
Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level - zuhayeer
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19ne7ccUdOWewD4rFDQjjnQEJDgsmgFID/view
======
cletus
As a FAANG engineer going on 9 years now, let me address the usual rebuttals:

\- There is a selection bias. Nope, this is pretty much accurate.

\- These aren't real. Yes, yes they are.

\- Self-reporters are lying. Maybe some do but these numbers are pretty
accurate. If anything, I question Lyft and Airbnb as such outliers. I wonder
if this factored in Lyft's post-IPO stock performance and makes unrealistic
valuations of Airbnb's RSUs/options. But for any listed company, these numbers
are accurate.

\- You have to work incredibly hard for this compensation. no, you don't. In
fact you'll typically find significantly better work-life balance at a FAANG
than a startup.

\- These numbers are inflated by years of stock growth that is unlikely to
continue in the future. This there is some truth to but not as much as people
claim. Amazon, of all these companies, builds in expected stock growth into
their initial grant valuation (which I think is total BS; if any Amazon
recruiters are reading this, please stop). But I know what offers new hires
can get pretty accurately so at current stock prices as a new hire these
numbers pare pretty accurate.

\- Newer offers are likely to be less. False. If anything, initial offers
continue just climbing such that anyone who is interested in maximizing their
compensation should probably move companies every 3-4 years, especially 4 if
you don't get an additional grant after your initial grant has fully vested.

There are some things to be aware of though and these can make it nontrivial
to compare competing offers. Some examples:

\- Most FAANGs have a 25/25/25/25 vesting schedule. Amazon does not. It's
vesting schedule is 5/15/40/40 with a vesting signing bonus in the first 2
years to (partially) compensate for this.

\- Amazon, as noted earlier, assumes stock price growth in their offer.

\- Amazon (noticing a trend?) has vesting on 401k matches that can take 2-3
years. Most FAANGs do not.

\- Anything less than a 50% 401k match is below market.

\- Some FAANGs have caps on 401k matches. Some don't.

\- I think the most generous 401k match I've seen is Google's at 50% of your
contribution with no cap or vesting period or 100% of the first $3,000 at
year's end, whichever is higher. The really nice thing is because there's no
cap you get it immediately. It's fairly common to get your bonus in January,
put it all in your 401k, get your 50% match and you're done for the year.

\- Some offer the ability to make contributions into after tax 401k (Google
"mega backdoor Roth" if you're interested in this). This is potentially huge
beneficial. You can use it to invest money you can withdraw at any time at no
penalty but the investment returns are tax free. If you withdraw the returns
(not the initial investment) prior to being aged 59.5 you pay taxes plus a 10%
penalty, however.

\- Vacation days vary but 4 weeks (20 days) should be considered the norm for
the US (30 for Europe/Australia).

\- Some companies (eg Google) start you on less vacation days but you get more
with length of service.

\- Unlimited time off is bullshit. Think of this as no time off.

\- Health insurance can differ but I imagine pretty much all FAANGs at this
point have good health insurance. The gold standard is probably Kaiser for CA
residents.

\- Some FAANGs have a 1 year cliff. Some do not (eg Google, FB).

\- Vesting schedules can vary. Some are monthly, some every 3 months, some
annually. Try to avoid anything less frequent than once every 3 months. It can
create bad incentives for the company to get rid of you before a big vest
date.

\- FAANGs will give you performance-based RSU grants annually. The time of
year can vary. The eligibility can vary. For example, Google gives you a
refresh grant at, after Q2-Q3 calibration (based on your previous two halves).
And I believe in recent years it changed that if you joined that calendar year
you aren't eligible.

\- Because of refresh grants and your initial grant running in tandem, years
2-4 can often be your most lucrative. If you don't get promoted or an
additional grant you can get significantly less compensation in year 5. Why
these companies let people leave because they won't give them additional
equity rather than competing for a new hire is beyond me. But they do.

\- Because of the inflation in initial offers, a new hire can often have a
significantly better offer than someone who joined 3 years prior. The veteran
may only have higher total compensation because of refresh grants and/or stock
growth.

\- FAANGs tightly control salary within bands for a given level. Going beyond
this is unlikely to happen however there is FAR more movement on RSUs in an
initial offer and/or signing bonus.

So this is all another reason of why from a financial POV working for a
startup is--how should I put this?--suboptimal. Your equity is probably worth
nothing (even if you get acquihired, liquidation preferences probably mean all
non-founder stock is worth $0). The hours are worse. The benefits are worse.
There may be reasons to do this that aren't financial (as a non-founder) but
personally I'd suggest people use their most productive years to ensure their
financial independence and then chase whatever moonshot tickles your fancy
without the pressure of having to pay for food.

~~~
abalone
_> The gold standard is probably Kaiser for CA residents._

I love your post but I almost shat myself when I read this. Kaiser is
convenient but not top ranked in much. The gold standard is a PPO that lets
you go anywhere (else) you like incl. top specialists + a membership primary
care network like OneMedical for convenience.

(By the way, I support Medicare4All. Good healthcare shouldn’t just be for
wealthy FAANG engineers and even for us the system still sucks.)

~~~
nostrademons
Kaiser varies significantly based on which center you end up in. I've heard
very good things about the Redwood City location and very bad things about
Santa Clara. There're probably similar variations among its other hospitals.
YMMV.

I've been on various Anthem PPOs of varying quality (Google's covered
basically everything with zero copay or deductible, their individual plan
wouldn't even cover my PCP, my wife's plan was in the middle but getting
progressively worse). There's a convenience/flexibility tradeoff. With Kaiser
you know that they'll take care of you but you don't have a lot of flexibility
or recourse if your particular needs don't meet what they offer. With a PPO
you have a lot of flexibility to choose the best providers available, but you
have to fight with the health insurance company for a lot of things, and the
administrative hassles can be a huge burden.

~~~
chaostheory
I’ve heard bad things about both their Santa Clara and Redwood City locations.
I’ve also experienced bad things in their RWC location. For example, I was
always exhausted and I requested a sleep study. What I got from Kaiser was a
crappy take home gadget that detected no abnormalities in my sleep. When I
switched to PAMF, I got a real sleep study in a lab. They were able to
diagnose breathing and snoring issues within 30 minutes. There are more
stories from both coworkers and friends. Save yourself a headache, pay more
for a better provider

The only advantage Kaiser has over many health care providers is price.

------
opportune
It makes me feel bad how many people see these figures and immediately start
trying to find ways to rationalize why they must be overstated. Aside from
some of these companies not being public (so those RSUs are not very liquid)
or backloading vesting, they’re pretty accurate IME.

The main thing I would point out is that the years of experience guideline is
a bit optimistic. Many engineers get downleveled moving into top paying
companies (so someone with 9 years of experience might be level 2) and usually
either level 2 or level 3 is a terminal level, meaning it’s both ok to stay at
that level for a long time and that promotions get harder.

Also, while these figures don’t (or shouldn’t) include signing bonus/relo, nor
health insurance, free food, and other benefits, it should be noted that most
of these are in the Bay Area or similarly expensive areas. So a lot of your
money goes to housing (with housing close to work large enough for a family
being super expensive), and state taxes are a bit steep.

