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Top Paying Tech Companies by SWE Level

• regstrtn 7y ago
  Are you that levels.fyi guy?
• Waterluvian 7y ago
  I do the job of a senior engineer and yet am paid a bit less than what's listed for an entry level engineer. And I live an incredibly comfy life. What's the catch? Are these for more than 40 hours a week? Is silicon valley really that expensive? Or are they literally giving college grads enough money to retire by 35?
  • typest 7y ago
    There is not necessarily a catch. Pay is not based on cost of living -- it's set by market rates, and the market rate for software engineers in these areas who can do the jobs required at these companies is high. All these companies operate at an immense scale where an engineer, through what is often a simple change, can add significant value to the company. So, yes. For now, these companies are giving college grads enough money to retire by 35 (assuming the college grads are halfway financially savvy). Source: I am a recent college grad at a FAANG.
    • glglwty 7y ago
      A senior position in the doc will probably get you ~2M in savings by 35. How do you retire with that?
      • synaesthesisx 7y ago
        Agreed - that’s not enough to retire on that young unless one relocates to a very LCOL area.
      • Swizec 7y ago
        Using the 5% drawdown rule, 2M in savings is enough to have a 100k/year income in perpetuity without adding to savings. Idea being that average market returns are 7%. So if you use 5% per year, you will never run out.
        • rhexs 7y ago
          5% is not a safe withdrawal rate for "in perpetuity". 3% is much more realistic if you want to be conservative.
          • Swizec 7y ago
            Yes it's a rule of thumb not the law of thermodynamics. Run your numbers with your own parameters for details.
          • villahousut 7y ago
            That's assuming you want to leave the whole 2 million principal in your will to your children. I don't see why - if you want to retire, you can consume the whole principal while you live.
            • thedufer 7y ago
              You can't plan to spend your last dollar on your deathbed unless you can predict every expense, the market, and the day you'll die, especially over a retirement that long (potentially 50+ years). Planning to leave something behind is really your only chance, unless you're comfortable with a very high chance of bankruptcy along the way.
      • 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
        Even at a meager 2% interest that’s $40k a year. That’s a comfortable wage in much of the USA, especially if you’ve been camping in an RV for a decade to retire.
        • perl4ever 7y ago
          I don't believe anything I read on HN about the lifestyles of the SV elite, but I think this scenario is comical if it were representative. You get paid well into six figures but have "to camp in an RV for a decade", and then you retire with a $40K income. You could have just gotten a $40K job at some place* that didn't kill your soul! In ten years, you'd be making at least $60K. And if you burned out for whatever reason anyway, you could go on disability. *by place, I mean either employer or city.
      • mc3 7y ago
        you'd be in a position to invest too as you go.
      • typest 7y ago
        You read through all the advice in these blogs [1][2]. Seriously. If you are invested in low cost index funds, most assume you can safely withdraw 4% a year and not deplete your principal. If you're retiring at 35, you might want a greater safety margin, so let's say 3%. That gives you 60K a year. How do you retire on 60K a year? Obviously take what I'm saying with a grain of salt as I'm a relatively young person and haven't done any of this yet. But...60K is the median household income in the US, so half of families in the US live on less. If you're retired, you can probably save in ways others can't. For instance: * Housing. You don't need to stay in a high cost of living city, so move to a much cheaper area (maybe a college town). * Education. You have much more time, so send your kids to all public education, and use your extra time to educate them further. * Debt. You have a ton of assets. Why hold any debt? * Automobiles. Bike instead, if you're physically able. * Health. Probably the hardest one since insurance in the US is tied to employment. I understand the recommended approach here is to pay out of pocket for a plan, but many have trouble with this. Of course, the standard advice is to use the extra time you have due to retirement to stay as healthy as possible, but I acknowledge this isn't a perfect plan. [1] https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/ [2] https://www.madfientist.com/ https://www.madfientist.com/
        • tempestn 7y ago
          Good advice. Just one nitpick: The 4% rule, which states you can as a rule of thumb safely withdraw 4% of the starting capital per year in real dollars (IE increase it each year to account for inflation), is intended for a standard retirement period (65+) and does expect the principal to decrease. There's more debate as to what would be a safe withdrawal rate over the long term without depleting principal, but I expect 3% would be a bit on the high side, although not unreasonable if one has a backup like part-time work. Of course, that's assuming you withdraw 3% of the initial amount each year and adjust for inflation. Obviously if you only withdraw 3% of the current amount each year you'll never run out, by definition, but you might end up with shrinking spending money. Still, just a nitpick. I agree with you in principle for sure.
          • villahousut 7y ago
            That's a bit incorrect. Returns from a typical investment portfolio have been over 4% for the last 10-20 years, so that's the amount you can withdraw without depleting any principal. If you're looking to consume your whole principal by the time you die you can go way ahead of 4%, easily double that.
      • rhexs 7y ago
        Easily by not living in the Bay Area. People FIRE at 1 million, which I always found a bit silly considering we're in the midst of an amazing market hyperinflated by some rather concerning fiscal policy, but with 2 you can weather a lot of bad years. Family with kids in a big, expensive city? Probably not.
      • hdhdhdd 7y ago
        400k- taxes = 270k for joined filing Monthly expenses = 3k mortgage+ 500 property taxes + 2k daycare for one child(or 529) + 1.5k for food and other = 84k Without compounding interest you need 10 years to get 2m, and these salaries are for 5+ or more years of experience. (And you need down payment, etc.). Living in those areas is expensive. If you are making 500k, that's a different story :-)
        • aiiane 7y ago
          people never factor in healthcare into this calculus.
          • hdhdhdd 7y ago
            Yup, I forgot about it. 7-8k max out of pocket (in-network) for family. In some companies there is also some payment for the health plan out of pocket. But the diff here is that on HSA plans the out of pocket comes before taxes.
      • stubish 7y ago
        With no or self-sustaining offspring, you can retire on $US2M in savings just about anywhere in the world; not silicon valley and a handful of similar locations. Most of the world, including many places you would consider holiday resorts and amazing places to live, is quite achievable if you stay away from boats, fast cars and gambling. Its how people doing the same job in other cities get by earning half as much.
    • Waterluvian 7y ago
      Interesting, thanks. Now I wonder how many of these jobs are 100% work from home. I'm not sure a salary doubling could take me away from my family and into commuting an hour a day. But I mean, if they're going to pay me to engineer in my pyjamas, sure! =)
      • andreilys 7y ago
        Remote work at FANG is possible but usually earned through a niche in-demand skill set or years at the company.
        • hawaiianbrah 7y ago
          Or finding the right team within!
      • stubish 7y ago
        None of them are 100% work from home. Work from home pays work-from-home market rates, not high end silicon valley rates. There will be some, but they will have negotiated a switch from office work to remote work after a few years, or have hard to source specialist skills.
        • deleted 7y ago
          [deleted]
      • qqwaabb 7y ago
        I effectively have 100% work from home for a FANG. I live in the Midwest and my compensation is the same as engineers working from HQ. I worked from HQ for a few years then told my manager I was gonna quit to move closer to family and we ended up being to arrange this. I fly to HQ a few times a year to have face time with my team. Not sure how long this arrangement will last, but it’s been awesome so far.
    • burfog 7y ago
      Pay is partly based on cost of living, and cost of living helps to set the market rates. You'd have to pay me 10 times more than I get now, with a huge hiring bonus, to make me move to San Francisco. I'm not alone in this thinking. This is why the market rate is high. Part of that is sort of circular, due to the bidding war for housing. Part is that some people just hate the political insanity. Part is that people have family connections elsewhere and they have hobbies that are incompatible with San Francisco.
