417

Post by wickedlogic »

lexhaynes wrote: post #144
p4wnc6 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the handful of cases where the company was OK with my non-answer about salary, and I went on to get all the way to a job offer, the salary ended up being entirely miscalibrated to a candidate of my skill and experience, and the overall interview process (which usually included some technical screens, programming tests, take-home tests, and long on-site technical interviews) was a massive waste of my time, not to m…

How do you respond when they ask you for your salary information? Would it be perceuved as rude to say "I decline to state"?

Tell them your salary is 'confidential information', your current employer often likes to suggest it is...

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#418

Post by jacalata »

arcticfox wrote: post #252
boren_ave11 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you taking stock into consideration? At current price, 104 shares of AMZN equals $57,408 which puts my total 2016 pay at $130,408.

It's pretty interesting that so much of your compensation is in stock. After 2 years at MSFT and becoming a PM II, I was making ~$145k annually but $115k of that was in salary and $30k in stock. I think that's why everyone is surprised when they see the $70k. Do they give you the stock as a bonus at the end of the year, or are you promised it at the beginning and it gets doled out during the year? If it's the former,…

Microsoft annual bonuses used to be a lot more stock and less cash, but in 2011 they shifted towards the current model of cash++, because the stock was low and nobody wanted it. (At the same time they did an across-the-board 10% raise - from memory, both these moves were made because Amazon Google Facebook were becoming much more serious competitors for Seattle employees. http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2011/04/microsofts-new-review-a...)

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#419

Post by jerdfelt »

stale2002 wrote: post #311
p4wnc6 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in what your negotiation principles are. I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their initial offer. However, I've repeatedly used all of the "business-professional" and "HR approved" sorts of conversational techniques to enact this advice, and the only result that has ever occurred is either (…

There IS another solution to this. When someone asks how much you are currently making, you should flat out lie. They won't check. I've job hopped a bunch, and usually I just take whatever I was currently making, and add 15%, and say that that was my base. If employers are going to play negotiation games, you shouldn't feel bad about playing them too.

I've always asked for what I want to make and only once have I had a company ask for paystubs to back it up.

That one case was Google (about 8 years ago) and like an idiot I gave them the paystubs (which matched what I asked for). Their offer was 25% less.

Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon

#420

Post by udkl »

josefdlange wrote: post #84

While at Amazon, I worked in two different roles. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'll put ballparks in here: (1) Support Engineer * Base: $72,000; increased at 1yr to $74,000 * Bonus: $20,000; half in first check, other half over months 13-24 * Stock: I don't remember (2) Software Development Engineer * Base: $82,000 Gender: M Native English: Yes I honestly don't recall if I was L4 or L5 or both. Both of these w…

What was your education and experience ?
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