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I also don’t know a single engineer whose total comp is below $300k at Netflix. They get paid well and the caliber of talent is top tier.

baddox 9y ago
I could certainly be wrong! That feels shockingly high as an average, but good on Netflix for valuing talent. Something to aspire to. ;)
- eitally 9y ago
  It is shockingly high, but it's true. It's also a produce or leave environment where folks don't stick around who aren't, as the previous poster says, "top tier."
  - fro0116 9y ago
    By "top tier", do you also mean people who are willing to put in longer than normal hours and deal with a super-competitive culture and the office politics and drama that come with it? Or am I reading too much into the quotations? I'm honestly just interested in hearing more about what the culture at Netflix is like.
    - jlesk 9y ago
      Netflix employee here. You can find out a lot about our culture from our culture page: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture It's not just marketing fluff. It really does a good job of reflecting what it's like to work there, and is taken seriously by everyone from the top down. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's not a competitive environment, and I've experience very little politics and drama. Those things are explicitly counter to the culture. As for long hours, while the work day can be pretty intense, the office is usually empty by 5-6pm. Hope that helps.
      - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
        > the office is usually empty by 5-6pm. (because the bus to San Francisco leaves at 4:30pm) At what point do you tell your employees that they live in the wrong city? Sacramento?
      - fro0116 9y ago
        Thanks, that was really helpful! Do you have any kind of remote working allowance? Or are you expected to be in office all the time?
      - richardknop 9y ago
        Where should I send my CV? :D
      - nonamechicken 9y ago
        A while back, I remember reading something about how Netflix will periodically re-interview their employees and if they fail, fire them. Is it (still) a thing? Also, what about stories such as this: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437291792/how-the-architect-of-netflixs-innovative-culture-lost-her-job-to-the-system http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437291792/how-the-architect-of... "Today, Netflix offers unlimited vacation time, high salaries. This company doesn't care how long you're in the office, but they do care about what you produce. And you have to produce. Here's another slide. We are a team, not a family. We are a pro sports team, not a kids recreational team. Netflix fires people, even hard-working people. HENN: How many people have you moved on? MCCORD: Oh, hundreds. HENN: I talked to a lot of former employees were OK with this deal. I mean, after all, Netflix pays well. But some talked about a culture of fear - always been worried about being fired. Patty says the company's culture is a big reason for its success. She says it keeps Netflix lean and nimble."
        sjg007 9y ago
        That culture fired her as well..
    - brogrammernot 9y ago
      I haven’t heard it’s competitive once you’re in the company but it is competitive to get into Netflix. Top Tier in the sense that they have very good technical skills, paired with the right attitude for Netflix’s culture. I haven’t them be unreasonable for the standards they set but they want the very best and want you to work hard everyday. The difference is they don’t seem to stockpile talent, they cut when someone doesn’t meet that bar and have paid them incredibly well till that point.
  - baddox 9y ago
    I wonder how their management (whoever has the authority to fire) measures performance. Hopefully it’s not as naive as hours in the office, as other commenters have suggested, because naive measurements must lead to perverse incentives. I would suspect and hope that, given such high salaries, their retain-or-fire decision is more sophisticated than that. I think that software engineering productivity is a fairly difficult thing to measure quantitatively. Any simple objective quantitative measure (like hours spent working, lines of code contributed, or tickets resolved) is bound to be too naive. Software engineering seems like one of those things where it’s easy to subjectively identify very good and very poor performers, but difficult to draw a hard line or even compare two similarly productive programmers.
- kevinr 9y ago
  Netflix explicitly have a policy of trying to pay the best in the industry, as I was told when I interviewed there. Turns out it works!
- obmelvin 9y ago
  In addition to what others have said, Netflix doesn't hire interns or new grads or engineers with low experience. So obviously it's much easier to have a low end of 300k if your most inexperienced person's previous experience if 5 years at google (made up example)
astrange 9y ago
What do they do all day? Pressing play and getting video already works, and you can’t program your way out of Netflix’s existential threat of nobody renewing their streaming licenses.
- zo7 9y ago
  I feel like maintaining the infrastructure for the mammoth amount of data they must serve each day would be quite a lot of work on its own. They can't really afford hiccups in service, and I don't recall the site ever being down or a video not loading recently.
- jldugger 9y ago
  Cost optimization via more efficient software, customer engagement via better predictive analytics, etc.
- miranda_rights 9y ago
  Netflix does a lot of work on reliability/availability and are known for being good at it - they've actually open-sourced a lot of their tooling too.
  - brutus1213 9y ago
    That's right. Search for Netflix OSS. Their infra tooling for the cloud is amazing, and something to aspire too. I'm an outsider and have always admired them.

