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I don't buy it. FAANG pays X, so other companies know they need to pay 1.3X to hire FAANG level engineers. So the info sharing may help FAANG collude, but it

I don't buy it. FAANG pays X, so other companies know they need to pay 1.3X to hire FAANG level engineers. So the info sharing may help FAANG collude, but it won't suppress wages for those who can be poached from FAANG. That's assuming there aren't any behind the scenes no-poaching agreements. https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-poaching-lawsuit-for-415-million/ https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-google-others-settle-anti-po...

trhway 8y ago
>I don't buy it. FAANG pays X, so other companies know they need to pay 1.3X to hire FAANG level engineers. no. The rest knows that they can pay 0.3-0.5X to hire the rest of the engineers. C people hire C people and there are always more than enough C people around. Our BigCo has no talent shortage for example(we'll even be cutting 5-10% in the next few months - just fat trimming, the company has no financial issues forcing to do it), and i have hard time imagining what would a FAANG level engineer would be doing around here - try to imagine a Stanford CS MS grad with the thesis in deep learning helping a huge enterprise customer through 6 stages of grief during the escalation call :) The overall stagnation is only overall. Inside the tech salaries distribution there is a structural change of it becoming strongly bi-modal. So there is very high competition for talent and very high salaries (Google L5/6/7 medians being like 550/650/750 with the rest of FAANG being similar) at the high segment, and the rest just happily chugging along with 2% yearly CPI increase at best which actually means slowly sliding downhill instead of mere stagnation.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
xxxanony 8y ago
I'm not so sure... plenty of software engineers will gladly accept less than X to NOT work at a FAANG company.
- monsk 8y ago
  True, but another problem is that there are woefully few companies outside of FAANG that will even come close to a FAANG compensation.
- zn44 8y ago
  not to mention there's quite a few companies who don't want FAANG type of engineers
  - esrauch 8y ago
    What is the aspect of FAANG engineers they don't want?
kamarg 8y ago
Are there many companies that can pay 1.3x of FAANG compensation? One of the big reasons people go work at the big 5 is the pay.
- codemac 8y ago
  Just SV unicorns usually, and even then a lot of it is speculated value. But the unicorns definitely pay if you're above a certain experience level - and if you build the correct professional network you can basically demand it.
  - ummonk 8y ago
    Decacorns more accurately. Lots of mediocre paying startups out there with 1-2 billion valuations.
- dilyevsky 8y ago
  Google is famous for lowballing and downlevelling so at least in G case it’s not always the case.

trhway 8y ago

>I don't buy it. FAANG pays X, so other companies know they need to pay 1.3X to hire FAANG level engineers. no. The rest knows that they can pay 0.3-0.5X to hire the rest of the engineers. C people hire C people and there are always more than enough C people around. Our BigCo has no talent shortage for example(we'll even be cutting 5-10% in the next few months - just fat trimming, the company has no financial issues forcing to do it), and i have hard time imagining what would a FAANG level engineer would be doing around here - try to imagine a Stanford CS MS grad with the thesis in deep learning helping a huge enterprise customer through 6 stages of grief during the escalation call :) The overall stagnation is only overall. Inside the tech salaries distribution there is a structural change of it becoming strongly bi-modal. So there is very high competition for talent and very high salaries (Google L5/6/7 medians being like 550/650/750 with the rest of FAANG being similar) at the high segment, and the rest just happily chugging along with 2% yearly CPI increase at best which actually means slowly sliding downhill instead of mere stagnation.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

xxxanony 8y ago

I'm not so sure... plenty of software engineers will gladly accept less than X to NOT work at a FAANG company.

monsk 8y ago
True, but another problem is that there are woefully few companies outside of FAANG that will even come close to a FAANG compensation.
zn44 8y ago
not to mention there's quite a few companies who don't want FAANG type of engineers
- esrauch 8y ago
  What is the aspect of FAANG engineers they don't want?

kamarg 8y ago

Are there many companies that can pay 1.3x of FAANG compensation? One of the big reasons people go work at the big 5 is the pay.

codemac 8y ago
Just SV unicorns usually, and even then a lot of it is speculated value. But the unicorns definitely pay if you're above a certain experience level - and if you build the correct professional network you can basically demand it.
- ummonk 8y ago
  Decacorns more accurately. Lots of mediocre paying startups out there with 1-2 billion valuations.
dilyevsky 8y ago
Google is famous for lowballing and downlevelling so at least in G case it’s not always the case.