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Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

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Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#71

Post by bradlys »

borski wrote: post #70
bradlys wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/36746960/3-bedroom-2-ba... . > https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/13951431/3-bedroom-2-ba... . These are apartments - not single family homes.

I mean, I’m not actually a realtor, but here’s a home for you: https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba... My search space was Mountain View, so expand and you’ll find more. Point is there are plenty of options, you just have to look for them. And, to be fair, I only searched PadMapper, which is an apartment rental website, so my results weren’t even focused on SFH.

> https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba....

Doesn't have AC. Looks like a pretty depressing home - tbh. HDR'd to hell but a brick yard and a BYO washer/dryer that's literally underneath the sun and skies isn't exactly where I'd like to put my expensive appliances.

You can check Craigslist and you won't have much better results. Adding AC | Air Conditioning to your search criteria makes it narrow. Go figure - homes with it are in high demand. God forbid they say, "Air conditioning" but really mean just central air and there's no actual air conditioning. Went to more than one showing that advertised that falsity. :(

Either way, this is beyond the point. Spending over 50% of your net income on rent alone isn't a great move. Which is what you'd be doing at $115k net income.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#72

Post by MuffinFlavored »

jldugger wrote: post #69
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that allowed?...

It's usually not, but there's a certain logic to it: they valued your work high enough to pay you in SV, why would the same work be less valuable just because you moved offices?

because the cost of living is different? lol

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#74

Post by Terretta »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #56
svachalek wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I get recruiting emails from startups all the time but I don't even want to talk to them because somehow it feels rude to bring up the elephant in the room - I'd have to win the lottery at your startup to make up for the loss in joining it. I'm not sure if this is saying big techs have too much money or VC investors are not willing to compete for talent.

If you are a top talent there really is no upside of joining a startup anymore - even as a founder. It's terribly depressing. FAANG pays orders of magnitudes better, has better benefits, has flexible work locations and schedules, is working on the most leading edge stuff (autonomous everything, AR, VR, GreenTech etc...) contributes to FOSS, gives leadership opportunities etc... I'm not sure when this shift happened,…

> FAANG pays orders of magnitude better

That would be two more zeros. You sure they’re paying two more zeros for a dev job?

PhD or no, if your skills are good enough for FAANG, I would love to offer you competitive comp in New York, LA, or three lower cost of living university + fintech towns in SE, S, and SW.

The FAANGS are sure not paying an extra zero over what we can offer.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#75

Post by twblalock »

nodesocket wrote: post #7

I've never worked for a public company (such as Facebook, Netflix, Google), when it says $120,000 in stock is that essentially free shares at a given price? I.E. you are open to sell them whenever? I worked at a small series B level startup, and when I left I had the option to buy my shares at the last valuation price, but at just over $20,000 total I declined. I decided I could use that capital better than waiting a…

A key point is that a certain number of shares is set aside for you at the time of the grant, and after that their price will fluctuate along with all of the other company stock in the stock market. You can just look at the stock price and know what your shares are currently worth.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#76

Post by borski »

bradlys wrote: post #71
borski wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I’m not actually a realtor, but here’s a home for you: https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba... My search space was Mountain View, so expand and you’ll find more. Point is there are plenty of options, you just have to look for them. And, to be fair, I only searched PadMapper, which is an apartment rental website, so my results weren’t even focused on SFH.

> https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba... . Doesn't have AC. Looks like a pretty depressing home - tbh. HDR'd to hell but a brick yard and a BYO washer/dryer that's literally underneath the sun and skies isn't exactly where I'd like to put my expensive appliances. You can check Craigslist and you won't have much better results. Adding AC | Air Conditioning to your search criteria makes it narr…

I think your standards may be too high. That looks like a gorgeous home to me.

To be fair, I will agree with you that most places in the Bay Area don't seem to have A/C, but that's also because it's not generally needed here except for a couple weeks a year. You could do what we did in NYC all the time: window A/C's.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#77

Post by taurath »

bradlys wrote: post #63
taurath wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$115k/yr is $9600/mo. You can spend $5k/mo on a rental with all of those properties, and have $4600/mo for food, utilities, bi-annual trips to europe, the payment for your porsche, and a housekeeper, all whilst saving half of your income to buy a house in the most expensive region of the US in 2-3 years. You can literally have all of those things.

Where is this $5k/month house with AC within 40 minutes drive of SF and 20 minutes drive of work? (Menlo Park to Mountain View generally being work area) It basically limits you to San Mateo to Mountain View. I haven't seen anything for $5k/month with AC there. If you find it, let me know. I'm in the market - lol. I have seen one show up here and there but it's almost unequivocally in a terrible neighborhood and/or n…

Ah, so you want a single family home now.

And it has to be in San Mateo->Mtv. And it must have /CENTRAL/ AC, one would assume. I'm not going to look for houses for you, except to note there are over 100 houses available right now under $5k in that region, all of which you could install central AC into for a couple grand if you wanted. If you MUST live in the San Mateo->Mtv corridor, with all those amenities, why would you imply you're looking to move? It seems like you know what you want, and are not willing to compromise on anything. Go forth and find that perfect rental, or if you don't make enough money to get it, work harder, or re-evaluate whats actually important to you.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#78

Post by skybrian »

bradlys wrote: post #71
borski wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, I’m not actually a realtor, but here’s a home for you: https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba... My search space was Mountain View, so expand and you’ll find more. Point is there are plenty of options, you just have to look for them. And, to be fair, I only searched PadMapper, which is an apartment rental website, so my results weren’t even focused on SFH.

> https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/35506914/3-bedroom-2-ba... . Doesn't have AC. Looks like a pretty depressing home - tbh. HDR'd to hell but a brick yard and a BYO washer/dryer that's literally underneath the sun and skies isn't exactly where I'd like to put my expensive appliances. You can check Craigslist and you won't have much better results. Adding AC | Air Conditioning to your search criteria makes it narr…

If you really want AC, couldn't you buy an air conditioner? You're eliminating most places in the Bay Area with an unusual requirement like that.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#79

Post by sidlls »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #72
jldugger wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's usually not, but there's a certain logic to it: they valued your work high enough to pay you in SV, why would the same work be less valuable just because you moved offices?

because the cost of living is different? lol

The cost of living has nothing to do with the value of the work. It impacts supply and demand of labor, though.

Re: Interview with the creators of levels.fyi

#80

Post by enahs-sf »

mangotrees wrote: post #33
MuffinFlavored wrote: post #21

What's the bottom line with the super high compensation numbers? I've been a senior software engineer for a few years now and I make about half of what is reported at levels.fyi (I've been making about $120k-$140k/yr salary and receive little to no bonus/stocks, which seems to be the norm at two publicly traded companies for hundreds if not thousands of employees I've worked for so far), yet levels.fyi pretty much ad…

I'm in management at a FAANG company. Total comp for my college hires averages around $150k. Total comp for my career level ICs averages a smidge over $200k. My top 10% have total comp in the $350k neighborhood. The very few folks who are at the staff/principal range (depending on which companies titles you're using) are taking home $500-800k (mostly in stock). If we consider attrition, it's probably only 1 in 150 of…

So the question for me as an engineer becomes, do I grind it out at a FAANG company and try to be one of those level 7’s OR do I roll the dice on the startup? My intuition is that the former has a better outcome on average. Seems pretty rare to become staff/principal/whatever at a big co and based on the data from levels.fyi, you gotta be pretty far along in your career.
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