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> I made $75K in my first year and that gradually grew to $511K by my last year. Wow, I'm envious of this rate of internal raises. Is this consistent within Am
by LeifCarrotson 8y ago
> I made $75K in my first year and that gradually grew to $511K by my last year.
Wow, I'm envious of this rate of internal raises. Is this consistent within Amazon's culture, or other SV companies?
I've found (in the small-town Midwestern shops I frequent, not in the FAANG bubble) that I have to change employers to do better than a token 3-5% annual raise, even if my value to the company is increasing much more quickly.
I've even been heartily congratulated and thanked at my annual review for completing successful, profitable projects in my first year at one job, and offered a reward of a $1/hour raise. I was a bit shocked, as that represented a pay cut when you factored in inflation. They 'capitulated' to an increase of $1.50/hour, which was just about keeping up...had to go look elsewhere to do better.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- DVassallo 8y agoAuthor here. I got a big bump from $230K to $396K in 2016 when I got a competing offer and Amazon matched it so that I wouldn't leave. From then on, the growth from $400K to $500K happened because the AMZN stock nearly tripled in that time frame.
- blunte 8y agoWell, this just illustrated why a company shouldn't play the matching game. What did Amazon get for matching the offer? They got to keep you for a couple more years at a premium. I'm sure you did some good things in those two years, but the accounting side would probably have a difficult time assessing the real value of those two years.
- lowercased 8y agomight have been just to avoid letting that particular skill set and experience go to a competitor. the value of that competitor getting that person was more valuable than amazon keeping him/her.
- beefalo 8y agoHiring a replacement would cost them a lot of money and the replacement would also expect $400k for the same responsibilities anyway.
- startupdiscuss 8y agoHuh? This seems like a non-sequitur. What does leaving in 2 years have to do with your worth this year? How many years would he have to stay to pay off this year? By that logic hires are bad deals if they ever eventually leave because you "lost" the money of their last n years.
- thorwasdfasdf 8y agowith Amazon's reputation, i imagine it's pretty difficult for them to hire and retain talent.
- justicezyx 8y agoThanks being quite open about what's changed the trajectory! I do share the same sentiment as yours. I'll be closely watching your experiment and hopefully learn something from you! Good luck and best wishes!
- akhilcacharya 8y agoFor the record a big chunk of that is also going to come from stock appreciation, which Amazon has done exceptionally well over the last 8 years. Disclaimer - I'm also at Amazon, but I joined at the peak stock price :(
- pantaloons 8y agoThis is largely due to Amazon stock appreciation. Amazon does not pay senior engineers $400K, let alone $500K. In FAANG, a typical non-promotion raise is 5-8%. The author could probably have been a bit more specific and noted that his income was actually quite likely to go down for the next several years, but it wouldn't have made for such a compelling post.
- DVassallo 8y agoAmazon adjusted my comp to ~$380K in 2016 after I got a similar competing offer. It's true that I would have made a bit less if I stayed, but it was still going to be around $500K assuming the stock price remained the same.