~~~
poulsbohemian
>It makes me feel bad how many people see these figures and immediately start
trying to find ways to rationalize why they must be overstated.

Some of the numbers can be hard to comprehend... for example, tech salaries
weren't great until about the last decade. And, it used to be that the eye-
popping numbers were not for everybody, and certainly not for entry-level /
new-grads. Heck, just the amount of transparency in compensation available now
was completely foreign when I started my career. Likewise, what's interesting
is that in our always connected digital world, location still matters. Thus,
for someone not working at a FAANG and not in specific geographic locations,
these numbers are other-worldly.

~~~
crispyambulance
> for someone not working at a FAANG and not in specific geographic locations,
> these numbers are other-worldly.

Yes. other-worldly is a good word for it. It's not so much that people don't
believe these numbers, I think. It's more of a sense of disappointment and
feeling left out.

So many experienced professionals work their whole adult lives and end up
maxing out at only a 1/10th of the compensation of a "principal" at a FAANG in
Silicon Valley.

~~~
jcadam
And the last few years I've taken to blowing off recruiters from SV (including
FAANG companies). I'm earning very good money for a software engineer where I
live, but... dang, "other-worldly" is a good term for the money you people
make.

OTOH, being forced to live in California is a huge downside to any FAANG job
(for me, anyway).

~~~
exclipy
We need to cut the myth that these salaries only exist in Silicon Valley.

Seattle and NYC also offer otherworldly packages.

Google (and probably other FAANGs) also pay extremely well in Boston, Los
Angeles, Boulder, Chicago, Austin and Zurich/Switzerland.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Yes - but try Des Moines or Missoula or Boise or even Portland, OR (a growing
tech hub) and these salary levels are hard to hit. And, outside of the FAANGs
the salaries are a step down just about everywhere.

~~~
exclipy
Was just responding to the "being forced to live in California" comment.

------
throwaway713
Now imagine having one of these incomes but having a spouse who is hellbent on
moving back to the southeastern U.S. in a year. It’s driving me nuts; I can’t
find any company in the south that pays anywhere near my current compensation,
and a rough calculation indicates that leaving FANG will bump my retirement
age from 38 to 65 (never mind the amazing health insurance I’ll be giving up
too). It’s like throwing a winning lottery ticket on the ground and walking
away. I’m seriously considering commuting by plane in the future, because even
with a $200 per day flight, I would still retire a decade earlier than taking
a local job.

~~~
cletus
Surely cheaper housing, education and other costs would compensate for a
locally lower income? I don’t know where in the southeast you’re talking snot
but I imagine it’s 50-80% cheaper for housing?

~~~
killjoywashere
Here's the central issue with the coast: saving 10% of $350k anywhere is a lot
easier than saving 20% of $175k in a dirt-poor county in <Alabama, Georgia,
South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana>.

Partially, this has to do with the desire to retain your absolute peer tier:
if your neighbors have PhDs in Alameda, then you want to live with the PhDs in
New Orleans. And the Sliver by the River is still expensive. Same holds in
Augusta, Jacksonville, wherever.

~~~
lonelappde
Those numbers are way off. Th comparison is saving 25+% of $350k vs 50% of
$175k.

And that's assuming your spouse doesn't work.

------
abalone
I just landed a senior role at a FAANG-ish SF company paying over $300k TC.
Some comments on this:

1\. Equity is the biggest factor in these figures. Levels.fyi is extremely bad
at clarifying whether you should be reporting your equity value at signing vs
how its changed since. Signing is the only apples to apples comparison.

2\. These level descriptions are weird. They make it sound like “senior”
engineers with 5+ years exp don’t write much code, are just 30% of the
company, etc. I suppose it depends on the company, but key teams at FAANGs are
able to hire more seniors and just invest in better engineers writing code
every day. Good engineers like writing code and working with other good
engineers. Netflix for example is known to hire mostly seniors. They’re not
just writing design docs.

3\. Speaking of Netflix they are an interesting outlier in that they don’t do
equity, they do cash TC that is competitive with cash+equity FAANGs. So their
offers are great data points that clear up some of the ambiguity around equity
value. They are out there every day negotiating for talent. Although I think
there’s a little bit of a premium to attract engineers down to Los Gatos.

4\. Can they see who opens their doc on google drive when shared like this?
The link immediately opened my app with me logged in.

------
choppaface
Another point of reference: here are some offers recently aggregated on Blind.
In 2019, I got an offer almost identical to one of those listed below, and a
friend got an offer a little higher than listed below. So I believe the
reports are legit.

While the raw salary data on levels.fyi is useful, other context about the
candidate & team is pretty important. For example, my friend has no college
degree but matched to a very profitable / well-funded team, so he got a
relatively larger stock award. levels.fyi probably has a pretty good estimate
of how each company assigns base salary bands to the now "standard" four
levels (junior, senior, staff, decorated).

It seems sign-on bonuses grew a lot in 2019. Several posts for Facebook new
grads getting $100k sign-on bonus.

LinkedIn

Senior

* 185 base, 10% bonus, 300k - 400k for 4 years stock, 60k sign on

* Total Comp: 294 - 319 / yr

Staff:

* 210 base, 15% bonus, 600k for 4 years stock, 75k sign on

* Total Comp: 411 / yr

Senior Staff:

* 230 base, 20% bonus, 1M for 4 years stock, 100k sign on

* Total Comp: 551 / yr

Facebook

Senior:

* 210 base, 15% bonus, 700k for 4 years stock, 80k sign on

* Total Comp: 437 / yr

Staff

* 225 base, 20% bonus, 1.1M for 4 years stocks, 100k sign on

* Total Comp: 570 / yr

Google

Senior

* 195 base, 15% bonus, 750k for 4 years stock, 100k sign on

* Total Comp: 438 / yr

Staff

* 220 base, 20% bonus, 1M for 4 years stock, 120k sign on

* Total Comp: 544 / yr

~~~
jypepin
I've recently interviewed and got 5 offers. Those numbers check out.

~~~
vonseel
All SF/CA numbers I suppose? Any idea how these differ in Austin?

~~~
jypepin
Yes, all SF offers.

