
Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon - boren_ave11
To people who work at Amazon, how much do you make? I work at Amazon, and my pay is below.<p>Discussing pay is awkward, so most people don&#x27;t. But this creates an imbalance of power in salary talks. A person I trust who was recently promoted was offered in the range of $55K for their new role. However, I know of one or two people who were hired into the same role from outside the company who apparently started at $70K+.<p>I suspect that internal candidates have less leverage in pay negotiations than do external hires. I think most people probably won&#x27;t decline a promotion, even if the raise is weak, because the alternative is no promotion and no raise. Transparency corrects this imbalance.<p>Me:<p>Position: Developer (not classified as SDE, do not manage ppl)
Tenure: 2 years
Job Level: 5
Base Pay: $73,000
Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, $21k Year 2
2016 Stock Vest: 104 shares
LY Review Score: Exceeds
LY Pay Increase: 4%, plus 35 shares of AMZN
Most Recent Promotion Increase&#x2F;Stock Grant: N&#x2F;A - no promotions
Gender: M
Native English Speaker: Yes<p>If you&#x27;re wondering about Native English Speaker, I included it because I think it might be interesting.<p>I&#x27;m not aware of any Amazon policy which prohibits sharing one&#x27;s own compensation, but I still made a throwaway. A shift of power is never welcomed by those whose authority is diminished.[2]<p>To non-Amazonians, perhaps you could start an &quot;Ask HN: How much do you make at XYZ&quot; for your own employer so you and your coworkers can share the same thing. Comparing compensation for different companies could also be interesting.<p>[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation<p>[1] That isn&#x27;t to suggest that I suspect Amazon of taking part in any illegal activity. I don&#x27;t believe Bezos would even entertain the idea. I like Amazon, and overall I&#x27;m happy here. What I want is a more fair salary negotiation process.<p>[2] http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.brainyquote.com&#x2F;quotes&#x2F;quotes&#x2F;f&#x2F;frederickd134371.html
======
qxi
I work at Amazon too. Last year I wanted to collect compensation information
about tech industry professionals (software engineering or PM) in Seattle. I
created an anonymous Google Form and sent it out among my circle of friends.

Here are the results:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133LBigv7pOkgpTkA6bHH...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133LBigv7pOkgpTkA6bHHQQ8rJMrlcBbK8ulavbw2CSo/edit?usp=sharing)

------
lamontcg
I was an System Engineer III at Amazon from 2001-2006. I got hired on at $70k
and I think I was making roughly $90k when I left.

When I was hired I had to tell them "No" and hang up the phone (in the middle
of the 2001 recession) to a $63k job offer. They called back the next day and
bumped the offer to $70k. I later learned that I had one of the only "strong
hires" ever given out by the bar raiser and the HR rep was told to hire me at
all costs. HR played (and probably still plays) insanely hard hardball in
negotiating salary.

Other SEIIIs hired at around the same time came on at $60-63k and were stuck
there. Once the economy recovered in 2003/2004-ish we eventually started
hiring SEIIIs at >$120k starting salary.

Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes for myself and the other two or three
employees I'm thinking of.

------
DennisP
Staying anonymous is probably best but fwiw, policies which prohibit sharing
one's own compensation violate federal law.

[http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-
policies...](http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at-
work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood)

~~~
awesomerobot
Also FWIW most states are at-will employment, and can fire you for no reason

~~~
betenoire
Careful, they can fire you for NO reason, but they can't fire you for ANY
reason.

~~~
yeukhon
So they can just fire you, have an escort and done?

~~~
HR0000000
Yes. Just as you can quit, walk out, and be done. For no reason. But they
can't fire you for health reasons, personal reasons, etc.

~~~
pyre
> Yes. Just as you can quit, walk out, and be done.

What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will
employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are
there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.

I always see "well the employee can always leave at any time too," but is that
_really_ something that disappears in places without at-will employment?

~~~
notalaser
> What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will
> employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are
> there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.

The following is true for a sizable part of Europe. The flip side(s!) are:

* I can't just walk out on a job, I have to give a 4-week notice (for any reason, though. It can be anything, from "I feel like I need a new challenge" to "I hate ever single one of you motherfuckers"), during which I'm expected to do my job more or less as usual. Everyone understands you're not as motivated, no one plans for major stuff to happen during someone's N-week notice.

* My employer has a small, but very open-ended list of reasons why he's allowed to fire me, which includes things like me underperforming (but he has to give proof that this actually happened -- i.e. he needs to have an actual evaluation process, has to warn me that I'm not performing as expected first and so on), shrinking clients base which means that they literally no longer need so many people and I drew the short stick and so on.

My employer is also required to give me a four-week notice, during which he
has to pay me as usual, and he also has to pay for any vacation days I didn't
take in this time (the idea being that I could have lounged in Belize instead
of working my sorry ass at the office).

Furthermore, _if_ I am being fired, my employer is also required to allow me
to go to interviews during business hours (for obvious reasons).

Regulations vary from one country to another, but that's the gist of it. In
general:

\- Notices are _typically_ 4 weeks for non-management positions and 6 weeks
for management positions. The law around here allows these periods to be
longer, but not shorter than this, and they're negotiated as part of the
contract.

\- However, they _can_ be skipped by mutual agreement (i.e. if I want to leave
_right now_ and my employer doesn't have a problem with that, we sign an
additional paper that says we both agree to leaving without a 4-week notice
and I'm out).

\- They don't apply for the duration of the test period at the beginning of an
employment contract (if there is one). During that period (typically 3
months), both resignations and firings are effective immediately. I did it
once, it' a very refreshing feeling :-).

I work for the European branch of a relatively small American company, which
is how I've come to know all this. My colleagues from the US are mesmerized
whenever they hear about these things.

~~~
ebrenes
In Costa Rica, which follows a similar system, you can also buyout your notice
period, which I think is fair for all sides.

Basically, if your notice period is 1 month, you can opt to pay the company 1
month's salary instead of having to work that time. If a company wants you
gone, they pay you the equivalent wages for the notice period you were
required to provide.

I think it's fair because both sides have agreed that $X amount is a fair
exchange for the employees services. If those services cannot be replaced with
$X then that's really the company's problem for taking advantage of the
worker.

This buyout is in addition to any other severance package the worker might be
receiving.

Anyways, I think it's pretty nifty as it allows the flexibility of leaving
immediately, but also puts in some structure into the situation.

------
AndrewUnmuted
I worked for Amazon (Audible.com) from 2011 to 2014.

1 - Full-time freelance audiobook editor.

$30/hr

2 - Post-Production Associate - Level 6/4

$50,000/yr

35 shares of AMZN per year for three years

3 - ACX Production Coordinator - Level 7/5

$65,000/yr

Additional 20 shares of AMZN per year for three years

I am no longer ashamed to write these figures out to the public because I now
make more than twice the salary that I was making before I left the company. I
found that my salary at Amazon was always far too low given what I did, and my
job titles were not at all representative of the job I actually did (for the
2nd and 3rd jobs they were almost entirely software engineering jobs.)

NOTE: Audible and Amazon have different job levels - Audible's job levels are
two points higher than the same Amazon job level.

~~~
Kopion
Full-time freelance audiobook editor? I didn't realize that was a position.
What exactly does this entail and how did you get started with it?

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
I got my education in audio engineering at a leading music conservatory, so
moving into audiobook editing was a pretty easy sell for me.

An audiobook is made in four basic steps:

1\. A voice actor records the narration for the book.

2\. The editor takes the raw audio recordings and edits these files for
pacing, flow, and aesthetic flavor. The editor also makes note of any errors
in the narration which require a re-record.

3\. After making all re-records and inserting the new audio, the audio is
listened through one more time. They call this a "QC pass."

4\. Finally, the QC'd audio is mastered and encoded for delivery.

I was the owner of step two for all Audible Studios productions.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Hey what software are you using for this?

I was thinking I really wish there was a good app where you can listen to
audio articles. It is partly solved in iOS as you can speak selected text, but
problem is you cannot select all text easily and you don't wanna mess with it
while driving.

Was wondering what would be a great UI for the transcriber and whether you
could create p2p network to share the transcriptions.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
The audiobook editors at Audible used SoundForge. I started out on SoundForge,
but I led a real charge to get the department to switch to Wavelab. I was able
to get Audible to buy me a license for Wavelab and I never really got anyone
else to switch, but it made me _super efficient_. At that point though I was
heading into a more dev role at the company so I was already drifting away
from audiobook editing at that point.

~~~
msutherl
Wavelab is so good – it's a shame it's not more commonly used.

------
YetAnotherMSEng
Microsoft employee, not Amazon, but these sort of discussions absolutely need
to happen and I'd like to do my part.

Salary: $115k base, no regular bonus or stock, $50k offer in stock over 4
years if I remember correctly although I don't know offhand how many units
that came out to.

Level: SWE1 (60 internally)

Tenure: 2 years internally, 7 in industry

Yearly pay increase: Averaged ~6k/y thus far.

Internal candidates have NO leverage. The only way to get a promo is to be in
the right place at the right time, and have both high visibility and a manager
who has proper political influence and will fight for you. If you want a
salary boost, leave and come back a year or so later. "Performance" reviews,
accomplishments, hours put in, is all moot unless you have the above, in which
case it's a nice bit of ammo if your skip level has a lot of competition for
his promo budget, but proper political clout can likely force through a promo
without. (To add another tidbit that I've always wanted to clear up
anonymously: Stack ranking absolutely still exists, if not in a formal process
but as a necessity from how budgets are assigned and promos divvied up.)

~~~
maybeunderpaid
I'm SDE II an earn just a little more base than you ($117K). Judging by
conversations with team members about which tax brackets we fall in and how
much we save/invest per year, I'm fairly sure I'm underpaid for my level.

There's a college hire PM in my team (not PM II, so he's either 59 or 60)
who's single and in the 33% bracket. That means he's making at least $189K a
year.

Edit: I should add, my PM coworker could be wrong about his tax bracket. I
can't fathom how they would offer him that much in base salary + stock. But he
did mention being in the 33% bracket.

~~~
YetAnotherMSEng
I've seen some outliers, but mostly in terms of promotion velocity. I assume
you know about the "bench program"? (Microsoft Fight Club) That could
potentially explain it.

I really want to empathize with your underpaid for level statement, I
certainly have a pile of stories, I'm just hesitant to tell them because
they're rather identifying to anyone who knows me, so you'll have to trust
when I say "A good number of us have gotten the short end of one stick or
another, often beurocratic or political"

~~~
kolistivra
What's the "bench program"?

~~~
YetAnotherMSEng
An internal "High Potential" program in which candidates get faster promo
tracks, bigger promos, face to face access to higher level execs, and other
perks. They are not supposed to talk about this program, as well, and it is
invite only.

~~~
maybeunderpaid
I had never heard of that. I'm fairly sure my team has two people in the
"club". Both are quite young and are already principals.

~~~
YetAnotherMSEng
It's really a shame how things like that that are handled, from where I stand.
Turns it into the closest parallel to the cool kids table that used to exist
in highschool that I've seen in the decades since then.

Also, if you're a 2 and only at a slightly higher base than I am, you're
"somewhat on track" from the conversations I've had, as far as pay per level
for us normals :) That being said, I really botched my negotiation when coming
in and didn't push my position, which left me coming in at a 59 from an
industry position with greater responsibility, and role seems almost harder to
change than pay from what I've seen.

------
jmathes
The most important thing you can do for your career is:

* Accept a job somewhere

* Get promoted (doesn't matter how)

* let yourself get hired away from your current company

Getting hired away from your current company is the only way to get a fair
raise based on increased experience. Companies never give substantial raises
to current employees.

~~~
maxaf
This simply isn't true. I received a >$30,000 raise at one of my previous
employers after they realized that I was being grossly underpaid for the work
I was doing. Granted, I had to bring my managers' attention to this, but they
were understanding & did right by me.

~~~
philovivero
Your anecdote is the exception to the rule. I've been in the industry for 20
years and can affirm the rule: you don't get raises from your current
employer. You get raises by changing employers.

