4 ms·

This style of reply is not constructive. How can we know with certainty whether or not you have a reasonable shot at making 250k/year after five years of workin

by lcr94 11y ago

This style of reply is not constructive. How can we know with certainty whether or not you have a reasonable shot at making 250k/year after five years of working at Apple, Amazon, Google, or Microsoft? Provide an anecdote, links to articles, etc.

cbr 11y ago
Anecdote: I've been at one of those companies for three years, and made about $250k this year.
chris11 11y ago
I'm currently still in school, and I personally don't know anyone who is making $250k/year five years into their career. But I have seen new grad offers that make that number seem reasonable. One of my friends is a really smart developer who got several offers from places competitive with those companies. I don't think they really had much full-time work experience. The first year total comp in one of their offers was around $200k. A 25% compensation increase over five years seems reasonable to me. Edit: It does kind of depend on how you value stock/RSUs in your compensation package. Most of the offers they got were from public companies that were well run. So I personally would not be extremely worried about the stock losing most of its value before I was able to sell.
throwaway_goog 11y ago
Throwaway because I don't want my salary history to become public. I spent 5 years at Google. My AGI (as measured by the IRS) during my time there went $130K, $200K, $280K, $280K, $300K, $356K (for my last 5 months there...it also includes unexercised stock options for the last 5 years, though). The bump to $280K was upon promotion to senior SWE; the one to $200K was largely because of a generous stock refresh grant.
- throwawayabcer 11y ago
  Also throwaway for obvious reasons. What you say sounds totally in line with my experience: I am Senior SWE at an Alphabet company. Came to MTV in middle of 2015 from a company in the midwest where I made over $200K last year (much of this was profit-sharing bonus), and I was definitely at top of the market for my city. My total compensation for this coming year (based on current value of GOOG, obviously this can vary) is projected in the mid-$300Ks. (Some of this is initial GSUs vesting, so it's slightly inflated). With the difference in cost-of-living it should be about equivalent to where I was last year. Too soon for first refresh grant, so I can't speculate about where it may go from there. I've already gotten a larger raise and bonus than I expected, seeing as I negotiated a better offer than they originally gave me. My manager has been talking with me about what I need to do to get to promoted Staff level. So yes, there is money to be made in SV, at big companies.
  - throwaway_g3 11y ago
    One more datapoint from Google (non-Bay Area office): $75k (partial year), $182k, $254k, $360k and then I left for a start-up where my total package is $50k. No less happy :-)
    - 142535 11y ago
      That is because you have shitloads of cash.
  - throwawaysf123 11y ago
    what part of the stack did/do you work on (machine learning/AI, infra, web services/APIs, frontend, other)?
- foobarqux 11y ago
  When you say unexercised you mean unvested, right? Can you redo the numbers and break-out the vesting stock? Also, since the thread is about making decisions about your career, considering compensation, why did you leave Google?
  - throwaway_goog 11y ago
    By unexercised I mean unexercised. Stock options vest continually (well, usually monthly or quarterly usually, after the 1-year cliff); when they've vested, you have the right to exercise them, and they're considered your property. You only exercise them when you choose to, and it's at that point that you're taxed on the difference between the current stock price and the strike price. Many of my coworkers would auto-exercise-and-sell their options immediately as they vested. If I'd done this then it would've added between $15K-$60K for each of the first 5 years, but the last year would've been about $130K instead of $350K (I benefitted significantly from the stock price appreciation of GOOG, even if I did screw up nearly everything tax-related). I left Google because five things happened within a year or so: #1 I started feeling bored at work #2 My existing project ended and I couldn't find one that really excited me #3 I passed a million bucks in liquid net worth #4 The outside tech world started entering what seems to be a period of high uncertainty and #5 I started thinking seriously about marriage & kids and realized I only had a few years left. So, in the spirit of YOLO and with immediate financial concerns taken care of, I figured it was time to do some things I'd always wanted to do.
    - foobarqux 11y ago
