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Make a reasonable estimate - what do you think is the total number of people earning in the range of 400K at FAANGMUA? How about in terms of percentage of engin

Make a reasonable estimate - what do you think is the total number of people earning in the range of 400K at FAANGMUA? How about in terms of percentage of engineering staff? Do bear in mind that it takes almost 10 years of steady relevant experience to get to that level (L5+). As another commenter points out, 8 years of solid experince only made an L4.

scarmig 8y ago
If you're hired into the role directly. Someone coming in straight from college can realistically expect L5 in 6-8 years. Back in the day, you used to get basically kicked out if it took longer than that. Even coming in as an L4, you can plausibly expect L5 in 2-3 years.
joejerryronnie 8y ago
Here's how I've seen it work, and this is specifically relevant to Bay Area compensation (although it prob works the same in other markets, just scaled down). You come into either one of: - top tech company (i.e. FAANG) - high growth, public, mid-sized tech company (e.g. top enterprise cloud companies) Your base salary will be between maybe $130K - $160K. And not just for engineers, technical product/program/project managers make this as well. Your bonus will be 15-20% of your base, so another $20-30K, bringing your total comp minus RSUs to $150-200K. Your first RSU grant will prob be worth $100K per year once you start vesting. If you are a top 20% performer, you will get another grant within the next year or two. After you've been at the company for three or so years, you will have multiple RSU grants starting to vest. Once you stack these RSU grants on top of each other, your total comp can easily reach $400K for some period of time. A couple of caveats/risks with this comp structure - it seems companies are much more willing to throw more RSU's at you than a significant base salary increase. - as long as the markets are rewarding growth vs profitability, the RSU's will continue to flow - if the market crashes, the whole comp structure may crumble.

scarmig 8y ago

If you're hired into the role directly. Someone coming in straight from college can realistically expect L5 in 6-8 years. Back in the day, you used to get basically kicked out if it took longer than that. Even coming in as an L4, you can plausibly expect L5 in 2-3 years.

joejerryronnie 8y ago

Here's how I've seen it work, and this is specifically relevant to Bay Area compensation (although it prob works the same in other markets, just scaled down). You come into either one of: - top tech company (i.e. FAANG) - high growth, public, mid-sized tech company (e.g. top enterprise cloud companies) Your base salary will be between maybe $130K - $160K. And not just for engineers, technical product/program/project managers make this as well. Your bonus will be 15-20% of your base, so another $20-30K, bringing your total comp minus RSUs to $150-200K. Your first RSU grant will prob be worth $100K per year once you start vesting. If you are a top 20% performer, you will get another grant within the next year or two. After you've been at the company for three or so years, you will have multiple RSU grants starting to vest. Once you stack these RSU grants on top of each other, your total comp can easily reach $400K for some period of time. A couple of caveats/risks with this comp structure - it seems companies are much more willing to throw more RSU's at you than a significant base salary increase. - as long as the markets are rewarding growth vs profitability, the RSU's will continue to flow - if the market crashes, the whole comp structure may crumble.