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Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

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Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#61

Post by dlhavema »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #23
grammarxcore wrote: post #8

I feel like this list is skewed by cost of living. The top four cities are also very expensive cities to live in and around. 200k in the bay area is scraping by whereas 100k in the Austin area gets you a house in a reasonable amount of time. Are there any plans to provide adjustments like that?

>200k in the bay area is scraping by What a gross exaggeration. Had you said 90k and for a family, then sure, but unless you consider "not having a new Tesla" as scraping by, this is disingenuous. Source: Lived in Bay Area all my life with under $200k salary, not homeless, not scraping by, saving (a little bit) of money, able to go out with friends and my hair isn't falling out from being unable to pay bills. Maybe s…

> living within your means

This cannot be understated.

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#62

Post by joshuamorton »

doublement wrote: post #59
joshuamorton wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy: most people aren't senior/staff engineers.

Considering that the overall category is "software engineering compensation", many people will be senior/staff engineers, unless people are constantly washing out in less than 5 years time.

Staff usually makes up less than 10% of people, and senior is above the median at most places.

Levels.Fyi further biases towards new grads. A more representative sample would likely move the median higher. And most people are at the low end of senior after five years, if that.

Let me reiterate that: the median silicon valley swe has under 5YOE.

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#64

Post by senordevnyc »

geebee wrote: post #58
senordevnyc wrote: post #44

If you're a software engineer in a city where these companies employ folks and you're thinking this doesn't apply to you, I'd encourage you to at least give it a shot. It's not only the absolute best of the best who get these jobs. I recently decided to do a round of interviews after 10+ years as an independent web / iOS dev, having never had a professional software dev job. I'm also a self-taught developer with a bu…

Have you studied extensively for the technical exams? I've tried, and I've gotten interviews at several of the FAANGs as well as some desirable mature startups, but I fail at the technical screeinging stage. Not sure if I've tanked it or was close, but I get the "no hire" call or email after take-home projects or whiteboard exams. Btw, to give you sense of it, I'd have no trouble finding a loop in a linked list, prin…

How many tech screens and interviews did you do? I cast a pretty wide net to start, so I was in the loop to some degree at a bunch of companies over the last ~7 weeks, which was exhausting. But I didn't really think I had much shot at these bigger tech companies, honestly, so I interviewed at a ton of NYC startups too. The practice was really helpful.

I haven't totaled up my stats, but this is roughly how things went:

1. Once I got a recruiter on the phone, I had a 100% chance of going to next stage

2. For take-home projects, I had a 100% pass rate (did 3-4 of these)

3. For online assessments, I had a 50% pass rate (did 2 of these)

4. For live coding screens, had about a 60% pass rate (did 10-12 of these)

5. For onsites, I had a 50% offer rate. I did 4 of these at NYC startups, and 2 at bigger tech companies, one of which made an offer. Still waiting to hear from other one, but not hopeful.

I'm still in loop at 3 big tech companies.

The point is, it's pretty random. I flopped a couple of tech screens pretty badly because the interviewer was just difficult. Some give easy questions, some give hard. Some you click with, some you don't. And you get better at this over time too.

(I've also been amused to watch startups give more challenging interviews than the big tech companies and then make offers that are 1/2 as valuable)

In terms of prep, I took a data structures / algos class at Harvard Extension a couple years ago that was really helpful, and then I've been doing some Leetcode and CTCI problems the last couple months. Not enough though, honestly. I also went through some mock interviews with Interviewing.io and TripleByte, both of which were helpful.

By far the most helpful thing though is that both of the big tech companies where I did onsites actually tested me on mostly real world iOS dev, not generalist whiteboarding algorithms. And the other tech companies where I'm in the mix have also been a little more flexible. Twitter for example offered me the option of a take-home iOS project or a traditional 1-hour generalist tech screen. Although their onsite is still whiteboard coding algorithms from what I understand. Sigh...

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#65

Post by mdocherty »

geebee wrote: post #58
senordevnyc wrote: post #44

If you're a software engineer in a city where these companies employ folks and you're thinking this doesn't apply to you, I'd encourage you to at least give it a shot. It's not only the absolute best of the best who get these jobs. I recently decided to do a round of interviews after 10+ years as an independent web / iOS dev, having never had a professional software dev job. I'm also a self-taught developer with a bu…

Have you studied extensively for the technical exams? I've tried, and I've gotten interviews at several of the FAANGs as well as some desirable mature startups, but I fail at the technical screeinging stage. Not sure if I've tanked it or was close, but I get the "no hire" call or email after take-home projects or whiteboard exams. Btw, to give you sense of it, I'd have no trouble finding a loop in a linked list, prin…

All it takes is for once successful interview loop. There is really no downside to interviewing. The bar is high but manageable just keep practicing!