      > I figured it was time to do some things I'd always wanted to do. Does that mean you decided to do the startup thing or that you decided to take time off?
      - throwaway_goog 11y ago
        Startup thing.
- throwawaysf123 11y ago
  does it vary by what part of the stack you work on? The impression I've got is that Google tends to value infrastructure engineers more than others (like frontend engineers).
  - throwaway_goog 11y ago
    Not to my knowledge. I started in frontend but had touched every part of the stack (including infrastructure and some ML) by the time I left.
rockinghigh 11y ago
If you're talking about total compensation, 250k is on the low end. Base of $140-190k is common. Add to that $10-30k of cash bonus and $100k of stocks.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  One thing I'm always curious about: most of these discussions seem to be targeted at college grads, discussing where they could be after their first 5 years in the industry. The sense I've gotten is that these big companies tend to compensate all new hires approximately the same, caring little about experience outside their company or perhaps one of the other big companies. It seems to me that smaller, less well known, companies are more hungry for experienced people, because they are relatively starved of people who can drive architecture, decision making, and hiring, and are thus more willing to take a risk on paying a premium for experience. So my question is: stipulating that the numbers favor bigcos for fresh graduates, is the same true for people who already have that 5 (or 8, or 15, or 20) years of experience elsewhere?
  - thedufer 11y ago
    At 3.5 years of experience Google offered me about double what I'm hearing for new grad total comp, so it seems that they value at least the first few years. Given the oft-cited ageism in the industry, I expect that tails off pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years of experience wasn't worth noticeably more than 5 years.
- umanwizard 11y ago
  People get $100k of stocks a year? As in, not RSUs - vested stocks? I suspect you're confusing the two, though I admit I'm not certain
  - phamilton 11y ago
    RSUs are stocks. A grant of 1 RSU means that on the date it vests, the company will buy 1 share of its stock and drop it into your account at a major brokerage. It's considered compensation and taxed as income, though it's often withheld as bonus income.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I suspect its pretty certain, it certainly held true when I was working there and that was before Google was 50K employees. The flip side though is you may not make it to 5 years. A lot of employees don't (which is less commonly talked about) but Google has always tried pretty hard to not retain people who weren't providing what they considered an appropriate level of contribution. So if you start working at Google, and you make it to 5 years, then yes I'm sure you'll be making $250k+ total compensation.
- Jabbles 11y ago
  > A lot of employees don't And what is your evidence for that? I hope it's not an estimate for the average time an engineer has been at Google, which is clearly not the same thing.
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    I don't know if it is still true but there was a lot of data available during the 4 years I was there to watch this in "real time". Lots of data sources and a number of people interested in the question. You couldn't easily pull apart terms vs quits but at the end of the day it amounted to the same thing.
fbthrowaway1776 11y ago
At FB, my first job out of college, my W2 income was: 110k (started midway through the year), 300k, 350k.
- foobarqux 11y ago
  Harvard/Stanford/MIT?
  - fbthrowaway1776 11y ago
    No
superuser2 11y ago
Yes it is, because its relative placement in the thread serves as a sort of poll on whether it rings true to people's experiences.
ryguytilidie 11y ago
How is it any less constructive than the person he is replying to...?
fbthrowaway9479 11y ago
Here's what my comp has looked like at FB over the years: 2012: ~75k (internship + first half of sign on bonus + relocation bonus) 2013: ~100k (salary for ~6 months + second half of sign on bonus) 2014: ~225k (~110k base salary + stock) 2015: ~265k (~130k base salary + stock) I believe myself to be around average. From what I've heard about some of my peers' comp they sound comparable to this as well.
fb_throwitaway1 11y ago
After college, 2 years of startup @ $90k, worthless stock (one of the first employees), long hours. Learned a lot, but definitely underpaid in stock. FB @ 2014 - $230k/yr = $150k base + $50k stock / yr + $30k bonus. FB @ 2015 - $480k/yr = $200k base + $200k stock / yr + ~$80k bonus. Getting into the senior levels at FB/GOOG does indeed get you 250k+ easy. Friends at FB who joined the same day as me, but fresh out of college: $200k+ / yr right now.