      • shuckles 7y ago
        Let’s say you’re the median American SWE getting paid $80k a year. You’re saying you wouldn’t move to SFBA for less than $800k/yr in total compensation? I find that hard to imagine.
        • burfog 7y ago
          I can see what it costs. Getting $800k/yr means a house of about $1,600,000 should be affordable, but that gets you trash. Getting a "house" that PHYSICALLY TOUCHES the neighbor's house will go for more than that in a semi-tolerable San Francisco neighborhood. That is substandard living conditions.
          • govg 7y ago
            How do you afford housing wherever you make $80k? Unless literally everything comparable costs 10x in SF, there's no logical way you can say 10x is the mark at which SF wages are pegged at.
            • shuckles 7y ago
              In accounting, this is an idea known as operating leverage.
          • shuckles 7y ago
            $1.6m will get you 2,200 square feet of sweet, sweet detached single family living in Pacifica, Berkeley, or Marin. Double an $80k annual income will get you a 640 square foot home with $250/square foot land and construction costs, so not a particularly high end or spacious place.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • draw_down 7y ago
    My company is shown here; the number for my level seems roughly correct. There have certainly been times when I had to work harder than I would have liked, but it's not crazy. The way I see it, every job has downsides, and I could certainly leave to go somewhere a bit more relaxed. But the problem I always run into justifying that is, say I go somewhere where the total compensation is 50% of what I get now- am I really going to like that job twice as much? Tech industry is tech industry, at the end of the day. So, probably not. We do a job to get paid. So, getting paid is nice.
  • pmiller2 7y ago
    > ...enough money to retire by 35? You have to keep in mind that a 1br apartment in a second tier area will run you like $2k, and that will not be an especially nice apartment. That seriously cuts into the "retire in 10 years" plan.
  • TomVDB 7y ago
    I find it hard to believe that you're reading HN while still being surprised about the cost of living here? By the time you're 35, you'll probably have a family with kids. You don't want a long commute to spend more time with said family so your 2000 sq.ft. house on a 7000 sq.ft lot will cost between $1.5M to $2.5M. You won't get any needs-based financial compensation to send your kids to college, yet chances are that you don't want to deny them going to the best college that they'll accepted to. Add another $200K per kid if they're going to a UC school. Everything is going to be a bit to a lot more expensive than elsewhere. Childcare, the electrician and plumber who charges $175 per hour (they need to live too), eating out etc. $400K in yearly pre-tax compensation reduces to something like $250K after tax? There's no way you're going to retire at 35, unless you're willing to give up on a lot of niceties of life before bailing. I don't know anyone who did.
    • esoterica 7y ago
      It’s incredible that people think you need seven freaking thousand square feet to raise a family.
      • tristor 7y ago
        That's a lot size, not a house size brotato. That's 0.16 acres, which is actually below the standard lot size in the US for most houses. Standard lot size in the US is around 0.25 acres. 2000sqft is a larger home, but not absurd if you're married and have two kids.
      • TomVDB 7y ago
        Nobody needs a luxury car. Nobody needs to eat at nice restaurants. Nobody needs vacations in Europe. Nobody needs a $1000 phone. But if I had to choose one thing where I have no problem spending more than what is strictly needed, it's going to be the place in which I'll be spending the vast majority of my time for the rest of my life. If it makes you feel any better: for the low end of my range ($1.5M), you're not going to get that 7000 sq.ft. You'll be buying a house on a 3500 sq.ft. lot, so the argument still stands.
  • twblalock 7y ago
    Go on Zillow or Redfin and look at Bay Area housing prices near major tech companies (Cupertino, Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Francisco) and you'll see that 1 million dollars is entry level for a single-family home, and ~700k is entry-level for a condo that has HOA payments ~400-500 per month. That's the bottom line -- cost of living is so high the salaries need to be high too, or people won't accept them.
    • hodder 7y ago
      You're implying high housing prices cause higher salaries when it is almost certainly the other way around. High salaries and limited supply seem to be the key causal factors in high housing prices.
      • twblalock 7y ago
        It's a vicious cycle. People are still coming to the area and they demand high salaries because housing prices are high, and housing prices are high because of the high salaries of people already living in the area.
  • TrackerFF 7y ago
    As others have said, the catch is incredibly high cost of living. The housing market has grown by something like 10%-15% annually, for years. Obviously, it can't grow like that forever - even professional couples have problems pooling together money for a down-payments on decent median priced homes. And while you're building equity by owning, you're also kind of stuck to keeping up with salaries / career trajectories. But you know, with higher salaries comes more purchasing power. And then you also have foreigners parking their assets in the housing market, similar to what's happening in NYC and Vancouver. It's hard to compete even with a nice $500k salary, when some foreign investor can casually overbid you with millions in cash. Sounds a bit dramatic, yes, but that's life in most cities with hot markets and high salaries.
  • Vadoff 7y ago
    I'm a senior engineer at FAANG, work 40hrs/wk, and get paid $400k+/yr. The cost of living is higher, but it's well under the increase in pay for being in the area. My current living situation is actually pretty cheap; I split a 4BR house, live 7 min from work, and pay $1650/mo for my portion of rent/utilities. Most people I know tend to get 2BR apartments and split it with someone, usually paying $2000-2500/mo.
    • rp1229 7y ago
      imagine making 400k+ a year and still not having a place of your own.
      • kirubakaran 7y ago
        Having roommates can be a lot of fun. I loved it and am still close friends with all my roommates.
      • balfirevic 7y ago
        That person could rent entire 4 BR house to themselves, and be stuck with an equivalent of a measly 340k+ a year. It's obviously out of choice.
    • overcast 7y ago
      You're also stuck renting, with three other people, with a $400k salary. Conversely, I bought an 1800sqft house in upstate New York, alone, and the total per month is roughly $1400(mortgage, property/school tax,utilities).
      • esoterica 7y ago
        He’s not “stuck” renting, he’s choosing to rent because he wants to save money and doesn’t mind having roommates. You can absolutely afford your own apartment on far less than 400k/year in the Bay Area.
        • overcast 7y ago
  • RickS 7y ago
    > Are these for more than 40 hours a week? No > Is silicon valley really that expensive? Yes yes yes oh my god yes. Rent eats most of the difference. 300$/mo for a parking space, etc. However, non-local things (like amazon purchases) are the same price everywhere, so you still have lots of purchasing power for those things. > Or are they literally giving college grads enough money to retire by 35? Only if you play it right. If you have a high-earning spouse or are willing to live with multiple roommates into your thirties, have no kids, rent an apartment, and live modestly + save diligently. Want to live alone and get food and drinks with your friends every day? That will seriously handicap any strides towards financial independence until you're nearing the 300k range, and even then it takes you from "rocketship bank account" down to "really great life". Very much a first world problem, but if the goal is "retire at 35", the distinction matters.
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    > Or are they literally giving college grads enough money to retire by 35? This is it. All the answers about Bay Area Cost of Living are just as applicable for people making $150k and would be the same answers if those were the "high salaries" being paraded around. All thats happened is that the tech sector has multiple of the largest publicly traded companies in the world, all in one place, and its brushing up against the compensation style that the finance sector has had for decades, which has always been divorced from cost of living and closer to the value brought to the organization. Its a good deal with a lot of potential to get better, or the market slows down and it gets worse.
• corporateslave5 7y ago
  For everyone who doesn’t know, you’re getting shafted at that medium size startup/company. Most of these FAANG engineers are not geniuses, they just studied for the interviews
  • ameen 7y ago
    I know. I get paid lower than an entry level engineer while managing, developing and maintaining the entire web presence for our company - public site, e-commerce store, etc. I get paid 1/50th of what the company made in e-commerce sales (similar amounts through other channels). I can’t quit and prepare for a job interview as I need to maintain visa status. And my workload averages ~60h/week.
