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Tech compensation in 2021

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Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#591

Post by ryandrake »

tubby12345 wrote: post #580
ryandrake wrote: post #575

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This comment and those further down (particularly doubting the data) suggest that you're experiencing strong cognitive dissonance. There are, I'm sure, hundreds of engineers on HN that can testify to exactly how much FAANG pays and in which metro and how little experience they had (not including LC) before they started. Another thing about these threads is that the hundreds of people making the big bucks are always…

>I'd love to hear a practical, actionable response to "I'm a senior FAANG who makes 75% of the "average" on levels.fyi. All other job offers I've seen are ± 2% of that. What next?" I have literally zero idea what are you're trying to express. There's no selection bias if everyone is FAANG is very well payed and everyone outside is not. But if you really want to see something vaguely like that then go on blind and loo…

Yea, I removed the example scenario because it's kind of pointless, in order to zero in on bias.

I don't see how there couldn't be sampling bias. Salary is a sensitive topic, and people who are making on the high range (within FAANG or outside of it) are going to be more likely to want to post about it and answer surveys about it than people in the low range. HN and Blind are obviously not random sampling. levels.fyi claims to use self-reported offer letters AND reach out directly to compensation folks at companies, which is better. But are these individual companies sharing unbiased data?

When one encounters average numbers that are a little higher than their reality, it's disappointing but believable. When one encounters average numbers that just look just crazy, one begins to ask "am I really this much of an outlier or should I suspect methodology/bias?"

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#592

Post by cinntaile »

loeg wrote: post #150
cinntaile wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only for public servants.

In Norway, it's all public (I think).

A sibling comment clarified Norway, but I'd like to add a caveat to that. Tax records don't necessarily tell you enough to be able to deduce the compensation package. It only shows the total. You could have switched jobs in june, there's likely no way to tell.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#593

Post by aiisjustanif »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #548
b112 wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to be careful with health care, otherwise socialism will creep in. Everyone knows that socially paid things are wrong, and that everything should be private. No one wants public fire departments, schools, legal systems, police, etc etc. Only socialist countries do this.

Don't be so glib. Where I live, we have private fire departments because the government one's are not maintained and the ambulances are being used as taxis. Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor.

> Socialism + corruption (and that the only kind we get) is way worse than you can imagine. Especially for the poor.

Can imagine still don’t see it. Communism + corruption, sure.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#594

Post by aiisjustanif »

foota wrote: post #243
eminence32 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a lot of HN readers are continually playing the "maximize salary" game and use like articles like this one to figure out how well they're doing. If you want to play that game, then good luck, have fun. I understand the desire. But it's not for everyone. Are you able to live comfortably on $175k per year? Do you enjoy what you do and the people that you work with? If so, I don't think there should be any…

Honestly, I make 300k TC and joined one company out of college and stayed there for the last 4 years. I live in Seattle. I just want to show that not everyone making > 200k switches companies every 2 years trying to minmax.

The argument is money isn’t everything.

You left after the 4 year cliff. That’s hardly an argument against keeping the same or higher TC though.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#595

Post by sharpy »

VRay wrote: post #481
sharpy wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just put the extra money into regular investment account. My investments account tend to perform better than the rather boring results that 401k accounts give me. Would be different story, if I was allowed to contribute to Roth IRA. I actually didn't know about the backdoor conversion until this year, but that loophole seems to be on its way out.

you can usually roll your company's 401k savings into a self-managed IRA with level 2 options once a year, FYI

oh.. changing my elections now! thanks.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#596

Post by theshadowknows »

emteycz wrote: post #475
tunesmith wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

From what I've seen architects are alongside engineers, not above. Also depends on what kind of architect - solution architecture tends to be a completely separate track, etc.

in my org we have basically three levels of architect:

enterprise architect (me) domain architect (something like "communications domain") solution architect (like Azure architect)

My job isn't to sit down and write code, most of the time. What I do is take a business requirement, go back and forth with a ton of business people to nail down exactly what they need or want to do, and then go on a series of requirements gathering sessions after figuring out the impacted or required systems. So let's say someone wants to digitize a specific set of communications. It makes more sense to build internal and scalable capabilities to be able to digitize any communication - so working out the technologies required to do that, the integration points, the patterns for how to do it. It involves learning a lot and then evaluating what you learned, and eventually diagraming it all out into an architecture that the domain and solution architects use.

The domain architects then would add in more detail and requirements within the systems that are affected and finally the designs get to the solution architects.

The solution architects go through the whole sketch and make sure it makes sense, that the data or whatever required will get to them and that their platform(s) are empowered and capable of performing the work thats being asked. They then design the solution for those technologies and when programming needs to get done then that is sent to the engineering teams to actually build it.

In terms of hierarchy the programmers/engineers tend to be the recipients of requirements rather than really being involved conversationally. I don't necessarily agree with this approach and I try to work directly with programmers where I can. And more often than not I'll work with them doing PoC coding in whatever technology - usually java, of course.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#597

Post by theshadowknows »

purplecats wrote: post #525
theshadowknows wrote: post #223

I’m wondering if I’m just not worth as much money or if I’m not paid as much because I don’t work in California or both, lol. I work for an enormous company. I’ve got about 8 or so years experience. As of right now I’m a sr architect and I work on enterprise-level systems - either designing or enhancing existing processes and platforms. I don’t really code much these days, though I do write a lot of sql, build lots o…

That sounds amazing! pretty rich to me

Oh yes I am not complaining by any means. One thing is that I grew up very poor, so honestly I was excited the first time I got a job paying 40k/yr.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#598

Post by theshadowknows »

gunshai wrote: post #462
I_AM_A_SMURF wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just for comparison, I'm a staff ~ level engineer not at FAANG, not in California, similar experience to yours and this year I will make about $400k.

Fuck me sideways what are your annual living expenses?

I had the same reaction :)

I often think about working to level up my actual programming abilities because I feel that, surely the folks who are pulling those kinds of salaries are working on really interesting problems. Part of my dissatisfaction with my job is that while I do work on difficult problems a lot of the difficulty comes from process or legacy systems. The really hard problems that my org faces arent the same league of hard problems that someone at a FAANG company (or similar) is working on.

Re: Tech compensation in 2021

#600

Post by nikon »

throwaway19170 wrote: post #336

So there are all these people in these threads who are like "I only make $175K/200K/150K, I feel like I'm grossly underpaid when I read these things." I got you all beat. I have 15+ experience. I am a really good coder . I can be very not humble because this is a throwaway, but everyone who has ever worked with me or gone to school with me or worked on open source with me would agree, I am very good at designing and…

Rails isn't dead and can demand high salaries.
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