by lcr94 11y ago

cbr 11y ago

Anecdote: I've been at one of those companies for three years, and made about $250k this year.

chris11 11y ago

I'm currently still in school, and I personally don't know anyone who is making $250k/year five years into their career. But I have seen new grad offers that make that number seem reasonable. One of my friends is a really smart developer who got several offers from places competitive with those companies. I don't think they really had much full-time work experience. The first year total comp in one of their offers was around $200k. A 25% compensation increase over five years seems reasonable to me. Edit: It does kind of depend on how you value stock/RSUs in your compensation package. Most of the offers they got were from public companies that were well run. So I personally would not be extremely worried about the stock losing most of its value before I was able to sell.

throwaway_goog 11y ago

Throwaway because I don't want my salary history to become public. I spent 5 years at Google. My AGI (as measured by the IRS) during my time there went $130K, $200K, $280K, $280K, $300K, $356K (for my last 5 months there...it also includes unexercised stock options for the last 5 years, though). The bump to $280K was upon promotion to senior SWE; the one to $200K was largely because of a generous stock refresh grant.

throwawayabcer 11y ago
Also throwaway for obvious reasons. What you say sounds totally in line with my experience: I am Senior SWE at an Alphabet company. Came to MTV in middle of 2015 from a company in the midwest where I made over $200K last year (much of this was profit-sharing bonus), and I was definitely at top of the market for my city. My total compensation for this coming year (based on current value of GOOG, obviously this can vary) is projected in the mid-$300Ks. (Some of this is initial GSUs vesting, so it's slightly inflated). With the difference in cost-of-living it should be about equivalent to where I was last year. Too soon for first refresh grant, so I can't speculate about where it may go from there. I've already gotten a larger raise and bonus than I expected, seeing as I negotiated a better offer than they originally gave me. My manager has been talking with me about what I need to do to get to promoted Staff level. So yes, there is money to be made in SV, at big companies.
- throwaway_g3 11y ago
  One more datapoint from Google (non-Bay Area office): $75k (partial year), $182k, $254k, $360k and then I left for a start-up where my total package is $50k. No less happy :-)
  - 142535 11y ago
    That is because you have shitloads of cash.
- throwawaysf123 11y ago
  what part of the stack did/do you work on (machine learning/AI, infra, web services/APIs, frontend, other)?
foobarqux 11y ago
When you say unexercised you mean unvested, right? Can you redo the numbers and break-out the vesting stock? Also, since the thread is about making decisions about your career, considering compensation, why did you leave Google?
- throwaway_goog 11y ago
  By unexercised I mean unexercised. Stock options vest continually (well, usually monthly or quarterly usually, after the 1-year cliff); when they've vested, you have the right to exercise them, and they're considered your property. You only exercise them when you choose to, and it's at that point that you're taxed on the difference between the current stock price and the strike price. Many of my coworkers would auto-exercise-and-sell their options immediately as they vested. If I'd done this then it would've added between $15K-$60K for each of the first 5 years, but the last year would've been about $130K instead of $350K (I benefitted significantly from the stock price appreciation of GOOG, even if I did screw up nearly everything tax-related). I left Google because five things happened within a year or so: #1 I started feeling bored at work #2 My existing project ended and I couldn't find one that really excited me #3 I passed a million bucks in liquid net worth #4 The outside tech world started entering what seems to be a period of high uncertainty and #5 I started thinking seriously about marriage & kids and realized I only had a few years left. So, in the spirit of YOLO and with immediate financial concerns taken care of, I figured it was time to do some things I'd always wanted to do.
  - foobarqux 11y ago
    > I figured it was time to do some things I'd always wanted to do. Does that mean you decided to do the startup thing or that you decided to take time off?
    - throwaway_goog 11y ago
      Startup thing.
throwawaysf123 11y ago
does it vary by what part of the stack you work on? The impression I've got is that Google tends to value infrastructure engineers more than others (like frontend engineers).
- throwaway_goog 11y ago
  Not to my knowledge. I started in frontend but had touched every part of the stack (including infrastructure and some ML) by the time I left.