No idea for Austin, but I used levels.fyi to give me an idea of what to expect
and negociate, and it helped a lot (and was on point with what I got offered).
I think you can filter per city, so there might be some data for Austin.

------
gnrlst
What I find completely demotivating is working for a FAANG in Europe, and
seeing the massive disparity between US colleagues. You can argue cost of
living is different, healthcare is public blablabla, but recruiters have told
me straight out: we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate.
Therefore they dont give a rats ass about how much it costs to live in a
specific country, they just pay based on the average going rate.
Unfortunately, some EU countries (e.g. IT) have very low purchasing power due
to stagnant wages and inflated prices. So we're getting the shit end of the
stick.

~~~
SirHound
Also we don't get free heathcare, we pay for it through taxation. I believe
this is morally right, but that's beside the point: These well-paid American
employees are also probably getting a great healthcare package as part of
their contract, so they don't even have to pay for it.

~~~
anthonypasq
All employer provided healthcare is subsidized not free.

~~~
xtracto
Haha, your comment reminded me when I went to Las Vegas and the hotel told us
to go into bus X that they offered as part of the service for their guests.

When we arrived to the bus, we asked the driver: "Is this the bus service that
goes to XYZ place and it si free?" . The driver very seriously told us: "It is
not free", to which we replied "but they told us it was free!", finally he
added: "it is not free, it is complimentary"

I found amusing how the US culture finds the concept of "free" (gratis,
kostenlos) somewhat dirty.

------
huehehue
What I'm taking away from this is that many (most) companies are grossly
underpaying their engineers. I've been through the SF/NYC Senior SWE
interviewing gauntlet twice in the past three years, and received 10+ offers
at half this rate. Levels claims to be checking offer letters, which is great
IMO. It's really hard for people to know they're being undervalued when the
employers are low-balling and the self-reporters are lying.

~~~
meritt
> many (most) companies are grossly underpaying their engineers.

No, that's simply unfair to the companies who don't have billions of dollars
in free cash flow or effectively infinite amounts of VC money.

The top firms have gotten themselves into an insane bidding war which has a
side effect of creating an oligopoly on talent, as it's simply unrealistic to
impossible for many firms to compete. Not to mention they apparently pay many
people these sort of salaries to do basically nothing [1]: they've decided
it's better to simply retain talent than risk them going to a competitor,
regardless if they provide any value or not.

That all said, as an employee in whole debacle, you should simply focus your
interviews on firms willing to pay these levels and maximize your income while
you can.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560)

~~~
thatsenough
> _The top firms have gotten themselves into an insane bidding war._

That may be true, but there's more to it than that. The first wave of
successful IPOs (Facebook, Amazon, Google, Twitter, etc.) caused a spike in
housing prices as employees purchased houses. On top of that, companies have
added tens of thousands of new jobs, without proportional growth in the
housing supply. So housing prices are now absurd, and these companies _need_
to pay more so their employees can buy smallish houses on the peninsula at
$1.5-$2.5M a piece and have a middle-class quality of life.

~~~
cletus
Yeah I think this part is a stretch.

Just look at Vancouver as a far more extreme example of how local property
prices can be out of whack with wages.

House prices are a function of wages (or, more accurately, have a floor set by
wages if land is constrained) not the other way around.

Also, the level of entitlement by a lot of such engineers I find to be
borderline disgusting. Why do you think you're entitled to a $1.5m house at
all let alone 3 years out of college? If you really want cheaper housing (as a
function of income) just move to a lower income area. It's actually pretty
simple.

But the most objectionable part for me is not just how much of a non-problem
this is but it completely ignores people with real problems, like, oh I don't
know, the people who drive the shiny white buses who need to live 2+ hours
away. Or those not in tech who have to do the same.

Engineers are compensated well now because of the value they create for their
employer, nothing more, nothing less.

~~~
thatsenough
> _House prices are a function of wages (or, more accurately, have a floor set
> by wages if land is constrained) not the other way around._

I guess if you state it as a fact, that makes it true?

But if that’s the case, why would the company pay an engineer more when she
moves from the Austin office to the NYC office? She has become more valuable
to the company overnight? And the most valuable engineers just happen to live
in the most expensive cities?

Sorry, but salaries _are_ impacted by cost of living. Because if they’re
paying top talent too low relative to cost of living, those engineers _will_
just move elsewhere, as you suggest.

Yes, this puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing market,
affecting everyone in the Bay Area. I’m not claiming this is good.

Vancouver is a different situation entirely.

> _Why do you think you 're entitled to a $1.5m house at all let alone 3 years
> out of college?_

This is not at all what I said. And most people I know here cannot afford a
house 10+ years out of college, unless they’ve worked at a top-paying company
all those years.

Who is claiming they’re entitled to it? I’m saying companies are _offering_ it
to retain employees, because it’s in the companies’ best interest.

> _it completely ignores people with real problems, like, oh I don 't know,
> the people who drive the shiny white buses who need to live 2+ hours away._

And there are plenty of people less fortunate than the bus drivers. By your
logic, if they don’t like it, they can just move somewhere cheaper. Maybe it’s
just too late in the evening, but I’m not really seeing your point here.

------
slg
I have never worked in the valley, so the answer to this question might be
obvious to the people working there. What happens to all the experienced
engineers?

According to this, the Senior, Staff, or Principal titles are generally for
people with 5+ year experience? Those roles make up 30%, 10%, and 3% of
companies respectively. That leaves 57% of engineers in positions listed are
usually for people with 0-5 years experience. Does that mean over half of
engineers are relatively new to the industry? Are there large numbers of
engineers that go their entire career without getting a Senior title? Are
there large numbers that end up changing industries? I know some people
transition from hands on engineering to management, but there can't possibly
be that many management jobs to make up that difference, right?

~~~
thatsenough
I started working at FANG recently, after spending 15 years in a different
field. The very first thing I noticed was how young the average employee is.
It was a little startling. I've heard different theories:

* Today's big tech companies are still relatively young, so the workforce is young.

* The companies have grown exponentially in recent years, and they've hired many new grads to meet hiring targets. This would also shift the average employee age lower.

* The people who joined these companies 15-20 years ago would likely be very well-off financially by now, so they don't need to keep working. They've retired early, created start ups, left the Bay Area, etc.

I think there's likely some truth to these claims. But Silicon Valley also has
a reputation for ageism, so who knows.

~~~
dehrmann
Looking at this (hopefully someone can find longer-term data), the number of
CS graduates was in decline until 2009.

[https://i1.wp.com/danwang.co/wp-
content/uploads/2017/05/bach...](https://i1.wp.com/danwang.co/wp-
content/uploads/2017/05/bachelors.png?w=992&ssl=1)

~~~
thatsenough
There was a peak in the mid-80s, and another around 2005.

