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Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

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Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#81

Post by floatrock »

ipaddr wrote: post #64
jimt1234 wrote: post #28

Story time: About 6 years ago a close friend with years of software experience was bored with her job and decided to look for another. She received plenty of solid job offers, all with excellent pay, but one of them stood out. It was a company that made back-end software for credit unions. Not sexy work, but what stood out to my friend was the how genuine the people she talked to during the "interview" process seemed…

30% less a year for 3 years is about %100 of two years. You get the bonus of getting the money upfront and you would probably get 3 month sick leave at 100% place. Money is the same.

> [heartwarming story of how money isn't everything and when life hits you hard and death is staring you in the face, you realize it's about the personal connections and love in your life that matters most]

> "yeah, but person could have made a more money-optimal deal elsewhere."

I mean, this entire post is about how to maximize money so I shouldn't be surprised, but this response just made me shake my head in sadness. Hope you're able to find joy and feel you have enough with your choices.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#83

Post by alephnerd »

khalilravanna wrote: post #79
alephnerd wrote: post #73

> then $1mil in stock for 4 years Most FAANG engineers are NOT getting $1M stock grants. That is the stock grant for Google L6-7, Amazon Principal SDE, and Microsoft L67. These are engineering levels comparable to Director of Engineering or Engineering Manager and extremely rare. > a Staff Engineer at an avg startup might get $250k base salary, in a HCOL area and maybe a 10-20% bonus This is the norm at FAANG as well…

This is incorrect information. Check out levels.fyi. The average stock grant for Meta E6 is well over $1M/4years. Just one example. Plenty of data on other companies offers there.

E6 is adjacent to Engineering Manager at Meta.

Companies give the option to either go Management Track (Manager, Director VP) or Technical Track (Principal/E6, Fellow, Distinguished Engineer)

In public companies, most Engineers will peak at the L5/L64/SDE3/E5 level by their 30s.

> Plenty of data on other companies offers there

Plenty of companies offer that kind of compensation, but the competition is intense as the number of roles paying that much are limited, and WLB is atrocious as it's basically a Architect/Team Lead role.

If anyone thinks they deserve a L6/L7 role with less than a decade of experience at peer companies they need to adjust their expectations or remain unemployed

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#84

Post by tigeroil »

ManlyBread wrote: post #61
ryandrake wrote: post #52

50 comments so far and nobody has named a single company. You might as well not post if you’re just going to be vague and coy. “They exist, trust me bro” and “I work in a medium sized company that does…” are pretty much a zero-value comments. HN should have a higher bar.

It's all about as trustworthy as the mythical high salaries for retired mainframe developers. I've never seen a single job posting nor any other proof that this is indeed true, in fact I've saw evidence to the contrary.

To be fair I'm in this position but it's with a small company that aren't exactly regularly hiring.

I suppose the point is, these jobs exist but it's quite hard to replicate as it's not common with large firms that are regularly hiring.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#85

Post by JofArnold »

thorin wrote: post #74
Bugabuga24 wrote: post #44

Yes, I'm working in the UK for a medium size company and gets the same as my friend that works for Google(he does get slightly higher bonuses) But I work 35 hrs a week while he works 45 and fly abroad every two weeks.

I'm under the impression that Google/Microsoft etc get paid far less in the UK than in the US though, would you say that's correct? I've been working in the UK since the late 90s. Started in banking and banking contracts are still probably the primary source of big cash in the UK as there aren't many startup and much less FANG. I moved away from banking pretty quickly as I didn't really want to stay in London much lo…

Meta etc pay less in UK but not much less. Still a lot by any measure.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#86

Post by red_admiral »

There's the kind of job where you need security clearance and a full background check. Not all of those pay well (I assume the janitors at NSA are security cleared in some way), but some absolutely do. Especially when, like Snowden did, you leave the actual org after a bit and then get hired back as a private contractor.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#87

Post by jagger27 »

avnfish wrote: post #78

Bytedance, Nvidia, OpenAI, Stripe, Anthropic, Checkout.com, maybe parts of Shopify

Shopify’s salaries are nowhere near competitive. No clue where you got that from.

I encourage the downvoters to provide evidence to the contrary.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#88

Post by zxexz »

I’m aware of a couple people at health systems/hospitals that work maybe 400 hours/year making $500k+/year. Experts in legacy languages, specifically COBOL and MUMPS. For legacy billing and EMR/EHR and related systems code, respectfully. One guy gets flown out to the east coast from his ”chateau” in Utah every month or two; the only downside is he’s on-call pretty much all year round. I’ve heard banks have people like this on-site too but I’ve never met any.

Re: Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

#90

Post by Zambyte »

dzonga wrote: post #62

it'a catch 22 with some of those companies. 1. they don't hire often & usually have small teams 2. they make so much money, that they don't make noise about it. & you won't hear about them, unless one day you randomly run into one of their employees saying they're hiring on reddit / hn 3. they work in unsexy industries or high risk stuff e.g gambling 4. they're usually located in places you wouldn't expect

What are some examples of unsexy industries that are high paying?
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