9 ms·

Facebook Median Pay now $240k

83 points by f00biebletch 8y ago

f00biebletch 8y ago
I've definitely felt the challenge of hiring in a startup as a result of these kinds of numbers. I'm curious what others think will come of this seeming bubble in compensation.
- throwaway84742 8y ago
  Why “bubble”? Their business is more profitable than crack cocaine, and their profit per employee is over a million dollars. Seems like fair compensation for once.
- askafriend 8y ago
  Why is it a bubble when they have an incredibly successful business that prints money where the people building the service are being rewarded for helping build such a successful outcome?
  - adamnemecek 8y ago
    There might be some regulatin coming their way.
    - briandear 8y ago
      Which will make their business even more solid as it will make it harder for new entrants.
      - adamnemecek 8y ago
        Not really no. Not all regulations are like that. These will most likely go after fb very directly.
      - Lionsion 8y ago
        That's sloppy thinking. Here's and example why: what if a new regulation new banned targeted advertising? That would kneecap FB's business model and unique value proposition while making it easier for new entrants, since they won't have to compete with FB's now-legally-useless data trove.
  - dx034 8y ago
    Because that was exactly the argument banks used before 2008. Not that salaries in Finance are low now but a lot of the excesses have been cut back following the crisis. Banks also made a ton of money pre-2008 but that didn't come out of nowhere. So far, there has been no industry that just continued making high margins over decades without any cut backs. I doubt tech will be the first one.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      But the industry as a whole doesn't have these margins or salaries; only the top dogs do.
      - dx034 8y ago
        Pre-2008 not all banks were hugely profitable. Some investment banks were and some smaller companies. The tech sector isn't that dissimilar. Salaries in SV show that not only Google and Facebook are willing to pay $200k+ for engineers, most of the industry will (and usually can). As tech can't print money, these salaries must come from somewhere. And at some point those sources won't be able or willing to provide it. Maybe that's a soft landing, maybe harder. I don't know but as I said previously, I'd be surprised if tech's the first industry in centuries that channels wealth into the hands of few (including SV landlords) without any consequences.
        icebraining 8y ago
        Salaries in SV show that (...) most of the industry will (and usually can). Yeah, that's what I doubt. SV is not the tech industry as a whole. The average salary for a software developer in the US is less than half than that, and if we removed those top outliers, it'll be even less. So I'm skeptical that this is out of the ordinary; doesn't seem that different from other well-paid white-collar professions like lawyers.
        f00biebletch 8y ago
        And, even in SV, most of the industry cannot; certainly the AirBnB/uber/lyft's of the world can, but the smaller companies seem to be falling behind (based on anecdotal conversations at least).
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  It's not a bubble by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook pays a lot because they have to pay a lot to get quality people to want to work at Facebook. Compare this against companies like SpaceX where the median compensation is quite awful for the industry made even worse by the area (compensation is well below $90k in most cases). This poor compensation is made even more peculiar at a glance by the incredibly high standard of employee they have. But they have these incredibly well qualified people lining up outside the door wanting to work for them. Of course refuting my argument is companies like Netflix. I don't entirely understand why they pay so much. But at least just taking examples like Facebook and SpaceX, compensation is mostly just based on supply and demand - rather than massive ongoing bubble of inflating salaries.
  - zerr 8y ago
    Exactly. Same goes for game industry. As for Netflix - you get to paid premium for taking a non-reliable job - they brag about their high turnover rate in their "culture" deck.
  - f00biebletch 8y ago
    I admire the Netflix philosophy- ruthlessly capitalistic.
- fergie 8y ago
  Its not a bubble. $240k is a reasonable salary for a professional with good grades from a good university working for a highly profitable private company. In fact as long as there is such a gap between revenue per employee, and compensation per employee, there will only be upward pressure on pay and conditions. In reality, software engineering salaries outside of established tech environments are kept artificially low because there is no "guild of software engineers", and therefore anybody can get hired no matter what level of skill they have. I too run a software startup. The most common and serious error I see in my fellow startup founders is expecting to build better technology with worse pay and conditions. You might be able to wrangle something decent out of some poorly qualified yet smart people, but its a bit of a long shot.
  - tonyedgecombe 8y ago
    Its not a bubble. I'm pretty sure it is and I'm quite looking forward to seeing it burst.
    - Kephael 8y ago
      When I attended Facebook university day, 100% of the students I spoke with were from top schools. The majority I spoke with were from Ivy League Universities, of the non Ivy League students, one was from MIT, two from UMD, one from UCLA, and one from UT Austin. This is not a bubble, this is them hiring the best. I have been in class with students who chose to enter software engineering at major companies rather than investment banking.
      - f00biebletch 8y ago
        Although that notion of "the best" has been deeply challenged by slack, e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-slack-got-ahead-in-diversity/558806/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-s...
        Kephael 8y ago
        I could never get an interview at Slack, but they are not hiring the best. Their compensation is far too low.
setpatchaddress 8y ago
Includes RSUs, for those who don’t feel like reading the article.
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  IIRC this article includes stock options for engineers but not the CEO. Meanwhile, not counted, are the legions of Facebook contractors (e.g. food service, janitorial, and some? a plurality? engineers).
