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Top Paying Companies by SWE Level
- jjjeii3 6y agoIn Europe, a senior developer with 15 years experience earns much less than a junior in united states.
- ghaff 6y agoThis is a subset of (mostly) Silicon Valley companies. In most of the US, $250-$300K is still considered a very solid mid- to late-career salary in tech and related roles.
- slumdev 6y agoRemarkably out of touch. In most of the US (i.e. outside of a few large cities), $250-$300K is executive compensation, not individual contributor compensation, regardless of experience level, genius, or negotiating ability.
- ghaff 6y agoI'm not really disagreeing. Yes, in many/most places in the US, the top fresh grad comps reported in that survey are at levels many tech people would be happy to retire at.
- slumdev 6y agoWe might not be connecting in the way that we're expressing ourselves. At $300k TC, most people in the United States could pay off their mortgage and retire after only 3-5 years of working. Is this what you mean? I took the statement to mean that "in many/most places in the US", software engineers are earning a $300k TC by the time they reach retirement age. I still think is not correct in many/most places. It is correct only in a very small minority of places.
- ghaff 6y ago>At $300k TC, most people in the United States could pay off their mortgage and retire after only 3-5 years of working. I was saying it was a very good (I used the term solid) salary by retirement age which I think is true. Maybe it's even exceptionally good. I think your quoted statement is only kinda sorta true though. Assume they have $1m in the bank with no debt at age 30 now that they've retired after about 5 years and bought a $200K or so house with cash. They now have a low-risk income stream of about $50K (less than the US median income) which has to cover property taxes, maintenance, health insurance, etc. Or maybe they want nothing more than to be a ski bum or a river guide etc. for the next X decades. It's certainly possible although I doubt it's what most people able to earn that kind of money aspire to. (If you expand it to 10 years, I'd more generally agree. If retirement from corporate life is someone's goal, that's eminently practical at that point without being at all spartan.)
- buryat 6y agobut gets so many benefits: - healthcare - 30 days pto - maternity leave - protected employment, i.e not at-will etc.
- NDizzle 6y agoYou'll have all of those things at the companies listed in this PDF with the exclusion of protected employment. I'm fine with that.
- Thaxll 6y agoYou don't have all of this, first of all if you stop working you're screwed right? Like somehow you lost your job and you have something serious happening, good luck with hospital bill. I've never seen someone starting at FANG with 5 weeks vacation right away. Lot of of European countries have 5/7weeks when they start working.
- NDizzle 6y agoCorrect, you won't have 5 weeks of vacation right away at all of those companies. You will have 5 weeks of vacation quickly. You're not screwed if you stop working. You have both long term and short term disability. If you just decide that you'd like to live on a beach or under a bridge, and there isn't an actual problem, ie you choose to be lazy, then yeah, good luck with that. Personally I don't want my tax dollars helping people who just decide to not work, but that's just me. The government mismanages enough things in the US as it is.
- TameAntelope 6y agoI am personally willing to let a small percentage of people decide not to work (e.g. lazy) if it means a safety net for a much larger group of people who have a legitimate need for that safety net.
- NDizzle 6y ago
- dguaraglia 6y agoAnd that's why a huge amount of my friends in San Francisco are foreigners. Europe needs to do something if it wants to stop the brain drain.
- robjan 6y agoIs the quality of life in SF much better or do you just get a bigger number in your bank account?
- VectorLock 6y agoQoL in SF is about the same to worse than most major cities, with the added benefit of astronomically high rents.
- dguaraglia 6y agoSure, but on the other hand I used to travel abroad four or five times a year, inside the US every month or so and my checking account wouldn't even feel the strain. I don't think that many people stay in San Francisco for the quality of life.
- VectorLock 6y agoTraveling somewhere and paying San Francisco's immense rent are pretty different.
- dguaraglia 6y agoWould you rather live in a cheap city but get a salary that ultimately leaves you with less disposable income?
- VectorLock 6y agoThere are a lot of variables in that equation, in some situations people will have more disposable income and some less. Unless you're working at the "Top 10" like this list shows, the added cost-of-living for SF/Bay Area really doesn't leave you with any disposable income.
- alistairSH 6y agoNot US, but San Fransisco/Silicon Valley, at least for the top-10 lists. The numbers also strike me as quite strange - the median comp in SF/SV is barely higher than the entry-level comp listed a few pages prior. Employment in that area must be very bottom-heavy for that to be true?