    • chillacy 7y ago
      The visa situation is just terrible, I knew so many smart coworkers who were afraid to move because of H1B uncertainties. Ultimately this hurts everyone in the industry because labor markets require a liquidity to function properly.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • daggerdrone 7y ago
        What uncertainties exactly? Just interview normally and if you get an offer then you can accept the offer and they will start the H1B process. You will get the H1B approval in about three weeks. Then you can put your two weeks notice. Overall it will take around 5 weeks from your offer date to your joining date which is pretty reasonable. If there is a delay in the H1B or it does not get approved, then you can continue to work at your old place. Pretty much everybody on H1B these days is following this process.
    • saagarjha 7y ago
      I'm curious: you've chosen to tie this pretty closely to your real world identity. Aren't you concerned at all that a company that you're beholden to and is willing to underpay you will just let you go if they find this?
• tempire 7y ago
  If this is for real, _everyone_ I know is getting completely screwed. I have a hard time believing any of these numbers. If I earned any of these amounts for 2-3 years, I could live off the interest for the rest of my life.
  • beisner 7y ago
    They are most certainly real.
  • eclipxe 7y ago
    This is for real.
  • avalys 7y ago
    Absolutely real.
  • rexarex 7y ago
    It’s for real
  • draw_down 7y ago
    If you're getting screwed, get out there and stop getting screwed! "I never sat back feeling sorry for myself. If you don't give me heaven, I'll raise hell" - Jay Z
  • glitchc 7y ago
    These are not salaries. It’s total comp. My total comp. calculating pension and benefits in the Great White North is similar, and that’s govt. to boot. Total comp is always a highly misleading number.
    • pxx 7y ago
      Your pension and benefits are not immediately liquid and wouldn't be included in this comparison. RSUs from publicly listed companies, on the other hand...
    • eclipxe 7y ago
• slg 7y ago
  I have never worked in the valley, so the answer to this question might be obvious to the people working there. What happens to all the experienced engineers? According to this, the Senior, Staff, or Principal titles are generally for people with 5+ year experience? Those roles make up 30%, 10%, and 3% of companies respectively. That leaves 57% of engineers in positions listed are usually for people with 0-5 years experience. Does that mean over half of engineers are relatively new to the industry? Are there large numbers of engineers that go their entire career without getting a Senior title? Are there large numbers that end up changing industries? I know some people transition from hands on engineering to management, but there can't possibly be that many management jobs to make up that difference, right?
  • cortesoft 7y ago
    Many people stay at lower levels for years. The experience is necessary, but not sufficient, for those higher levels.
  • brians 7y ago
    They leave the valley, remember it as their time at a startup, and work decades at a non-tech firm.
  • huehehue 7y ago
    It's so variable that I don't think there's even a good answer for this. My current company does the engineer -> management track, so there can absolutely be an abundance of management jobs. You can also work as an Junior/SEII/Senior for 5+ years without being promoted at all. Keep in mind all of these titles are arbitrary/subjective.
  • i0exception 7y ago
    Most companies in the valley have a terminal level (a level at which you're not expected to progress to the next one) that's close to level 3 in the chart here. In my experience, a lot of people don't progress beyond that. For the ones that do, the number of years of experience plays a smaller role than the quality of the experience itself.
  • novok 7y ago
• vosper 7y ago
  I get Airbnb and Stripe being up there for entry-level engineers, those companies are almost printing money. But Lyft, haemorrhaging money, is top of the list, and Oracle - the company no-one in the Bay Area or on HN seems to work for, and everyone seems to hate - is 5th? Are there legions of quietly-well-paid Oracle engineers out there just keeping their heads down and getting on with the job? Why isn't Oracle in the more senior lists - they make complex and expensive databases, isn't that something you need to pay a lot of money to get really smart people to work on? And Netflix, which I thought famously paid very well, only pops up in one tier? It's more likely I'm misinformed than this list is wrong, but I find this pretty surprising.
  • thegoleffect 7y ago
    Netflix only has one tier for all engineers (equivalent to Senior Engineer III).
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • chirau 7y ago
    I know a number of people at Oracle, senior engineers mostly. They are not the online forum aficionados. They do their work, get paid go home to their family, plan vacations just like most other folks out of the tech industry. Very industrious and well deservedly compensated, if I do say so myself. Not just Oracle folks either, there are plenty of companies that are not buzzing or on everybody's lips but treat their employees ridiculously well. Look at SAS for example. Some of the happiest and most well compensated people I know.
    • vosper 7y ago
      Thanks, this makes sense to me. It’s a good reminder of the boundaries of my personal bubble. I’ve always figured there must be a bunch of Oracle engineers out there (there just has to be) and wondered why I’d never met one in the Bay. 99% chance this says more about me and my network / social circle than anything else. I’m happy that Oracle engineers are getting paid well and (hopefully!) getting on with enjoying their lives :)
• cbanek 7y ago
  I'm not sure about the salaries, but I'm more sure Amazon isn't in Seattle, CA. (Staff engineer slide). I'm also wondering how much of the salary (which certainly contains a lot of stock) is due to stock appreciation. If someone joined Amazon in late 2016, the value of their stock awards has more than tripled. Do offers for these companies go this high, or is this only after a few years? This seems it's more "what I'm getting paid now" rather than what the offer was.
  • eclipxe 7y ago
    These numbers are roughly around what I've seen for new offers.
  • avalys 7y ago
    These are offers.
  • nrp 7y ago
    Assuming this is the levels.fyi dataset, it is “what I’m getting paid now” rather than offers. Levels.fyi doesn’t seem to filter based on offer vs ongoing salary, and the submission form doesn’t include flagged offer vs ongoing.
    • zuhayeer 7y ago
      Yeah good point! we’ve actually been thinking about how to support it - potentially collect the number of shares / RSUs so that offers can be more dynamic
• i0exception 7y ago
  Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the cards. Better visibility into numbers will definitely help level the playing field. Collecting offer letters is an interesting way to build trust in data. What's the incentive for someone to upload their offer letter though?
  • eru 7y ago
    > Salary negotiation is pretty one sided today with companies holding all the cards. What makes you think companies hold all the cards? Especially in tech.
    • chillacy 7y ago
      It's not all the cards but companies (recruiters) usually have information asymmetry on their candidates. Sites like levels.fyi are a good remedy, with the right info and counteroffers you can negotiate salaries/sign-on bonuses up by pretty large amounts.
      • eru 7y ago
        A strategy that has worked for me is to interview in batches. Companies interview multiple candidates, too. That gives you extra leverage and extra information.
        • marvin 7y ago
          I tried this in West Norway recently, being as firm in the negotiation tactics as possible. Didn't yield higher offers at all! So that tells me the market here is actually not nearly as competitive as all the consulting companies try to make people believe. In other words, the success of this strategy is market-dependent, but it certainly seems to have a huge effect in SV.
          • eru 7y ago
            I never worked in SV, but I did mostly work in global cities. It's important to be aware of 'BATNA's, ie the best alternative to negotiated agreement. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiated_agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_alternative_to_a_negotiat... For the employer that means hiring the next best candidate, or not hiring anyone for that position. For you it means taking the next best offer, or staying at your old place etc. The concept is closely linked to opportunity costs. In general, you can negotiate an agreement only between your BATNA and their BATNA. (Part of interviewing in batches is that you can credibly present that your BATNA is very high. So you can be tough in negotiations.)