  - dvirsky 8y ago
    > Zuckerberg took a $1 salary last year and got no new stock grants (on top of the $70 billion in Facebook stock he already owns). His $8.8 million in compensation last year was mainly for his personal security detail and private aircraft use.
hliyan 8y ago
I've been thinking a lot about the merits of the (highest income / median income) ratio in creating a society that is a little more resistant to eventual inequality. Rather than setting absolute tax brackets, what if we define tax brackets by this ratio? That way, it will be in the interest of the highest income earners to raise the median income.
- skybrian 8y ago
  It's easily gamed by contracting out for lower paid workers. What if Facebook came in at highest median pay because it relies more on contractors than other companies? The data would be a bit more useful if they reported the job title of the median worker.
  - hliyan 8y ago
    I was thinking more about this applying to all adult citizens of a country and not any particular corporation...
  - Lionsion 8y ago
    > It's easily gamed by contracting out for lower paid workers. What if Facebook came in at highest median pay because it relies more on contractors than other companies? Easy gaming like that is easy to anticipate and account for. You just have to define "workers for the company" in a way that includes contractors and controlled entities, etc.
- cpeterso 8y ago
  Ben & Jerry's originally capped the pay ratio of their highest salaried executive and lowest-earning-worker to 5:1 ($150,000/year and $12/hour in 1995), but over the years they raised the ratio to 7:1, 17:1, and then stopped sharing a ratio after Unilever acquired them in 2000. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies-follow-ben-jerrys-lead-wages/story?id=19920634 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies-follow-ben-jerrys-l...
  - ra1n85 8y ago
dx034 8y ago
That is only possible because of outsourcing. If you only employ the highest paid earners and use contractors for all support staff, you artificially inflate your median salary. I'd bet that FB has much lower salaries if you count anyone working full time for Facebook.
- camillomiller 8y ago
  All the "Facebook" content screeners in Berlin, Germany, are actually employees of a contractor (Arvato-Bertelsmann) who is mostly hiring them through job agencies. They're in charge of deciding what has to be banned according to Facebook Community Guidelines. They get to see gore, suicide videos, racial slurs etc. all the time, with no proper psychological training. They earn minimum wage (around 10$ per hour) and they're completely disposable. Nonetheless, when Facebook had to face a small content-related crisis in Germany in 2016, that didn't stop Zuckerberg from saying the the company hires teams of hundreds in Germany to stop the spreading of hate content. They don't. Source: Inside Facebook - Im Netz des Bösen, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2016. (sorry, paywall). http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/inside-facebook-im-netz-des-boesen-1.3295206 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/inside-facebook-im-netz-d...
  - dx034 8y ago
    Thanks for the example. I'd be surprised if content screeners are employed with Facebook anywhere in the world. Most don't make that job for a long time and they probably want to avoid being sued for compensation, I could imagine viewing those videos/images without proper training will lead to long-term psychological issues for many. It's easy if FB can just hire a subcontractor that files for bankruptcy once claims come in.
  - kossae 8y ago
    I’ve always been curious as to what “psychological training” would consist of to prepare for seeing such explicit content day in and day out. Perhaps something similar to military/war psychological practices?
    - 8y ago
akhilcacharya 8y ago
Honestly, I'm more surprised that other folks are surprised. How much do ya'll think top SWEs make?
zerr 8y ago
Not so much in H1B data: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salary.htm http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salar... At least for the base salary I guess.
- underwater 8y ago
  Stock is a significant part of the remuneration for Facebook employees. Probably close to 50% for engineers.
macca321 8y ago
Is this the same in the UK?
- gambiting 8y ago
  I know a guy working in their London office as a programmer and he makes £60k/year. So no, probably not. Edit: in UK in general you won't be seeing £150k+ salaries as a programmer no matter who you work for, the only way to get there is contracting. Top paying salaried positions for really senior staff in London at financial companies top out at around £120-130k.
- Xuper 8y ago
  Google underpays heavily AFAIK.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
snvzz 8y ago
That's great for those with the moral flexibility to work on such a profoundly evil company, for the detriment of mankind.
- mxschumacher 8y ago
  Facebook is a cancer that feeds on humanity's attention
  - newscracker 8y ago
    "...manipulating and feeding on humanity's attention" is a broader description, IMO.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- newscracker 8y ago
  It's clear that many people have a price at which they'd do things that they otherwise would not.
  - badosu 8y ago
    The question is, aren't there?
lucideer 8y ago
> Gap said its median-paid employee, a real person, was a part-time sales associate in Alabama who worked a partial year and whose pay was not annualized. It seems odd to compare the non-annualised salary of a part-time worker to those of full-time/annualised. Is this a strategy by Gap to deflect attention (I know $5375 is extremely low, but I have no ration/scale/factor to compare it by, so I don't know exactly how low. This employee in Alabama could be working a day a month), or is this format of reporting actually required by Dodd-Frank?
wehack1807 8y ago
Do you need hackers for hire? Do you need to keep an eye on your spouse by gaining access to their emails? As a parent do you want to know what your kids do on a daily basis on social networks ( This includes facebook, twitter , instagram, whatsapp, WeChat and others to make sure they're not getting into trouble? Whatever it is, Ranging from Bank Jobs, Flipping cash, Criminal records ,mugshots removal, DMV, Taxes, Name it,and we will get the job done. Contact cyberservices147@gmail.com for more information!