CS enrollments reached a max around 2000, at the height of the dot-com bubble.
But when the bubble burst in 2000-2001, enrollments plummeted in 2002, 2003
and 2004, leading to the local minimum in graduates in 2009.

[https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/images/BS...](https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/CSCapacity/images/BSDegrees-1975-2014.png)

~~~
kokey
I'm getting a bit of a dot-com feeling around these compensation figures,
especially seeing the sign up bonuses and how tangible stocks are considered
as normal compensation now. The FAANGs remind me a bit of Microsoft, Cisco and
Intel before their y2k peaks.

~~~
dehrmann
I do get some of that feeling. The differences is that the FAANGs are all
public, have been for a while, and have real revenue. The dot-com bubble was
mostly fueled by VC, IPOs, and a virtuous cycle (though I guess Microsoft,
Cisco, and Intel had been public for a while, and they did survive the bubble
burst).

Facebook and Google do ads, and most online advertisers look for immediate,
real value. These success stories are as real as e-commerce.

That brings us to Amazon. It's e-commerce is real, but margins are low. AWS
looks more like the dot-com bubble in that some of that money is coming from
VCs. If funding dries up, AWS gets hit. That said, there's a larger migration
to the cloud, and that's also real.

Apple makes high-margin phones that people all over the world buy. Full stop.

Netflix is the least like the others. It's smaller, and while it
revolutionized how we consume content, it's current model is heavily funded by
debt, and it's facing stiff competition. No one's talking about how Netflix
will take over long-form video, they're griping at having to pay for six
streaming services.

The alternate story for tech salaries is that PCs and the internet weren't
ready for prime time in 2000. After the bubble burst, there were too few CS
grads for when the internet was finally ready. The internet wasn't ready until
2006-2010 when most people had broadband at home, smartphones matures, and LTE
was ready.

------
hoorayimhelping
It would be really nice to see more companies that aren't the top 5. What do
6-20 look like?

I'd like to know when companies start getting to average pay levels. Is it
only the top 5 companies that pay this? Or do the top 50 companies all pay
really high? Is that data even available, or is it just that this represents
some of the most attractive offer letters at top of bands for some of the most
well funded startups and presenting the available data this way makes for a
more attractive blog post?

I feel like reading too much into this top five list is causing a lot of
people a lot of consternation.

~~~
zuhayeer
We have plans to publish more information, but for now you can view salary
information for a number of other companies on our main website:
[http://levels.fyi](http://levels.fyi)

~~~
thecleaner
I love levels.fyi. Will it be possible to specify which companies do or do not
sponsor visas ?

~~~
zuhayeer
Added to our list, will try to work on it!

~~~
Plyphon_
Sorry to highjack - any plans to expand to Europe and/or the UK (Brexit
looming...) ? Cheers!

~~~
zuhayeer
We're working on it! Still very sparse data for Europe right now, but you can
search for UK specific salaries on our compensation page at
[https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s...](https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&search=United%20Kingdom#)

We also have a very preliminary salary page for London available at
[https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-
Engineer/London/](https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/)

~~~
Plyphon_
Amazing, thanks!

------
Waterluvian
I do the job of a senior engineer and yet am paid a bit less than what's
listed for an entry level engineer. And I live an incredibly comfy life.
What's the catch? Are these for more than 40 hours a week? Is silicon valley
really that expensive? Or are they literally giving college grads enough money
to retire by 35?

~~~
typest
There is not necessarily a catch. Pay is not based on cost of living -- it's
set by market rates, and the market rate for software engineers in these areas
who can do the jobs required at these companies is high. All these companies
operate at an immense scale where an engineer, through what is often a simple
change, can add significant value to the company.

So, yes. For now, these companies are giving college grads enough money to
retire by 35 (assuming the college grads are halfway financially savvy).

Source: I am a recent college grad at a FAANG.

~~~
glglwty
A senior position in the doc will probably get you ~2M in savings by 35. How
do you retire with that?

~~~
typest
You read through all the advice in these blogs [1][2]. Seriously.

If you are invested in low cost index funds, most assume you can safely
withdraw 4% a year and not deplete your principal. If you're retiring at 35,
you might want a greater safety margin, so let's say 3%. That gives you 60K a
year.

How do you retire on 60K a year? Obviously take what I'm saying with a grain
of salt as I'm a relatively young person and haven't done any of this yet.
But...60K is the median household income in the US, so half of families in the
US live on less. If you're retired, you can probably save in ways others
can't. For instance:

* Housing. You don't need to stay in a high cost of living city, so move to a much cheaper area (maybe a college town).

* Education. You have much more time, so send your kids to all public education, and use your extra time to educate them further.

* Debt. You have a ton of assets. Why hold any debt?

* Automobiles. Bike instead, if you're physically able.

* Health. Probably the hardest one since insurance in the US is tied to employment. I understand the recommended approach here is to pay out of pocket for a plan, but many have trouble with this. Of course, the standard advice is to use the extra time you have due to retirement to stay as healthy as possible, but I acknowledge this isn't a perfect plan.

[1] [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/) [2]
[https://www.madfientist.com/](https://www.madfientist.com/)

~~~
tempestn
Good advice. Just one nitpick: The 4% rule, which states you can as a rule of
thumb safely withdraw 4% of the starting capital per year in real dollars (IE
increase it each year to account for inflation), is intended for a standard
retirement period (65+) and does expect the principal to decrease.

There's more debate as to what would be a safe withdrawal rate over the long
term without depleting principal, but I expect 3% would be a bit on the high
side, although not unreasonable if one has a backup like part-time work.

Of course, that's assuming you withdraw 3% of the initial amount each year and
adjust for inflation. Obviously if you only withdraw 3% of the current amount
each year you'll never run out, by definition, but you might end up with
shrinking spending money.

Still, just a nitpick. I agree with you in principle for sure.

~~~
villahousut
That's a bit incorrect. Returns from a typical investment portfolio have been
over 4% for the last 10-20 years, so that's the amount you can withdraw
without depleting any principal. If you're looking to consume your whole
principal by the time you die you can go way ahead of 4%, easily double that.

~~~
burntoutfire
> Returns from a typical investment portfolio have been over 4% for the last
> 10-20 years, so that's the amount you can withdraw without depleting any
> principal.