~~~
meric
I second his anecdote. Have received large raises twice, but had to negotiate
hard for it, with offers from outside in hand.

~~~
zaroth
Ah, the outside offer is an absolute game changer, which IMO puts it in the
same league as actually changing jobs. Often you have to show that you are
willing and able to leave for a much better salary to actually get the much
better salary.

If you are just internally lobbying for a salary increase at your existing
employer, regardless of how successful you may be, how much revenue you are
bringing in, etc. I would say at the vast majority of companies you will not
see nearly the same raise as either presenting a compelling outside offer, or
actually taking an outside offer.

Another way of thinking of it is that a company cannot pay their employees an
arbitrary amount, it has to be justified up the chain, and usually that
justification is based on "grades" or "scales" of some kind or another. Most
of these scales will include a fixed range for annual raises. By bringing an
outside offer, you are providing the necessary documentation that your
manager, HR, all the way up the chain is required to actually sign off on the
raise. The outside offer means no one is sticking their neck out to justify an
out-of-spec raise, or claim someone was being previously underpaid, it's just
a simple equation -- the employee has an offer, and the company can make a
counter-offer or not.

Of course the trick is if they decline to counter, or counter low, you have to
consider if you then leave, or stay? You also probably can't come back year
after year with new outside offers, it's a trick you can only turn to so
often.

~~~
a3n
My opinion only, but if I had to bring an outside offer to get an inside
raise, I'd take the offer. "We'll pay everyone what we can get away with,
except the few who we need for the moment that make a stink." But then, I make
too big a deal about personal relationships, and I forget that it's just
bidness.

That said, I did get a raise once with an outside offer. But I left just
inside a year later.

~~~
zaroth
I agree and it can be personally very distressing when you know you are
delivering tremendous value and are not getting nearly the financial reward
for the value you bring.... and yet can't seem to convince the bosses to put
up!

That's why I look at it now as a system that just needs the outside data point
in order to properly process the request. It's not a person holding back the
raise, more often the process which the outside offer fixes.

If there was such a thing as an "employee appraisal" service maybe you could
do it without actually going to interview, which would be pretty cool!

------
hmmdar
I've been at Amazon for a bit over 5 years with 12 years total. Joined with
about 7 years of prior experience. From the other post I see I did a very poor
job of negotiating when I first joined with my experience. I've always saved
the stock and considered it more retirement savings than spending cash.

Hired: 2011

\- Level: SDE I (4)

\- Location: San Francisco

\- Salary: $96k base, $20k bonus, relocation, ~160 stock over 4 years.

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $150k

Promoted: 2013

\- Level: SDE II (5)

\- Location: San Francisco

\- Salary: $110k base, 168 stock

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $170k

Relocated: 2015

\- Level: SDE II (5)

\- Location: Seattle

\- Salary: $125 base, ~160 stock, relocation

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $190k

~~~
brotherjerky
Wow, you got a bump in 2015 and went somewhere with lower cost of living (plus
no state income tax). That's definitely a win-win.

------
amazoniananon
This is perfect timing as Google Seattle is hiring around 1000 devs and
promotions are being revealed in April.

I used a throwaway account, but I'm sure I'm identifiable by this information
if my manager sees this. I'm not too concerned. I think it's in Amazon's and
the employees' best interest for this stuff to be transparent. Besides that,
while I like my work, I can easily get an offer from Google, Facebook or
pretty much anywhere else.

Position: SysDE 2 in AWS Tenure: 1.5 years Job Level: 5 Base: $120000 Stock:
140 RSU (granted at signing, almost none vested) Bonus: $20000 + relocation at
signing, $15000 will come after 2 years Gender: M Native English: yes

I was hired at L4 as SE 1, moved to SE 2/L5 after a year, and now SysDE 2.
There was no raise for SE2->SysDE2.

~~~
nevir
> 140 RSU (granted at signing, almost none vested)

Is it still the ridiculous 5-10% year 1, 5-10% year 2, and then the rest
spread out over years 3-4?

~~~
guy_c
Why is it so ridiculous? Isn't it trying to serve as a retention incentive?

Obviously it can back-fire on the company. If the share price drops a lot then
people that were planning on staying till the 6 monthly vesting may quit.

~~~
yomly
From what I heard from people who worked at Amazon during the especially rocky
years, their share compensation is tied to a monetary value - if the share
value tanks significantly, they'll issue shares to compensate. If you're into
gambling, this can be a -very- good thing considering Amazon has gone on to
double in value over very short time periods historically. Otherwise, its a
fair concession on Amazon's part

------
amzn_irl_taway
Ex amazonian here, but in Ireland, I left (thankfully) at the end of 2015.

I was a systems engineer in Dublin and the only significant payraise I got was
after I left the company for 4 months to then rejoin, my salary was bumped up
12k euros, for a total of 62k/yr, with 150 shares over 4 years (sorry I do not
remember the vesting scheme).

The HR department in AMZN has the tendency to screw internal employees upon
promotion. The way it was unofficially explained to me by a low-level buddy in
HR is that there are salary ranges for each corporate level, and during a
promotion you get just over the lower bound of the salary range for your new
corp level, that's the policy, that's what happens.

New hires instead have negotiation margin and, while the hiring manager can't
offer a salary higher than the approved salary range, more often than not the
offer will end up in the upper bound of the range, to lure the candidate in.

Furthermore, there are huge differences between salary ranges in job roles, a
Systems Engineer will always be paid 15 to 30% less than a Software
Development Engineer at the same level, despite the fact that the skills and
duties are not that much different, why? Again unofficially "because Amazon
values more people that write software". Except the fact that in my ex-team,
we all wrote software and the expectations were all the same regardless the
job title (there was however a difference between levels).

So yeah, as internal promotion you have absolutely NO leverage regarding
salary, if you want a salary increase and your organization is hungry for
people but is having trouble in hiring (like it happens frequently in Dublin
where the job market is quite competitive), I'd suggest you start looking
around for a new job, accept the offer and then come back to your same team 4
months later. If you leave the company for less than 6 months and your
position hasn't been filled in the meantime, the hiring manager is able to
extend an offer without sending you through an interview loop, you'll get your
old job back but with a nice pile of money on top.

~~~
iolothebard
Seems dickish toward the company you work at for 4 months though.

Were your offices by that famous Gaol? I thought it was interesting seeing a
mix of the old and new so close together.

~~~
amzn_irl_taway
I was speaking with another company, but unforeseen family matters took
precedence and I ended up not taking the job there. Another ex amazonian did
accept an offer from the same company I was speaking with and in hindsight it
was for the best, it did not work out exactly smoothly form him so...

And yes, the office was exacly in front of the Kilmainham Gaol, unfortunately
the office was quite depressing, so much so that it was an inside joke that
the Amazon office was 21st century Gaol.

Luckily they moved in a much better place now.

------
tdicola
IMHO you're being underpaid quite a bit with that base salary in the Seattle
area. Time to start interviewing at Microsoft, Google, etc. Those companies
usually start fresh out of college developers with a base pay a bit over
$100k, then bonuses, stock awards, etc. on top.

~~~
boren_ave11
Are you taking stock into consideration? At current price, 104 shares of AMZN
equals $57,408 which puts my total 2016 pay at $130,408.

~~~
duaneb
You get stock annually? Otherwise, you have to vest that over several years,
severely reducing your annual. AND you're locked in for years just to cash out
at maximum value.

Unless you get that kind of equity yearly—which is crazy, and brings up
dilution questions—you're better off taking a higher salary and investing as
much as possible.

But—adding X market value for equity vesting over Y years with 40% capital
gains tax for the first 12 months of holding it leads to a 2016 pay of....
just your salary.

Oh, and you get equity every else in addition to that nice pay, and they don't
strap your pager to your face.

~~~
boren_ave11
>>You get stock annually?

At my annual review last year I received more stock along with a pay increase.
So, thus far, yes.

>>But—adding X market value for equity vesting over Y years with 40% capital
gains tax for the first 12 months of holding it leads to a 2016 pay of....
just your salary.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not following.

>>Oh, and you get equity every else in addition to that nice pay, and they
don't strap your pager to your face.

What do you suggest I do?

~~~
duaneb
> Can you elaborate on this? I'm not following.

Well, if you do get more stock it complicates things—but you have to
distribute out the pay out over the vesting period. In other words, collecting
the entire value of the equity into one pay period implies you'll get the same
amount of money the next pay period—which is only true if you get that amount
of equity annually. It sounds like this may be a possibility

Furthermore, it assumes you'll be at the company for the entire vesting
period. Which you might not want to do.

Additionally, you can't cash out the equity you DO get in 2016 unless you want
the government to take a sweet 40% off the top.

> What do you suggest I do?

Don't wait for the equity to vest fully, work hard for some good
recommendations, and get out of that sweat shop. Amazon rewards ambitious
workaholics. Everyone I've talked to who USED to work there (key point being
these people left) has issues balancing work, pay, and a life.

To be clear—I'm not arguing anything but that other companies will use you a
little more compassionately, and you might make a little more cash in the
meantime. You're still doing very well for yourself, Amazon is far from the
worst place to work, and you might be very happy there.

------
dguaraglia
On a related note, someone at Google started a spreadsheet about a year ago
where people could post (anonymously or not) their salary and a few more
interesting datapoints (gender, age, location, etc.) I'm not sure whether the
spreadsheet did anything to highlight gender/ethnicity/visa-status disparities
(the biggest disparities I remember seeing were based on location, but that's
understandable) but it was a great tool to start a conversation about
increased transparency in salaries.

I have to praise Google for the way the situation was handled: the company
didn't force the spreadsheet to be taken down (in fact, it's still up as I
write this), nobody that I know of was fired for it and it generated a healthy
amount of internal discussion. After hearing some stories from the Amazon
counter part, I wouldn't expect the reaction to be the same.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> I have to praise Google for the way the situation was handled: the company
> didn't force the spreadsheet to be taken down (in fact, it's still up as I
> write this), nobody that I know of was fired for it and it generated a
> healthy amount of internal discussion. After hearing some stories from the
> Amazon counter part, I wouldn't expect the reaction to be the same.

Taking action against this would've been a violation of US labor law with
steep penalties.

~~~
dguaraglia
Well you know how that goes. It's not like that has stopped companies from
firing people in the past. This is an "at will" employment state, so if they
really wanted to fire people they could've made any excuse up and fire them.
Actually, they wouldn't even need to make anything up.

------
amznnewgrad
This is for a new grad in 2014.

* Area: Seattle, WA

* Position: SDE

* Base Pay: $90k

* Signing Bonus: $20k immediately, then $17k paid in 12 monthly installments after you reach 1yr in employment.

* Stock Units: $53k (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on) Note: this vesting schedule is AWFUL.

Needless to say, I rejected this offer and did not work for them. Best
decision I ever made.

~~~
8788mar3
I think the vesting schedule is back loaded because they give you a pretty
large sign on bonus in the first two years.

Your total comp in year one would have been 112.6k which seems about right.
The stock price doubled last year, so you would have been looking at at least
125k in year two.

~~~
amznnewgrad
Given the competition, I don't think the sign-on bonus is that large. It only
barely makes up for the difference in salary that you can get from a
competitor.