baddox 9y ago

I could certainly be wrong! That feels shockingly high as an average, but good on Netflix for valuing talent. Something to aspire to. ;)

eitally 9y ago
It is shockingly high, but it's true. It's also a produce or leave environment where folks don't stick around who aren't, as the previous poster says, "top tier."
- fro0116 9y ago
  By "top tier", do you also mean people who are willing to put in longer than normal hours and deal with a super-competitive culture and the office politics and drama that come with it? Or am I reading too much into the quotations? I'm honestly just interested in hearing more about what the culture at Netflix is like.
  - jlesk 9y ago
    Netflix employee here. You can find out a lot about our culture from our culture page: https://jobs.netflix.com/culture https://jobs.netflix.com/culture It's not just marketing fluff. It really does a good job of reflecting what it's like to work there, and is taken seriously by everyone from the top down. As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, it's not a competitive environment, and I've experience very little politics and drama. Those things are explicitly counter to the culture. As for long hours, while the work day can be pretty intense, the office is usually empty by 5-6pm. Hope that helps.
    - ringaroundthetx 9y ago
      > the office is usually empty by 5-6pm. (because the bus to San Francisco leaves at 4:30pm) At what point do you tell your employees that they live in the wrong city? Sacramento?
    - fro0116 9y ago
      Thanks, that was really helpful! Do you have any kind of remote working allowance? Or are you expected to be in office all the time?
    - richardknop 9y ago
      Where should I send my CV? :D
    - nonamechicken 9y ago
      A while back, I remember reading something about how Netflix will periodically re-interview their employees and if they fail, fire them. Is it (still) a thing? Also, what about stories such as this: http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437291792/how-the-architect-of-netflixs-innovative-culture-lost-her-job-to-the-system http://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/437291792/how-the-architect-of... "Today, Netflix offers unlimited vacation time, high salaries. This company doesn't care how long you're in the office, but they do care about what you produce. And you have to produce. Here's another slide. We are a team, not a family. We are a pro sports team, not a kids recreational team. Netflix fires people, even hard-working people. HENN: How many people have you moved on? MCCORD: Oh, hundreds. HENN: I talked to a lot of former employees were OK with this deal. I mean, after all, Netflix pays well. But some talked about a culture of fear - always been worried about being fired. Patty says the company's culture is a big reason for its success. She says it keeps Netflix lean and nimble."
      - sjg007 9y ago
        That culture fired her as well..
  - brogrammernot 9y ago
    I haven’t heard it’s competitive once you’re in the company but it is competitive to get into Netflix. Top Tier in the sense that they have very good technical skills, paired with the right attitude for Netflix’s culture. I haven’t them be unreasonable for the standards they set but they want the very best and want you to work hard everyday. The difference is they don’t seem to stockpile talent, they cut when someone doesn’t meet that bar and have paid them incredibly well till that point.
- baddox 9y ago
  I wonder how their management (whoever has the authority to fire) measures performance. Hopefully it’s not as naive as hours in the office, as other commenters have suggested, because naive measurements must lead to perverse incentives. I would suspect and hope that, given such high salaries, their retain-or-fire decision is more sophisticated than that. I think that software engineering productivity is a fairly difficult thing to measure quantitatively. Any simple objective quantitative measure (like hours spent working, lines of code contributed, or tickets resolved) is bound to be too naive. Software engineering seems like one of those things where it’s easy to subjectively identify very good and very poor performers, but difficult to draw a hard line or even compare two similarly productive programmers.
kevinr 9y ago
Netflix explicitly have a policy of trying to pay the best in the industry, as I was told when I interviewed there. Turns out it works!
obmelvin 9y ago
In addition to what others have said, Netflix doesn't hire interns or new grads or engineers with low experience. So obviously it's much easier to have a low end of 300k if your most inexperienced person's previous experience if 5 years at google (made up example)

astrange 9y ago

What do they do all day? Pressing play and getting video already works, and you can’t program your way out of Netflix’s existential threat of nobody renewing their streaming licenses.

zo7 9y ago
I feel like maintaining the infrastructure for the mammoth amount of data they must serve each day would be quite a lot of work on its own. They can't really afford hiccups in service, and I don't recall the site ever being down or a video not loading recently.
jldugger 9y ago
Cost optimization via more efficient software, customer engagement via better predictive analytics, etc.
miranda_rights 9y ago
Netflix does a lot of work on reliability/availability and are known for being good at it - they've actually open-sourced a lot of their tooling too.
- brutus1213 9y ago
  That's right. Search for Netflix OSS. Their infra tooling for the cloud is amazing, and something to aspire too. I'm an outsider and have always admired them.