Past results do not guarantee future performance. People in the FIRE community
generally look at market performance since the final decades of the XIX
century. For many, even these numbers do not guarantee anything, as the growth
during these days reflected USA entering its golden age. Who knows if it will
last through XXI century.

~~~
kudokatz
> even these numbers do not guarantee anything

at this point a reasonable response is "there are no guarantees". If the 4%
rule was back-tested through the great depression and generally came out fine,
it's probably in the right ballpark.

As another FIRE blogger puts it, "3% or less is a near sure bet as anything in
this life can be"

[https://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/12/07/stocks-part-xiii-
withdraw...](https://jlcollinsnh.com/2012/12/07/stocks-part-xiii-withdrawal-
rates-how-much-can-i-spend-anyway/)

------
tempire
If this is for real, _everyone_ I know is getting completely screwed.

I have a hard time believing any of these numbers. If I earned any of these
amounts for 2-3 years, I could live off the interest for the rest of my life.

~~~
HenryKissinger
Here in Canada entry level SWEs are getting paid 60k-70k CAD (45k-55k USD).
It's worse in Europe.

These numbers are absolutely mind boggling. Even with a higher cost of living
and California income taxes, you still have at least 100k of free money to
invest. It's no wonder so many people apply for jobs at FAANGs. A job at a
FAANG is practically a ticket to early retirement.

~~~
th-miracle-257
It is worse in Europe, but try getting a FANG job in Europe and they still pay
extremely well.

My base pay is 150K pounds and not in London! Definitely I have a very niche
skill in demand and I had to work really hard and be luck at the same time, to
land at this role, but I will any day pick Europe with all the other benefits
that a European country gives me.

~~~
Nadge
What do you do and what is your skillset, if I may ask?

~~~
th-miracle-257
I am working at the leading edge of both 3D gfx HW and SW.

------
georgeburdell
I don't have much to say except Zuhayeer your site's numbers are dead on from
what I can tell of both my and my spouse's employers. Glassdoor et al. tend to
low-ball by quite a bit, possibly due to stale information.

Keep up the good work!

------
gamesbrainiac
Looks like us over here in Europe are getting shafted. Even if you adjust for
living expenses, European engineers are grossly underpaid.

~~~
Pandabob
I might be wrong here, but I think the biggest reason for this is that Europe
hasn't really produced a tech company in the past ~25 years, with revenues
(and profits) amounting to anything close to those of the FAANGs.

OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European
workers as well as they do the ones working in the US.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European
> workers as well as they do the ones working in the US.

They don't, but they do compensate them similarly relative to the local
average pay. They pay what they need to to get the talent they want.

I work at Google Munich, the pay here is much higher than a regular company in
Munich, similarly to how Google pays much more than a regular company in the
US. In some ways the difference is even more striking here, because there are
few peer companies here that pay similarly to Google (there's a Lyft office,
and a small number of Amazon devs, that's about it AFAIK), whereas in major
tech hubs in the US you usually also have Facebook and Apple and Amazon and
Microsoft and Netflix and various others that are similar or close.

~~~
Pandabob
Sure this makes sense, and I've heard rumblings that the average pay in the
Berlin startup scene has been climbing these past few years. But I guess we're
still far away from someone with five years of experience making 400-500k per
year.

------
vosper
I get Airbnb and Stripe being up there for entry-level engineers, those
companies are almost printing money.

But Lyft, haemorrhaging money, is top of the list, and Oracle - the company
no-one in the Bay Area or on HN seems to work for, and everyone seems to hate
- is 5th? Are there legions of quietly-well-paid Oracle engineers out there
just keeping their heads down and getting on with the job? Why isn't Oracle in
the more senior lists - they make complex and expensive databases, isn't that
something you need to pay a lot of money to get really smart people to work
on?

And Netflix, which I thought famously paid very well, only pops up in one
tier?

It's more likely I'm misinformed than this list is wrong, but I find this
pretty surprising.

~~~
chirau
I know a number of people at Oracle, senior engineers mostly. They are not the
online forum aficionados. They do their work, get paid go home to their
family, plan vacations just like most other folks out of the tech industry.
Very industrious and well deservedly compensated, if I do say so myself. Not
just Oracle folks either, there are plenty of companies that are not buzzing
or on everybody's lips but treat their employees ridiculously well. Look at
SAS for example. Some of the happiest and most well compensated people I know.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I went to NC State, which SAS recruits heavily from (for obvious reasons).

The people that work at SAS are _not_ the top tier, at all. They have a
surprisingly large number of test engineers too. From what I gather the 35
hour a week thing is a myth, and benefits are mediocre compared to top tech
companies.

~~~
bspn
Yeah, the public perception (mostly created by the company) of SAS is very
different from reality. The work is mostly boring, the pay is just ok and the
lifestyle balance - while better than the Bay Area - is definitely not 35
hours a week on average. Historically the COL in the RDU area has been a major
selling point but even that is changing as property prices continue to rise
across the Triangle.

~~~
akhilcacharya
There are much better paying companies in RDU now, including Microsoft which
is seems to be growing rapidly.

------
itsmefaz
The article is a so great and shocking at the same time.

I understand the rant and a sense of discomfort us engineers are facing
looking at the dataset. I would definitely want to get more context out of
these numbers like -

> Why these engineers are paid so much and why others are not?

> Is education/college a factor in this pay gap?

> If one wants to earn this much. What are the required skills to achieve this
> goal?

It is a very good sign that a level of awareness is being developed about the
pay gap not in among different genders but also within the same
organization/experience levels.

------
i0exception
Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the
cards. Better visibility into numbers will definitely help level the playing
field.

Collecting offer letters is an interesting way to build trust in data. What's
the incentive for someone to upload their offer letter though?

~~~
eru
> Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the
> cards.

What makes you think companies hold all the cards? Especially in tech.

~~~
chillacy
It's not all the cards but companies (recruiters) usually have information
asymmetry on their candidates. Sites like levels.fyi are a good remedy, with
the right info and counteroffers you can negotiate salaries/sign-on bonuses up
by pretty large amounts.

~~~
eru
A strategy that has worked for me is to interview in batches. Companies
interview multiple candidates, too.

That gives you extra leverage and extra information.

~~~
marvin
I tried this in West Norway recently, being as firm in the negotiation tactics
as possible. Didn't yield higher offers _at all_! So that tells me the market
here is actually not nearly as competitive as all the consulting companies try
to make people believe.

In other words, the success of this strategy is market-dependent, but it
certainly seems to have a huge effect in SV.

~~~
eru
I never worked in SV, but I did mostly work in global cities.

It's important to be aware of 'BATNA's, ie the best alternative to negotiated
agreement. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement)

For the employer that means hiring the next best candidate, or not hiring
anyone for that position. For you it means taking the next best offer, or
staying at your old place etc.

The concept is closely linked to opportunity costs.

In general, you can negotiate an agreement only between your BATNA and their
BATNA.

(Part of interviewing in batches is that you can credibly present that your
BATNA is very high. So you can be tough in negotiations.)

