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Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

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Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#91

Post by habitue »

dymk wrote: post #39
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

We had an office near an Amazon office. I interviewed a lot of people trying to leave Amazon. I don’t ask candidate’s compensation, but a lot of them volunteered it anyway. I was always surprised at how effectively low their comp was in the first few years due to the vesting schedule. The internet is adamant that everyone with FAANG jobs is rolling in TC, but there are a lot of people out there who are getting into F…

When the average tenure is 1.8 years, it certainly is working. That's nearly 50% of their tenure resulting in less than 20% of their equity vesting. The way Amazon does vesting is a scam for any engineer willing to work there, IMO. Big shiny number that they can dangle in front of engineers, and everybody thinks "Oh, sure I can do 4 years for that..."

Scam is the wrong way to look at it. Basically, it's like airlines charging you fees for overhead baggage. If you can get into a big tech company without back-weighted vesting, of course you're going to take that. The difference is on the margin.

Developers who went to tier C schools, 3.X GPA, 2-sigma IQs instead of 3, they have a shot at getting into Amazon and actually making way more and getting much better equity than they would working in IT at their local HR company (Again though, if you are capable of getting into any other FAANG, of course do it.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#92

Post by _dain_ »

arcticbull wrote: post #77
_dain_ wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hard to get visa. and I don't fancy trekking across the mexican desert to get in the other way.

If you are a Mexican citizen, then a TN visa for a software engineer is pro forma - should be about $50, no caps/quotas and adjudicated in a few weeks. If from further south then why not have an employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time and you either get it or you don't? The employer handles the cost and paperwork. You don't start until they do. If this really is life changing money it seems like the risk…

briton, just making a joke about how you sometimes see people from all corners of the world land in mexico and take their chances with los coyotes for the journey north

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#93

Post by bin_bash »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #85
bin_bash wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure every other big tech company offers sign on bonuses with an evenly distributed vesting schedule.

Quoted post unavailable.

what a poor comment. What would've been nice if you could've explained what I'm missing.

For the record I work at a different big tech company and was given a massive sign-on bonus. I also have received an offer from Amazon in the past. I know how to read levels.fyi so I'm not sure what it is that I'm missing exactly.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#94

Post by nostrademons »

Someone1234 wrote: post #29
darknavi wrote: post #19

As a low-ish level MSFT employee I laughed at this line: > The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. As a ~62/63 (almost senior or senior) at Microsoft my peers at Facebook, Google, and Amazon can easily make literally twice as much compensation a year in salary, stock, and cash bonuses. Microsoft isn't even in the ballpar…

I always thought about MSFT as like working for the government: A somewhat boring, stable, 9-5, predictable workplace, but you're exchanging that for lower total compensation. But you can stay there for an actual career , family and all that. Whereas the more "fun" companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon will chew you up and spit you out, and you just have to make as much money as possible in your 20s/early 30s before…

Google has pretty good work/life balance - it's much more of a "lifestyle" company now than Apple/Facebook/Amazon. I get the sense Netflix is heading in that direction as well.

You're still working on pretty complex codebases and tough technical problems though, so while you usually do not need to pull extra hours outside of business, you really do need to concentrate intently while working.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#95

Post by karaterobot »

f6v wrote: post #50
_dain_ wrote: post #31

US tech salary discussions always throw around incomprehensibly large numbers and complain that they are "small"

I briefly browsed Zillow in Seattle. It looks like a good 2-3 bd house is 700k+. And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there. Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition. I get a feeling money is different there.

Doesn't Amazon provide a shuttle service for employees? Microsoft does, so does Google I believe. There's also a reasonably good bus system here, and they're working on light rail.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#97

Post by plandis »

loeg wrote: post #60
f6v wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I briefly browsed Zillow in Seattle. It looks like a good 2-3 bd house is 700k+. And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there. Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition. I get a feeling money is different there.

> And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there. What? Seattle has one of the most utilized public transit systems in the US.

Not to mention University of Washington is like $12k/yr and is a great school for CS. Literally a signing bonus at a large tech company is enough to likely pay off that amount assuming you went without scholarships or other tuition reductions.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#99

Post by yumraj »

xiphias2 wrote: post #13

As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.

Am curios if the Google founders were frugal in their early days or not..

BTW, a frugal startup is better any day than a startup that blows up all its cash on unimportant activities and subsequently closes shop.

Re: Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k

#100

Post by bluedino »

xiphias2 wrote: post #13

As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.

'Frugality' is an Amazon core value.
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