E.g you can easily pull $100k to $110k in base pay from similar companies out
of school (think LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, Uber). Even well respected startups
pay more than $90k (and that's not including any additional bonuses they will
surly pay)

------
olympus
While this doesn't have as much information as you listed, Glass Door
([https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm))
has information on job title/salaries at many companies. It's a "share your
info and we'll let you see ours" set of rules, so be prepared to make a
profile.

~~~
boren_ave11
Funny that you mention this, because the character limit forced me to cut this
out:

Sites like Glassdoor are useful, but what they don't provide is company-
specific detail. I can view Amazon's average SDE salary, but is that figure
for a job level 4 or job level 5? (At Amazon, pay is based on job levels. Two
people can hold the same position but have different job levels. For example,
Area Managers who are promoted from hourly positions start at level 4, but new
hire AMs come in at L5).

Other things Glassdoor can't provide:

-Pay increase percentages for internal promotions

-Pay increases and stock award amounts for annual performance reviews based on performance grade

-Compensation data broken down by race, national origin, native language, etc.

-Differences in pay for positions based on team, department, geographic location, etc.

~~~
smeyer
While it doesn't help for all of that, looking at H1B data on a site like
[http://visadoor.com/](http://visadoor.com/) helps fill out some of the
picture. You can see specific numbers instead of just ranges while also adding
some context about national origin.

~~~
duaneb
Those are also deflated prices compared to americans with equivalent education
and skills, though. Which is the entire point of the H1B.

------
eugene_ducker
I created a throwaway just to pretend my salary isn't public record.

Location : Eugene, OR.

Position: Assistant Professor of Mathematics Tenure: 3 years Base pay (9
month) $72,000 in 2013, increased to about $75,000 in 2016. (minus union
dues). Will increase to $82,000 when I make tenure.

Signing bonus: $0

Stock: $0

Pension : keeping my fingers crossed.

Experience when hire. Ph.D plus 5 years post-doc (at Princeton.)

Gender : M Native speaker: Yes.

~~~
iggiggigg
This is exactly the reason I decided not to stay in academia after I got my
Ph.D. I could not rationalize working 10 to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week,
trying to teach, conduct research, scramble for funding, participate in
department politics just to attain tenured position at an R1 school while
making barely 75K starting.

I now work in a development position at a large tech company for which I'm
overqualified. I work about 7 hours a day plus a couple of meetings. I never
work weekends, have plenty of free time to conduct research on the side and
make well into 6 figures.

------
seattle_googler
Seattle Googler here (throwaway account).

Position: Senior Software Engineer (level 5)

Tenure: 4 years, no prior experience

Comp: $300K (160 salary, 40 bonus, 100 stock)

Male, native English speaker

P.S. We're hiring.

~~~
sf_googler
Just adding not all Googlers make that much. I have 7 years in industry, L4,
and make 117 base with 40k of stock a year in San Francisco (was 30k at grant
time). If you can convince Google you're worth more they will pay it but not
all Googlers are making crazy cash (btw wish I was in Seattle given CoL
difference).

~~~
TulliusCicero
I believe 117 base is low for SWE3.

~~~
sf_googler
Not SWE is the catch. Still primarily coding role though.

------
throwaway75383
Position: SDE III Tenure: almost 1 year Job level: 6 Base Pay: $150000 Signing
bonus $50k year 1, $40k year 2 Stock: 450 shares, spread over 4 years,
5%/15%/40%/40% No promotions or reviews yet Gender: M Native English Speaker:
Yes Location: Seattle

~~~
pw
Wow, nice. Is Level 6 pretty high? What was your experience coming into the
job?

~~~
throwaway75383
Level 6 is a senior engineer. Roughly 90th percentile of engineers. We have
principal engineers, but not a lot of them.

I had 15+ years of experience before coming here.

~~~
throwawa998833
So, to put things in perspective, Google TechLevel-5, which is "Senior
Software Engineer" which is basically 1 level above Amazon's "SDE III"
position.

Competitive pay offer: $180k /year $50k signing bonus 15% bonus per year 800
RSUs vested equally over 4 years (200/year) 600 RSUs vested in 100-chunks
every quarter for the first 18 months.

Counting up, in the first 12 months, pay is about $670,000.

I gotta get seriously bumped at the end of 18 months to keep it up, otherwise
my pay will slip to $350,000.

And that is what a competitive offer from a company that values their
employees looks like.

I have friends who have totally gotten the $1m RSUs/year for 4 year offers
from both Google, Facebook and others. These positions exist.

It helps to change jobs a bunch :-)

~~~
throwawa998834
Do you mean that's 800 RSUs overall or 800+600=1400 RSUs over 4 years?

~~~
throwawa998833
it's 800 over 4 years, and 600 over 18 months. So 1400 total.

------
donretag
While traveling the world, I feel in love with Cape Town so much, that I
decided to apply for a job at Amazon since their recruiters were constantly
emailing me anyways. EC2 was started in Cape Town and that office does mainly
AWS support tools, but not as much EC2 work any more.

I do not remember the details too much, but it was something like $84K for my
first year, after stock and all that nonsense. The salary is not much compared
to the US, but very good for South Africa. However, the offer was in Rands,
which has since collapsed. I would have lost about 30% of my salary when
converting to dollars.

I did not take the job for various reasons, with very few having to do with
Amazon. The team itself was excellent and I regret not joining, but I am glad
I did not partly because of collapse of the Rand.

I still miss Cape Town. One day I will return for another visit.

EDIT: I can provide more detailed numbers if people are interested. Would need
to dig up the offer letter. Very few Americans must have applied like I did,
so Amazon could very easily figure out who I am. Hey, I loved your team, it
just was not meant to be!

~~~
aluskuiuc
Speaking as someone who just finished a 2-year rotation through Cape Town as
an SDE - massive, core parts of EC2 are still there and aren't going anywhere.
"not as much EC2 work" is definitely not accurate.

~~~
donretag
Perhaps what I meant to say is that "control" of EC2 went to Seattle, from
what I understood.

------
brokebook
Germany, Lead Engineer at a company with a couple of hundred employees, my
role involves architecture, full-stack coding, cloud stuff: ~$81k (some part
of that variable bonuses, depending on companies targets).

While the job market seems to be in favor of job seekers these days (it seems
to be practically impossible to recruit developers for small/medium shops, you
get pinged by recruiters all the time) the salary does not really reflect
this. it's rising but pretty moderately. you get offered $100k jobs once a
while, mostly in finance.

Also the air gets pretty thin in germany when you actually want to do
technically interesting and challenging things. Most jobs on the market are
quite dull and involve enterprisey and/or legacy things. Most developers I
worked with, however, do not seem to mind the backwardsness, are happily
married to their languages and tools, and tend not to be overly passionate
about their work (which might just be the right attitude).

------
blabla_blublu
I worked for Amazon (2013-2014), fresh out of college.

Title : Software Development Engineer (SDE I)

Base : 98,000

Sign on : 50,000 (2 year period)

Relocation : 10,000 (2 year)

Stocks : worth $70,000 (4 years)

~~~
agumonkey
Above someone mentioned being SDEIII, what's the meaning of these levels ?

~~~
oh_sigh
I is fresh grad, basically right out of school, II is mid level, III is
basically senior engineer. at that point it goes onto principal and beyond.

------
snake_plissken
Ieee FML this has been a depressing read. Is anyone else realizing they are
severely underpaid?

 _Passes the virtual whiskey_

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Question is, do you work in the same geographic area? Pay ranges are extremely
regionally-based, because cost of living varies wildly.

~~~
zaroth
I'd say it's not so-much the cost of living which really drives the pay
ranges, it's more the level of local competition for talent. The actual cost
of living difference between, e.g. metro-west Boston and Bay Area probably can
explain less than half of the salary difference.

------
boren_ave11
Apologies for the bad formatting, it wouldn't let me edit for some reason.
Here is a more readable version of my compensation:

Position: Developer (not classified as SDE, do not manage ppl)

Tenure: 2 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $73,000

Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, $21k Year 2

2016 Stock Vest: 104 shares

LY Review Score: Exceeds

LY Pay Increase: 4%, plus 35 shares of AMZN

Most Recent Promotion Increase/Stock Grant: N/A - no promotions

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

~~~
inmyunix
i've witnessed the same internal hire negotiation imbalance at another
company. you're definitely right, external hires have more leverage.

------
toomuchtodo
Would very much love to see frequent "Ask HN: How much are you making?"
threads.

~~~
percept
Post one! (Maybe wait until Monday morning, or whenever prime time is on here,
to maximize participation.)

------
throwaway7798
I was working in one of the Indian offices and was recently offered a move to
Seattle. I had 1 year experience(was still an SDE-1 but my manager was
considering me for a SDE-2 promotion) - they offered 110K base pay with 25k
signing bonus which vested over 4 years + around 86k worth of shares which
again vested over four years.

I chose to not take the offer but went to join a different company.

I just want to say that if you're quitting for reasons other than
compensation, then don't ever listen to competing offers from your current
team/company. That way you save yourself a ton of regret if your new job
doesn't go well. #lesson-learnt-for-me

~~~
therealdrag0
What'd you do/take instead? Company/Salary?

------
amazonian_throw
Position: Senior SDE Tenure: 6 years Job Level: 6 Base Pay: $141,000 2016
Stock Vest: 162 shares Review Score: Exceeds Gender: F Native English Speaker:
Yes

~~~
amzn_comp
Senior SDE. Tenure: 2.5 years level, 7.5 total Level: 6 Base pay: $127,000
2016 Stock Vest: 273 Review Score: Achieves (don't know this year's yet)
Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes

~~~
serge2k
Wow that's stock heavy.

How does that vesting work? 60some shares per quarter or each half year?

I'm really not a fan of having so much comp be stock. It's a way to go I
guess.

------
BreesusChrist
I hope this takes off. I always thought it was weird hiding how much you make
-- this only helps employers, and not employees.

~~~
nickff
I am not sure whether keeping salaries confidential is good for the employer,
employee, neither, or both, but you are stating what appears to be the most
common belief.

Different people have different preferences, and some managers probably have
mistaken beliefs about what is good for them and their employees.

~~~
yaks_hairbrush
One mechanism by which it's good for the employer is information asymmetry.
The employer knows all of the employees' salaries, but the employee does not
have this information.

~~~
nickff
On the other hand, the employee might feel like others are being paid more
than them even when it is not the case. The employee may also resent the
management's lack of transparency.

I could see it going both ways, and I'm not sure how to figure out what the
impact of wage secrecy is.

------
examz45678
I'm male, a native English speaker, and worked in Seattle around 2013-2015. I
was already in Seattle, so I didn't need to move. I was an SDE1, though I came
in with a bit of experience (~5 years).

My base pay was right around $100k. I had a $20k signing bonus the first year,
and something effectively similar for the second year (though less cash and
some stock was thrown in).

~~~
serge2k
Sde I with 5 years experience?

~~~
maybeunderpaid
MSFT hired me at the lowest level (SDE I level 59) when I already had about 6
years experience.

I know someone who was a had a senior role at one company and was a lead at
another and was also hired as SDE I.

I think it's a bad case of "doesn't matter what they did before, we're
freaking MSFT, no one's good enough for us to be hired into a higher
position."

------
linkedin_dev
I'll add my $.02 for LinkedIn.

Sr Software Eng at LinkedIn in CA.

$165,000 Base

$25,000 Hiring Bonus

$300,000 Stock (25% 1st year, then quarterly for the remaining 75% over 3
years) ($300,000 at the time, now it's only about half that).

10% annual bonus.

Male. Native English Speaker.

I can also speak to a friend here all the stats are the same except he got a
$35,000 moving stipend instead of a hiring bonus.