~~~
marvin
Yep, I'm aware of this and use it. I guess in these terms, my claim is that
the BATNA of most companies here is actually that they have all the engineers
they need at low cost. But are presenting publicly that they have a shortage
and more people should become engineers, so that they can get them even
cheaper.

------
pram
There is absolutely no way IC2 makes $175k at Oracle. LOL. I doubt you can
even find an IC2, period. They hire everyone in at IC3 and above, and
everyones paid like shit.

The only exception I can think of was the people brought in to work on the
'next gen' cloud stuff who were poached from Amazon. They were all 'senior'
and 'principal' engineers though.

~~~
qrazhan
A friend of mine was just hired as an IC2 at Oracle at 175k. He is on cloud
stuff in Seattle, but by no means a senior or principal engineer -- only 1
year of experience.

~~~
pram
Yes, as I stated in the last part, Seattle is the exception because the cloud
has become make or break. Oracle has 135k employees and the vast bulk are not
in Washington. HTH

------
wakkaflokka
Some of these salaries are hilarious. I work in a small city in the Southeast
at about 250k cash comp and feel blessed because of it. Leave it to HN to make
me feel that tinge of envy. The weird thing is, I never get jealous/envious of
someone my age making 1 million. 2 million. Or hitting the jackpot and selling
their company for hundreds of millions. Doesn’t give me one iota of “wish I
had that”, but the 400k starting salaries really make me wonder if I should be
starting the job search again and uplifting the family out of the Southeast
lol. I wonder if it’s because I can envision myself working for those
companies and actually making it (versus founding a company and making
millions). The mind is an interesting thing. I am very grateful to be making
what I do, and even more grateful that people who practice my trade (in some
form or fashion) are getting paid well for it!

~~~
non-entity
How the hell do you make $250k in the southeast? On top of that in one of the
smaller cities

~~~
wakkaflokka
I found a company that was trying to compete for “Silicon Valley Tech Talent”
so they ramped salaries up to do it.

------
throwaway34343
I was a manager at one of these companies and my L5s were making half of what
this thing says. Don't trust everything you read on the internet.

~~~
ping_pong
This is false. I'm friends with many people across many companies, and we all
openly share salary information, including RSUs. The numbers are fairly close,
there's no way it's off by half. The biggest difference is Netflix, I would
have expected them to be higher. Their biggest difference is they pay cash,
and the culture is either you fit in and are extremely happy, or you're
terrified of getting fired and you are within less than 6 months.

This is the biggest difference between now and 15-20 years ago. Before it used
to be a secret but now everyone shares the data.

------
cbanek
I'm not sure about the salaries, but I'm more sure Amazon isn't in Seattle,
CA. (Staff engineer slide).

I'm also wondering how much of the salary (which certainly contains a lot of
stock) is due to stock appreciation. If someone joined Amazon in late 2016,
the value of their stock awards has more than tripled.

Do offers for these companies go this high, or is this only after a few years?
This seems it's more "what I'm getting paid now" rather than what the offer
was.

~~~
nrp
Assuming this is the levels.fyi dataset, it is “what I’m getting paid now”
rather than offers. Levels.fyi doesn’t seem to filter based on offer vs
ongoing salary, and the submission form doesn’t include flagged offer vs
ongoing.

~~~
zuhayeer
Yeah good point! we’ve actually been thinking about how to support it -
potentially collect the number of shares / RSUs so that offers can be more
dynamic

------
john_petrucci
Just wondering if there was a way to get more data for non-US locations. For
example, according to my knowledge, most of Canada's "senior" position
salaries (in CAD) are not even near the "entry-level" salaries (is USD). If
you convert the CAD salary to USD then it becomes even more pathetic. Canada
has "free" healthcare but the taxes are higher than California/Seattle.
Granted, you don't have to spend 2-3M for houses (only California), but the
housing markets around Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa are also anything but
"affordable" (around 700k-1.5M mark). I wonder why there is such a huge pay
disparity between two neighbor countries with sort of similar "standards" of
living. Just house prices and "free medical" (which is covered by your job
anyways) cannot justify the 5-7 times salary difference. Wondering if anyone
else had other opinions?

------
dannysu
This looks to be the source webpage where the PDF came from:
[https://www.levels.fyi/2019/](https://www.levels.fyi/2019/)

------
shrimpx
Presumably you have to pay income tax on base+rsu so shave off >50% from these
figures if you live in California? Then rent can run you 35-50k a year or more
in the bay, and then other expenses? So 600k a year can be more like <200k
savings at the end of the day? Someone debunk this.

~~~
dublidu
Taxes average 30-40% in CA/NY, lower in WA, which has no state income tax. You
are probably thinking about marginal tax rate, not average. Mortgage and
property tax in the Bay Area can actually be closer to $100k, but some are
paying that on dual income. $600k becomes more like $350k after tax and
housing. That's still an insane amount of disposable income, hence everyone
buying Teslas.

~~~
shrimpx
Ah yes, I was equating marginal with average. Thanks.

------
diehunde
What I would like to know is how much is your take home pay when working for a
FAANG after taxes and rent. Not including equity.

If you make 130k base in TX, you see around 8k monthly assuming you put close
to 10% in your 401k. For a two bedroom relatively close to Downtown you pay
about 2k so that would leave 6k monthly after taxes, rent and 401k savings.
What would be the realistic equivalent in a FAANG in the Bay area if you want
to maintain that standard of living? Meaning at least a 1000 sq ft apt that's
at most 20 mins from work?

~~~
senordevnyc
I'll use myself as an example. I live in NYC, my rent is $4300 / month (2
bedroom apartment in nice doorman building on Upper West Side), and I just
accepted an offer at a public tech company. My first 12 months should pay me
$420,000, assuming the stock price is stable. I'll ignore the possibility of
any raises, promotions, bonuses, stock price increase, and refreshers. I'll
also ignore the 401k match (max is about $5k / year) and the ESPP.

I'm married with a kid, so here are my numbers:

    
    
      Gross: $420,000
      401k: $19,500 (max for 2020)
      Taxes: $143,485 (federal, state, local, and FICA)
      Rent: $51,600
      Net: $205,415
    

I'm already really happy with that number, but my wife has her own income, I
have a profitable side business, I'll do a mega backdoor Roth and the ESPP,
and I expect refreshers, stock price increase, and a promotion over the next
few years.

It's a very good time to be a software engineer in a tech hub.

~~~
diehunde
Congratulations! Can I ask how many years of experience you have ?

~~~
senordevnyc
12 years of experience, 9 in iOS (what this role is for), all self-employed.
More detail littered across comments in my history.

------
winter_blue
Wow, these numbers are so insane.

How is that the work we do is worth so much?

