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What percent of engineers in SF or NYC are working for FANG companies? Most people aren’t working for companies that pay like Facebook.
by ptd 8y ago
What percent of engineers in SF or NYC are working for FANG companies? Most people aren’t working for companies that pay like Facebook.
- sjroot 8y agoObligatory "^ this." Perpetuating the idea that everyone who comes out of school with a CS degree will end up with such a comfy gig is a disservice to software engineers everywhere, particularly for those outside the United States. As a mid-level engineer currently job hunting in NYC, the salary range for most non-FAANG companies (including most start-ups) seems to be $90-150k. From my experience, the idea of "mid-level" and "senior-level" employees in our industry seems to be skewed to the left. Mid-level employees are generally 2-5 years into their careers, and senior-level can be anywhere beyond that. When you think of senior-level employees in other industries, you generally assume they have 10-20+ years of experience under their belt.
- ptd 8y agoFrom my anecdotal experience the breakpoints in engineering experience seem to be: 0-3 years-Junior:You don’t know what you’re doing. 3-8 years-Mid-level: You think you know what you’re doing. 8+ years-Senior:You know that you don’t know what you’re doing.
- ghostly_s 8y agoAt large companies, sure. The proliferation of startups really skew this on average. I know of many people who were "Senior Devs" at startups within the 1-5 years range.
- dleslie 8y agoOutside of SF, even FAANG pays considerably less. Canadian employees of the same frequently earn half that.
- lochlan 8y agoSoftware Engineers outside the US make less, full stop. Amazon has a COL adjustment for SF and NYC but it’s not as much as you might think. Not as sure about other companies but I believe Google is similar (they also have a small local office). The best setup IMO is to work at a FAANG company outside the bay, it’s the best of both worlds. Supposedly Amazon pays p90 of market rate, but in my area it’s more like p99. Source: live in PDX, work at Amazon.
- throwaway713 8y agoI’ve heard that working remotely (full time) for Facebook, Google, or Netflix is nearly impossible though unless you’re truly indispensable to the company. This may be 1-3% of their employees that can actually leverage that option?
- eclipxe 8y agoNot work remotely, work in a distributed office.
- hapless 8y agoStartups pay like shit. Which is why they attract marginal candidates who could not get hired elsewhere.
- reidjs 8y agoThis is a bit of a blanket statement. I believe it depends a lot on the candidates negotiating ability
- hapless 8y agoI can't speak to SF, but NYC's big employers aren't just FAANG -- the big financials employ tens of thousands of software developers. Publishers employ thousands more. Compensation is, broadly, very generous. They're competing with three of the FAANGs, after all.
- vonmoltke 8y agoCitation sorely needed. Goldman only raised new grad SWE salaries over $100k in the past year or so. They are currently barely above that. The other banks are the same. The only financial firms that compete with FAANG salaries either don't hire juniors or are even harder to get in to than the FAANGs. As for publishers, please find me one that routinely pays anywhere near FAANG salaries. EDIT: changed "SWE software engineers" to "SWE salaries". Oof.
- coredog64 8y agoWhat kind of bonuses does GS pay, and how much of it is really performance related vs. showing up every day on time? (Serious question, not snark).
- vonmoltke 8y agoI don't know, unfortunately.
- corporateguy5 8y agoI’ve seen Goldman pay up to 350k for senior engineers. Probably more. These days that mostly in big data