That said, it seems you're complaining about FAANG-type companies. These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful.
> These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful.
Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on. Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates. Most fortunately leave after the 1-yr vest.
> Anec-data: Turned down an $800k Principal ML Scientist job at a FANG. Interviewed with a director who couldn't answer what I would be doing / working on.
I agree that's weird. Edit: although when did this happen in the interview process? It's pretty common to first decide if you're interested in hiring someone in general and later do the match-making to a particular team/project. Maybe not at this level though...
> Facebook is notorious for this, lots of friends get absolutely eye-watering salaries to sit around and provide 1% lifts on click-through-rates.
It's worth it to Facebook to pay someone an absolutely eye-watering salary if they can get a 1% lift on click-through rates. This work doesn't interest me, but it's absolutely not the same as otabdeveloper4's claimed "These guys are hiring 'top talent' only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them."
Disclaimer: I work for a FAANG. I don't work on advertising but it obviously supports my salary.
It was a re-neg situation. I had accepted the offer, then was in talks with the director who recommended me. Unfortunately I can't say much more about that situation due to NDA.
IMHO hiring engineers to hyperoptimize advertisement platforms is a bit wasteful.
In the early part of this year, whilst on the hunt for a new job, I had the fortune(?) to interview with a FANG company (the company in question was towards the start of the acronym). They approached me, badgering for a CV (three times) and an interview, not me chasing them. And I didn't use a headhunter/outside recruiter.
Sidenote: I had taught dozens of week-long corporate training classes in software development (specifically native iOS development, Android device driver development and some ReactNative classes) to their senior staff through my training agency at this company several years prior.
I wasn't terribly interested in working at the company, because I had seen inside the machine from my earlier teaching experience and wasn't too thrilled about being a part of it, but thought the interview itself would be a valuable experience and good practice. I also expected to bomb out of the interview process early because I have heard that their algorithmic questions are notoriously hard and I consider myself a below-average developer.
I tried to get the salary expectation -- the expectation, not the negotiation -- out of the way early in the interview process but unfortunately they wouldn't come to the table so early and wouldn't even have a conversation about it.
I seemed to have done well enough during the technical part of the interview that a tentative offer was extended for a Principal role, "doing ML or something like that" was the pitch from the one wrangling the interviews. A grand but ill-defined picture was painted of roles I would be ideal for based on my years of experience and reasonably solid education (MSc CompSci, MS ML, MBA, MBA Entrepreneurship/Marketing, MA Project Management)
Towards the end of the interview process we did the usual dance around compensation and I said "$150K base and you start to have my attention, and we negotiate from there." I stated the opening figure because I was getting tired of the hemming and hawing from the other guy. I had heard of this famed, well-greased hiring pipeline but I wasn't experiencing it.
"That sounds do-able." said the person handling everything. We wrapped up quickly and then the weekend happened.
Early the next week I got an offer. I was excited! I most likely wasn't going to take the job because there were a few red flags during the interview that made me think it wasn't a company I'd be interested in working at. But to have passed the technical interview and all the other hoops! Okay! That's a small ego-boost for me even if I probably couldn't do it a second time with a different part of the FANG.
I opened up the email, and read through the offer, and read through the offer a second time to make sure I understood.
The $110K base (there was zero mention of TCO or bonuses or options or RSUs or anything else) was a significant drop from what I currently get paid (and I don't consider myself well compensated) to work on-site in the Bay area. I'm in L.A.. This was just prior to full WFH/lockdown so there wasn't even the excuse of "well you're WFH so we offer less for that."
I pinged the company back and said "That's an interesting opening offer, it's much lower than I expected for relocating to that geographic area and the position I would take, how firm are you on that number?"
"Take it or leave it." came back the one-line response a few hours later.
I didn't even bother responding.
I have heard of other people's eyes watering at their salary offers. Mine have yet to shed a single, salty tear.
Issue #1: "doing ML or something like that" is not a job description that would ever make it through HR at Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, or Google. (I could imagine slightly more flexible job descriptions at Amazon, given that hiring is more team-driven there, but not to that degree.)
Issue #2: ignoring Netflix (which only has one "title" for SWEs, with pay starting at ~$300k for 2-3 YoE, but more commonly $400-450k+ at 7-8), the rest of those companies have fairly standard ranges for compensation based on level. $110k TC is below the bottom of the entry-level SWE range in SF. At a stretch, it might be the bottom of the range in Arizona or Texas (for Amazon). Entry-level, mind you.
