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Huge fan of this site, for two reasons: - It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably

Huge fan of this site, for two reasons: - It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of these organizational “open secrets” are hidden and must be earned through work experience, which costs time and career opportunity. - Even if you do have some access to a network, these schemes evolve over time. Salary especially (levels not so much). Having up to date data is huge for assessing options during a job search or even planning for one. The site isn’t perfect— a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves, and the comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles. But its a huge step in the right direction towards empowering employees.

hoaw 8y ago
I agree that it is a great site. This is the kind of thing the Internet was, or at least should be, made for. I would also encourage people who like this kind of thing to think, or take it, one step further. Because even in countries where salaries (tax returns really) are public information getting a decent, or even predictable, salary remains a problem. Some of this is that there is a difference between data and information. Even though you have the data, the information asymmetry remains. After all your interests are often at odds with people whose job it is to look after the company's interests and sometimes with other people in the job market as well. But maybe most of all it is a practical problem. And it isn't usually information that solves practical problems, but what you do with the information you have.
JimboOmega 8y ago
There are two problems with these: 1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on. 2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (perhaps 50%, or even double), because you aren't at a FAANG company (or whatever we're calling them now). It can really make you feel like you haven't learned/grown/accomplished anything in your career when you see people starting at a similar comp to what you get for a decade+ of experience. Some people act as though these companies are an easy alternative for anyone, but the reality is that there are only a handful of them. For me, with a ruby background(+), I'm not particularly interesting to any of them, and I know I'm not the only one. It's neat that between Facebook/Apple/Google you can compare apples to apples, but for a lot of people, it's really an apples to oranges comparison, and a frustrating one. Also, I imagine it's that much worse for people outside the Bay Area. (+: While I'm happy to learn new languages on the job and not tied to any stack, it's still not easy. For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in Python); another time a Microsoft recruiter insisted that I do the interview in Java and then got frustrated when I struggled with syntax I hadn't touched in 5 years.)
- seattleeng 8y ago
  I agree that there are tiers of companies when it comes to compensation, and this site tends to skew towards recording datas for higher tiers (but many of the companies this site provides levels for do NOT pay as much as FAANG - as more salary data is added this will become clearer). And this can certainly be frustrating/depressing when comparing with individual compensation. It should be noted that the pay differential between top paying companies and those below comes from two factors: - Geography. US based companies in the Bay Area will almost always pay more than companies anywhere else in the world. Many companies have different compensation bands for different regions of the world, even within the US. - Equity. The base salary for an entry level developer position at a top company will pay somewhere in the range of 110-130k. I've seen many entry level dev jobs at startups in the bay area paying in the 80-110k range (I can't speak to hard data that supports this though, because open salary information is hard to come across!). So, the salary differential when comparing upper/lower bands between top companies and median companies exists but isn't outlandish (between 20-40% more). The difference is, entry level devs at Google & FB will also get a 50k/yr equity grant. Based on my experiences, this is an order of magnitude more than the median company (where lottery tickets or 1-5k/yr grants are common). So my personal advice for optimizing compensation would be: 1) Move to the US (Bay Area/NYC/Seattle) or work for a US (Bay Area/NYC/Seattle) company remotely or at a satellite office in another city. Obviously, everyone has personal restrictions so this may not possible. 2) Work for a company who you believe will have equity growth. There is a wide spectrum here between 5 person startup lottery tickets and established behemoth that have 0.5% YoY growth stocks. A good recent example of this is Square, which gave out equity grants that were something like 50% lower in cash value than the equivalent role's offer from a FAANG company (this is based off of personal anecdata). However, Square's stock exploded over the past year and that equity today outcompetes many of the equivalent FAANG-level offers. Of course, the opposite could have also been the case -- I've heard stories of underwater options being granted pre-IPO by Square. Sure, a few years later they're worth a lot, but at the time, employees weren't happy. The world is wider than FAANG and tiny startups, and each company has its own set of hiring criteria (e.g. both Twitter and Square started as Rails shops so your Ruby experience would be more valuable to them than Google or FB). You can't predict the market, but if the choice is between 20 year old Company A that gives you 3k/yr in equity or a recently IPO'd Company B that gives you 1k/yr in equity, I would on average take the gamble with Company B (in practice taking into account team strength, product vision/market fit, & company direction after interviewing).
symbolepro 8y ago
And to the "outsiders" from outside US, it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. This should be written in bold on this website. Actually i would say, instead of having these charts which compare total comp, its better to have a survey on how much people save after rent, taxes, and basic living expenses (not including loans etc.)
- jldugger 8y ago