83 points by f00biebletch 8y ago

I've definitely felt the challenge of hiring in a startup as a result of these kinds of numbers. I'm curious what others think will come of this seeming bubble in compensation.

throwaway84742 8y ago
Why “bubble”? Their business is more profitable than crack cocaine, and their profit per employee is over a million dollars. Seems like fair compensation for once.
askafriend 8y ago
Why is it a bubble when they have an incredibly successful business that prints money where the people building the service are being rewarded for helping build such a successful outcome?
- adamnemecek 8y ago
  There might be some regulatin coming their way.
  - briandear 8y ago
    Which will make their business even more solid as it will make it harder for new entrants.
    - adamnemecek 8y ago
      Not really no. Not all regulations are like that. These will most likely go after fb very directly.
    - Lionsion 8y ago
      That's sloppy thinking. Here's and example why: what if a new regulation new banned targeted advertising? That would kneecap FB's business model and unique value proposition while making it easier for new entrants, since they won't have to compete with FB's now-legally-useless data trove.
- dx034 8y ago
  Because that was exactly the argument banks used before 2008. Not that salaries in Finance are low now but a lot of the excesses have been cut back following the crisis. Banks also made a ton of money pre-2008 but that didn't come out of nowhere. So far, there has been no industry that just continued making high margins over decades without any cut backs. I doubt tech will be the first one.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    But the industry as a whole doesn't have these margins or salaries; only the top dogs do.
    - dx034 8y ago
      Pre-2008 not all banks were hugely profitable. Some investment banks were and some smaller companies. The tech sector isn't that dissimilar. Salaries in SV show that not only Google and Facebook are willing to pay $200k+ for engineers, most of the industry will (and usually can). As tech can't print money, these salaries must come from somewhere. And at some point those sources won't be able or willing to provide it. Maybe that's a soft landing, maybe harder. I don't know but as I said previously, I'd be surprised if tech's the first industry in centuries that channels wealth into the hands of few (including SV landlords) without any consequences.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Salaries in SV show that (...) most of the industry will (and usually can). Yeah, that's what I doubt. SV is not the tech industry as a whole. The average salary for a software developer in the US is less than half than that, and if we removed those top outliers, it'll be even less. So I'm skeptical that this is out of the ordinary; doesn't seem that different from other well-paid white-collar professions like lawyers.
        f00biebletch 8y ago
        And, even in SV, most of the industry cannot; certainly the AirBnB/uber/lyft's of the world can, but the smaller companies seem to be falling behind (based on anecdotal conversations at least).
TangoTrotFox 8y ago
It's not a bubble by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook pays a lot because they have to pay a lot to get quality people to want to work at Facebook. Compare this against companies like SpaceX where the median compensation is quite awful for the industry made even worse by the area (compensation is well below $90k in most cases). This poor compensation is made even more peculiar at a glance by the incredibly high standard of employee they have. But they have these incredibly well qualified people lining up outside the door wanting to work for them. Of course refuting my argument is companies like Netflix. I don't entirely understand why they pay so much. But at least just taking examples like Facebook and SpaceX, compensation is mostly just based on supply and demand - rather than massive ongoing bubble of inflating salaries.
- zerr 8y ago
  Exactly. Same goes for game industry. As for Netflix - you get to paid premium for taking a non-reliable job - they brag about their high turnover rate in their "culture" deck.
- f00biebletch 8y ago
  I admire the Netflix philosophy- ruthlessly capitalistic.
