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Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
561–570 of 717 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#562I've always wondered how people can make a living doing Turking.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#563Earlier quoted context omitted.
I interview techies, and I always make a point to ask them to give me their expected salary range. The purpose behind this isn't to one-up them and pay them as little as possible. It's just in both parties' best interest to avoid wasting time if the expected pay is too high. Neither we nor the candidate want to go through several rounds of interviews for something that ultimately won't work out. And at the opposite e…
A lot of recruiters say that it's not about ensuring the candidate gets the lower end of their expected range, but that's just what they say. I actually have a friend who worked at one of the aggressive boutique recruiting firms who mostly focus on the New York investment banking jobs. He told me that almost always, their client companies would tell them that if they were able to get a candidate to come in with a sal…
I hired developers into investment banking for 18 years. If we gave somebody a low number, the next bank would poach them in 1-2 years, wasting all the time we spent training them. After I learned this the hard way, I always went as high as I felt able to on the initial salary, because raises were much harder later on.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#564Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you respond when they ask you for your salary information? Would it be perceuved as rude to say "I decline to state"?
Never "decline". I say I consider the entire compensation package because I realize they are a startup and need to sweeten their offer with stock because they don't have the revenue to pay a market rate. It's important to neg them a little when you guess what they will offer. Male them self consious about lowballing you without insulting them. I actually am beginning to think that its weak to ask them to throw out a…
> Why not state a deal that's 10% better than what you want? Are you really going to be heartbroken if you get more than you want?
Because you might be leaving money on the table. What if the company was prepared to offer you 20% above your desired rate? Once you tell them +10% is your floor, they have no reason to offer above that.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#565Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on. Honestly, discussing desired salary is a good screening tool and when following advice like this I find ~50% of job applications are a waste of my time. So desired salary is an important filter if a job doesn't state the salary range…
I just tell them "I need to be making at least X". It's a good screen for me. Most of them aren't anywhere near my number.
At least two of my past jobs were jobs where the employers stated range was substantially below what I was finally offered, so this can backfire. In one case I negotiated my way up 50% over the initial offer, and the initial offer was already at the top of the advertised range. In the other I got 30% above the top of the range + about twice the options. Both cases it was the situation where they realised I was overqualified for what they'd spec'ed, but they decided they wanted me anyway and upped their budget.
I know it can often mean wasting time, but focus on whether it's a company you want to work at. If it is, see it as a way of getting on their radar, and if you can't agree for that position, ask them to keep you in mind if they get something more suitable.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#566Earlier quoted context omitted.
The stock is initially granted in the form of Restricted Stock Units (RSUs). RSUs vest according to a schedule. It looks roughly like this: 5% the first year 15% the second year 20% every six months thereafter Compensation at Amazon typically is a combination of a base salary, a signing bonus (distributed over time), and a stock grant. The package is structured in such a way that the employee's total pay stays consis…
Wow that fucking sucks. The standard (at GOOG & others) is: 25% on year 1 2.08 & 1/3rd every month thereafter (75% vested equally over the next 36 months) Furthermore, there are other grants that vest quarterly for the first 18 months of employment (in addition to the normal 4 year). Look, I used to work at Amazon. They are the worst paying big company out there. Complete with totally shitty vesting plans. My first v…
Your definition of sucks is pretty skewed.
Anybody earning 6 figures is in the top few percentiles of society, especially if you are a new grad!
You are obviously free to take advantage of your employability but just remember that you pretty much are the 1% before saying that it sucks. :)
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#567Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason is because the first person to say a number is at a slight disadvantage, and recruiters and managers don't want it to be them. It is true that making sure you are on the same page salary-wise is a good idea, but it doesn't always have to be the interviewee to establish that.
See my response... this isn't the reason we do it. In fact we try to put the position's salary range on the job posting if we can come up with an agreement internally (our hiring is very informal). Or we put "market rate; negotiable" or something along those lines, and put the onus on the applicant to research what their market rate is. Basically, I have a checklist for the first phone interview, and the relevant ite…
This, to me, indicates that if I was interviewing with you my priority would be to not give a salary range, nor to agree that your salary range is acceptable.
Because when you say "if we can come up with an agreement internally (our hiring is very informal)", that to me means that if I get through interviews and you like what you see, I'll be able to work with you to get you to fight for a bigger budget if I expect more than what you had in mind.
It's easy to get people to push their numbers up once they know you and like you and believe they need just your skills, and it's easier to do that if you've not revealed that you'd be willing to settle on their range earlier in the conversation.
My best results in getting good offers have been when I've deferred all exchange of salary information until the very end: Get them to agree that they want me to join, and it's "just" the formality of getting me to agree to a salary. At that point the interview process has gone from me courting them, through a "it looks like we both like each other", to them courting me, and the power balance has shifted substantially because the hiring manager is invested, and everyone has spent lots of time getting to that point.
This doesn't necessarily work as well at low end position where you're just one of many cogs, but it makes a big difference when people are looking to slot in just that one important (to the hiring manager, you might still be inconsequential to the overall business, depending on size) position.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#568I 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 p…
Amazon does 2 promotion cycles per year.
Re: Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon
#569I worked for IBM and we had a policy where you couldn't discuss salary with your peers.
I had a long discussion with manager at the time where I asked the question: "How do I advance my financial career?". We concluded that being an external hire is the best way, and as such, pretty much meant if I wanted more money, get a job elsewhere.
So in the end I did. It was the money that triggered it, but ultimately there were other factors, such as not being given the role I was promised, a miss communication about who would decide my promotion (my old or new department), and of course, being asked to accept a band promotion for no extra money.
I also recall there being published market data you can get from HR which shows the average for your role, and I did notice I was way below average in compensation.
I don't miss leaving one bit.