  > it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. Are you confident about this? My experience as a single guy in that total comp range is closer to 25 percent taxation. The marginal rate is that high, but only a small chunk of a 200k income is taxed at that rate. In fact, Social Security caps out before there. And if you're married, it's even lower. But my impression was that Europeans are taxed at an even higher rate; is there some reason listing pretax salaries would be deceptively high?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - kajecounterhack 8y ago
    > Are you confident about this? My experience as a single guy in that total comp range is closer to 25 percent taxation. The marginal rate is that high, but only a small chunk of a 200k income is taxed at that rate. In fact, Social Security caps out before there. And if you're married, it's even lower. What state are you in? My experience is more similar to the parent post; bonuses which are part of your total comp get taxed slightly higher than base pay. After CA income tax, etc etc effective tax rate is easily 40%+.
    - pedrosorio 8y ago
      > bonuses which are part of your total comp get taxed slightly higher than base pay This is incorrect. The taxes withheld when the bonus is paid may be different, but for annual tax calculation all that matters is the total income (bonus or not). https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/income-and-investments/bonus-time-how-bonuses-are-taxed-and-treated-by-the-irs-8003/ https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/income-and-investments/bonu... "Remember, taxes may be withheld from your bonus at a higher tax rate at payout, but when you file your taxes at tax time your actual tax rate is based on your total taxable income and overall actual tax rate (...) you may get some of the money withheld back in the form of a tax refund." > After CA income tax, etc etc effective tax rate is easily 40%+. For a sufficiently high income, sure. In 2018, a single person living in California with no deductions, no contribution to retirement accounts (401k, IRA) or HSA and earning $364k would pay $145,602 in federal+state+FICA taxes, which is 40% effective rate up to 4 significant digits: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#XFuV4Aoe9F https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#XFuV4Aoe9F This is the worst case (high state income tax, no deductions, no pre-tax retirement contributions, single) - change any of those factors and you're paying less than 40% effective rate. If I had to guess, very few people around the world will be shocked to learn that someone earning $364k in California will net only $220k after paying taxes. In most of Western Europe they'd be surprised your effective tax rate is so low while earning 20x the minimum wage.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
nouseforaname 8y ago
Also a huge fan. When I got my first full time engineering job at $50k I thought that was amazing. It literally allowed me to leapfrog my entire family and secured what I thought of as a middle class existence. Then I got a salary adjustment to $70k because my new manager knew (although I didn't) that they'd lose me quickly. And then I picked up the phone and talked to a recruiter and all the sudden I had a counteroffer for six figures. Can you believe that!? Never in my life thought I'd amount to anything especially after dropping out of college. A 6 figure job made me feel like I had made it. Stayed close to that number for several years. Then I went remote for a big company with a high base and great RSUs. Now I'm a one percenter. My mom was a drug addicted waitress with an 8th grade education. I will own my beautiful home free and clear in my 30s. I have the means to travel the world limited only by my time. I will be able to retire in my 30s. It's all so amazing, but I also took nearly a decade to wander into that final band of compensation that many are introduced to right out of the gate at top companies. Open information like this site is very valuable to people like me who come from a non-traditional background and live in a flyover state.
- Nashooo 8y ago
  How did you make the switch to working remotely for a big company in combination with a salary increase? Somehow it seems that remote jobs offer less compensation here in Europe.
  - nouseforaname 8y ago
    I was directly recruited, for 2 remote jobs at once. The first one was because I hung out in an IRC channel for an open source project. The CTO of that company just offered me a job. At the same time a recruiter from a fortune 500 just directly reached out to me and it was a great fit. I ended up going with the big established company because: 1. Better offer 2. Long term product area I was more interested in. This was about 4 years ago and it turns out that although I'm no household name in the community, I am one of the relatively few people who's been doing Go in production since pre-go1.0. Company 1 was in New York, Company 2 was multi-national but main engineering offices are in the Bay Area.
ccdev 8y ago
Agreed. This has been an eye opener for me as someone who has worked mainly in smaller companies whose job levels didn't go beyond junior, mid-level, senior/lead in my profession. Granted, the concept of target schools still adds some bias to candidate hiring, but it's better than in many non-technical careers.
jiveturkey 8y ago
> a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves eh? the leveling data is local to each company. within each company, of course it's subjective because ladder criteria are subjective. but AFAICT it's accurate. in general "senior" is 5 years at any company. senior means you have a 4 year degree and adequate work experience to have applied your book learning to a professional environment and so you are now adept at basic skills, advanced and current platform/framework/library/environment knowledge, know how to use many modern toolsets, have delivered software that has made it to the maintenance and maybe replacement part of the lifecycle. beyond that, some companies have more grades and some have fewer which represent larger org structures and so more people and bigger deployments, and more money. > comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles what do you mean, skewed?
- thedufer 8y ago
  > the leveling data is local to each company. No, it's not. They explicitly try to match up levels across companies. You can see this in action if you go to the page for submitting leveling data for a company: https://www.levels.fyi/create.html https://www.levels.fyi/create.html.