~~~
jv22222
Hey, that's a good deal! I can hear the clicking sound of all the devs sending
their resume to linkedin right now ;)

------
examazonthrow
I am an ex Amazonian, worked for a year and a couple months from 2014-2015 for
AWS. I was a straight-out-of-college hire. Base: 93k Stock: 177 options over 4
years. bonus: 30k signing bonus upfront + relocation to Seattle, additional
25k after 1 year tenure spread out in 12 payments, one per month Review:
Exceeds, and Rolemodel for Amazon leadership principles. Gender: M Native
English Speaker: Yes

More info: I was promised a promotion and raise, but the problem was they only
do promotions once a year, in april. Once I said I was going to leave, I was
offered $120, but I left anyways. Now I moved out of seattle and am making
more, but in a lower Cost of living location. Also, I had to pay about 8k for
"relocation" back to amazon because I left before 2 years.

~~~
discodave
Amazon does 2 promotion cycles per year.

------
Kopion
I don't work at Amazon, but I have caught on to what, to me, seems to be an
unsettling concept. This may or may not be new, but the concept I am getting
it is often referred to as "internal equity" \- considering what salaries are
already in place for similar positions.

This appears to be one of many variables HR uses for salary negotiations and I
recognize that. I don't see why this necessarily matters for most work places.
Shouldn't you just pay for what the candidate brings to the table (skills,
experience, etc.) and not consider what, even someone with a similar
background is currently making in the company. I suppose salary
negotiations/the labor market isn't an efficient market where a price can be
assigned given x, y, & z.

------
heptathorp
After reading some of these comments...

Holy shit, I am under paid.

~~~
fluxquanta
Right? I like the one from amznnewgrad: $90k base as a new grad and "needless
to say" they declined the offer. Needless to say?

I was hired after a year out of college in 2010 at aboyt $37k and it felt like
I hit the lottery. Granted, where I live costs much less than Seattle, and I
also make significantly more now, but still not $90k.

~~~
simonswords82
amznnewgrad is trolling for sure!

~~~
eropple
I'm not sure why you'd say that. TripAdvisor, my first FT gig, offered new
hires $85K in Boston in 2010, plus a pretty significant stock package. Today,
in 2016 (or even last year), $90K in a similar CoL, similar demand market is
nothing to write home about.

------
boren_ave11
If your reaction to this thread is "wow I am really underpaid" then it's
working. The playing field for your next salary negotiation is now a little
more level.

~~~
ionised
I feel like every developer in the UK is underpaid when compared to US devs
lol.

------
throwawaygoogte
Google San Francisco Test Engineer III (level 4) ~130k base, 15% annual bonus
target, w/ stock around ~200k annual total compensation *non-native speaker

I do have a decade of industry experience. Also my 1 bedroom apartment rent is
going to be 2900/month this year (annual lease was 2600/month last year, they
raised it by 300 because fuck you where are you going to live, it's 2800/month
across the street and do you really want to get roommates in your 30s?)

------
throwaway284879
Throwaway account.

I don't work for Amazon but here is my salary information, for anyone who is
interested

Current position: 50-100 employee startup in Palo Alto, $170k and .1% equity
vested over 4 years

Previous position: Google, $130k base, 15-20% annual bonus, around 64 shares
vested per year (so around $170k annual net comp) Previous position: Small
startup, $90k base

I live in the SF Bay Area. When I interviewed, most offers from startups were
in the range of $140k-$170k.

------
HR0000000
Amazon, and any other major company, has created a salary range for any role.
As someone who has hired for many of these companies, I can tell you: Sharing
your compensation is taboo, but do it anyway. So long as you do it honestly
and completely. Talking about only salary in a company that rewards heavily in
stock is not useful.

There is negotiation room. However, playing the game of show me your hand
first is just plain annoying. Why should a company pay you more than is
standard in your role? Are you leaving bonus/stock money on the table to come
there? Relocating? Losing money on a lease? Tuition? Costs covered by your
current employer or another offer (ie housing, transportation, childcare,
etc)?

It's a myth that all companies are out to lowball you. The more successful a
company is, the more likely it is that they've realized internal equity is at
least as (if not more so) important than being competitive in the market.

Go see twitter #talkpay. A lot of great data points were shared there.

------
Dr_tldr
The OP is being kind of cagey about what their role is. Nearly everyone at
Amazon who does what we would generally be considered a primarily dev role is
either an SDE (Software Development Engineer) or a WDE (Web Development
Engineer). Are you a support engineer, by chance?

As for salary negotiations, the best piece of advice I got was to never say a
number. You really don't have to, you can just keep saying some variation of
"industry standard", their median salary numbers on Glassdoor, etc.

This is true for Amazon specifically: I never told them a number despite being
asked by several different recruiters, and the offer I ended getting was
slightly above their average. If you want more than that there may be some
other technique involved, but if you're more concerned about being
undercompensated, definitely don't get tied to any number.

~~~
boren_ave11
_The OP is being kind of cagey about what their role is._

You're right, I am.

------
sna1l
Some facebook internal compensation numbers --
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E1Jz00naFjdfP5RVC3AY...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E1Jz00naFjdfP5RVC3AYDeDXHdkw8PfWZNhYV0e59oM/edit#gid=0)

------
amznslave
If you are good, just leave AMZN. I was underpaid there as SDE 2 and when I
resigned, they threw $100k extra a year on the table to keep me but I still
left anyway because I did not know what they would do to me if I stay. That
$100k extra would put me close to $300k total a year.

~~~
mdip
_they threw $100k extra a year on the table to keep me but I still left
anyway_

That was a _smart_ move, especially if your skill-set was unique in your
company. I've given this advice more times than I can think and I've been
ignored _at least_ half of the time. I can think of only one case where it
worked out well, but that friend was a CEO at a multi-national and the board
of directors was the salary decider. The others were gone within a year.

Be _very_ suspicious if it's a _huge_ increase in salary (or dwarfs your
current offer), but generally any "counter offer" is not a good idea to take.

When you get a _large_ counter offer, you have to think one thing: Why?

At first you may be inclined to think "It took me having a foot out the door
before they _finally_ valued me!" Unfortunately, what they've valued is the
_risk_ you represent. Within a few days, after your manager has discussed
"contingency plans" for all of the things you did. You'll be spending the next
few months making "the documentation a little more clear" and "cross-training"
your colleagues. They may finally fill that position they've been promising to
hire for to "give you some help". A few months of this will go on and someone
in management will ask how your salary is justified (this will likely not be
asked directly to you). Unfortunately, all you've been doing is documenting
and training others, the _real_ work that contributes to the bottom line has
been ignored and you're now behind! How can they justify paying you so much if
you're getting _nothing_ done![1]

I even had a colleague who thought the answer was to turn down the job, take
the increase and find another. It might have worked were it not for 2008. He
went 6 months unemployed and took a job for a lot less than he was making
prior to the increase (specifics were not offered or asked).

[1] It doesn't always (hopefully not even _often_ ) happen with such
calculation or disregard, but a variation of this almost always plays out.

~~~
amznslave
I couldn't agree more with you. It was tempted but honestly ultimately it came
down to 3 reasons: 1\. I did not trust my manager(s) in that AMZN division 2\.
I did not like AMZN culture 3\. Their counter offer was only 2% more and it
was structured in a very weird way.

I am really glad I did not stay, new job has been way more challenging.

------
amz_throwaway
Position: Developer in Seattle

Tenure: 4 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $143,000

2016 Stock Vest: about 140 shares

Review Score: Exceeds

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

~~~
throwaway9191
Even with a throwaway, isn't that enough info for Amazon to identify you and
possibly take punitive action? I understand that Amazon is big, but without
adding a certain fudge factor or range to all the numbers, then I would think
it's possible to identify a person.

~~~
dominotw
how would that prove that it was actually her/her though? It could be easily
be one of her higher ups who knows his salary details.

~~~
askafriend
Alternatively it could be completely made up numbers that happened to match a
real person.

------
amznthrowaway01
I honestly don't know why I'm so worried to post from my main account since I
don't work there any more, but I am, but here was my salary. I only worked
there for 12 months as an SDEII, part of my package involved being relocated
from a different continent.

My compensation was as follows: Year 1: 122,000 + 28,000 bonus + Relocation +
a lot of other benefits. After that, the base assumably would have went up,
but the bonuses I was given were 250 AMZN rsu's 5% after one year anniversary,
15% on the second anniversary, 20% each 6 months after.

Amazon does an amazing job of woo-ing people and making attractive offers,
unfortunately they don't put the same effort into retaining their staff.

------
tristor
Location might be useful information. I'm assuming most of the folks
responding here are in Seattle. If so, all the salaries listed in this thread
seem shockingly low to me.

~~~
hullo
I think you're not doing the math on the stock (which is currently over $550).
e.g. $73k base + $21k bonus + $57k stock = $151k for an engineer in their
second year (no info about previous experience). Absent a lot of other context
it does sound fair to me, or at least not "shockingly low".

~~~
tristor
I value those things differently, because the bonus is only for the first two
years, and the stock is a one-time grant. Just like there's 'no replacement
for displacement' in engines, there's no replacement for base salary in
compensation. What I'm seeing in that compensation package is no incentive
whatsoever to stay after you finish your second year, and no real incentives
to start in the first place. $150k in Seattle is not great in my mind anyway,
that's roughly equivalent to $90k where I'm living right now, but the average
base salary in this area is around $120k...

~~~
arcticfox
Equivalent to $90k? Do you live in the US? The cost of living for most
lifestyles is nowhere near $60k different between Seattle and anywhere in the
US.

~~~
sndean
Using a random cost of living calculator (like this:
[http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-
of-l...](http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living-
calculator.aspx)), it looks like many places aren't $60k different. But
Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, and lots of other cities are ~$50k different.
Rural places are ~$60-70k different.

~~~
arcticfox
What number are you using?? For $150k, I see Atlanta, Dallas, etc. as $15-20k
different, which seems correct.

~~~
sndean
Going from San Francisco to Dallas, using $150k gives me $81717.69.

Meaning the equivalent income to maintain your standard of living in Dallas is
$81k, or ~70k less than San Francisco.

------
former_amazon
I created a throw away account to answer this but I will say that my teammates
at Amazon and I discussed salary openly. We all were making far below market
except for the 2 teammates who had been there 4+ years.

I think for lasting that long, Amazon really pays off in equity compensation
which they dole out willingly (with 4 year cliffs of course).

I made 90k as an SDE I straight of college. 20k sign on bonus. Second year
bonus of 15k. 150 shares of stock with the regular 5%, 15%, 20% cliffs.
Biggest raise I got was 4k when I received an exceeds.

~~~
eitally
This is a key difference between Amazon & Google. At AMZN you have to be there
4 years before your comp levels off at acceptable levels. At GOOG they have a
much nicer vesting schedule that starts your level comp after 12mo.

------
amazon_thr0way
I was an intern over the summer, just graduated and was offered 95,000 salary,
27,000 signing bonus with my first paycheck, and another 20,000 over months
13-24. In addition, I get 53,000 in RSU that are payed out: 5% after my first
year, 15% after my second year, and 20% every 6 months after that until I've
been there for 4 years. Finally, i got a 10,000 relocation lump sum.

I have friends who interned the summer before and they were offered the exact
same thing. This is for SDE 1 position.

~~~
throwawaygoogte
You're getting jacked around, interview at Facebook/Google and walk away with
piles more cash and guess what no bullshit pagers to carry around either!

------
voiceclonr
If I could upvote this more, I would. All companies hide the salaries do they
can underpay. Glassdoor under estimates typical salaries and are not
meaningful. OP - Please consider opening a simple google doc and let anyone
fill in the detail.

------
wde-sde
I was hired as a "Web Development Engineer I" several years ago (level 4). My
base compensation was virtually identical to yours, but my signing bonus and
base pay were a little less than half. Stock grants were also very similar at
hire. After a couple years my job role changed to SDE, I remained level 4 and
was given a better than 10% raise.

In my fourth year my total compensation was estimated to be around 120k.

It's worth looking at the H1B data. I've got some limited anecdotal data, but
the H1B data appears to clearly delineate the same salary ranges Amazon gives
to US Citizens. (Maybe they will pay citizens 10% more, but the ranges
actually look pretty similar to what I've heard.)

[http://h1bdata.info/](http://h1bdata.info/)

(I am a US Citizen, English speaker, in Seattle.)

Main moral of the story if you choose to stay at Amazon: don't worry about
your level, focus on your job role. You can probably keep doing the work
you're doing and become an SDE if you talk to your manager and frame the
conversation right.

------
oaktowner
If you really want to do this, start a Google spreadsheet.

