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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

#441

Post by Hakashiro »

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…

I'm also pissed off when I see HN people seeing 200k or 300k salaries as "too low". Jesus, Americans are millionaires, what the hell?!

I'll tell you the reason: they do this because they can. It's not talent, it's competition. Who in EU is going to give you even 80k as a junior? Nobody. So why bother offering 300k or even 150k when people will take the tole for 60 or 70k?

Inb4 "but housing is more affordable!"

Whatever. That's not related to the employer. It's simply racist. "You earn less because you're European" is the truth. It's not because cost of living is lower (although it's related) but it's just a matter of employers being able to get away with shitty pay.

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

#442

Post by [deleted] »

dan-robertson wrote: post #308
throwawayboise wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.

It’s easy and comforting to imagine that someone getting paid more than you must also suffer more than you – certainly well paid doctors and lawyers and investment bankers seem to suffer terrible working conditions – but it isn’t really true. A software developer earning an ordinary good salary (say $80k-$120k to pick some reference point) isn’t going to be working ‘harder’ than someone with a more manual job[1] earn…

[deleted]

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

#443

Post by rybosworld »

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…

"Not sure why I keep reading this over and over."

Because it is true.

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

#444

Post by goodpoint »

_dain_ wrote: post #351
goodpoint wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is indeed incomprehensibly large compared both the rest of the world and compared to the cost of most necessities (food, clothing, electricity, whatever electronic gadget...) Yet, everything changes if you consider housing, medical expenses, childcare, pensions: ta-dah the ratio between income and expenses is worse than in Europe. Then count your real working hours over a 30-years period and redo the math.

>Yet, everything changes if you consider housing, medical expenses, childcare, pensions: ta-dah the ratio between income and expenses is worse than in Europe. this is a gigantic cope. it may be true for lower middle class earners, but in the tech sector american workers really truly are staggeringly more affluent than their british and european counterparts even after you subtract the tuition money and healthcare cos…

Citation needed.

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

#445

Post by deltaonefour »

belval wrote: post #400
deltaonefour wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your viewing it from a microcosm and that the rest of the internet actually probably has a more accurate view given that you had to ask your manager about this. What I'm hearing from others is this... there are good teams at amazon... amazon is huge but the overall culture is not what you describe. I guess I'm looking for a more overall picture rather then someone viewing it from the perspective of a good tea…

> At least in my team... > Not saying that it's the same for every SDE... I think my initial comment had enough disclaimer to make it clear that I don't think this is applicable to every team at Amazon. > You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me. Every company I…

>Every company I worked at had some form of "performance improvement plan" that essentially meant "pick up the pace or we will have to discuss options". The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.

Disagree. The measure of the entire performance of the team will always be a bell curve distribution. Even pruning the lowest performers doesn't change the bell curve. Think about it. You remove the lowest performer, that switches the lowest to another person on that team who's now at risk of pip.

Here's a way to evaluate the team in a way that makes sense. Ask the manager if he thinks someone needs to be PIP'd rather then asking the manager "who's your pick of PIP for the year? if you don't have one you better justify it"

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

#446

Post by dwg465 »

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 also has this trick where they quote your total compensation with the built in assumption that $AMZN will appreciate by 15% per year.

When I went through the process, it was pretty confusing to understand but the gist is that they try to hit a total compensation of whatever your target is. And when they quote the total compensation of your salary 3 or 4 years in, they assume that the stock has appreciated by 15% per year. So 15% of your potential gains (compounding per year) of getting RSUs and exposure to Amazon stock is removed.

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

#447

Post by coding123 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #125
coding123 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's comical though - the reason the pay is so high is because the housing prices are so high. The housing prices are so high because the pay is so high. It's a never ending cycle.

Housing prices are high because the supply of housing is very low relative to demand from people who have the ability to pay a high price. If you took the same amount of high earners and dropped them in an area with five times as many equivalent utility houses, then prices would not be high even though there are the same number of high earners. Hence high housing prices are not a result of a population of high earner…

Well that doesn't happen. High earners aren't "dumped" somewhere by some magical god that moves people around. There's often some reason a bunch of high earners are somewhere and when it happens the tap doesn't turn off. It just keeps going until there are no homes left. And at that point there's high pressure for low income people to sell because of the ability for them to get $1.5MM for their $200K house.

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

#448

Post by RussianCow »

MisterPea wrote: post #202
RussianCow wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What company is only giving $25k in signing bonuses? Everyone I know who works at a (non-Amazon) FAANG got significantly more than that.

For what role/company? A 200k offer implies SDE 1/2 and a 25k sign-on is probably median for that, even big tech. Of course there is Meta giving insane sign-on but for the most part it's around 25k

I assumed those numbers were made up to show scale. Is Amazon really giving $175k sign-on bonuses to SDE 1/2 positions? Are their sign-on bonuses ~7x higher than other companies' for higher level positions as well? That seems crazy.

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

#450

Post by delackner »

throwawayboise wrote: post #227
ramesh31 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's how labor markets work.

At some point, no amount of money is worth it. I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.

Just reiterating what some others said. The decision in your career life does not have to be a zero sum balance of low pay vs high stress/hours.

There are several companies where the revenue they create per employee is so astronomical that reasonable work-life balance and high pay are on the table.

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