hoaw 8y ago

I agree that it is a great site. This is the kind of thing the Internet was, or at least should be, made for. I would also encourage people who like this kind of thing to think, or take it, one step further. Because even in countries where salaries (tax returns really) are public information getting a decent, or even predictable, salary remains a problem. Some of this is that there is a difference between data and information. Even though you have the data, the information asymmetry remains. After all your interests are often at odds with people whose job it is to look after the company's interests and sometimes with other people in the job market as well. But maybe most of all it is a practical problem. And it isn't usually information that solves practical problems, but what you do with the information you have.

JimboOmega 8y ago

There are two problems with these: 1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on. 2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (perhaps 50%, or even double), because you aren't at a FAANG company (or whatever we're calling them now). It can really make you feel like you haven't learned/grown/accomplished anything in your career when you see people starting at a similar comp to what you get for a decade+ of experience. Some people act as though these companies are an easy alternative for anyone, but the reality is that there are only a handful of them. For me, with a ruby background(+), I'm not particularly interesting to any of them, and I know I'm not the only one. It's neat that between Facebook/Apple/Google you can compare apples to apples, but for a lot of people, it's really an apples to oranges comparison, and a frustrating one. Also, I imagine it's that much worse for people outside the Bay Area. (+: While I'm happy to learn new languages on the job and not tied to any stack, it's still not easy. For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in Python); another time a Microsoft recruiter insisted that I do the interview in Java and then got frustrated when I struggled with syntax I hadn't touched in 5 years.)

seattleeng 8y ago
I agree that there are tiers of companies when it comes to compensation, and this site tends to skew towards recording datas for higher tiers (but many of the companies this site provides levels for do NOT pay as much as FAANG - as more salary data is added this will become clearer). And this can certainly be frustrating/depressing when comparing with individual compensation. It should be noted that the pay differential between top paying companies and those below comes from two factors: - Geography. US based companies in the Bay Area will almost always pay more than companies anywhere else in the world. Many companies have different compensation bands for different regions of the world, even within the US. - Equity. The base salary for an entry level developer position at a top company will pay somewhere in the range of 110-130k. I've seen many entry level dev jobs at startups in the bay area paying in the 80-110k range (I can't speak to hard data that supports this though, because open salary information is hard to come across!). So, the salary differential when comparing upper/lower bands between top companies and median companies exists but isn't outlandish (between 20-40% more). The difference is, entry level devs at Google & FB will also get a 50k/yr equity grant. Based on my experiences, this is an order of magnitude more than the median company (where lottery tickets or 1-5k/yr grants are common). So my personal advice for optimizing compensation would be: 1) Move to the US (Bay Area/NYC/Seattle) or work for a US (Bay Area/NYC/Seattle) company remotely or at a satellite office in another city. Obviously, everyone has personal restrictions so this may not possible. 2) Work for a company who you believe will have equity growth. There is a wide spectrum here between 5 person startup lottery tickets and established behemoth that have 0.5% YoY growth stocks. A good recent example of this is Square, which gave out equity grants that were something like 50% lower in cash value than the equivalent role's offer from a FAANG company (this is based off of personal anecdata). However, Square's stock exploded over the past year and that equity today outcompetes many of the equivalent FAANG-level offers. Of course, the opposite could have also been the case -- I've heard stories of underwater options being granted pre-IPO by Square. Sure, a few years later they're worth a lot, but at the time, employees weren't happy. The world is wider than FAANG and tiny startups, and each company has its own set of hiring criteria (e.g. both Twitter and Square started as Rails shops so your Ruby experience would be more valuable to them than Google or FB). You can't predict the market, but if the choice is between 20 year old Company A that gives you 3k/yr in equity or a recently IPO'd Company B that gives you 1k/yr in equity, I would on average take the gamble with Company B (in practice taking into account team strength, product vision/market fit, & company direction after interviewing).

symbolepro 8y ago

And to the "outsiders" from outside US, it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. This should be written in bold on this website. Actually i would say, instead of having these charts which compare total comp, its better to have a survey on how much people save after rent, taxes, and basic living expenses (not including loans etc.)