• throwaway34343 7y ago
  I was a manager at one of these companies and my L5s were making half of what this thing says. Don't trust everything you read on the internet.
  • amznthrowaway5 7y ago
    Can you name the company? These numbers are in line with what I've seen from peers for new offers.
  • opportune 7y ago
    Maybe you’re thinking of salary and not TC, or that was a few years ago
  • vecter 7y ago
    Total comp including RSUs? Seems unlikely.
  • choppaface 7y ago
    Might be the team or sub-org you were in. This data is also for fresh offers in 2019; most FAANG engineers who started prior to 2019 are earning less to much less than listed.
  • ping_pong 7y ago
    This is false. I'm friends with many people across many companies, and we all openly share salary information, including RSUs. The numbers are fairly close, there's no way it's off by half. The biggest difference is Netflix, I would have expected them to be higher. Their biggest difference is they pay cash, and the culture is either you fit in and are extremely happy, or you're terrified of getting fired and you are within less than 6 months. This is the biggest difference between now and 15-20 years ago. Before it used to be a secret but now everyone shares the data.
  • fakename11 7y ago
    This isn't true.
  • Vadoff 7y ago
• glitchc 7y ago
  I believe what is needed is a salary and stock breakdown, just like levels.fyi. You can’t pay the rent or buy food with stock.
  • eclipxe 7y ago
    Most of these numbers are including RSUs, which are treated like regular income. It is usually wise to sell at vest, in which case you can then buy food or pay rent.
  • chillacy 7y ago
    Levels.fyi has this on their main site. But RSU vesting at public companies is a lot more humane these days (unless you work for Amazon).
  • paxys 7y ago
    If RSUs vest every quarter and the companies are public and fairly stable (like almost all of them in the list) then there isn't a very big difference.
  • Vadoff 7y ago
    Public RSUs are easy enough to turn into cash. The cash/stock breakdowns are on the site. Typical L5 who earns 400k might be 225k cash/175k stock.
• nrp 7y ago
  It’s worth nothing that most of these numbers are inflated from share price increases boosting the value of RSUs vesting over 4 years. New offers at the higher levels from those companies are unlikely to be that high unless you are coming in at the top of the pay band for the level.
  • eclipxe 7y ago
    That's not true. New hire offers are roughly around these numbers.
  • TomVDB 7y ago
    The way I understand it, it's the number of RSU that are offered each year, at the time of them being offered. If so, then the movement of the stock price is irrelevant.
    • nrp 7y ago
      Per zuhayeer’s comments elsewhere in the thread, that doesn’t seem to be the case.
      • TomVDB 7y ago
        I only saw one relevant comment from him and it doesn't address this question? Others have mentioned that it's primarily based on offers, in which case my interpretation stands.
  • Vadoff 7y ago
    Nope. These seem pretty spot on for new hire compensation. Most people don't incorporate stock inflation when reporting their total compensation. I'm an L5 that joined one of those companies last year, and earn 440k/yr. If I counted stock inflation, it would be 500k/yr.
• dvt 7y ago
  It's important to compare apples to apples. Lists like these are incredibly misleading, as they include non-cash bonuses. First off, these bonuses (say, RSUs) take a while to vest (incurring opportunity cost), can go down (there's risk), and so on. For example, being an early junior engineer at the next unicorn can make you orders of magnitude richer than working for FB or GOOG as a distinguished engineer (basically top 0.0001%). But that's kind of a silly data point, because you're probably making a 70k salary, whereas the distinguished engineer is making like a 250k salary. So let's stick with cold hard cash or let's stick with bonuses, but it's misleading to conflate them.
  • pxx 7y ago
    At Facebook, Google, and Snap, at least, the RSUs start vesting immediately (no cliff) and are as good as cash as the stock is liquid. It's not very clear what your distinction is.
    • milesskorpen 7y ago
      Even if liquid, these salaries probably reflect people vesting stock from years ago - and the high end would include people vesting stock offered at a much lower valuation. In this kind of ranking there’d be a bias towards companies with rapidly growing share prices ... and remember that last performance is no indicator of future returns.
      • eclipxe 7y ago
        No, these are roughly inline with new hire offers
        • milesskorpen 7y ago
          At all of the five listed levels?
          • eclipxe 7y ago
            Yes
• zod50 7y ago
  PDF says Seattle, CA, should be WA.
• ajknzhol 7y ago
  Is there a similar comparison available for Germany?
• HenryKissinger 7y ago
  $175,000 at Oracle for an entry-level engineer? I mean... just... wow. You could retire at 35 and not have to work for the rest of your life. How hard is it to get these jobs?
  • amznthrowaway5 7y ago
    Not that hard depending on your natural cognitive ability. Just grind leetcode questions. For higher level interviews, also study up on systems design questions.
    • chillacy 7y ago
      I think that's underselling things. These companies have very low admit rates, and leetcode is pretty tedious. That said though, divide the compensation difference by 200 hours of studying and it probably works out to a worthy investment.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • amznthrowaway5 7y ago
        One reason they have very low admit rates because most candidates are absolutely awful and cannot code at all, even if they have years of software development experience! Grinding leetcode is definitely worth it.
    • perl4ever 7y ago
      If they get far more applicants than they hire, it isn't possible for the solution to be something anyone can do.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  • slavapestov 7y ago
    > You could retire at 35 and not have to work for the rest of your life. Why does everyone on this site want to “retire by 35”? I don’t know anyone who retired (or plans to retire) at 35. Besides, hand-waving about “basic financial literacy” aside, doing so would require living like a broke college student from age 22 to 35, and then moving to an RV in Nebraska to live out the rest of your natural life in “retirement”. What the fuck is the point?
• huehehue 7y ago
  What I'm taking away from this is that many (most) companies are grossly underpaying their engineers. I've been through the SF/NYC Senior SWE interviewing gauntlet twice in the past three years, and received 10+ offers at half this rate. Levels claims to be checking offer letters, which is great IMO. It's really hard for people to know they're being undervalued when the employers are low-balling and the self-reporters are lying.
  • creato 7y ago
    > the self-reporters are lying. I think it's less that self reporters are lying and more that there's a selection bias among self reporters. Engineers with average salaries probably don't bother to report.
  • chillacy 7y ago
    Levels.fyi seems to be pretty accurate in my experience, though there may be selection bias as there are more offers at the top of band than bottom submitted.
  • meritt 7y ago
    > many (most) companies are grossly underpaying their engineers. No, that's simply unfair to the companies who don't have billions of dollars in free cash flow or effectively infinite amounts of VC money. The top firms have gotten themselves into an insane bidding war which has a side effect of creating an oligopoly on talent, as it's simply unrealistic to impossible for many firms to compete. Not to mention they apparently pay many people these sort of salaries to do basically nothing [1]: they've decided it's better to simply retain talent than risk them going to a competitor, regardless if they provide any value or not. That all said, as an employee in whole debacle, you should simply focus your interviews on firms willing to pay these levels and maximize your income while you can. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21961560
    • solveit 7y ago
      Under/overpaying has nothing to do with how much any particular firm has and everything to do with what other companies are willing to pay. If there's a bidding war, then whatever that produces is the fair market rate.
• catchmeifyoucan 7y ago
  I wish they had one for the product managers too. I remember their website had that data as well.
  • milesskorpen 7y ago
    There’s 1 PM for every 20+ engineers, so it’s harder to gather a representative sample.
  • dmode 7y ago
    I am a PM and a hiring manager. These numbers are very close to PM
• the_arun 7y ago
  How trustworthy are the numbers in levels.fyi? Who verifies numbers entered by anyone?
  • webo 7y ago
    They claim they check the offer letters. Numbers look decently accurate from a few people I know. Remember this is total compensation, not just cash.