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#66

Post by Zaheer »

doublement wrote: post #59
joshuamorton wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's easy: most people aren't senior/staff engineers.

Considering that the overall category is "software engineering compensation", many people will be senior/staff engineers, unless people are constantly washing out in less than 5 years time.

I would just add that some people never make it to staff level. 5 years is a _minimum_ but majority of folks take longer to get there.

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#67

Post by throwawaymath »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #35
throwawaymath wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please stop with the hyperbole? $200k in the bay area is emphatically not scraping by. You can live on your own, without roommates, save money and have a social life if you have a $200k income in SFBA. What people (especially on HN) think "scraping by" looks like is getting a little nuts. Just because you can't have an opulent lifestyle and a cheap five bedroom house doesn't mean you're struggling. $200k in SF…

The fact that you have have to stipulate that one can live without roommates and "all basic needs are met" with a $200,000 salary proves the OP's point. That's more than 6 times the median annual income in the US. The median home price in the Bay area is ~$1.5 million, so at $200k salary you'd be stretched with that kind of mortgage. Most homes where I'm from aren't worth $200k. What about child care, and the cost of…

No, my stipulations don't prove OP's point, and it's concerning to me that so many people think they do. Believe it or not, there is a vast underclass of people who live and work in San Francisco who are actually struggling because they make less than half that. They don't work in tech and they can't even think about these problems because of the more pressing ones they're facing.

You're talking about things like buying a house and finding non-familial child care; these are people worried about receiving government assistance for food and finding affordable rent with bad credit and almost intractable debt. They're scraping by because they wish they could "stretch" a salary like $200k to afford any home and make day care work. Most Americans do not pay for child care, and wouldn't expect to.

I'm going to double down and reiterate here: just because you can't do all the things you want to do doesn't mean you're scraping by. That's a disingenuous definition of the term. If you consider $200k to be "scraping by", what do you call the people who will actually be looking after your kids in day care? How much do you suppose they earn per year?

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#68

Post by jedberg »

fizixer wrote: post #39
throwawaymath wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please stop with the hyperbole? $200k in the bay area is emphatically not scraping by. You can live on your own, without roommates, save money and have a social life if you have a $200k income in SFBA. What people (especially on HN) think "scraping by" looks like is getting a little nuts. Just because you can't have an opulent lifestyle and a cheap five bedroom house doesn't mean you're struggling. $200k in SF…

I agree. Whenever someone points out high cost of living, they mention high rents. Is $3000 per month a good estimate for bay area? or am I underestimating. This is about $2000 a month higher than reasonable rent. This means, your annual cost of living increased by $24,000. $24,000 per annum is the difference between a small town, and bay area. Am I missing something? Do you pay for apples $20 a lb instead of $2-5 a…

Food costs more. When I visit people in other parts of even the state of California I'm shocked at how cheap stuff is at the market.

Services cost more (going out to eat, the car wash, childcare, anything where labor is involved).

Re: Highest Paying Tech Companies of 2019

#69

Post by camgunz »

geebee wrote: post #41
txcwpalpha wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But, 200K with a family of 4 (2 kids and a wife) is definately scraping by on the penninsula or SF. Lol. No, it isn't. It is absolutely mind blowing what the general tech industry thinks "scraping by" means. The median household income in SF is less than 100k. At 200k, you make more than twice that. If you're just "scraping by" with 200k, then I can't even imagine what people making less than the median are doing.

Child care in San Francisco, the kind that goes from 8am to 6pm, runs over $2500 a month. That's not ultraluxe, that's pretty standard fare, and my estimate is probably on the low side. A 3br house in an unfashionable but largely safe part of town is probably well over $4000 in rent. Again, that's not a high estimate. If you have 2 kids in daycare and are paying a mortgage or even just renting, you're looking at $9,0…

Being able to afford 8 hours of child care for multiple kids every weekday, and a mortgage/rent on a 3br house, is way above what most Americans consider scraping by. Americans who are scraping by use family, friends, and spouses for child care (or just hope for the best), and they live in low-cost housing often in pretty bad neighborhoods with bad schools that are far away. They also have trouble affording health insurance, they often share a single car (if they even have a car), have debt, and aren't saving.
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