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Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular

Facebook and Google are only setting the pay standard among other well paying public companies. The rest of the valley isn't keeping up. Startups in particular feel like slowly ramped up in pay but capped out. They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either. Usually only enough to make it such that your TC at startup would be equal to that of a big company IF the company IPO's/sells. (A big IF!) I don't see many salaries past $200k for IC software engineer (outside of 1 year to IPO startups) and most people still balk at the idea of it. Yet, 1-2 years out of school at Big CompanyTM and you'll be past $200k TC. I feel bad for the people who aren't in tech or things that tech pays for (real estate) and have to deal with even more frozen pay. However, it still sucks for engineers not at Big Co who believed they could make the american dream possible here. I'm on the verge of leaving this area. My current compensation makes me feel poor even though I could afford to buy a brand new Porsche. Even if I joined Big Co now and made $400k/yr... housing has grown too fast in price in the peninsula. By the time I've saved $300-400k for a down payment, I'm going to be priced out even more. If my SO had only become a software engineer or born into a rich family instead then maybe I would have been able to afford this region. Such is life in the bay area - you can buy a brand new Porsche but you can't afford a garage to put it in.

svachalek 7y ago
Yeah, I get recruiting emails from startups all the time but I don't even want to talk to them because somehow it feels rude to bring up the elephant in the room - I'd have to win the lottery at your startup to make up for the loss in joining it. I'm not sure if this is saying big techs have too much money or VC investors are not willing to compete for talent.
- AndrewKemendo 7y ago
  If you are a top talent there really is no upside of joining a startup anymore - even as a founder. It's terribly depressing. FAANG pays orders of magnitudes better, has better benefits, has flexible work locations and schedules, is working on the most leading edge stuff (autonomous everything, AR, VR, GreenTech etc...) contributes to FOSS, gives leadership opportunities etc... I'm not sure when this shift happened, but I do remember the tipping point in 2016 when Apple recruited the best PhD away from my company after 6 tries and gave him a 3x pay raise (400k/yr - what startup can afford that for one person?), with the ability to work on self-driving cars. I'm not sure how it would be possible to compete with that, and don't blame him for leaving.
  - Terretta 7y ago
    > FAANG pays orders of magnitude better That would be two more zeros. You sure they’re paying two more zeros for a dev job? PhD or no, if your skills are good enough for FAANG, I would love to offer you competitive comp in New York, LA, or three lower cost of living university + fintech towns in SE, S, and SW. The FAANGS are sure not paying an extra zero over what we can offer.
    - PenguinCoder 7y ago
      I declined multiple 6 figure salary + RSU offered positions with FAANGs due to on-site requirements in CA/SF. What can you competitively offer? Remotely?
      - Terretta 7y ago
        I’m assuming “multiple six figures” means more than 1 or 2, and yeah, certainly.
    - paxys 7y ago
      "orders of magnitude" is obviously an exaggeration, but I do agree with everything else. Plus Google or equivalent is going to be a relatively stable low-stress 9-5 job, whereas a smaller company is going to expect you to work longer and wear multiple hats.
rhizome 7y ago
>They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either It's even worse than that, since the NPV of options is zero.
a1pulley 7y ago
I've actually had the opposite experience with Google. I'm currently negotiating a job offer at Google; my initial offer was significantly lower than my four other ones. It's TBD whether they'll end up matching, but my recruiter has been trying to systematically deconstruct the argument for working at a local competitor to make the case that 0.67 * other offer = Google offer. I'm not sure if they'll end up matching - we'll see! TLDR: in my current experience at non-staff levels, Google comp lags behind "Big-N" comp as well as "near-IPO company" comp. Maybe they just lowball everyone though.
- fizwhiz 7y ago
  Google doesn't generally care about near-IPO companies unless they're decacorns (and still apply a discount to the competing offer's equity). Google comp only lags behind Netflix for: a) Non-staff levels b) Candidates that don't have competing offers. It's not unusual to see a huge pay discrepancy based on your ability to negotiate. It also depends on what ladder you're applying to (i.e. you can't compare a Solutions engineer comp at Google to a SWE at some other company).
- Zaheer 7y ago
  Google in particular often starts will lower compensation but will match other offers (from Big-N companies) quickly. I'd recommend getting another Big-N offer and using that to negotiate. Some great resources for negotiation: - https://teamcandor.com/salary/guide/ https://teamcandor.com/salary/guide/ - https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation
  - a1pulley 7y ago