rockinghigh 11y ago

If you're talking about total compensation, 250k is on the low end. Base of $140-190k is common. Add to that $10-30k of cash bonus and $100k of stocks.

sanderjd 11y ago
One thing I'm always curious about: most of these discussions seem to be targeted at college grads, discussing where they could be after their first 5 years in the industry. The sense I've gotten is that these big companies tend to compensate all new hires approximately the same, caring little about experience outside their company or perhaps one of the other big companies. It seems to me that smaller, less well known, companies are more hungry for experienced people, because they are relatively starved of people who can drive architecture, decision making, and hiring, and are thus more willing to take a risk on paying a premium for experience. So my question is: stipulating that the numbers favor bigcos for fresh graduates, is the same true for people who already have that 5 (or 8, or 15, or 20) years of experience elsewhere?
- thedufer 11y ago
  At 3.5 years of experience Google offered me about double what I'm hearing for new grad total comp, so it seems that they value at least the first few years. Given the oft-cited ageism in the industry, I expect that tails off pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised if 10 years of experience wasn't worth noticeably more than 5 years.
umanwizard 11y ago
People get $100k of stocks a year? As in, not RSUs - vested stocks? I suspect you're confusing the two, though I admit I'm not certain
- phamilton 11y ago
  RSUs are stocks. A grant of 1 RSU means that on the date it vests, the company will buy 1 share of its stock and drop it into your account at a major brokerage. It's considered compensation and taxed as income, though it's often withheld as bonus income.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I suspect its pretty certain, it certainly held true when I was working there and that was before Google was 50K employees. The flip side though is you may not make it to 5 years. A lot of employees don't (which is less commonly talked about) but Google has always tried pretty hard to not retain people who weren't providing what they considered an appropriate level of contribution. So if you start working at Google, and you make it to 5 years, then yes I'm sure you'll be making $250k+ total compensation.

Jabbles 11y ago
> A lot of employees don't And what is your evidence for that? I hope it's not an estimate for the average time an engineer has been at Google, which is clearly not the same thing.
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  I don't know if it is still true but there was a lot of data available during the 4 years I was there to watch this in "real time". Lots of data sources and a number of people interested in the question. You couldn't easily pull apart terms vs quits but at the end of the day it amounted to the same thing.

fbthrowaway1776 11y ago

At FB, my first job out of college, my W2 income was: 110k (started midway through the year), 300k, 350k.

foobarqux 11y ago
Harvard/Stanford/MIT?
- fbthrowaway1776 11y ago
  No

superuser2 11y ago

Yes it is, because its relative placement in the thread serves as a sort of poll on whether it rings true to people's experiences.

ryguytilidie 11y ago

How is it any less constructive than the person he is replying to...?

fbthrowaway9479 11y ago

Here's what my comp has looked like at FB over the years: 2012: ~75k (internship + first half of sign on bonus + relocation bonus) 2013: ~100k (salary for ~6 months + second half of sign on bonus) 2014: ~225k (~110k base salary + stock) 2015: ~265k (~130k base salary + stock) I believe myself to be around average. From what I've heard about some of my peers' comp they sound comparable to this as well.

fb_throwitaway1 11y ago

After college, 2 years of startup @ $90k, worthless stock (one of the first employees), long hours. Learned a lot, but definitely underpaid in stock. FB @ 2014 - $230k/yr = $150k base + $50k stock / yr + $30k bonus. FB @ 2015 - $480k/yr = $200k base + $200k stock / yr + ~$80k bonus. Getting into the senior levels at FB/GOOG does indeed get you 250k+ easy. Friends at FB who joined the same day as me, but fresh out of college: $200k+ / yr right now.