• georgeburdell 7y ago
  I don't have much to say except Zuhayeer your site's numbers are dead on from what I can tell of both my and my spouse's employers. Glassdoor et al. tend to low-ball by quite a bit, possibly due to stale information. Keep up the good work!
• KwisatzHaderack 7y ago
  Are these numbers just salary or total compensation?
  • vecter 7y ago
    Total comp ofc. These would be crazy salary numbers (although for Netflix, I believe it might actually be all salary).
• pram 7y ago
  There is absolutely no way IC2 makes $175k at Oracle. LOL. I doubt you can even find an IC2, period. They hire everyone in at IC3 and above, and everyones paid like shit. The only exception I can think of was the people brought in to work on the 'next gen' cloud stuff who were poached from Amazon. They were all 'senior' and 'principal' engineers though.
  • qrazhan 7y ago
    A friend of mine was just hired as an IC2 at Oracle at 175k. He is on cloud stuff in Seattle, but by no means a senior or principal engineer -- only 1 year of experience.
    • pram 7y ago
      Yes, as I stated in the last part, Seattle is the exception because the cloud has become make or break. Oracle has 135k employees and the vast bulk are not in Washington. HTH
• opportune 7y ago
  It makes me feel bad how many people see these figures and immediately start trying to find ways to rationalize why they must be overstated. Aside from some of these companies not being public (so those RSUs are not very liquid) or backloading vesting, they’re pretty accurate IME. The main thing I would point out is that the years of experience guideline is a bit optimistic. Many engineers get downleveled moving into top paying companies (so someone with 9 years of experience might be level 2) and usually either level 2 or level 3 is a terminal level, meaning it’s both ok to stay at that level for a long time and that promotions get harder. Also, while these figures don’t (or shouldn’t) include signing bonus/relo, nor health insurance, free food, and other benefits, it should be noted that most of these are in the Bay Area or similarly expensive areas. So a lot of your money goes to housing (with housing close to work large enough for a family being super expensive), and state taxes are a bit steep.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  • poulsbohemian 7y ago
    >It makes me feel bad how many people see these figures and immediately start trying to find ways to rationalize why they must be overstated. Some of the numbers can be hard to comprehend... for example, tech salaries weren't great until about the last decade. And, it used to be that the eye-popping numbers were not for everybody, and certainly not for entry-level / new-grads. Heck, just the amount of transparency in compensation available now was completely foreign when I started my career. Likewise, what's interesting is that in our always connected digital world, location still matters. Thus, for someone not working at a FAANG and not in specific geographic locations, these numbers are other-worldly.
    • crispyambulance 7y ago
      > for someone not working at a FAANG and not in specific geographic locations, these numbers are other-worldly. Yes. other-worldly is a good word for it. It's not so much that people don't believe these numbers, I think. It's more of a sense of disappointment and feeling left out. So many experienced professionals work their whole adult lives and end up maxing out at only a 1/10th of the compensation of a "principal" at a FAANG in Silicon Valley.
• choppaface 7y ago
  Another point of reference: here are some offers recently aggregated on Blind. In 2019, I got an offer almost identical to one of those listed below, and a friend got an offer a little higher than listed below. So I believe the reports are legit. While the raw salary data on levels.fyi is useful, other context about the candidate & team is pretty important. For example, my friend has no college degree but matched to a very profitable / well-funded team, so he got a relatively larger stock award. levels.fyi probably has a pretty good estimate of how each company assigns base salary bands to the now "standard" four levels (junior, senior, staff, decorated). It seems sign-on bonuses grew a lot in 2019. Several posts for Facebook new grads getting $100k sign-on bonus. LinkedIn Senior * 185 base, 10% bonus, 300k - 400k for 4 years stock, 60k sign on * Total Comp: 294 - 319 / yr Staff: * 210 base, 15% bonus, 600k for 4 years stock, 75k sign on * Total Comp: 411 / yr Senior Staff: * 230 base, 20% bonus, 1M for 4 years stock, 100k sign on * Total Comp: 551 / yr Facebook Senior: * 210 base, 15% bonus, 700k for 4 years stock, 80k sign on * Total Comp: 437 / yr Staff * 225 base, 20% bonus, 1.1M for 4 years stocks, 100k sign on * Total Comp: 570 / yr Google Senior * 195 base, 15% bonus, 750k for 4 years stock, 100k sign on * Total Comp: 438 / yr Staff * 220 base, 20% bonus, 1M for 4 years stock, 120k sign on * Total Comp: 544 / yr
  • jypepin 7y ago
    I've recently interviewed and got 5 offers. Those numbers check out.
    • vonseel 7y ago
      All SF/CA numbers I suppose? Any idea how these differ in Austin?
      • choppaface 7y ago
        yeah pretty sure these were all CA. offers I've seen for Seattle are a bit lower, not sure about Austin.
      • jypepin 7y ago
        Yes, all SF offers. No idea for Austin, but I used levels.fyi to give me an idea of what to expect and negociate, and it helped a lot (and was on point with what I got offered). I think you can filter per city, so there might be some data for Austin.
• gamesbrainiac 7y ago
  Looks like us over here in Europe are getting shafted. Even if you adjust for living expenses, European engineers are grossly underpaid.
  • chillacy 7y ago
    It's even worse because many of these companies have offices in Europe and pay European market rates. Same company, same level, big differences in compensation. And it's not just Europe too, same in Canada, Singapore, Israel, etc.
    • gamesbrainiac 7y ago
      It is really quite sad. I know that Zurich is a little better when it comes to compensation, but I don't have any of the specifics.
  • treve 7y ago
    I don't really understand why people would feel they are shafted. The reason people get paid that much is because of supply and demand, but it has little to do with what you deserve to get. Does a software engineer really need 5-10x salary compared to their peers in other industries? Given that the salaries are so driven by market demand, it makes total sense that there's large differences in other markets. It doesn't mean you're getting shafted. Low minimum wages is what we should be getting angry about.
  • Pandabob 7y ago
    I might be wrong here, but I think the biggest reason for this is that Europe hasn't really produced a tech company in the past ~25 years, with revenues (and profits) amounting to anything close to those of the FAANGs. OTOH, there is the separate issue of FAANGs not compensating their European workers as well as they do the ones working in the US.
    • rimliu 7y ago
      The only consolation is that Europe produced WWW and a number of programming languages creators :)
• gok 7y ago
  I still don't understand how they're defining total compensation. Federal taxable wages, like what shows up on your W-2? Or the amount you're promised including RSUs, regardless of vesting schedule?
  • TomVDB 7y ago
    Salary (W2 before tax) + bonus + promised RSUs. It's not an unreasonable way to calculate it, and given the way the economy has been going in the past 10 years, it's lowballing the real taxable compensation.
    • gok 7y ago
      A W2 includes bonus and RSU vest though...
      • TomVDB 7y ago
        Yup, my bad. So definitely not what's on the W2.
  • thedufer 7y ago
    Typically it would be base salary, bonus, and the value of RSUs vesting over the next 12 months. I'd guess this is about the same as W-2 income?
• itsmefaz 7y ago
  The article is a so great and shocking at the same time. I understand the rant and a sense of discomfort us engineers are facing looking at the dataset. I would definitely want to get more context out of these numbers like - > Why these engineers are paid so much and why others are not? > Is education/college a factor in this pay gap? > If one wants to earn this much. What are the required skills to achieve this goal? It is a very good sign that a level of awareness is being developed about the pay gap not in among different genders but also within the same organization/experience levels.
• vsyu 7y ago
  I'm surprised that Google and Facebook didn't show up more on the list.