fergie 8y ago
Its not a bubble. $240k is a reasonable salary for a professional with good grades from a good university working for a highly profitable private company. In fact as long as there is such a gap between revenue per employee, and compensation per employee, there will only be upward pressure on pay and conditions. In reality, software engineering salaries outside of established tech environments are kept artificially low because there is no "guild of software engineers", and therefore anybody can get hired no matter what level of skill they have. I too run a software startup. The most common and serious error I see in my fellow startup founders is expecting to build better technology with worse pay and conditions. You might be able to wrangle something decent out of some poorly qualified yet smart people, but its a bit of a long shot.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  Its not a bubble. I'm pretty sure it is and I'm quite looking forward to seeing it burst.
  - Kephael 8y ago
    When I attended Facebook university day, 100% of the students I spoke with were from top schools. The majority I spoke with were from Ivy League Universities, of the non Ivy League students, one was from MIT, two from UMD, one from UCLA, and one from UT Austin. This is not a bubble, this is them hiring the best. I have been in class with students who chose to enter software engineering at major companies rather than investment banking.
    - f00biebletch 8y ago
      Although that notion of "the best" has been deeply challenged by slack, e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-slack-got-ahead-in-diversity/558806/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/04/how-s...
      - Kephael 8y ago
        I could never get an interview at Slack, but they are not hiring the best. Their compensation is far too low.

setpatchaddress 8y ago

Includes RSUs, for those who don’t feel like reading the article.

inferiorhuman 8y ago
IIRC this article includes stock options for engineers but not the CEO. Meanwhile, not counted, are the legions of Facebook contractors (e.g. food service, janitorial, and some? a plurality? engineers).
- dvirsky 8y ago
  > Zuckerberg took a $1 salary last year and got no new stock grants (on top of the $70 billion in Facebook stock he already owns). His $8.8 million in compensation last year was mainly for his personal security detail and private aircraft use.

hliyan 8y ago

I've been thinking a lot about the merits of the (highest income / median income) ratio in creating a society that is a little more resistant to eventual inequality. Rather than setting absolute tax brackets, what if we define tax brackets by this ratio? That way, it will be in the interest of the highest income earners to raise the median income.

skybrian 8y ago
It's easily gamed by contracting out for lower paid workers. What if Facebook came in at highest median pay because it relies more on contractors than other companies? The data would be a bit more useful if they reported the job title of the median worker.
- hliyan 8y ago
  I was thinking more about this applying to all adult citizens of a country and not any particular corporation...
- Lionsion 8y ago
  > It's easily gamed by contracting out for lower paid workers. What if Facebook came in at highest median pay because it relies more on contractors than other companies? Easy gaming like that is easy to anticipate and account for. You just have to define "workers for the company" in a way that includes contractors and controlled entities, etc.
cpeterso 8y ago
Ben & Jerry's originally capped the pay ratio of their highest salaried executive and lowest-earning-worker to 5:1 ($150,000/year and $12/hour in 1995), but over the years they raised the ratio to 7:1, 17:1, and then stopped sharing a ratio after Unilever acquired them in 2000. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies-follow-ben-jerrys-lead-wages/story?id=19920634 http://abcnews.go.com/Business/companies-follow-ben-jerrys-l...
- ra1n85 8y ago

dx034 8y ago

That is only possible because of outsourcing. If you only employ the highest paid earners and use contractors for all support staff, you artificially inflate your median salary. I'd bet that FB has much lower salaries if you count anyone working full time for Facebook.