jldugger 8y ago
> it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. Are you confident about this? My experience as a single guy in that total comp range is closer to 25 percent taxation. The marginal rate is that high, but only a small chunk of a 200k income is taxed at that rate. In fact, Social Security caps out before there. And if you're married, it's even lower. But my impression was that Europeans are taxed at an even higher rate; is there some reason listing pretax salaries would be deceptively high?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- kajecounterhack 8y ago
  > Are you confident about this? My experience as a single guy in that total comp range is closer to 25 percent taxation. The marginal rate is that high, but only a small chunk of a 200k income is taxed at that rate. In fact, Social Security caps out before there. And if you're married, it's even lower. What state are you in? My experience is more similar to the parent post; bonuses which are part of your total comp get taxed slightly higher than base pay. After CA income tax, etc etc effective tax rate is easily 40%+.
  - pedrosorio 8y ago
    > bonuses which are part of your total comp get taxed slightly higher than base pay This is incorrect. The taxes withheld when the bonus is paid may be different, but for annual tax calculation all that matters is the total income (bonus or not). https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/income-and-investments/bonus-time-how-bonuses-are-taxed-and-treated-by-the-irs-8003/ https://blog.turbotax.intuit.com/income-and-investments/bonu... "Remember, taxes may be withheld from your bonus at a higher tax rate at payout, but when you file your taxes at tax time your actual tax rate is based on your total taxable income and overall actual tax rate (...) you may get some of the money withheld back in the form of a tax refund." > After CA income tax, etc etc effective tax rate is easily 40%+. For a sufficiently high income, sure. In 2018, a single person living in California with no deductions, no contribution to retirement accounts (401k, IRA) or HSA and earning $364k would pay $145,602 in federal+state+FICA taxes, which is 40% effective rate up to 4 significant digits: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#XFuV4Aoe9F https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#XFuV4Aoe9F This is the worst case (high state income tax, no deductions, no pre-tax retirement contributions, single) - change any of those factors and you're paying less than 40% effective rate. If I had to guess, very few people around the world will be shocked to learn that someone earning $364k in California will net only $220k after paying taxes. In most of Western Europe they'd be surprised your effective tax rate is so low while earning 20x the minimum wage.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

nouseforaname 8y ago

Also a huge fan. When I got my first full time engineering job at $50k I thought that was amazing. It literally allowed me to leapfrog my entire family and secured what I thought of as a middle class existence. Then I got a salary adjustment to $70k because my new manager knew (although I didn't) that they'd lose me quickly. And then I picked up the phone and talked to a recruiter and all the sudden I had a counteroffer for six figures. Can you believe that!? Never in my life thought I'd amount to anything especially after dropping out of college. A 6 figure job made me feel like I had made it. Stayed close to that number for several years. Then I went remote for a big company with a high base and great RSUs. Now I'm a one percenter. My mom was a drug addicted waitress with an 8th grade education. I will own my beautiful home free and clear in my 30s. I have the means to travel the world limited only by my time. I will be able to retire in my 30s. It's all so amazing, but I also took nearly a decade to wander into that final band of compensation that many are introduced to right out of the gate at top companies. Open information like this site is very valuable to people like me who come from a non-traditional background and live in a flyover state.

Nashooo 8y ago
How did you make the switch to working remotely for a big company in combination with a salary increase? Somehow it seems that remote jobs offer less compensation here in Europe.
- nouseforaname 8y ago
  I was directly recruited, for 2 remote jobs at once. The first one was because I hung out in an IRC channel for an open source project. The CTO of that company just offered me a job. At the same time a recruiter from a fortune 500 just directly reached out to me and it was a great fit. I ended up going with the big established company because: 1. Better offer 2. Long term product area I was more interested in. This was about 4 years ago and it turns out that although I'm no household name in the community, I am one of the relatively few people who's been doing Go in production since pre-go1.0. Company 1 was in New York, Company 2 was multi-national but main engineering offices are in the Bay Area.

ccdev 8y ago

Agreed. This has been an eye opener for me as someone who has worked mainly in smaller companies whose job levels didn't go beyond junior, mid-level, senior/lead in my profession. Granted, the concept of target schools still adds some bias to candidate hiring, but it's better than in many non-technical careers.

jiveturkey 8y ago

> a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves eh? the leveling data is local to each company. within each company, of course it's subjective because ladder criteria are subjective. but AFAICT it's accurate. in general "senior" is 5 years at any company. senior means you have a 4 year degree and adequate work experience to have applied your book learning to a professional environment and so you are now adept at basic skills, advanced and current platform/framework/library/environment knowledge, know how to use many modern toolsets, have delivered software that has made it to the maintenance and maybe replacement part of the lifecycle. beyond that, some companies have more grades and some have fewer which represent larger org structures and so more people and bigger deployments, and more money. > comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles what do you mean, skewed?

thedufer 8y ago
> the leveling data is local to each company. No, it's not. They explicitly try to match up levels across companies. You can see this in action if you go to the page for submitting leveling data for a company: https://www.levels.fyi/create.html https://www.levels.fyi/create.html.