~~~
pixelkicker
Didn't a Google employee catch heat for doing this at Google a year or two
ago?

~~~
dguaraglia
"Heat" maybe, but as far as I understand nobody was fired. The spreadsheet is
still up and going strong.

------
throwawayAmzn57
I work for one of AMZN's subsidiaries down in SF. Its kinda hard to say
exactly how much I earn since most of my compensation is in retention and
acquisition bonuses.

Roughly $130k a year base, $150k a year in retention and $100k (for one more
year) in pre-acquisition stock.

6 years in the industry, no higher education. SDEII (I think?)

------
amzn_thrway
I'm starting this summer in Amazon Seattle as an SDE II

\- 4 years of experience \- Non-native English \- They sponsored my H1B
application \- 145k base \- 20k bonus yrs 1 and 2 \- 100 RSUs \- 15k
relocation bonus, 10k extra for relocation expenses. And they give me a full
container to move my stuff. \- Male

------
zyxley
What general region or city is this? Cost of living can be a major effect on
pay, comparing, say, the insanity of the SF Bay area to anywhere else.

~~~
boren_ave11
I mentioned this below, but I don't think location matters because Amazon
doesn't provide cost of living adjustments. Location obviously matters from
the individual's perspective, but from the company perspective it isn't
factored into compensation.

~~~
rgbrgb
Yeah they do. I was offered a job after a summer internship but told them I'd
only work in California -- after first declining, they offered me a position
in SF the next day. When I arrived in SF to start there was ~12% added to my
salary for cost of living adjustment over Seattle.

~~~
boren_ave11
Perhaps they do for SF, given how high cost of living is there. I was told
that cost of living increases are not offered, but maybe they were only
referring to Seattle?

~~~
rgbrgb
Yeah, it was a pleasant surprise to me on my first day.

------
amazonthrowaa
Seattle summer intern -> SDE1 Full Time offer

$95k/yr

$27k signing immediate

$20k signing 2 year vesting

$53k stock 2 year vesting

Ended up turning it down because I didn't want to work at Amazon, so no
negotiation.

------
hiddencost
Research Scientist First full-time job 150k

(I saw us make offers as high as 200k for fresh ph.d.'s)

------
aws_person
Position: developer, not an SDE though. No oncall.

Experience: college hire (beginning of 2015)

Level: 4

Base: $90,000

Signing bonus: $22,000 immediately, $18,000 monthly over 2nd year

Stock: 200 shares of AMZN (5% at 1 year, 15% at 2 years, 20% every 6 months
after)

Location: Seattle, WA. Relocation was included over 2 year prorating.

------
sea24_throwaway
Position: SDE II Organization: Kindle (Seattle based) Base pay: $101.500
Bonuses: $28.000

I've been at Amazon for about a year and a half. I always suspected I was
quite overpaid. And I'm a non-US citizen on top of it.

------
chm
You're not getting "ripped off" by having a base salary of 125K USD (with
benefits and equity) fresh out of college.

Tell you what, with a Bachelor's in Chemistry (in my year 176 people started,
only 42 finished the degree so it's not a free lunch) I can expect to make
between 40K and 60K CAD out of college _and_ pay higher taxes than in the US.
With a master's that I'm working towards, I'd be on the upper end of that
spectrum. So _boo-hoo_ to those making only 125K with equity and benefits.

:/

~~~
MacsHeadroom
>I can expect to make between 40K and 60K CAD out of college

A chemical engineer with a BS in Alberta can make $120k CAD base-pay, easily.

>and pay higher taxes than in the US.

A San Franciscan making $120k USD pays $46,176 USD in taxes (state+fed)

An Albertan making $120k CAD pays just $32,974 CAD in taxes (prov+fed)

When software engineers want $120k, they move to SF/Seattle and work for
<soul-crushing corporate tech-company>. If you want $120k, move to Alberta and
work for a gas company.

The vast majority of software engineers (let-alone 'entry level' SEs) in the
US aren't making six figures. The ones who move to tech-topia and work for
tech-giant and end up getting paid 20% less than their peers who did the same
ARE getting ripped off.

~~~
arcticfox
> The vast majority of software engineers (let-alone 'entry level' SEs) in the
> US aren't making six figures.

While I'm sure this is true in the total sense (there are a LOT of bad
software engineers), decent and good ones should be making over $100k easily.

~~~
daddydudes
What separates a bad SE from a decent SE?

~~~
Kephael
A good grasp of computer science fundamentals.

------
stray
> I'm not aware of any Amazon policy which prohibits sharing one's own
> compensation, but I still made a throwaway.

IANAL but I'm pretty sure it's illegal as fsck for them to retaliate against
you for discussing your compensation.

According to the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935, private-sector
employees have the right to engage in "concerted activities for the purpose of
collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."

Again, I am not a lawyer. Just a bunch of pixels on the screen, really.

------
python_cto
FYI, it is illegal in the USA to restrict employees discussing their salary
amongst themselves. Unfortunately it is common for companies to declare this
information confidential and covered under employee confidentiality
agreements.

[http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-
policies...](http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at-
work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood)

------
josefdlange
While at Amazon, I worked in two different roles. I don't have the exact
numbers, but I'll put ballparks in here:

(1) Support Engineer * Base: $72,000; increased at 1yr to $74,000 * Bonus:
$20,000; half in first check, other half over months 13-24 * Stock: I don't
remember

(2) Software Development Engineer * Base: $82,000

Gender: M Native English: Yes I honestly don't recall if I was L4 or L5 or
both.

Both of these were in Seattle. I do know for a fact that there were/are others
who were hired and paid more than me.

~~~
udkl
What was your education and experience ?

~~~
josefdlange
B.Sc. in Computer Science, fresh out of undergrad. Applied conservatively for
jobs to get into something I could excel at from the get-go and learn how to
work in the corporate world before throwing myself at complex technical
problems.

I've moved on to greener pastures, and I think where I positioned myself from
the start put me in a hungry mentality, and as such I've been able to grow
rapidly.

------
cuca_de_chumbo
I work at a podunk Santa Clara, CA startup

20+ years experience. Working remote from southeast U.S.A.

Tenure so far: 2.5 years

Salary: $150K

Stock: purportedly .75% of company 4 years 1-year cliff, with small follow-on
grant later, don't know what recent dilution is, though I think more recent
funding has been "debt" at low interest with preference

Not a regular VC situation, company funded through other means.

Outlook -- real uncertain, market has definite need, execution so far has been
very mixed, company willing to re-do things the right way

------
amznthrw123
* Area: Austin, TX

* Position: Systems Engineer

* Level: 5

* Base Pay: $98k

* Signing Bonus: $18k immediately, 15k over months 12-24

* Stock Units: ~$120k, 5% first year, 15% second, 20% every 6 mo after. Additional (smaller) grants starting year 2.

------
qaid
I work in Portland, have 5 years of experience, and I'm making about 90k after
bonuses (no stock or sign-on bonus). I love Portland, my hours are very nice
(~35hours), and I have a good amount of technical freedom. But boy....Maybe I
should make the move up to Seattle.

It'd be nice if people mentioned how many hours/week they work for me to get a
good idea of what to expect. Especially since we're talking about Amazon.

~~~
vanrysss
There's plenty of money to be had in Portland. Drop Airbnb, Nike, or any of
the myriad of startups in town a line.

~~~
selimthegrim
When did Nike start hiring competent people?

------
throwaway2016a
Out of curiosity, what does this add that GlassDoor.com doesn't?

Note: as of right now, GlassDoor is down for "Scheduled Maintenance" but the
question stands.

~~~
boren_ave11
See this comment I wrote ITT:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314076)

------
darksim905
At my old company, I was a "Jr Sysadmin" in title, but really a mid level
Syadmin. I started at $42k/yr, then moved up to around $49k/yr. I should be
making $55-65k/yr given my certs, experience: 8 years as generalist IT, mostly
Windows Sysadmin, some Linux. Familiar with ShoreTel, comfortable with
security -- really REALLY want to make a lateral move to it.

I'm also an SME & do reviews for a certain book publisher to see if I think it
is worthwhile, accomplishes the goals set out by the author & is technically
correct. I'm unfortunately currently unemployed, so things suck, but I have no
qualms about sharing my salary, where I think I should be & why.

Yes, I may not be using crazy automation stuff & yes, I need to learn
something as ubiquitous as VMWare, but it's not hard. A monkey can do those
things. What I want to get into is SCCM & serious Windows automation. It's
just, the positions are few & far between :-(

------
throwaway_amzn
Still in first year.

Position: SDE 1 Location: Seattle Base: 110,000 Signing: 25k over two years
RSUs: 40k when stock was high in 300s

------
martin-adams
I worked for IBM and we had a policy where you couldn't discuss salary with
your peers.

I had a long discussion with manager at the time where I asked the question:
"How do I advance my financial career?". We concluded that being an external
hire is the best way, and as such, pretty much meant if I wanted more money,
get a job elsewhere.

So in the end I did. It was the money that triggered it, but ultimately there
were other factors, such as not being given the role I was promised, a miss
communication about who would decide my promotion (my old or new department),
and of course, being asked to accept a band promotion for no extra money.

I also recall there being published market data you can get from HR which
shows the average for your role, and I did notice I was way below average in
compensation.

I don't miss leaving one bit.

------
amzthrow23424
SDE, Level 5, four years, started w/ bonus: $126k, ended: $117k New job: 175k
+ equity (fuck you amazon)

~~~
lexhaynes
Is it common for salaries at Amazon to decrease?

~~~
amzthrow23424
It is when your signing bonus/cash advances expire and raises are never higher
than 2%. Also had 100 or so RSU's.

------
abcthrowaway
Position: SDE1 Tenure: <1 years Base Pay: $110k Signing Bonus: $20k Gender: M
Native English Speaker: Yes

Beat my best bay area offer overall, so quite good with the low cost of living
here. It does seem like you have to move companies every 2 years to keep
climbing the salary ladder.

------
yeureka
I knew the UK salaries can't compare, but I wasn't aware the difference was so
high.

It would be interesting to see the difference in pay in the same company
between US and UK offices.

Looking at these numbers makes me wish I had moved to the US when I was
younger.

------
TheRealDunkirk
These discussions feel good, but are ultimately useless. This is just going to
be a collection of anecdotes from people who self-select to report because
they feel good about where they're at, or because they feel righteously
justified in complaining about their situation. And, as they say, the
multitude of anecdote does not data make.

Unfortunately, salary "surveys," like the recently-reported Stack Overflow
one, or the classic Computerworld one, are much the same. Self-selection ruins
the data. The responses have to be random to be useful. And the silly thing is
that most people who are involved in this business know this.

~~~
boren_ave11
I disagree, I think it is useful.

You are correct that this is nothing close to scientific, but that is not the
goal. The goal is to increase transparency around employee compensation in
order to correct the imbalance of power in salary negotiations that results
from not knowing what others in similar roles are being paid.

For this, statistically valid data is not necessary. It can be enough to know
of one or two individuals' compensation to shift power in a salary
negotiation.

------
leetNightshade
A friend of mine when he graduated got a base developer salary of $90k in
2011, shares & benefits (whatever that works out to), and I think $10k bonus
for every year he stayed with Amazon. He worked in the Seattle, WA, area.

------
technologia
I'm not an Amazonian (for some reason I laugh when I hear someone refer to
themselves as this).

I started out at about 64k which after 2 years on the job became roughly 90k,
this year I'm on track to make a little under 100k. I think at the moment my
role is the equivalent of an SE II or an SE III.

Because of the place I work at, I don't get stock or profit sharing, etc. I
think that software engineers across the board don't receive the right
compensation until it becomes shockingly apparent to the company and they risk
losing us. Honestly, my org didn't bump my pay up until I started putting out
feelers to move on.

------
doseofreality
Stating which location you are in would be important for salary comparison
purposes.