• hoorayimhelping 7y ago
  It would be really nice to see more companies that aren't the top 5. What do 6-20 look like? I'd like to know when companies start getting to average pay levels. Is it only the top 5 companies that pay this? Or do the top 50 companies all pay really high? Is that data even available, or is it just that this represents some of the most attractive offer letters at top of bands for some of the most well funded startups and presenting the available data this way makes for a more attractive blog post? I feel like reading too much into this top five list is causing a lot of people a lot of consternation.
  • zuhayeer 7y ago
    We have plans to publish more information, but for now you can view salary information for a number of other companies on our main website: http://levels.fyi http://levels.fyi
    • thecleaner 7y ago
      I love levels.fyi. Will it be possible to specify which companies do or do not sponsor visas ?
      • zuhayeer 7y ago
        Added to our list, will try to work on it!
        • Plyphon_ 7y ago
          Sorry to highjack - any plans to expand to Europe and/or the UK (Brexit looming...) ? Cheers!
          • zuhayeer 7y ago
            We're working on it! Still very sparse data for Europe right now, but you can search for UK specific salaries on our compensation page at https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&search=United%20Kingdom# https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html?track=Software%20Engineer&s... We also have a very preliminary salary page for London available at https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/ https://www.levels.fyi/Salaries/Software-Engineer/London/
• winter_blue 7y ago
  Wow, these numbers are so insane. How is that the work we do is worth so much? And is prepping for algorithm interviews the core to getting to numbers like these?
  • Vadoff 7y ago
    Prepping for algorithms is somewhat mandatory if you've never encountered those types of questions before, as you'll most likely fail without some familiarity/practice. However once you're able to do well enough on them, they're actually the least important for senior engineers. Algorithm questions are mostly just treated as a weeder/low tech bar for senior engineers. Doing well on the behavioral, architecture, and practical interviews is usually much more important for senior candidates.
  • marvin 7y ago
    Well, even at my Norwegian small-ish finance company, company profit is on average >$100k per employee, and that includes the janitor and after all salaries, taxes and expenses are paid. The FAANG companies are at least 10X this. At those profit levels, paying $300k to get the best available person in each role almost doesn't matter to the bottom line. And it does answer your question, yes, the work we do is worth so much. We have the ability to command an army of robots, and that greatly amplifies the reach of our abilities. But of course, the pay is because the market is able to, not because our abilities are magical. They are correlated, but there isn't direct causation.
• cletus 7y ago
  As a FAANG engineer going on 9 years now, let me address the usual rebuttals: - There is a selection bias. Nope, this is pretty much accurate. - These aren't real. Yes, yes they are. - Self-reporters are lying. Maybe some do but these numbers are pretty accurate. If anything, I question Lyft and Airbnb as such outliers. I wonder if this factored in Lyft's post-IPO stock performance and makes unrealistic valuations of Airbnb's RSUs/options. But for any listed company, these numbers are accurate. - You have to work incredibly hard for this compensation. no, you don't. In fact you'll typically find significantly better work-life balance at a FAANG than a startup. - These numbers are inflated by years of stock growth that is unlikely to continue in the future. This there is some truth to but not as much as people claim. Amazon, of all these companies, builds in expected stock growth into their initial grant valuation (which I think is total BS; if any Amazon recruiters are reading this, please stop). But I know what offers new hires can get pretty accurately so at current stock prices as a new hire these numbers pare pretty accurate. - Newer offers are likely to be less. False. If anything, initial offers continue just climbing such that anyone who is interested in maximizing their compensation should probably move companies every 3-4 years, especially 4 if you don't get an additional grant after your initial grant has fully vested. There are some things to be aware of though and these can make it nontrivial to compare competing offers. Some examples: - Most FAANGs have a 25/25/25/25 vesting schedule. Amazon does not. It's vesting schedule is 5/15/40/40 with a vesting signing bonus in the first 2 years to (partially) compensate for this. - Amazon, as noted earlier, assumes stock price growth in their offer. - Amazon (noticing a trend?) has vesting on 401k matches that can take 2-3 years. Most FAANGs do not. - Anything less than a 50% 401k match is below market. - Some FAANGs have caps on 401k matches. Some don't. - I think the most generous 401k match I've seen is Google's at 50% of your contribution with no cap or vesting period or 100% of the first $3,000 at year's end, whichever is higher. The really nice thing is because there's no cap you get it immediately. It's fairly common to get your bonus in January, put it all in your 401k, get your 50% match and you're done for the year. - Some offer the ability to make contributions into after tax 401k (Google "mega backdoor Roth" if you're interested in this). This is potentially huge beneficial. You can use it to invest money you can withdraw at any time at no penalty but the investment returns are tax free. If you withdraw the returns (not the initial investment) prior to being aged 59.5 you pay taxes plus a 10% penalty, however. - Vacation days vary but 4 weeks (20 days) should be considered the norm for the US (30 for Europe/Australia). - Some companies (eg Google) start you on less vacation days but you get more with length of service. - Unlimited time off is bullshit. Think of this as no time off. - Health insurance can differ but I imagine pretty much all FAANGs at this point have good health insurance. The gold standard is probably Kaiser for CA residents. - Some FAANGs have a 1 year cliff. Some do not (eg Google, FB). - Vesting schedules can vary. Some are monthly, some every 3 months, some annually. Try to avoid anything less frequent than once every 3 months. It can create bad incentives for the company to get rid of you before a big vest date. - FAANGs will give you performance-based RSU grants annually. The time of year can vary. The eligibility can vary. For example, Google gives you a refresh grant at, after Q2-Q3 calibration (based on your previous two halves). And I believe in recent years it changed that if you joined that calendar year you aren't eligible. - Because of refresh grants and your initial grant running in tandem, years 2-4 can often be your most lucrative. If you don't get promoted or an additional grant you can get significantly less compensation in year 5. Why these companies let people leave because they won't give them additional equity rather than competing for a new hire is beyond me. But they do. - Because of the inflation in initial offers, a new hire can often have a significantly better offer than someone who joined 3 years prior. The veteran may only have higher total compensation because of refresh grants and/or stock growth. - FAANGs tightly control salary within bands for a given level. Going beyond this is unlikely to happen however there is FAR more movement on RSUs in an initial offer and/or signing bonus. So this is all another reason of why from a financial POV working for a startup is--how should I put this?--suboptimal. Your equity is probably worth nothing (even if you get acquihired, liquidation preferences probably mean all non-founder stock is worth $0). The hours are worse. The benefits are worse. There may be reasons to do this that aren't financial (as a non-founder) but personally I'd suggest people use their most productive years to ensure their financial independence and then chase whatever moonshot tickles your fancy without the pressure of having to pay for food.
• dannysu 7y ago
  This looks to be the source webpage where the PDF came from: https://www.levels.fyi/2019/ https://www.levels.fyi/2019/
• gnrlst 7y ago
  What I find completely demotivating is working for a FAANG in Europe, and seeing the massive disparity between US colleagues. You can argue cost of living is different, healthcare is public blablabla, but recruiters have told me straight out: we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate. Therefore they dont give a rats ass about how much it costs to live in a specific country, they just pay based on the average going rate. Unfortunately, some EU countries (e.g. IT) have very low purchasing power due to stagnant wages and inflated prices. So we're getting the shit end of the stick.
  • bradhe 7y ago
    > we dont adjust for cost of living, we adjust for market rate. This is true everywhere.
  • jypepin 7y ago
    For what it's worth I moved from SF to AMS a few years ago for my employer (FAANG-ish) and they cut my salary by 30%. I was pissed and fought hard, but they didn't bulge. My quality of life (including buying power) was still more in AMS.
