You better perform with that pay
How do you objectively measure the performance of an engineer?
Genuinely curious.
$900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
61–70 of 351 posts
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Paying someone a lot doesn't magically make them a good engineer. You have to actually hire the best people, and there's only so many of them to go around.
Right you are correct. But true talent on any random team is easily worth 3x the average salary on that team. Im speaking about programmers here
The "real talent" is worth nx of the average salary when the work of the real talent makes the company better.
If one (“talent") is a stellar runner, but when the team goes on a run the "talent" has to wait for their teammates to get to the finish line, most of whom go running once every two months, and the "talent" gets dress shoes instead of spikes etc., the "real talent" is worth, to the team or company, as much as the average employee on that team.
An easy and naïve recommendation would be to remove the constraints that limit the work of talent, but it is much easier for talent to move to organizations that, for a variety of reasons, are more conducive to the expression of their abilities than to fight the inertia of organizations. Those very organizations which, for one reason or another, have existed for a long time and pay salaries to hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of people.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#63Sam Altman said something to the effect of 'OpenAI has the highest talent density of any company'. OpenAI is modest in employee count and extreme in employee talent, with its employees rewarded commensurately.
Talent is not universal though. A great product/team/workplace can turn unmotivated middling knowledge people into heroes. Not only is massively more worth to raise talent in-house, heterogenous teams are way more healthy. Early Googlers wrote litanies on this.
They can pay it, it sounds good for investors/general public, but if you take away the brand/hype fapping on "we only have the best" would sounds like a red flag to an experienced engineer.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#64Based on what I've seen/heard, they seem to follow a similar comp philosophy to Netflix -- pay top of market to get the best people. But it's also important to note that only $300K of that is in cash. The other $600K is in profit participation, which could take years (maybe even a decade!) to be realized. It could also be worth $6M a year when it's realized. But ultimately it's an investment of your time. Or to think…
This is why Sam wants regulation.
All this money spent, yet if the open source world can catch up, it'll all be for naught.
They need a world where everyone sits atop OpenAI, not a thousand different startups with their own models.
OpenAI might pay its engineers $900k, but an AI startup founder can easily get to a $5M, $10M valuation in under a year.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#65It's always interesting to think about how someone somewhere is earning as much as you earn in a decade or lifetime in a single year. Also that you are that person for someone else.
What I find more interesting is this:
A sole proprietor landscaper making $45-50K a year in California is paying $675 a year in annual registration fees just to keep his newish pickup truck on the road. Why newish? Because the people he's servicing trust a guy with a nicer work vehicle than a beaten down 30 year old Tacoma.
A $900k developer with the same pickup is also paying $675 a year.
Extrapolate this seemingly trivial example across literally EVERYTHING in life.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right you are correct. But true talent on any random team is easily worth 3x the average salary on that team. Im speaking about programmers here
The "real talent" is worth nx of the average salary when the work of the real talent makes the company better. If one (“talent") is a stellar runner, but when the team goes on a run the "talent" has to wait for their teammates to get to the finish line, most of whom go running once every two months, and the "talent" gets dress shoes instead of spikes etc., the "real talent" is worth, to the team or company, as much a…
No even on a highly paid team of engineers making 250-400k, half of them are actively producing technical debt. One good engineer can replace 2, and then leave the code base simpler and more maintainable.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#67Now the problem is how to get into this kind of companies. Is LC hard mandatory for junior-senior (below lead) IC job?
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#68Other companies nickel and diming engineers think they are somehow getting something for free. All the highest performing companies in the world pay insane amounts to their programmers
Only when overfunded with VC money. At that point, they are not hiring you, me or anyone who directly applies themselves via the job form. They are hiring their friends from elite circles.
Hmm I’ve worked at “elite” startups and “elite” big cos, all jobs of which I’ve gotten by directly applying. At several points have exceeded 7 figures too.
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess the first part of that is like netflix, but as you know the second part is not since netflix is 100% cash unless you want to participate some portion of that in the employee stock plan.
The part about paying top of market to get the best talent is the same. The breakdown of comp is not.
Sorry to be perhaps slightly rude, but you don't seem to have added anything other than saying the same thing as the person you replied to?
Re: $900k Median Package for Engineers at OpenAI
#70[deleted]