camillomiller 8y ago
All the "Facebook" content screeners in Berlin, Germany, are actually employees of a contractor (Arvato-Bertelsmann) who is mostly hiring them through job agencies. They're in charge of deciding what has to be banned according to Facebook Community Guidelines. They get to see gore, suicide videos, racial slurs etc. all the time, with no proper psychological training. They earn minimum wage (around 10$ per hour) and they're completely disposable. Nonetheless, when Facebook had to face a small content-related crisis in Germany in 2016, that didn't stop Zuckerberg from saying the the company hires teams of hundreds in Germany to stop the spreading of hate content. They don't. Source: Inside Facebook - Im Netz des Bösen, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2016. (sorry, paywall). http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/inside-facebook-im-netz-des-boesen-1.3295206 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/inside-facebook-im-netz-d...
- dx034 8y ago
  Thanks for the example. I'd be surprised if content screeners are employed with Facebook anywhere in the world. Most don't make that job for a long time and they probably want to avoid being sued for compensation, I could imagine viewing those videos/images without proper training will lead to long-term psychological issues for many. It's easy if FB can just hire a subcontractor that files for bankruptcy once claims come in.
- kossae 8y ago
  I’ve always been curious as to what “psychological training” would consist of to prepare for seeing such explicit content day in and day out. Perhaps something similar to military/war psychological practices?
  - 8y ago

akhilcacharya 8y ago

Honestly, I'm more surprised that other folks are surprised. How much do ya'll think top SWEs make?

zerr 8y ago

Not so much in H1B data: http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salary.htm http://www.myvisajobs.com/Visa-Sponsor/Facebook/189973_Salar... At least for the base salary I guess.

underwater 8y ago
Stock is a significant part of the remuneration for Facebook employees. Probably close to 50% for engineers.

macca321 8y ago

Is this the same in the UK?

gambiting 8y ago
I know a guy working in their London office as a programmer and he makes £60k/year. So no, probably not. Edit: in UK in general you won't be seeing £150k+ salaries as a programmer no matter who you work for, the only way to get there is contracting. Top paying salaried positions for really senior staff in London at financial companies top out at around £120-130k.
Xuper 8y ago
Google underpays heavily AFAIK.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

snvzz 8y ago

That's great for those with the moral flexibility to work on such a profoundly evil company, for the detriment of mankind.

mxschumacher 8y ago
Facebook is a cancer that feeds on humanity's attention
- newscracker 8y ago
  "...manipulating and feeding on humanity's attention" is a broader description, IMO.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
newscracker 8y ago
It's clear that many people have a price at which they'd do things that they otherwise would not.
- badosu 8y ago
  The question is, aren't there?

lucideer 8y ago

> Gap said its median-paid employee, a real person, was a part-time sales associate in Alabama who worked a partial year and whose pay was not annualized. It seems odd to compare the non-annualised salary of a part-time worker to those of full-time/annualised. Is this a strategy by Gap to deflect attention (I know $5375 is extremely low, but I have no ration/scale/factor to compare it by, so I don't know exactly how low. This employee in Alabama could be working a day a month), or is this format of reporting actually required by Dodd-Frank?

wehack1807 8y ago

Do you need hackers for hire? Do you need to keep an eye on your spouse by gaining access to their emails? As a parent do you want to know what your kids do on a daily basis on social networks ( This includes facebook, twitter , instagram, whatsapp, WeChat and others to make sure they're not getting into trouble? Whatever it is, Ranging from Bank Jobs, Flipping cash, Criminal records ,mugshots removal, DMV, Taxes, Name it,and we will get the job done. Contact cyberservices147@gmail.com for more information!