~~~
boren_ave11
Actually not in this case, as Amazon doesn't provide cost of living
adjustments. Location isn't factored into pay amount.

~~~
delecti
Are you sure about that? I have at least three anecdotes that seem to directly
contradict that claim, and while I realize the plural of anecdote isn't data,
but it's still enough to make me skeptical of your claim.

~~~
boren_ave11
This is what I was told, but others ITT seem to have heard differently. In the
examples that you know of, was the person relocating to Seattle or somewhere
else, like SF?

It may be that what I was told was correct, but they were referring only to
Seattle and not places like SF where cost of living is very high.

~~~
delecti
A college friend and I both got hired to Amazon in the same round of campus
hires. We both accepted Seattle positions, but then between accepting the
position and graduating, his team moved to SF, and his offer got increased to
compensate for the higher COL there.

Two other situations involved coworkers transferring teams from Seattle, one
to Toronto and one to India, both had COL adjustments to their salary.

(Admittedly the evidence is less strong in the latter two cases because they
involved simultaneous country changes)

------
anonymoose234
Mountain View Googler here:

1 year prior professional SWE experience at the time of hiring, CS undergrad
degree from a state university

Female, mixed ethnicity, American/native English speaker

SWE II, L3

$110k base, ~$45k in stock, 15% target bonus ($172k total assuming stock price
stays stable and I make said bonus)

Worth noting that I tried not to give my then-current pay to the recruiter
during the hiring process and was (very politely) told that they'd cancel my
application if I didn't give them a number. Also tried to negotiate the base
salary up (asked for $120k) and again, got very politely told to take it or
leave it.

~~~
kelukelugames
Here's a link for you. Recruiter in the story works at a different company.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2bu1id/m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2bu1id/my_recruiter_friend_just_pissed_me_off_by/)

Also if it's an electronic form then I put 1 dollar. It's fun.

~~~
anonymoose234
Frustrating read. It wasn't in the form, she asked me over the phone after I
passed the final interviewing step and they were going to extend an official
offer. Good tip though, I've done that before and it's worked well.

I was at a disadvantage in that a) I didn't have any other job offers for a
comparable company and wasn't likely to get them anytime soon (see: state
university degree, just 1 year experience) and b) wasn't really willing to
walk. My company at the time couldn't compete with Google. There was no better
offer for me out there, career making opportunity, etc. So when I got told to
take it or walk I took it.

~~~
pmoriarty
Think about this. You've just gone through a lengthy and highly selective
interviewing process. You've succeeded where many others have failed. The
company has invested a lot of its employees' valuable time in interviewing
you. They've decided you are a good fit and are skilled enough for the role.
There are no red flags (like a criminal history, ineligability to work in the
country, etc) that would prevent them from hiring you. Then they ask how much
you made at your previous company and you refuse to tell them.

Do you really think that after all that time and effort, after sifting through
a mountain of undequalified candiates, they would now turn around and let a
qualified, well-fitting candidate slip through their fingers over a bit of
irrelevant trivia? Not on your life.

Demanding you tell them your previous salary or they'd cancel your application
was a bluff, pure and simple. Same with them pretending that you were in no
position to negotiate once they'd chosen you and make you an offer. Companies
always start low and expect to be negotiated up, at least a little. And once
they choose you and made you an offer, the power is in your hands. "Take it or
leave it" is a bluff.

------
throwawayman123
Non Amazonian(final interview with Amazon) but had to chime in:

Based in AZ Base Pay: $80,000 Bonus: 12-15% holiday bonus My Experience: 2
years front end dev, self taught. Company: Won't name. But ~200 people in the
company. 40ish engineers.

Interviewed with Amazon for Web Dev I . Each time salary was discussed, base
range was for 85-115k, sign on of $10-25k and I can't recall stock. Confirmed
with friends who work there, all are SDEs making 6 figures.

Throwaway account as well, just want those in my area anyways to be aware that
earning potential is good.

------
quanticle
Ex Amazonian here. I worked as a SDE1 in the Downtown Seattle set of offices
from about 2012 to 2014. My compensation was $95,000 base, and about 105,000
once you took into account stocks.

------
titusblair
Love this idea! Made a quick site to help everyone post and share easily, hope
it helps!

[http://honestsalary.com/](http://honestsalary.com/)

------
bfung
Honest question + comment + disclaimer

question:

why not add your info on glassdoor.com? (is there some evil behind glassdoor I
don't know about?)

comment:

Probably worth noting general location of employment, like the metro region
you're in.

disclaimer:

I've been researching salary myself in the bay area based on glassdoor data:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BoMvtY_mICEYygy0jXVG...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BoMvtY_mICEYygy0jXVGwmGIJxFs2zsAXsQvM6K8BEk/edit?usp=sharing)

------
anonsalarylol
This is a web application for anonymously sharing salary information among a
pool of participants. Each pool is identified by a UUID. A user cannot view
the results of the pool unless they first share their information; the pool
must also meet a minimum number of contributors set at pool creation time.

[https://gist.github.com/anonymous/894b151cc981f783e3af](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/894b151cc981f783e3af)

------
amzn-thread
Position: Developer Evangelist

Tenure: 1.2 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $130,000

Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, ~5k year 2

20XX Stock Vest: 10 shares

LY Review Score: Exceeds

LY Pay Increase: 1.1%

Gender: M

I really enjoyed my job and would go back. No counter offer when I left but
that was at my request. Was up for L6 when I left.

------
imnicuhtine
This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm
not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1
bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. For reference, my wife and I bought
an 1800 sq ft house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k.

I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3
years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.

------
ee_tossout
This thread is depressing, but I'll post my information:

Company: small, non-startup software company in DFW

Position: Senior Research Software Engineer

Tenure: 4 years

Experience: 14 years (4 EE, 2 non-IT SysE, 8 SwE)

Salary: $92,500 (started at $78,000)

Signing bonus: $0

Yearly bonus: $0

Stock: 0

Many of the comments here make me feel like I ab seriously underpaid. However,
over the past several years in my interactions with prospective new companies
(ranging from startups to subsidiaries of huge defense contractors) I get the
impression that my salary is slightly above average.

~~~
junkilo
Yeah that is low compared to the major tech hubs but sounds calibrated to the
area you are living in.

It only takes one person to set a price provided they honestly believe in they
value... and that person can be you.

------
msemployee
MS employee here, with a bit of anonymization

Location: Seattle area

Gender: Male

Category [1]: White

English native: no

Age: 35-40

Years in MS: 5

Title [2]: Senior SDE

Level [2]: 63

Hiring bonus: 0

Base salary: ~$140k

Annual bonus: ~16k

Annual stocks: ~17k (over 5 years)

Annual benefits: ~$25k

[1] [http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/multiracial-
time...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/multiracial-timeline/)

[2] [http://geekologist.co/decoding-microsofts-sde-titles-and-
lev...](http://geekologist.co/decoding-microsofts-sde-titles-and-levels/)

------
new2amzn123
* Area: Seattle, WA

* Position: SysDE II

* Base Pay: $120k

* Signing Bonus: $75k over 2 years

* Relocation: Fully paid + $2.5k

* Stock Units: $115k [200 RSUs] (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on)

* Gender: M

* Native English Speaker: Yes

I have ~2 years of experience.

~~~
amzn
This seems ridiculously good for a SysDE with that much experience. I had two
years at a smaller company previously and was hired as a SysEng I for way
less. Not in Seattle but still felt as though I got a raw deal underestimating
myself.

~~~
new2amzn123
I think I understated my experience in my first comment, total I'd put it
closer to 4-5 years. But yea, the amount they offered me was more than
expected.

------
binaryanomaly
Why not just check here:
[http://data.jobsintech.io/](http://data.jobsintech.io/) real data from H-1Bs

------
imnicuhtine
This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm
not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1
bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. My wife and I bought an 1800 sq ft
house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k.

I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3
years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.

~~~
brobinson
Compared to an engineer at a startup in SF making $150,000/year and paying
over $3,000/mo [1] for a one bedroom apartment + California income/gains
taxes, you're not doing too poorly at all. Your quality of life is also likely
better and you're less exposed to crime.

[1] [https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-
ren...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/)

~~~
chetanahuja
_" Quality of life"_

But Reno though!!

~~~
imnicuhtine
Reno is actually a surprisingly great place to live. I think visitors see
things differently because they mostly experience the casinos downtown.

------
DrJohnny
I work as and SDE2 in Germany: ~€70k base pay + ~€20k RSUs

------
msoad
Here is an offer for someone with 5 years of experience in San Francisco:

Base 180k Sign on 80k over two years 189 RSU over four years with 5-15-40-50%
vesting schedule.

~~~
kzhahou
Is that 189K RSU?

~~~
late2part
Almost certainly not.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=amzn&oq=amzn](https://www.google.com/search?q=amzn&oq=amzn)

$552 $/share * 189 shares = $104,328 over 4 years = +$26,082 per year.

------
jwatte
By federal law, an employer cannot discriminate or retaliate against employees
for discussing compensation. One of the good things that unions made happen in
the past before they made themselves their own worst enemies.

Some companies treat this as "you can discuss internally but it's a company
trade secret externally" which I don't know how the courts have actually
treated it (if at all.)

------
rifung
Ex Amazonian but I was an SDE1 ~1 year of experience before joining. I worked
in Seattle

Salary: $100k Bonus: $25k Stock: I forget but it was not much

------
tdicola
I'm genuinely curious, this post has over 208 points and is only 3 hours old..
why is it falling off the front page already?

~~~
tdicola
And now just suddenly it's back to near the top of the front page. What's
going on HN mods?

~~~
duskwuff
Not a HN mod, but been around long enough to take a guess:

HN penalizes entries (topics? articles? discussions? whatever) that gain a lot
of comments really quickly. I think I've seen dang refer to this as the
"flamewar penalty". The penalty was probably removed manually, because it was
a false positive.

------
mouseketeer
Ex-Amazonian here. Started as an SE1 in 2012 @ $98k, $20k signing bonus ($18k
second year), 160 RSUs, and relocation expenses.

------
g8gggu89
Started at 110k + 15 sign on bonus my first year. I got at least 90k over 3
years in stock after the prices went up so high.

------
pw_is_bagreefs
Position: SDE 2

Joined: Last year

Base Pay: 145,000

Native English Speaker: Yes

------
weaksauce
your pay is probably fairly unique since you listed it down to the stocks
allocated and per year performance. I have to imagine that the list that
includes all the attributes that you have is a fairly short list(probably just
you).

just a word of caution if you do fear retaliation at all. might want to fuzz
the numbers a touch.

------
throwawaymazon
You're getting screwed, big time. Quit now.

Source: I was hired at Amazon as an SDE1 in 2004 at a base salary of $85,000.

~~~
boren_ave11
Are you taking stock into consideration? When stock is included, my total
compensation for 2016 comes to $130K.

Are you still at Amazon? If so, what is your current salary?

~~~
throwawaymazon
My signing bonus was $10k/$10k, so I can compare that. Stock wise, I think it
was like 3000 shares, which at the time were going for $30-ish. Don't fully
recall.

Not still at Amazon. When I left, I thought I had it good, with total comp
peaking just a hair over $200k. And then I went and got multiple job offers
that put my BASE at $250k. So, yeah.

------
rdl
There can't be an amazon policy against sharing your compensation (well, there
can be, but it would be void). It's legally protected in the US, under the
laws which support union/labor organizing.

(I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer; this is not legal advice.)

------
throwaway1549
Company: midsized South Bay startup (50-100 people)

Position: Developer (not web)

Age: 25-30

Tenure: 2 years

Initial Salary: $105,000

Current Salary: $120,000

Signing Bonus: 20,000 shares, vesting over 4 years (Taking into account
current valuation and strike price, assume stock is worth, to me,
~$0.50/share)

Annual Bonus: None

Additional stock since hiring: 25,000 shares, vesting over 4 years

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

------
randommodnar
I'm in Montreal, full-stack developer at a small/medium-size company, four
years experience, ~$80k. Feel like I messed up a bit and they would have gone
for 90 or 100. But they give great benefits and a 35/hr work week.