    • TulliusCicero 7y ago
      Depends on what you're buying. I made a similar move from SV to Munich, some things got cheaper, like rent, transportation, childcare, and groceries. "Stuff" (anything that comes out of a factory) was generally more expensive, as was media/digital subscriptions. Definitely feel poorer in Munich, though part of that was just an unfortunate school situation.
      • jypepin 7y ago
        media/digital subscriptions more expensive than SV? Like which ones and at which scale? My experience with europe (France and Netherlands) is that most of those things are also incredibly cheaper, 20e/month for unlimited data cellphone plan, 40euro for fast internet, etc. What type of media subscription you have for those to feel like they lower your buying power? I feel like once you've paid cheaper "rent, transportation, childcare, and groceries" you mention, how are your media/digital subscriptions making a difference?
• Pandabob 7y ago
  How do other roles in the companies mentioned here, compare to these numbers? Meaning Data Scientists, Product Managers and Designers? Would it be correct to assume that a PM with five years of experience would have roughly the same compensation as a SWE with similar experience?
• techie128 7y ago
  levels.fyi doesn't accurately represent the overall picture. Not everyone gets paid so well at each of their levels. Every company, especially FANGs, maintain a bell curve. levels.fyi cannot capture that curve accurately. They tend to skew high in most cases. So like everything else in life, take it with a pinch of salt [unless you're hypertensive ;)].
  • Vadoff 7y ago
    I would say they're pretty accurate, maybe a ~5% skew toward higher compensation because of self-reporting bias.
• throwaway713 7y ago
  Now imagine having one of these incomes but having a spouse who is hellbent on moving back to the southeastern U.S. in a year. It’s driving me nuts; I can’t find any company in the south that pays anywhere near my current compensation, and a rough calculation indicates that leaving FANG will bump my retirement age from 38 to 65 (never mind the amazing health insurance I’ll be giving up too). It’s like throwing a winning lottery ticket on the ground and walking away. I’m seriously considering commuting by plane in the future, because even with a $200 per day flight, I would still retire a decade earlier than taking a local job.
  • cletus 7y ago
    Surely cheaper housing, education and other costs would compensate for a locally lower income? I don’t know where in the southeast you’re talking snot but I imagine it’s 50-80% cheaper for housing?
    • killjoywashere 7y ago
      Here's the central issue with the coast: saving 10% of $350k anywhere is a lot easier than saving 20% of $175k in a dirt-poor county in <Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana>. Partially, this has to do with the desire to retain your absolute peer tier: if your neighbors have PhDs in Alameda, then you want to live with the PhDs in New Orleans. And the Sliver by the River is still expensive. Same holds in Augusta, Jacksonville, wherever.
      • lonelappde 7y ago
        Those numbers are way off. Th comparison is saving 25+% of $350k vs 50% of $175k. And that's assuming your spouse doesn't work.
    • austhrow743 7y ago
      Sure but then you need to go for even cheaper housing when you retire. Instead of going from high cost of living to medium cost of living, you end up going from medium cost of living to low cost of living or worse.
• tomwilson 7y ago
  OK I need to move to the USA, you can't even get close to this in Australia :(
• senordevnyc 7y ago
  Reposting from previous comment of mine [1]: I can't speak to the actual work yet as I haven't started, but I just accepted an offer as a senior / staff level engineer in NYC at one of the smaller public tech companies (think Dropbox, Lyft, Pinterest, Snap, etc) after 10+ years of being self-employed. I had two startups offer me $170k plus some (probably worthless) options. When the offer I ultimately accepted came in, I had several more startup interviews lined up and likely could have gotten closer to $180k - 200k from the startups. Now, $200k isn't bad. But the offer I accepted from the public tech company is for $420k the first year [2], and will likely go up from there, especially if the stock does well. It's not crazy to think I could be making $600k - 800k within a few years. And to be honest, I think it's on the low end for the big tech companies at my level. And it doesn't come with some crazy grind as far as I can tell. People seem to actually work 40 hours, the PTO policy is flexible and people take 20-25 days a year off, people work from home when they need to, the benefits are solid, etc. After this experience and seeing the huge disparity in pay, I would never go work at some random startup unless I was founder level or deeply, deeply believed in their mission. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21837849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21837849 2. It's $200k base, $800k RSUs over 4 years, $20k signing bonus. Role is IC, iOS engineer. 12 years of experience, 9 in iOS, all self-employed. I have a business degree from a state school, and I've never had a software engineering job.
  • dublidu 7y ago
    I had a similar experience after my recent job search. The pay gap between startups paying ISOs and larger tech companies paying RSUs was over $100k.
  • PenguinCoder 7y ago
    Damn I really need a new job...
  • thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
    this is really awesome. I've worked at a SWE for over 15 years and never made anything close to that amount, even in a super high COL area.
  • paxys 7y ago
• abalone 7y ago
  I just landed a senior role at a FAANG-ish SF company paying over $300k TC. Some comments on this: 1. Equity is the biggest factor in these figures. Levels.fyi is extremely bad at clarifying whether you should be reporting your equity value at signing vs how its changed since. Signing is the only apples to apples comparison. 2. These level descriptions are weird. They make it sound like “senior” engineers with 5+ years exp don’t write much code, are just 30% of the company, etc. I suppose it depends on the company, but key teams at FAANGs are able to hire more seniors and just invest in better engineers writing code every day. Good engineers like writing code and working with other good engineers. Netflix for example is known to hire mostly seniors. They’re not just writing design docs. 3. Speaking of Netflix they are an interesting outlier in that they don’t do equity, they do cash TC that is competitive with cash+equity FAANGs. So their offers are great data points that clear up some of the ambiguity around equity value. They are out there every day negotiating for talent. Although I think there’s a little bit of a premium to attract engineers down to Los Gatos. 4. Can they see who opens their doc on google drive when shared like this? The link immediately opened my app with me logged in.
• shrimpx 7y ago
  Presumably you have to pay income tax on base+rsu so shave off >50% from these figures if you live in California? Then rent can run you 35-50k a year or more in the bay, and then other expenses? So 600k a year can be more like <200k savings at the end of the day? Someone debunk this.
  • dublidu 7y ago
    Taxes average 30-40% in CA/NY, lower in WA, which has no state income tax. You are probably thinking about marginal tax rate, not average. Mortgage and property tax in the Bay Area can actually be closer to $100k, but some are paying that on dual income. $600k becomes more like $350k after tax and housing. That's still an insane amount of disposable income, hence everyone buying Teslas.
    • shrimpx 7y ago
      Ah yes, I was equating marginal with average. Thanks.
  • zeroonetwothree 7y ago
    It would actually be something like this: Gross: $600k Federal Tax: $142k CA Tax: $45k Net: $413k Effective Tax Rate: 31% Of course your savings rate depends on how much you spend, you could easily spend >$200k/yr, especially if you have a family and want to live near good schools or pay for private school.
• nilkn 7y ago
  I'd be interesting in seeing something like this for engineering management. I'm a director outside of a major technology hub and am largely in the dark about what I should be getting paid.
  • poulsbohemian 7y ago
    Maybe you need to think differently about this: What's your contribution to the company and what is your replacement cost? In non-hub areas, it might be very difficult to replace you, thus your value increases. Likewise, if you are driving significant revenue / cost savings, you can justify a significant piece of the action. Point being, rather than just making a comparison to bay area comp (for example), negotiate your own deal on its own merits.
    • nilkn 7y ago
      I don't disagree, but I think this applies to engineering salaries too, not just management salaries. Sometimes it's just useful to have a reference point.
