$48k per Amazon HQ job is about the the annual federal income tax of a software engineer at Amazon, and it's 4-5 years of New York state income tax. This assume

$48k per Amazon HQ job is about the the annual federal income tax of a software engineer at Amazon, and it's 4-5 years of New York state income tax. This assumes an annual total compensation somewhere around $200k. Some people will tell you that such a compensation is not realistic, but at Amazon it is common for mid- to senior-level engineers to make at least that much. Altogether it is not a total sellout on the part of New York, at least not after 5 years. Ideally some of those Amazon engineers will leave Amazon to join other companies or start their own, which will be good for New York.