------
bezoslave
Salaries for Germany anyone?

~~~
hn_user23
It would be awesome to see such a thread for not only Germany but Europe.
There is no way you can compare the salaries from the US with the salaries
here.

I can speak for SIEMENS where they publish the pay for open positions
internally. However it is very hard to get into SIEMENS currently, given their
savings plan.. I heard that the salaries for the open positions are fixed. I
have no idea if this is true. I will refer to the IG Metall Entgeldtabelle for
Bavaria: [http://www.igmetall-bayern.de/metall-elektro/](http://www.igmetall-
bayern.de/metall-elektro/)

\- Level: Entry level Software Developer, Bachelor or Master \- Location:
Germany, Nuremberg \- Salary: EG9 ~49000€

\- Level: Sysadmin, min 3 Years experience \- Location: Germany, Munich \-
Salary: EG10 ~54600€

They cost of living in Munich are the highest in Germany. So in the end you
will probably will have less money if you take the Sysadmin job in Munich.

They don't differentiate between bachelors and masters. I will find out in the
near future if you are able to negotiate a higher EG level based on that..

It would be interesting to see some salaries from other companies in Europe.
But i'm possibly to late in this thread.

~~~
t3nary
> \- Level: Entry level Software Developer, Bachelor or Master - Location:
> Germany, Nuremberg - Salary: EG9 ~49000€

Do they not differentiate between entry level + bachelor degree vs. entry
level + master degree?

~~~
hn_user23
They don't differentiate in the position descriptions. They just want a
degree.. but it is hard to match most of the requirements with just a
bachelor. I talked to some colleagues about the hiring process and if that
salary is fixed, regardless if you have a master or bachelor. They said yes,
there is not much you can do. Furthermore is it difficult to talk about the
salary with others because they think it is a taboo.

I checked glassdoor but there is not enough comparable data for entry
positions. However, compared to other companies the salary at SIEMENS is good.

------
Amir6
I'm not working for Amazon or any other big ones but I think this is a very
good idea. Transparency always helps and I wish something good comes out of
other people sharing their financial details.

------
unohoo
Check out the recently launched site Comparably
[https://comparably.com/](https://comparably.com/)

It is so much better than Glassdoor at dissecting salary data.

~~~
asdfologist
How do you have any confidence that any of their numbers are real? Unlike this
thread or even Glassdoor, there's a clear incentive to submit fake data to
Comparably because they require you to submit a salary before you can see any
of their data (and encourage you to sign in with your LinkedIn account).

~~~
hudibras
Yikes. Anybody who gives both their salary and LinkedIn information to any
company is either insane or stupid.

~~~
asdfologist
Right, so the salaries are probably biased towards the low end.

------
googsomeday
If you work at Google, you can continue the discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449)

------
payMDgovt
Don't work at Amazon, but..

Social Security(Baltimore)

Sr. UI/UX Dev

Govt. contract at $75 an hour no benefits

In this area you should strive to move your Dev career towards govt. work;
govt contracting being the best in terms of hourly pay.

------
thrwawy1
(Non-AMZN). ~10y experience UI developer.

$165k base 20% annual bonus 200k worth of stock vested over 4 years.

I like the company so I did not negotiate showing the other counter offers I
had at the time of joining.

------
ffumarola
Blind
[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blind./id737534965?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blind./id737534965?mt=8)
&
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamblind....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamblind.blind)
talks about salary ad nauseam... so if you want to see salary discussions, get
the app.

~~~
finnn
so this is like, some forum but you have to install some random app? And of
course, it wants:

* retrieve running apps * find accounts on the device * modify or delete the contents of your USB storage * read the contents of your USB storage

some other more acceptable ones. Fuck that shit

------
sandra_saltlake
This is really interesting and I am m glad that you shared. the company will
typically move mountains to keep you if you are good.

------
frandroid
It would be interesting if people also posted how many hours they work a week,
to get a sense of the work/life balance.

~~~
epicureanideal
And also any unique educational background or special talents, like if they're
working in a niche of machine learning or something like that.

------
b34r
25-35 white male 150k base + some equity I haven't paid attention to Senior
software engineer (front-end) NYC

------
sinak
I wish I had time myself, but it would be really helpful if someone tabulated
the results from this thread.

------
r00fus
You need more context to make sense of pure dollar values - in which
city/metro-area do you work?

------
eganist
HR can find you based on the numbers you gave if you don't fuzz them a little
bit.

------
athrowaway45677
I own a small software consultancy based in NYC. I should make roughly 500K
this year.

------
diyseguy
I was there from 2009 - 2011 as a contractor and made $35.00 an hour as an SDE
II

------
amzn_van_thrw22
Level: SDE II (5)

Location: Van, BC

Base: 99k (CAD currency)

Stock vest in 2016: 60 RSU

Tenure: 2 year

------
aws_1918
4+ yrs, syseng II, ~107k salary and stock push my total comp to ~145k.

------
baconbkk
I've always wondered how people can make a living doing Turking.

------
darbybung
This is yet another millennial trying to skirt earning their keep.

------
suyash
Base Pay is pretty low for either Seattle or SF Bay Area or NY

------
encoderer
I don't blame you for being nervous, but it's actually against the law to
punish employees for sharing salary data. Companies try to hide it, but the
NLRB would be interested to hear about it.

------
salarytoss12343
SWE II at Twitter. Not in SF.

Salary: $118.5k

Bonus: $10k

RSUs: 4500 over 4 years

------
zobzu
thats great info, lets make more of these topics!

------
stepny
We went through the comp data on this thread and another one on Google comp
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449)),
and we added it all to this Google Sheet:
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11tyJW9KPcSiLZBBuf0Z1...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11tyJW9KPcSiLZBBuf0Z14Uov92EgIGjjLjh4lrmTnyk/edit?usp=sharing)

Feel free to share/add to this doc. We'll post this in the Google comp thread
too.

Here are the median comps by level for Amazon and Google, just based on the
postings collected in the Google doc as of 3/22\. \--Amazon -- New grad: $141K
SDE1: $146K SDE2: $173K SDE3: $250K TPM3: $220K

\--Google-- Level 3: $170K Level 4: $200K Level 5: $312K Level 6: $575K T7:
$640K Tech Level 5: $660K

Just a few notes - Total comp includes bonus, signing bonus, relocation bonus,
and stock. Bonuses and stock were all annualized straight-line. (I know this
is not how Amazon stock comp is done, but we assumed this in our calcs.) Since
we took postings from 2 different threads, it's possible that one person could
have posted once in each thread, in which case that would show up twice in the
Google doc. Also, there's a lot of variance particularly with bonuses which
are lumped in, and some of the higher levels only have one data point, but you
can look at the data in the Google doc if you want to dig in.

If it helps with comparison between Amazon and Google, here's how Amazon
levels map to Google's (from Quora: [https://www.quora.com/How-do-Amazons-
engineering-levels-map-...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-Amazons-engineering-
levels-map-to-Googles)) Amazon SDE 1 - roughly a Google T3 ("I") or T4 ("II").
Amazon SDE 2 - roughly a Google T4 ("III") Amazon SDE 3 - roughly a Google T5
("Senior") or T6 ("Staff") Amazon Principal - roughly a Google T6 or T7
("Senior Staff") Amazon Sr. Principal - roughly a Google T8 ("Principal") or
T9 ("Distinguished").

Full disclosure - we're Step ([http://www.step.com](http://www.step.com)), and
we're building a platform to help engineers and product managers anonymously
crowdsource personalized salary and level estimates from decision makers and
hiring experts at tech companies. This thread is especially interesting to us,
because it shows the need/demand for more transparency around compensation and
company feedback. Right now, we're working with ~10 NYC startups that will
assign personalized salary/level estimates and other feedback to anonymous
profiles, but our bigger vision is that as soon as someone signs up, they'll
see how each and every company values them without having to interview/talk to
recruiters.

------
trevorg75
Tried the transparency bit. In larger companies like Amazon it might work
because there's still a bit of anonymity. But for most companies large and
small here's what happens:

Bob gets hired as a developer in 2012. He's been with the company for 4 years.
Bob is a decent developer who gets his work done but makes the occasional
mistake. Bob's title is application developer. When Bob got hired he took the
job because the pay was as good if not better than his last job and the market
was tough back then and he was happy to have the opportunity. Bob makes 50k a
year and lives in Florida where the home office of the company is. Bob's title
is software developer.

Fast forward to today:

The company is really taken off and they need to hire some top talent and have
opened the doors to remote workers. John joined the team back in 2014 at 55k
per year. John lives in Florida and is a mediocre developer. Sure he gets work
done but it's often late or buggy. He tries hard and has shown much
improvement and continues to every day. His title is software developer.
There's a new IT manager and his job is to hire in some top talent to work
with the current talent to get things moving. Prior to the hiring push the new
IT manager sees the salaries currently and decides to bring salaries more in
sync with what the market currently is at. As a result of this Bob, between
his cost of living increases and this new pay bump is at 65k and John is at
60k.

As he can now look at remote workers he has feelers out around the country. An
ace developer applies for a position and has some skills the company
desperately needs. She is based in New York and demands a higher salary than
the company traditionally pays because the cost of living is higher. The
company approves her demands at 90k per year and she starts with the company,
also with the title of software developer. Her name is Sally.

A month later the company decides to have transparency across the board with
salaries and publishes everyone's salary.

John is immediately offended because in his mind (and by his title) he's doing
the same job as Bob and Sally yet is making considerably less. Bob is upset
because Sally just got hired and is making an extremely high amount more.

Each of them are considering their titles / positions. None of them are
considering the individual situations that have led to the people making what
they make.

So how should salary negotiations go. If the company is open and transparent,
they should explain to John that basically he's not as good as the other
developers so therefore he hasn't gotten the same cost of living increases
etc. What he has been getting is an education and the opportunity to improve
his craft.

Bob would need to know that he started low and it's just the nature of
salaries to creep up the way they have. They'd have to discuss Sally's
situation which frankly is none of Bob's business.

While all of them are valued employees, if they all made the same exact amount
either it wouldn't be enough or the company would go broke quick. So they can
either suck it up and deal with it or find a job elsewhere. They'll be
disgruntled either way.

Remember your salary is your salary. Negotiate for what you think is fair. If
you want a raise, ask for one. if you feel you should be brought up to current
market rates, say so. Ultimately if you are not being treated fairly after
giving the company ample opportunity to make it right and communicating with
them, then find a new position. Finding out someone has something that is
worth more than what you have will always make you want what they have, that's
just human nature. Not disclosing salaries is more to keep harmony amongst the
workers and people happy in their jobs and focused on THEIR OWN needs as
opposed to just trying to get the same thing as someone else for whatever
reason.

Are there companies who leverage this for nefarious purposes? Sure but you
really shouldn't be working for those companies now should you?

The key here is communicate with your company. If you are valued they will try
to accommodate you or at least give you a good reason, if you are met with
resistance or reprecussions then maybe reexamine your relationship with them.

------
JoshDoody
I'm not an Amazonian, but I wanted to chime in here to say I think this thread
is a great idea and I would love to see more like it.

I write about salary negotiation and coach people through it, and I think
sharing salaries publicly will encourage more people to negotiate and get paid
what they're worth.

I recently coached a new Amazon employee, and he got a very good offer, which
he increased by about 15% using VERY simple negotiation tactics that we
discussed. If he hadn't negotiated, he would've still been paid well, but
would have left 15% on the table before he was even in the door.