And is prepping for algorithm interviews the core to getting to numbers like
these?

~~~
marvin
Well, even at my Norwegian small-ish finance company, company _profit_ is on
average >$100k _per employee_ , and that includes the janitor and after all
salaries, taxes and expenses are paid. The FAANG companies are at least 10X
this. At those profit levels, paying $300k to get the best available person in
each role almost doesn't matter to the bottom line.

And it does answer your question, yes, the work we do is worth so much. We
have the ability to command an army of robots, and that greatly amplifies the
reach of our abilities.

But of course, the pay is because the market is able to, not because our
abilities are magical. They are correlated, but there isn't direct causation.

------
segmondy
It's really not that much money.

I'm in the Midwest by the way and have explored moving to Bay area. But here's
the reality. Contribute to 401k $19k small 3 bedroom house for family with
decent schools - $5k/month - $60k a year Daycare $4k/month - $48k a year
Health Insurance, Household Expenses, Food, etc $5k/month - $60k a year
Car/gasoline $12k a year Assume 0 savings that's $180k post tax $360k before
tax + $19k = $379k.

Wanna save a little bit, we are already over $400k...

... and this is with a small shack of a 1200sq house and 2-3x the commute.
It's easy to look at the numbers and drool in the mouth but start running the
numbers and it's not that nice for those with family. If you're young and
single, then it's worth it. Go do it, rent a room, live like a pauper and save
like hell.

~~~
dmode
These numbers are wildly inaccurate. Public schools are free and my kids
daycare is $1500/month. 48k health insurance ? I pay $200 per paycheck for
Kaiser for a family of 3. Other expenses are all relative and not that
different from living in a low COL. Living in Bay Area, you can easily save
$200k per year at $400k salary

------
enitihas
Curiously, even though this story has far too many points and comments, and is
even very fresh, it has been booted from the front page and is right now at
number 48.

Stats on the story:

Points: 622, Comments: 489, Time: 16 hours ago

The frontpage has a story on Knuth, with similar freshness but much lesser
comments and points.

------
HenryKissinger
$175,000 at Oracle for an entry-level engineer?

I mean... just... wow. You could retire at 35 and not have to work for the
rest of your life.

How hard is it to get these jobs?

~~~
slavapestov
> You could retire at 35 and not have to work for the rest of your life.

Why does everyone on this site want to “retire by 35”? I don’t know anyone who
retired (or plans to retire) at 35. Besides, hand-waving about “basic
financial literacy” aside, doing so would require living like a broke college
student from age 22 to 35, and then moving to an RV in Nebraska to live out
the rest of your natural life in “retirement”. What the fuck is the point?

~~~
plorkyeran
I don't want to retire at 35, but I would like to be _able_ to if I burn out,
can't find a job, or whatever. Not having to work ever again (but choosing to
continue to work) eliminates a lot of sources of stress for me.

------
thorwasdfasdf
When you look at top pay by region I'm really surpised to see such a small
difference between SF and Pitsburgh. Considering the insance COL here in the
bay area, I would expect bay area to pay at least 3 times more than pistburgh.
as far I can tell SF and Palo alto are vastly vastly underpaid and the likes
of Pitsburgh are extremely overpaid.

~~~
beefalo
I think the numbers seen here for Pittsburgh miss a big part of the picture.
There are only a handful of big tech companies with offices there and they
employ a comparatively small number of engineers. Most engineers in Pittsburgh
are not working at those companies and do get paid 4x less. These are pretty
much dedicated AI offices that recruit from CMU and are companies that don't
adjust pay much between locations

------
Pandabob
How do other roles in the companies mentioned here, compare to these numbers?
Meaning Data Scientists, Product Managers and Designers? Would it be correct
to assume that a PM with five years of experience would have roughly the same
compensation as a SWE with similar experience?

------
catchmeifyoucan
I wish they had one for the product managers too. I remember their website had
that data as well.

~~~
milesskorpen
There’s 1 PM for every 20+ engineers, so it’s harder to gather a
representative sample.

------
gok
I still don't understand how they're defining total compensation. Federal
taxable wages, like what shows up on your W-2? Or the amount you're promised
including RSUs, regardless of vesting schedule?

~~~
TomVDB
Salary (W2 before tax) + bonus + promised RSUs.

It's not an unreasonable way to calculate it, and given the way the economy
has been going in the past 10 years, it's lowballing the real taxable
compensation.

~~~
gok
A W2 includes bonus and RSU vest though...

~~~
TomVDB
Yup, my bad. So definitely not what's on the W2.

------
nilkn
I'd be interesting in seeing something like this for engineering management.
I'm a director outside of a major technology hub and am largely in the dark
about what I should be getting paid.

~~~
poulsbohemian
Maybe you need to think differently about this: What's your contribution to
the company and what is your replacement cost? In non-hub areas, it might be
very difficult to replace you, thus your value increases. Likewise, if you are
driving significant revenue / cost savings, you can justify a significant
piece of the action. Point being, rather than just making a comparison to bay
area comp (for example), negotiate your own deal on its own merits.

~~~
nilkn
I don't disagree, but I think this applies to engineering salaries too, not
just management salaries. Sometimes it's just useful to have a reference
point.

------
StuffedParrot
What places pay less for benefits? No relocation, working sub 40 hours a week,
greatly increase time off (none of this “unlimited vacation but really it’s
just up to your manager” bullshit)?

------
rb808
Can anyone reconcile the difference between $227k median wage in SV and the
fact that even entry level jobs listed pay more than than? Is it just the most
SV jobs are not in FANG companies.

~~~
shawabawa3
> Is it just the most SV jobs are not in FANG companies.

Yes. Even in SF the majority of jobs will not be tech based at all let alone
FANG

~~~
rb808
That $227k median must be SV tech jobs, the median wage for whole of USA is
$32k

~~~
shawabawa3
I think those are median pay of the areas overall, not just tech

So SV has $227k median, but that includes all jobs

May be misunderstanding the slide though, it isn't clear

edit: Median salary for SF is more like $95k, so this must be tech only

I suppose that means that >50% of the responses at L3, hence the median being
~L3 salary

------
ajknzhol
Is there a similar comparison available for Germany?

------
radicalriddler
Damn. Here in Australia, I'd be surprised if any companies paid over $200,000
for even the most senior engineers (bar management).