    Thanks Zaheer! While I have your ear: my recruiter at "other company" pushed back on increasing RSU comp by saying packages were larger in the past but have decreased in size recently. If levels.fyi displayed offer date it might help validate or dispel arguments like that.
    - Zaheer 7y ago
taurath 7y ago
Okay though, if you joined Big Co now and made $400k/yr, you'd be taking home $260k post-tax. Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. In 2-3 years you'd have your $300-400k for a down payment - thats 30% of a $1.2mm house. 2-3 years to buy a median priced place. Thats not bad. Also, prices in say, Santa Clara CA have gone -5.5% YoY, and are forecasted by zillow to go another -8% in the next year. It sucks for anyone who doesn't work at BigCo right now who isn't already wealthy from the previous work.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bradlys 7y ago
  It's $230k after tax. > Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. You really might want to expand on "extremely comfortably". We all have very different definitions. I'd like a home with AC, good transportation, close enough to SF to actually make it up on weeknights (30-40 min drive), a retirement plan that works with the assumption I live in this area indefinitely, and a <=20 minute commute. I will not have that for $115-130k/yr net income. Just isn't available in the rental market we have. I'm not even getting into the part where I'd like to live in a nice neighborhood with good schools.
  - taurath 7y ago
    $115k/yr is $9600/mo. You can spend $5k/mo on a rental with all of those properties, and have $4600/mo for food, utilities, bi-annual trips to europe, the payment for your porsche, and a housekeeper, all whilst saving half of your income to buy a house in the most expensive region of the US in 2-3 years. You can literally have all of those things.
    - cdkee 7y ago
      After taxes 115k is more like 5-6k a month, depending on how much you’re putting into retirement accounts, healthcare, etc.
ryandrake 7y ago
Don’t forget that not everyone at these big companies are making these outsized compensations. If the data is self-reported then I’d bet dollars to donuts that this skews the averages super high. Few people feel the urge to log their below-average salary for the world to see. I’d take self reported salary data and anecdotes with a huge grain of salt.
- scalesolved 7y ago
  I'd bet the inverse, folks pulling in the huge compensation packets have no reason to want to advertise this via a self reported site.
paxys 7y ago
Apart from founders and very early employees, people used to take a chance in small startups due to the prospect of their RSU/options being worth a ton down the line. Nowadays, though, VC ownership in these companies is getting so large that very little is left for founders themselves, let alone employee number 50. Makes zero sense not to take a guaranteed $500K at Google or Facebook over a tiny chance at $500K at a startup.
yibg 7y ago
One thing I've seen smaller companies do some times to attract the same type of talent from FAANG is to bump up the level of candidates. So L5 (or whatever equivalent) at FAANG would go in at L6 or L7 and get a pay bump that way that's somewhat close to FAANG comp levels.
- pm90 7y ago
  This would be a ridiculous trap, but some people do find titles to be important, so I guess its fine if they're attracted to jobs that can't pay enough but make up for it with inflated levels. I get the impulse behind trying to level employees but it always seemed ridiculous to me. Either you care about it enough to game it (which is pretty easy to do) or you don't an you just do what you think is important to you and your team and it works out... so you level up by accident. This is actually a huge reason I don't like bigger companies. There is so much emphasis on Seniority, Levels etc. Its complete bullshit. You see people game the system, rise to the top, get all kinds of bullshit honors for doing bullshit things. Meanwhile the grunts doing all the actual work and innovating like crazy are just happy to make the higher ups look good in front of _their_ peers and don't really give a shit about the product or the market.... its a vicious, self-sustaining and self-dealing beast.
  - ryandrake 7y ago
    At these big tech companies, your level is not just a puffy title. Within whatever your current level is, there is not much opportunity for compensation growth. L+1 usually represents a large leap in compensation, which explains the emphasis on it. Nobody leaves FAANG1 for FAANG2 to simply get a title bump. They leave to get the level bump which sometimes means +20%, +50% or even +100% in terms of total comp.
    - pm90 7y ago
      I think you’ve illustrated perfectly the phenomenon I describe. Levels are fictional rat races designed to keep the rats working hard in hopes of “making it” without necessarily having achieved anything of substance. Your counter argument is that they’re not just titles but have associated compensation components .... great. Doesn’t mean that you’ve accomplished anything significant at all. And now that these levels are normalized across companies, the only thing employees care for is leveling up, who gives a shit about whether you’re really learning or making a difference. Unless you’re assumption is that levels are more than just a financial totem pole but an accurate representation of skills and accomplishments. I think that’s what they aspire to be but are not so in practice.