I submitted this link yesterday—it's a Salary Negotiation workshop I did for
developers in Orlando last week. It's definitely relevant to this
conversation:

EDIT: Here's a direct link to the Salary Negotiation workshop summary to save
you a click: [http://bit.ly/21zFG5q](http://bit.ly/21zFG5q)

Here's the HN submission for posterity:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11305683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11305683)

(Not sure why I originally linked to an HN submission linking to the workshop.
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)

Nice job starting this thread!

~~~
p4wnc6
I'm interested in what your negotiation principles are.

I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and
require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their
initial offer.

However, I've repeatedly used all of the "business-professional" and "HR
approved" sorts of conversational techniques to enact this advice, and the
only result that has ever occurred is either (a) the company literally refuses
to even conduct a single interview with me before knowing salary information,
or (b) the company finally makes a job offer and it is extremely low,
something around 50%, of what I have earned previously in similar roles.

95% of the time I say I am more focused on assessing cultural and technical
fit for the position, making sure I would jell with the team, finding out more
about the company, learning more about the trade-offs required for the role,
etc., as reasons for not providing salary information as literally the first
point of communication with HR, it results in an instantaneous rejection.

I still believe candidates should not agree to unfair information asymmetry by
revealing their salary or wage preferences first. The problem is it just seems
that something like 95% of all hiring managers will outright immediately
reject you, on principle, if you don't agree to bear that unfair information
asymmetry.

All the great techie blog posts on being a better negotiator, like this:<
[http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-
negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/) > \--
they sound great and give me a pumped up rah rah feeling, but in practice they
basically never work.

My interviewing experience with this has covered large multi-national
companies, tech firms, small boutique quantitative finance firms, start-ups,
consulting companies, and education technology. There certainly are industries
I am missing, but it has seemed like a universal phenomenon to me.

~~~
JoshDoody
One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired
salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring
manager will usually just move on.

Another principle is that you should always counter.

So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused
to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say
this has never happened to me or anyone that I've worked with to negotiate a
starting salary.

Patrick's writing, which you alluded to, was a big inspiration for me to write
and think more deeply about this subject. He knows what he's talking about.

If you watch the Salary Negotiation workshop (linked in my original comment),
you'll see a section on "The Dreaded Salary Question" and there was a
15-minute discussion on it in the Q&A. (Both are linked in the notes below the
embedded video.) You might watch those segments to see if anything jumps out
at you that yo haven't' tried before.

Thanks for the question!

~~~
p4wnc6
In the handful of cases where the company was OK with my non-answer about
salary, and I went on to get all the way to a job offer, the salary ended up
being entirely miscalibrated to a candidate of my skill and experience, and
the overall interview process (which usually included some technical screens,
programming tests, take-home tests, and long on-site technical interviews) was
a _massive_ waste of my time, not to mention extremely stressful.

Places where I experienced this gross miscalibration: a large U.S. food
retailer's digital analytics team; a small pharmaceutical research software
company; a 25-year-old multinational scientific computing and supercomputing
consulting firm; and an FFRDC research lab attached to a university.

In one of these places they even went on at length about how much the hiring
manager liked me, how I fit all the skills they were seeking, and many team
members remarked that I would "mesh instantly" with the team, and so forth. I
had walked away from those interviews knowing that I had done a good job and
feeling very confident.

Then they made a job offer than was around 75% of what I had been making
before in a similar job in a similar cost of living area, and the new job's
other benefits were far worse.

When I told them what I was making before, they just said, "it just looks like
there's a bit of a gap here that we are unable to make up, but we think you'll
be very happy on this team so we hope you'll consider our offer despite that."
The people interviewing me in that company had even gone on at length about
how successful their business unit had been recently, signing a new important
contract, and how their biggest challenge was recruiting good people and
staffing up to support some projects that had important deadlines looming
towards the end of 2016.

I still continue to avoid sharing salary info, because I'm not convinced that
sharing it would be better.

But I think what you might not be accounting for is that almost every single
candidate in the tech world _does_ share salary, freely and openly, from the
very first minute they are asked, without even realizing it might have any
side effects.

A lot of corporate recruiters are conditioned to expect this, and the minute
someone fails to share salary, they flag them as "not a dope, can't hire them
cheaply" and they just move on. Constraint number one, above any and all
talent requirements, is that they _must_ be cheap to hire ... for a lot of
firms.

~~~
JoshDoody
It's tough to decide where to leave this reply, and this seems like a good
place to address a few things I've seen in the replies to my comment.

Usually, my advice is "don't share you current or desired salary", but the one
exception I've discussed with some people is when they're concerned they'll be
low-balled. In those cases, I've suggested it might be better to just disclose
your desired salary.

 _I 've been rethinking this lately_. I think a better tack might be to ask
the company to share the salary range they're offering for the position.
(You're only doing this if you're concerned you'll go through the interview
process and get an offer so low you can't even counter with anything
reasonable.)

In this case, you have virtually nothing to lose: either they'll tell you the
range and you'll know if you're wasting your time, or they'll refuse and now
you're both refusing to disclose the "desired" salary component. In the latter
case, you can choose to continue with the process or not, depending on your
general feeling about the opportunity.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect you should _never_ reveal your
desired salary because it can basically only cost you money. When you do
reveal your desired salary, you're basically guessing and gambling. You're
_guessing_ at the range they're offering, and _gambling_ that you don't
undershoot and cost yourself money. (See this clip on why I think it's so
important to protect the few pieces of information you have in a negotiation:
[https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU](https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU) TL;DR, you have
only two or three unique pieces of information that the company doesn't have;
the company has oodles and oodles of information that you don't have; they
have a significant informational advantage in your negotiation and this is bad
for you, but it's worse if you give away the few pieces of unique information
that you have.)

This is a worse gamble than simply interviewing to see what they're best offer
is, IMO. If you go all the way through the interview process and find they
can't afford you, you wasted a few hours of interview time. If you guess and
gamble by disclosing your desired salary, you're risking thousands of dollars
of base salary over several years. Odds are, the opportunity cost of your time
isn't anywhere near the potential downside of guessing wrong with respect to
the base salary they're willing to pay.

(I'm going to sleep on this, but it feels right) So, my suggestion is don't
disclose your desired salary, even if you're afraid their offer will be way
too low or if the recruiter says they won't continue without it. If you're
dealing with a very persistent recruiter OR you're afraid they can't afford
you, ask them to tell you the salary range they're offering so you can tell
them if it meets your requirements. If they won't tell you, then you can
choose to continue and possibly get a low offer, walk away, or the recruiter
may end the conversation (this is rare, in my experience, but I'd be open to
seeing data to change my mind).

All of these outcomes are preferable to the alternative, which is risking
thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars of base salary by guessing at
their range and gambling by disclosing your desired salary.

The bottom line is the company has something you need: a job. BUT you have
something the company needs: skills and experience that can help them make
money. Don't be fooled into perceiving a salary negotiation as a one-sided
affair.

~~~
p4wnc6
This is actually an excellent point, and I can't believe I didn't think of
this.

If I am the first one to bring up salary, and I request a range because I want
to make sure that nobody is wasting their time, then they clearly get the
message that I am expensive to hire, and they can efficiently reject me if
needed. If they give a number and it's too low, then I can politely tell them
it's best for everyone to discontinue the interviews.

But, if they _don 't_ want to give a range, presumably because they _might_ be
willing to pay a high wage if they liked me, then it puts me in a much better
position to avoid stating what I am seeking.

Then I could say, "OK, it's alright with me if you don't want to explicitly
tell me the range ... I just want to be sure that the position is offering
compensation in the range that I am seeking. If you prefer to leave the salary
discussions for later, that is perfectly understandable."

Now, if they press me for salary info, I can say the same thing they said and
refuse to answer.

~~~
JoshDoody
That all sounds very good to me :)

~~~
knite
A, but there's a catch! I've asked for a company's range many times, and they
have yet another non-answer answer: "we don't have a firm range in mind, we're
confident compensation won't be an issue for a top candidate".

It's a game of chicken. The best counter I have is "what is the top of your
range if we have a perfect fit?", but even that doesn't always work.

At this point, I'm sick of games. If a company refuses to disclose a salary
range and/or insists on getting me to quote a number, I lead with $2X0 and see
what happens. 80+% of companies aren't willing to hit that high, and the other
20% have been more interesting roles at higher quality companies.

------
asdfologist
A reminder to everyone that the National Labor Relations Act prohibits
companies from firing employees for discussing their salaries:

[http://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-
salaries/](http://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/)

~~~
python_cto
But not for divulging confidential information to the world, which is what the
OP has done.

~~~
brashrat
are you suggesting that companies can get around labor regulations by
declaring your compensation to be confidential? I'd check with a lawyer if I
were you, that's some pretty thin ice you are skating on.

~~~
a3n
Tangential - I asked my manager where I am on the stack rank once. He said
it's confidential information.

I have access to VCS, bugbases, all the documents. We're a very metrics-
oriented organization. And the one thing that _defines_ where I stand with the
company, I can't be trusted with.

I think if I didn't get a check every two weeks with the number on it, they
wouldn't tell me how much I'm paid.

------
ghrifter
I make roughly $20 an hour (about 16 after taxes :( )at the moment as a junior
full stack intern working part time (I live and work in US). Sometimes I
wonder if I should move on to find some other job, even if its remote...

On the other hand, my work is not that stressful, and I'm still going to
school so my job is very flexible on time.

Anyone else been in a position like me?

~~~
duaneb
Competitive internships will offer 2-2.5X that.

~~~
randommodnar
Really? I went through the co-op program at my university and the pay range
for everybody going into software was basically $15-25/hr, although I didn't
hear of a single person getting over $20.

~~~
duaneb
> Really? I went through the co-op program at my university and the pay range
> for everybody going into software was basically $15-25/hr, although I didn't
> hear of a single person getting over $20.

By competitive, I mean microsoft, facebook, and google. This could be naïve of
me, but that's how they position themselves.

------
lolidaisuki
You gave enough information that they could find you without using any links
in your profile or your online handle.

Another thing that could be interesting is your accent. My eyes were recently
opened about the discrimination that happens based on that.

~~~
boren_ave11
Actually, I told my boss about the post before I submitted it. But I was only
letting him know -- I didn't ask for permission. The decision was mine and
mine alone, so any (unlikely) backlash won't be directed at him. We have a
good relationship and see eye to eye almost all the time. He did say that he
didn't think there was anything wrong with posting this.

The reason for the throwaway is because I generally try to avoid "stirring the
pot." Or at least, don't want a reputation as a pot stirrer. But if some
higher up confronts me about it, I won't deny posting it.

~~~
lolidaisuki
Some pots should be stirred and I think this is one of those pots.

------
sauronlord
Amazon offered me 104k/year + 18k signing bonus for year 1 and a 14k signing
bonus for year 2. Software Developer position.

35k in stock options that would vest over 4 years.

That was March 10th, 2011.

------
torhorway
Facebook Offer:

iOS Developer

Base Salary: 140k Signon Bonus: 25k Stock / 4 yrs: 200k Annual Bonus: 10%

The job I took this year:

iOS/Android dev Base: 190k Stock / 4 yrs: 3% Bonuses: tied to company revenue

Work History: 4 years over 4 different companies (startups and one big co)

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

------
serge2k
Op (and others) adding your office would be informative if you are comfortable
with that.

Otherwise compensation is hard to compare.

I quit but my pay was ( Lin Seattle, numbers rounded a bit)

90k base 53k initial grant, backloaded 5% after 1 year, 15 after 2, 20% every
6 months after that. 37k signing bonus, 20k lump sum, 17k spread over 2nd
year.

Raises were <1% at first review, 3.5% at second. So when I left after just
over 2 years I was at 94k base. They did give me some more stock at my second
review, but it was 2 years out iirc

------
ionised
I'm starting to think I need to move out of the UK to somewhere that actually
pays developers a decent salary.

------
jorgecurio
I started out at $35,000 USD / year in Vancouver then I stopped working 9am ~
9pm including weekends and just started my own SaaS which made less than 10%
of that.

