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Tech compensation in 2021

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Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#561

Post by zippergz »

tunesmith wrote: post #405
zippergz wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing SQL and drawing diagrams for enterprise systems inside of a huge company is not what the highly-compensated senior engineers tend to be doing. If you want to make more money, move out of being an “architect” and into being a principal engineer at a tech company (one whose business is making software; not a company that just happens to employ software developers).

What the heck, principle engineer is considered higher than architect? What about principle architect? I might need a flowchart somewhere that describes all the tech levels above "senior software engineer".

The companies I’ve worked at don’t even have architects. The mere presence of the role is an org smell to me.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#562

Post by coliveira »

da39a3ee wrote: post #427
coliveira wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Culture is not that hard to change when there is money involved. The difference in SV is that there is so much venture capital willing to create new companies. Given that amount of capital, there will always be someone willing to do it.

Doesn't it seem a bit old fashioned that venture capital should be geographically localized, as if it were a physical pile of gold? Is that not on its way out?

Maybe it will change post covid, but capital wants easy access to workers. That's why they like to concentrate in certain geographical areas.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#564

Post by the_only_law »

astura wrote: post #186
metalliqaz wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah no kidding. I was shocked at the numbers in this article. A 15-year engineer in aerospace gets you ~120k.

Coincidentally I currently work in aerospace (in a software engineering role) and I have 15 years experience. I wish I made $120k/year.... :(

Makes me wonder if it’s worth it to just say fuck it and leave software development for some other mediocre paying field I have interest in.

Sure, there’s probably gonna be big financial hit in some form, but I don’t see a good reasons to stay in software development anymore if I’m not someone who can command the massive salaries.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#565

Post by yobbo »

da39a3ee wrote: post #417
DrNuke wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe also suffers from a brain drain to the US (and Canada to a smaller proportion). Many of Europe's best and brightest software engineers have already emigrated to the US, leaving behind the less productive ones. Of course not, it is just mind numbing regulation coupled with systematic risk aversion. Many SV startups would never have gained traction starting over from Europe, neither financially nor for large-s…

why does Europe not value engineers? Because the environment in the USA has created tech companies where engineers can achieve more?

Aside from games, European companies founded by tech entrepreneurs are extremely rare, and are only really appearing in the last decade.

Most of Europe's engineers work in large corporations that were created ages ago, and subsisted on government procurement of infrastructure, defence, or as subcontractors/staffing agencies to industry. And government spending in Europe has also been much tighter than USA.

Most "new" media/tech companies are founded as "spin-offs" from older media companies/publishers/telcos/banks. The engineering in Europe's early web efforts was considered as important as copy-machine technicians. This is changing, but the attitude is still deeply ingrained: people are either decision makers or "technicians".

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#566

Post by yobbo »

cryptoz wrote: post #43
HenryKissinger wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all of that. European tech companies are smaller than US tech companies, have lower gross revenue per employee, make less profit per employee. Taxes are higher in Europe, which disincentivizes risk taking and ambitious individuals. Labor productivity is also lower in Europe. Finally, Europe still has a culture where software engineers, cloud architects/products/managers/etc. are viewed as code monkeys and the pe…

> Taxes are higher in Europe, which disincentivizes risk taking and ambitious individuals. This seems backwards to me. A society with higher taxes typically has better social safety nets, better infrastructure, less corruption, etc. Higher-tax societies incentivize risk-taking, not the other way around, especially for "ambitious individuals". When there is more structure and support around, more people are able to ta…

The risk taking that matters is done by investors, not by individuals.

Random European engineers have few opportunities to take risks at all. It is not a question about attitude.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#567

Post by smorgusofborg »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #301
websap wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the point I'm trying to make. To think that only FAANG companies pay that much is incorrect. Multiple companies are now competing to hire great talent and the only way forward is that they pay competitively. I wouldn't want any engineer to ever consider a job which doesn't pay them a fair market wage.

I think within these conversations FAANG is just a term to stand-in for those type of companies and not just the 5 listed ones. Maybe FAANG+ would be more explicit and clearer?

Maybe, but when I say I don't want to work for FAANG, I really mean 3-4 of these 5 companies are definite NO, which biases me against the focusing my skills toward FAANG like interviews.

I've worked for companies who are FAANG+ and I would say I can't see any logic in being against FAANG+ companies that doesn't require individual examination of each. Saying you don't want to work for FAANG+ would probably mean you don't want to work for any for-profit corporation or any corporation in the tech industry.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#568

Post by jonfw »

tubby12345 wrote: post #382
mobiledev2014 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

•Boston area •7 yoe •Staff level •Full remote •Co is SF-based •$250 total comp I expect a promotion and ~20% increase next cycle. Interview was no leet code (I’m terrible at it!) - my strategy was to interview at public companies with levels on levels.fyi but not FAANG

7 yoe at FAANG is double that and they're all permanent remote now (except Apple). Diminishing returns n all regarding TC but you didn't hack the system or anything with that strategy.

I was interviewing at Amazon and they're certainly not permanent remote going forward.

I've heard the same about Google and Netflix

I think they're permanently WFH flexible but that's very different from remote (I don't have to move to take a job that's remote)

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#569

Post by throwaway2016a »

da39a3ee wrote: post #515
throwaway2016a wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you. You have a point. I would probably practice Leet Code or similar before I went back into the interview world just to freshen up. Though, with that said, I have been on the interviewer side a lot and need to know some of them well enough to know if the candidate knows their stuff. So I'm not completely rusty. And as CTO I would often read through what other companies are asking in interviews…

Maybe you didn't mean to use that word but it's not about "explaining" them: you have to be able to write the code to solve a given problem, on the spot. The problem might require a familiar technique such as breadth-first search but it will need to be adapted; the problem is likely to be slightly different from anything you've seen before. It's true that at the staff interviews i just did, LC was not required but at…

I meant explain. I see explain as a superset of implement. I have met lots of people who can implement but not explain. I didn't mean a simple explanation, I mean actually going into depth about things like algorithmic complexity, memory usage, etc.

As an interviewer (granted not at FAANG) I see no value in you just proving you did an algorithm on Leet Code. You could just be passing it through rote learning. I want to make sure you understand it. Otherwise I'm just wasting your time. But that's just my interview style, I know bigger companies may be different.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#570

Post by jacobian »

sokoloff wrote: post #215

> Adjusting [$400-600K] to Chris’s current location (Bay Area: +42%; Akron: -11%), they might expect to make about half that ($200k-$300k) staying in Akron. That’s not how the adjustments play out. Taking $400K in a 142% market is a $282K unadjusted figure, adjusted down 11% for Akron yields a $251K figure. So call the equivalent Akron range (if there is a such a thing) $250K-$375K which is 25% higher than TFA’s calc…

You're right - I was doing my math wrong. I'm fixing it now. Thank you!
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