svachalek 7y ago

Yeah, I get recruiting emails from startups all the time but I don't even want to talk to them because somehow it feels rude to bring up the elephant in the room - I'd have to win the lottery at your startup to make up for the loss in joining it. I'm not sure if this is saying big techs have too much money or VC investors are not willing to compete for talent.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
If you are a top talent there really is no upside of joining a startup anymore - even as a founder. It's terribly depressing. FAANG pays orders of magnitudes better, has better benefits, has flexible work locations and schedules, is working on the most leading edge stuff (autonomous everything, AR, VR, GreenTech etc...) contributes to FOSS, gives leadership opportunities etc... I'm not sure when this shift happened, but I do remember the tipping point in 2016 when Apple recruited the best PhD away from my company after 6 tries and gave him a 3x pay raise (400k/yr - what startup can afford that for one person?), with the ability to work on self-driving cars. I'm not sure how it would be possible to compete with that, and don't blame him for leaving.
- Terretta 7y ago
  > FAANG pays orders of magnitude better That would be two more zeros. You sure they’re paying two more zeros for a dev job? PhD or no, if your skills are good enough for FAANG, I would love to offer you competitive comp in New York, LA, or three lower cost of living university + fintech towns in SE, S, and SW. The FAANGS are sure not paying an extra zero over what we can offer.
  - PenguinCoder 7y ago
    I declined multiple 6 figure salary + RSU offered positions with FAANGs due to on-site requirements in CA/SF. What can you competitively offer? Remotely?
    - Terretta 7y ago
      I’m assuming “multiple six figures” means more than 1 or 2, and yeah, certainly.
  - paxys 7y ago
    "orders of magnitude" is obviously an exaggeration, but I do agree with everything else. Plus Google or equivalent is going to be a relatively stable low-stress 9-5 job, whereas a smaller company is going to expect you to work longer and wear multiple hats.

rhizome 7y ago

>They're not offering enough stock to make up for it either It's even worse than that, since the NPV of options is zero.

a1pulley 7y ago

I've actually had the opposite experience with Google. I'm currently negotiating a job offer at Google; my initial offer was significantly lower than my four other ones. It's TBD whether they'll end up matching, but my recruiter has been trying to systematically deconstruct the argument for working at a local competitor to make the case that 0.67 * other offer = Google offer. I'm not sure if they'll end up matching - we'll see! TLDR: in my current experience at non-staff levels, Google comp lags behind "Big-N" comp as well as "near-IPO company" comp. Maybe they just lowball everyone though.

fizwhiz 7y ago
Google doesn't generally care about near-IPO companies unless they're decacorns (and still apply a discount to the competing offer's equity). Google comp only lags behind Netflix for: a) Non-staff levels b) Candidates that don't have competing offers. It's not unusual to see a huge pay discrepancy based on your ability to negotiate. It also depends on what ladder you're applying to (i.e. you can't compare a Solutions engineer comp at Google to a SWE at some other company).
Zaheer 7y ago
Google in particular often starts will lower compensation but will match other offers (from Big-N companies) quickly. I'd recommend getting another Big-N offer and using that to negotiate. Some great resources for negotiation: - https://teamcandor.com/salary/guide/ https://teamcandor.com/salary/guide/ - https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation
- a1pulley 7y ago
  Thanks Zaheer! While I have your ear: my recruiter at "other company" pushed back on increasing RSU comp by saying packages were larger in the past but have decreased in size recently. If levels.fyi displayed offer date it might help validate or dispel arguments like that.
  - Zaheer 7y ago