But Principal Engineer? Amazon's Principal Engineer is the "lowest" one, where it's parallel to Staff at Google/Facebook. Comp range is pretty wide, but bottoms out at $450k. This isn't the sort of thing where a bad recruiter can screw you over; it would require getting sign-off from senior management, probably in both HR and Engineering, to make that sort of exception, but why would they bother? If you passed an interview for a Principal-level engineering role, extending you an offer of $110k would almost have to be a deliberate insult, because of how trivially you would be able to get other offers of $500k+ from the other players in the acronym.
And, in fact, there is evidence that you could trivially provide: the email with the offer. I don't expect it will be provided, even in the exceptionally unlikely universe where there exists an email from a Facebook/Amazon/Google recruiter offering someone $110k TC to work in San Francisco as a Principal-level engineering IC.
If you say so. I have nothing to prove to you and have no desire to do so. Even if I showed the email you'd claim it's fake or whatever. And I am not going to show personal email to some rando on the internet with a throwaway account simply because they question the veracity of my statement. TO be blunt, I really don't give a flying monkeys whether you believe me or not.
Yes, I'm aware. The comment was mostly for the benefit of other readers, particularly those who weren't familiar with FANG compensation policies and might have been misled into thinking that your experience was representative. Such engineers might have made a mistake costing them millions of dollars of lifetime income on that basis.
To reiterate: if you are interviewing for a software engineering role with a FANG company for a role in California, you can expect the following TC pay bands:
Entry-level (L3 @ G/F, L4 @ Amzn): $140-180k
Mid-level (L4 @ G/F, L5 @ Amzn): $200-280k (Amzn might have a lower floor, but not often)
Senior (L5 @ G/F, L6 @ Amzn): $300-400k
Staff (L6 @ G/F, L7 @ Amzn, called Principal): $450-650+
As always, there will be some exceptions. Exceptions at the bottom will tend to be web dev/full-stack roles, which at most places have slightly lower pay bands. ML roles, contrariwise, will tend to skew higher... (at least, adjusted for experience level).
I could maybe believe it, if, out of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of engineers hired at mid-level to work at Bay Area G/F/A offices in the last couple years, a few of them were offered $110k TC. It'd still require some pretty substantial deviations from their usual process, but it's imaginable. I cannot imagine that happening for someone offered a senior+ role. Like, literally, I cannot imagine what set of organizational and procedural failures would have to align for that outcome to occur. It's not worth factoring into one's calculations when deciding whether or not to spend time applying to and studying for FANG interviews.
Late to comment, but thanks for sharing this anecdote.
I've done some mentoring of junior developers in the past. Many of them get hyperfocused on levels.fyi and HN comments talking about $400K salaries from FAANG companies. This leads a lot of them to become permanently disgruntled, convinced they're being severely underpaid.
When I started mentoring, I never thought I'd have to cheer people up about $150-200K offers in medium cost-of-living cities. Too many people are convinced that $400-500K is an easy-button. This is especially true for people who coasted by at the top of their classes at average universities who aren't used to being anywhere other than the absolute top of their local community.
I would not consider myself a junior developer, or even mid-level at this point, but an offer letter with $110K salary (which I assume was total comp because there was nothing else mentioned in there) is less than what I was making 20 years ago.
I am sure there is no evidence that I can provide, or am willing to provide, that will convince you otherwise because... "levels.fyi!"
And whilst I was overly surprised at the low offer -- $110K was the total comp, there was nothing else in there, I read the offer thoroughly, twice, because I was taken aback by it -- I also wasn't all that surprised at the low offer. I'd heard wild tales of high offers and I'd also heard tales of absurdly low offers. I was kinda caught off guard by the take it or leave it attitude.
$110K. That's all she wrote.
And after the "take it or leave it" I almost replied with "Fuck you", thought better of it, and went on with my life.
I've interviewed at two of the FAANMG over the years, and did an initial phone screen at Amazon. I turned down all three for differing reasons. The $110K was just the cherry on top of a pie decorated with little red flags.
Yes, if you want to be a cog in a machine.
That said, it seems you're complaining about FAANG-type companies. These guys are hiring "top talent" only as a defensive measure, so that upstart competitors don't get them. It's not expected for "top talent" to actually contribute to something useful.