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What kind of companies pay software engineers 300k+? Is it realistic to make 500k-1 million+ at these companies as a developer? What sort of title/level are the
by tyler- 8y ago
What kind of companies pay software engineers 300k+? Is it realistic to make 500k-1 million+ at these companies as a developer? What sort of title/level are these developers at? How much is it in stocks/rsus vs salary at that point? Can someone lay out a traditional example at this level? What skillsets do these people have?
- crescentfresh 8y agoAlso, this was in Seattle location, can anyone shed some light on cost-of-living there compared to say Bay Area developers?
- akhilcacharya 8y agoI don't work in Seattle but I was about to, it's 10% cheaper off the bat because of WA's lack of income tax (of course, Amazon also increases base salary in SFBA by about the same amount so it's a wash). Luxury apartments are much cheaper than SF and South Bay in my experience, and I wouldn't have needed a car. Weather isn't as nice as SFBA probably, but I enjoy the weather around there. Commuting is also pretty straightforward into the suburbs.
- TACIXAT 8y ago300k+ is senior. The higher ranges would be principal / individual contributor. This is a pretty common pay scale in the Bay Area. https://levels.fyi https://levels.fyi
- tyler- 8y agoThanks! Roughly, what does is the difference between a senior and principle engineer? How common is it to reach senior for a normal dev vs principle?
- grigory 8y agoSenior at a lot of the larger companies I've interacted with is often a kind of a "terminal level", meaning that you're not expected to rise above it, and can comfortably spend most of your career at that level. Staff, sr staff, principle and other monikers are usually about affecting change at the scale larger than your team, operating at larger scope, and growing people around you.
- beefalo 8y agoSenior would be someone who takes the lead on projects in their domain across their team/other teams. Principal would be responsible for leading overall architecture for multiple teams/departments or a super expert in some domain. At Google, probably less than 1% will reach principle, I've heard around 25% of engineers are senior+.
- sockgrant 8y ago> What kind of companies pay software engineers 300k+? The big ones. Google Facebook Microsoft Amazon. > Is it realistic to make 500k-1 million+ at these companies as a developer? It's realistic but not a given. You've gotta be into staff software engineer+ range to be making that much. Plenty of people never make staff. > How much is it in stocks/rsus vs salary at that point? Probably around 50/50. 50 salary 50 bonus + rsus. Or maybe even 40 salary 60 bonus + rsu. > What skillsets do these people have? Be one of the better software engineers at a company that can curate top engineers. Strong communication, high interpersonal skills, ability to lead complex software projects, high intelligence, fast learner, breadth and depth of understanding of software. Plays well with others. Generalist -- able to work in a variety of languages with different tools, with no hesitation to learn and quickly understand new environments. These engineers may be domain experts at specific things, but they are by no means pigeonholed. Usually, but not always, these engineers are also very productive and motivated.
- jldugger 8y agoIt's not realistic, but it happens. Especially with RSU appreciation. AMZN's up 88 percent in the last 2 years, so if you were issued compensation plus refreshers amounting to 300k, but 200k of that was RSU, you're looking at 500k in comp when the stock doubles your grant price.
- DVassallo 8y agoThat’s close, but the majority of my RSUs vested well before the full 88% rise. I only got that much appreciation in the last vest.