taurath 7y ago

Okay though, if you joined Big Co now and made $400k/yr, you'd be taking home $260k post-tax. Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. In 2-3 years you'd have your $300-400k for a down payment - thats 30% of a $1.2mm house. 2-3 years to buy a median priced place. Thats not bad. Also, prices in say, Santa Clara CA have gone -5.5% YoY, and are forecasted by zillow to go another -8% in the next year. It sucks for anyone who doesn't work at BigCo right now who isn't already wealthy from the previous work.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bradlys 7y ago
It's $230k after tax. > Anyone can live even in the bay area on half of that, extremely comfortably. You really might want to expand on "extremely comfortably". We all have very different definitions. I'd like a home with AC, good transportation, close enough to SF to actually make it up on weeknights (30-40 min drive), a retirement plan that works with the assumption I live in this area indefinitely, and a <=20 minute commute. I will not have that for $115-130k/yr net income. Just isn't available in the rental market we have. I'm not even getting into the part where I'd like to live in a nice neighborhood with good schools.
- taurath 7y ago
  $115k/yr is $9600/mo. You can spend $5k/mo on a rental with all of those properties, and have $4600/mo for food, utilities, bi-annual trips to europe, the payment for your porsche, and a housekeeper, all whilst saving half of your income to buy a house in the most expensive region of the US in 2-3 years. You can literally have all of those things.
  - cdkee 7y ago
    After taxes 115k is more like 5-6k a month, depending on how much you’re putting into retirement accounts, healthcare, etc.

ryandrake 7y ago

Don’t forget that not everyone at these big companies are making these outsized compensations. If the data is self-reported then I’d bet dollars to donuts that this skews the averages super high. Few people feel the urge to log their below-average salary for the world to see. I’d take self reported salary data and anecdotes with a huge grain of salt.

scalesolved 7y ago
I'd bet the inverse, folks pulling in the huge compensation packets have no reason to want to advertise this via a self reported site.

paxys 7y ago

Apart from founders and very early employees, people used to take a chance in small startups due to the prospect of their RSU/options being worth a ton down the line. Nowadays, though, VC ownership in these companies is getting so large that very little is left for founders themselves, let alone employee number 50. Makes zero sense not to take a guaranteed $500K at Google or Facebook over a tiny chance at $500K at a startup.

yibg 7y ago

One thing I've seen smaller companies do some times to attract the same type of talent from FAANG is to bump up the level of candidates. So L5 (or whatever equivalent) at FAANG would go in at L6 or L7 and get a pay bump that way that's somewhat close to FAANG comp levels.

pm90 7y ago
This would be a ridiculous trap, but some people do find titles to be important, so I guess its fine if they're attracted to jobs that can't pay enough but make up for it with inflated levels. I get the impulse behind trying to level employees but it always seemed ridiculous to me. Either you care about it enough to game it (which is pretty easy to do) or you don't an you just do what you think is important to you and your team and it works out... so you level up by accident. This is actually a huge reason I don't like bigger companies. There is so much emphasis on Seniority, Levels etc. Its complete bullshit. You see people game the system, rise to the top, get all kinds of bullshit honors for doing bullshit things. Meanwhile the grunts doing all the actual work and innovating like crazy are just happy to make the higher ups look good in front of _their_ peers and don't really give a shit about the product or the market.... its a vicious, self-sustaining and self-dealing beast.
- ryandrake 7y ago
  At these big tech companies, your level is not just a puffy title. Within whatever your current level is, there is not much opportunity for compensation growth. L+1 usually represents a large leap in compensation, which explains the emphasis on it. Nobody leaves FAANG1 for FAANG2 to simply get a title bump. They leave to get the level bump which sometimes means +20%, +50% or even +100% in terms of total comp.
  - pm90 7y ago
    I think you’ve illustrated perfectly the phenomenon I describe. Levels are fictional rat races designed to keep the rats working hard in hopes of “making it” without necessarily having achieved anything of substance. Your counter argument is that they’re not just titles but have associated compensation components .... great. Doesn’t mean that you’ve accomplished anything significant at all. And now that these levels are normalized across companies, the only thing employees care for is leveling up, who gives a shit about whether you’re really learning or making a difference. Unless you’re assumption is that levels are more than just a financial totem pole but an accurate representation of skills and accomplishments. I think that’s what they aspire to be but are not so in practice.