------
the_arun
How trustworthy are the numbers in levels.fyi? Who verifies numbers entered by
anyone?

~~~
webo
They claim they check the offer letters. Numbers look decently accurate from a
few people I know. Remember this is total compensation, not just cash.

------
tomwilson
OK I need to move to the USA, you can't even get close to this in Australia :(

------
vsyu
I'm surprised that Google and Facebook didn't show up more on the list.

------
rationalfaith
These studies are annoying and just smell like envy by the most average
parasites in this industry. How about you focus on adding value and setting
the right price for yourself.

Some are grateful with 100k and others 500k. You can negotiate your price
because you're an adult.

If you can't, then grow up.

------
anonymousDan
Can someone share a copy? The link appears to be dead.

------
KwisatzHaderack
Are these numbers just salary or total compensation?

~~~
vecter
Total comp ofc. These would be crazy salary numbers (although for Netflix, I
believe it might actually be all salary).

------
justinzollars
More reason to consider FAANG over startups.

------
zod50
PDF says Seattle, CA, should be WA.

------
jiveturkey
how does this compare to the data at levels.fyi ?

~~~
Infinitesimus
This data is from levels.fyi

------
senordevnyc
Reposting from previous comment of mine [1]:

I can't speak to the actual work yet as I haven't started, but I just accepted
an offer as a senior / staff level engineer in NYC at one of the smaller
public tech companies (think Dropbox, Lyft, Pinterest, Snap, etc) after 10+
years of being self-employed. I had two startups offer me $170k plus some
(probably worthless) options. When the offer I ultimately accepted came in, I
had several more startup interviews lined up and likely could have gotten
closer to $180k - 200k from the startups.

Now, $200k isn't bad. But the offer I accepted from the public tech company is
for $420k the first year [2], and will likely go up from there, especially if
the stock does well. It's not crazy to think I could be making $600k - 800k
within a few years. And to be honest, I think it's on the low end for the big
tech companies at my level. And it doesn't come with some crazy grind as far
as I can tell. People seem to actually work 40 hours, the PTO policy is
flexible and people take 20-25 days a year off, people work from home when
they need to, the benefits are solid, etc.

After this experience and seeing the huge disparity in pay, I would never go
work at some random startup unless I was founder level or deeply, deeply
believed in their mission.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21837849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21837849)

2\. It's $200k base, $800k RSUs over 4 years, $20k signing bonus. Role is IC,
iOS engineer. 12 years of experience, 9 in iOS, all self-employed. I have a
business degree from a state school, and I've _never_ had a software
engineering job.

~~~
subsubzero
I too work at a smaller tech company, market cap is near the ones you posted
and one thing many people forget is the share price upside on those sized
companies is enormous(also downside too!) I came in during a low point in the
companies stock and saw my yearly RSU's go from being valued at 70k to over
$200k a year. I don't think the large FAANGs will see even a 100% upside in
share price(maybe NFLX though) in a year or two.

~~~
senordevnyc
It's true, I see a ton of upside for my company. I think they could
theoretically 10x over the next decade, which seems unlikely for FAANG. But
yeah, they could also 0.1x, I guess. I'd move on before that though!

------
corporateslave5
For everyone who doesn’t know, you’re getting shafted at that medium size
startup/company. Most of these FAANG engineers are not geniuses, they just
studied for the interviews

~~~
ameen
I know. I get paid lower than an entry level engineer while managing,
developing and maintaining the entire web presence for our company - public
site, e-commerce store, etc.

I get paid 1/50th of what the company made in e-commerce sales (similar
amounts through other channels).

I can’t quit and prepare for a job interview as I need to maintain visa
status. And my workload averages ~60h/week.

~~~
chillacy
The visa situation is just terrible, I knew so many smart coworkers who were
afraid to move because of H1B uncertainties. Ultimately this hurts everyone in
the industry because labor markets require a liquidity to function properly.

~~~
daggerdrone
What uncertainties exactly? Just interview normally and if you get an offer
then you can accept the offer and they will start the H1B process. You will
get the H1B approval in about three weeks. Then you can put your two weeks
notice. Overall it will take around 5 weeks from your offer date to your
joining date which is pretty reasonable. If there is a delay in the H1B or it
does not get approved, then you can continue to work at your old place. Pretty
much everybody on H1B these days is following this process.

------
regstrtn
Are you that levels.fyi guy?

------
glitchc
I believe what is needed is a salary and stock breakdown, just like
levels.fyi. You can’t pay the rent or buy food with stock.

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eclipxe
Most of these numbers are including RSUs, which are treated like regular
income. It is usually wise to sell at vest, in which case you can then buy
food or pay rent.

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techie128
levels.fyi doesn't accurately represent the overall picture. Not everyone gets
paid so well at each of their levels. Every company, especially FANGs,
maintain a bell curve. levels.fyi cannot capture that curve accurately. They
tend to skew high in most cases. So like everything else in life, take it with
a pinch of salt [unless you're hypertensive ;)].

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Vadoff
I would say they're pretty accurate, maybe a ~5% skew toward higher
compensation because of self-reporting bias.

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nrp
It’s worth nothing that most of these numbers are inflated from share price
increases boosting the value of RSUs vesting over 4 years. New offers at the
higher levels from those companies are unlikely to be that high unless you are
coming in at the top of the pay band for the level.

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TomVDB
The way I understand it, it's the number of RSU that are offered each year, at
the time of them being offered.

If so, then the movement of the stock price is irrelevant.

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nrp
Per zuhayeer’s comments elsewhere in the thread, that doesn’t seem to be the
case.

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TomVDB
I only saw one relevant comment from him and it doesn't address this question?

Others have mentioned that it's primarily based on offers, in which case my
interpretation stands.

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dvt
It's important to compare apples to apples.

Lists like these are incredibly misleading, as they include non-cash bonuses.
First off, these bonuses (say, RSUs) take a while to vest (incurring
opportunity cost), can go down (there's risk), and so on. For example, being
an early junior engineer at the next unicorn can make you orders of magnitude
richer than working for FB or GOOG as a distinguished engineer (basically top
0.0001%). But that's kind of a silly data point, because you're probably
making a 70k salary, whereas the distinguished engineer is making like a 250k
salary.

So let's stick with cold hard cash or let's stick with bonuses, but it's
misleading to conflate them.

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pxx
At Facebook, Google, and Snap, at least, the RSUs start vesting immediately
(no cliff) and are as good as cash as the stock is liquid. It's not very clear
what your distinction is.

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milesskorpen
Even if liquid, these salaries probably reflect people vesting stock from
years ago - and the high end would include people vesting stock offered at a
much lower valuation. In this kind of ranking there’d be a bias towards
companies with rapidly growing share prices ... and remember that last
performance is no indicator of future returns.

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eclipxe
No, these are roughly inline with new hire offers

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milesskorpen
At all of the five listed levels?

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Vadoff
I'm an L5 that joined a FAANG last year, and earn 440k/yr. If I counted stock
inflation, it would be 500k/yr. Most people don't count stock inflation into
their total compensation.