• StuffedParrot 7y ago
  What places pay less for benefits? No relocation, working sub 40 hours a week, greatly increase time off (none of this “unlimited vacation but really it’s just up to your manager” bullshit)?
• rb808 7y ago
  Can anyone reconcile the difference between $227k median wage in SV and the fact that even entry level jobs listed pay more than than? Is it just the most SV jobs are not in FANG companies.
  • shawabawa3 7y ago
    > Is it just the most SV jobs are not in FANG companies. Yes. Even in SF the majority of jobs will not be tech based at all let alone FANG
    • rb808 7y ago
      That $227k median must be SV tech jobs, the median wage for whole of USA is $32k
      • shawabawa3 7y ago
        I think those are median pay of the areas overall, not just tech So SV has $227k median, but that includes all jobs May be misunderstanding the slide though, it isn't clear edit: Median salary for SF is more like $95k, so this must be tech only I suppose that means that >50% of the responses at L3, hence the median being ~L3 salary
  • zeroonetwothree 7y ago
    The Bay Area has around ~900k "tech jobs". FANG is a small fraction of that. Also "tech" may include other roles (non-engineer) which earn less.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• anonymousDan 7y ago
  Can someone share a copy? The link appears to be dead.
• thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  When you look at top pay by region I'm really surpised to see such a small difference between SF and Pitsburgh. Considering the insance COL here in the bay area, I would expect bay area to pay at least 3 times more than pistburgh. as far I can tell SF and Palo alto are vastly vastly underpaid and the likes of Pitsburgh are extremely overpaid.
  • beefalo 7y ago
    I think the numbers seen here for Pittsburgh miss a big part of the picture. There are only a handful of big tech companies with offices there and they employ a comparatively small number of engineers. Most engineers in Pittsburgh are not working at those companies and do get paid 4x less. These are pretty much dedicated AI offices that recruit from CMU and are companies that don't adjust pay much between locations
• diehunde 7y ago
  What I would like to know is how much is your take home pay when working for a FAANG after taxes and rent. Not including equity. If you make 130k base in TX, you see around 8k monthly assuming you put close to 10% in your 401k. For a two bedroom relatively close to Downtown you pay about 2k so that would leave 6k monthly after taxes, rent and 401k savings. What would be the realistic equivalent in a FAANG in the Bay area if you want to maintain that standard of living? Meaning at least a 1000 sq ft apt that's at most 20 mins from work?
  • senordevnyc 7y ago
    I'll use myself as an example. I live in NYC, my rent is $4300 / month (2 bedroom apartment in nice doorman building on Upper West Side), and I just accepted an offer at a public tech company. My first 12 months should pay me $420,000, assuming the stock price is stable. I'll ignore the possibility of any raises, promotions, bonuses, stock price increase, and refreshers. I'll also ignore the 401k match (max is about $5k / year) and the ESPP. I'm married with a kid, so here are my numbers: Gross: $420,000 401k: $19,500 (max for 2020) Taxes: $143,485 (federal, state, local, and FICA) Rent: $51,600 Net: $205,415 I'm already really happy with that number, but my wife has her own income, I have a profitable side business, I'll do a mega backdoor Roth and the ESPP, and I expect refreshers, stock price increase, and a promotion over the next few years. It's a very good time to be a software engineer in a tech hub.
    • diehunde 7y ago
      Congratulations! Can I ask how many years of experience you have ?
      • senordevnyc 7y ago
        12 years of experience, 9 in iOS (what this role is for), all self-employed. More detail littered across comments in my history.
• segmondy 7y ago
  It's really not that much money. I'm in the Midwest by the way and have explored moving to Bay area. But here's the reality. Contribute to 401k $19k small 3 bedroom house for family with decent schools - $5k/month - $60k a year Daycare $4k/month - $48k a year Health Insurance, Household Expenses, Food, etc $5k/month - $60k a year Car/gasoline $12k a year Assume 0 savings that's $180k post tax $360k before tax + $19k = $379k. Wanna save a little bit, we are already over $400k... ... and this is with a small shack of a 1200sq house and 2-3x the commute. It's easy to look at the numbers and drool in the mouth but start running the numbers and it's not that nice for those with family. If you're young and single, then it's worth it. Go do it, rent a room, live like a pauper and save like hell.
  • dmode 7y ago
    These numbers are wildly inaccurate. Public schools are free and my kids daycare is $1500/month. 48k health insurance ? I pay $200 per paycheck for Kaiser for a family of 3. Other expenses are all relative and not that different from living in a low COL. Living in Bay Area, you can easily save $200k per year at $400k salary
  • rolltiide 7y ago
    but you know whats even worse? Making 1/3rd or 1/5th of that. Cheers.
  • senordevnyc 7y ago
    I think you really want your analysis to be true, so you're fudging the numbers to "prove" to yourself that it makes no sense. - Taxes are not 50% - Daycare is not $4k for one kid, though could be for 2 - You don't need a 3 bedroom unless you have 3+ kids - Health insurance is a few thousand per year, max (employer pays most) - Household expenses and food expenses aren't THAT much different from elsewhere. Do you spend $5k / month on those now?
• enitihas 7y ago
  Curiously, even though this story has far too many points and comments, and is even very fresh, it has been booted from the front page and is right now at number 48. Stats on the story: Points: 622, Comments: 489, Time: 16 hours ago The frontpage has a story on Knuth, with similar freshness but much lesser comments and points.
• justinzollars 7y ago
  More reason to consider FAANG over startups.
• jiveturkey 7y ago
  how does this compare to the data at levels.fyi ?
  • Infinitesimus 7y ago
    This data is from levels.fyi
• rationalfaith 7y ago
  These studies are annoying and just smell like envy by the most average parasites in this industry. How about you focus on adding value and setting the right price for yourself. Some are grateful with 100k and others 500k. You can negotiate your price because you're an adult. If you can't, then grow up.
• john_petrucci 7y ago
  Just wondering if there was a way to get more data for non-US locations. For example, according to my knowledge, most of Canada's "senior" position salaries (in CAD) are not even near the "entry-level" salaries (is USD). If you convert the CAD salary to USD then it becomes even more pathetic. Canada has "free" healthcare but the taxes are higher than California/Seattle. Granted, you don't have to spend 2-3M for houses (only California), but the housing markets around Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa are also anything but "affordable" (around 700k-1.5M mark). I wonder why there is such a huge pay disparity between two neighbor countries with sort of similar "standards" of living. Just house prices and "free medical" (which is covered by your job anyways) cannot justify the 5-7 times salary difference. Wondering if anyone else had other opinions?
• _qbxp 7y ago
  Some of these salaries are hilarious. I work in a small city in the Southeast at about 250k cash comp and feel blessed because of it. Leave it to HN to make me feel that tinge of envy. The weird thing is, I never get jealous/envious of someone my age making 1 million. 2 million. Or hitting the jackpot and selling their company for hundreds of millions. Doesn’t give me one iota of “wish I had that”, but the 400k starting salaries really make me wonder if I should be starting the job search again and uplifting the family out of the Southeast lol. I wonder if it’s because I can envision myself working for those companies and actually making it (versus founding a company and making millions). The mind is an interesting thing. I am very grateful to be making what I do, and even more grateful that people who practice my trade (in some form or fashion) are getting paid well for it!
  • non-entity 7y ago
    How the hell do you make $250k in the southeast? On top of that in one of the smaller cities
    • wakkaflokka 7y ago
      I found a company that was trying to compete for “Silicon Valley Tech Talent” so they ramped salaries up to do it.
• radicalriddler 7y ago
  Damn. Here in Australia, I'd be surprised if any companies paid over $200,000 for even the most senior engineers (bar management).