- shuckles 6y agoMedians seem to be in their self reported dataset, which surely isn’t a representative sample.
- VectorLock 6y agoI think it lists the Top 10 companies, and then latter on lists the median salary across all the companies they have data for.
- alistairSH 6y agoAh, that makes more sense. Different data sets for each list.
- slumdev 6y agoEmployment in software engineering is very bottom-heavy everywhere. The number of software engineers doubles every five years. That means half of all software engineers have less than five years of experience. (And 75% have less than ten years, and 87.5% have less than 15 years, and so on.)
- mFixman 6y agoThe report seems to have cash salary only. Most of these companies have a significant payout in stocks every year, and the ratio of stock to cash gets bigger the higher you go in the company.
- johncessna 6y agoI can confirm for the amazon amount(under level IV) is not cash only. That's total comp.
- Amezarak 6y agoDon't worry, there are plenty of us in the US that see these "junior" salaries as an impossible dream. In much of the country, even a senior engineer is doing well to have made it to six figures. 150k would be a end-of-career peak goal. You can see based on BLS data that 107k is the median salary for all software developers. [1] The figures quoted here are not realistic for most of the country. [1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information-Technology/Software-developers.htm https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information-Technology/...
- sulam 6y agoYou’re comparing total comp (Levels.fyi) to base salary (BLS data).
- Amezarak 6y agoFair enough, but most of us are not getting RSUs. Base salary is total comp, excepting things like 401(k) and HSA contributions.
- sulam 6y agoHmm, is this true? Do you have data for that? Big swathe of people who don’t get liquid RSUs: contractors, startup employees. Big swathe of people who do: all FTEs of large public companies (banks, tech, health care, etc). I suppose I’ve convinced myself that it might be true that “most” applies, but it’s a close call in my very back of the envelope analysis. :)
- ghaff 6y ago>all FTEs of large public companies (banks, tech, health care, etc) I very much doubt that is true.
- Amezarak 6y agoI have been an FTE in multiple F500 companies and been in a position to have insight into the compensation of many others and none of them received stock compensation except into their 401(k). My current employer (large public company) has a "deal" where I can buy company stock for something like a 5% discount.
- matthewmacleod 6y agoBear in mind that the term "Europe" is pretty much meaningless – for that matter, so is "United States". A developer in London makes a different salary (and has a different environment entirely) than one in say Iași.
- orange_tee 6y agoThe implication is obvious that they are comparing to the richest EU cities. It's already a huge difference. To compare it to some city in Romania. That would be insane. What is that like, about 10x the salary?
- jjjeii3 6y agoYes, I compare it with richest cities/countries. In poor European countries it's not uncommon to only get 1000 Euro NET salary per month.
- Taylor_OD 6y agoYes. Every time this is brought up there are lots of people that say its like comparing apples to oranges due to benefits Europeans have that Americans do not. I know my friends who have worked for European owned and run companies for branches in the USA really enjoyed it.
- chii 6y ago> benefits Europeans have that Americans do not. work for high pay for a short time (several years) and collect the financial benefits before moving back to europe for the societal benefits.
- afandian 6y agoIt's not quite that simple: https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-if-you-go-abroad https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance-if-you-go-abroad
- Taylor_OD 6y agoEven if it were that simple as many people know its very difficult to "get out" of a high paying job to make a move elsewhere. Ask any of the corporate lawyer or people who work at the Big 4 with the intention of going into non profits after a few years...
- sulam 6y agoKeep in mind that this is total comp, not base salary. Ie, base, bonus, and stock. You’ll want to compare apples to apples, no company I’ve worked for pays _that_ much less in Europe, depending on your definition of Europe. Which would be my other point, you need to pick which city in Europe you’re comparing to. Kiev will get you results that match your statement, but London will not. Specifically using the EU, Zurich will not match, but Bucharest might.
- pdpi 6y agoThe difference is most definitely there. My total comp as a SWE5 at Facebook in London was closer to what this article calls "Entry Level" in the Bay Area.
- sulam 6y agoVital word: “was”. Do you know what SWE5’s in London are being offered today? I make offers and I can tell you that it’s a discount to be in London, but it’s not _that_ big of a discount.
- yamrzou 6y agoThere was a survey from 2017 about developer salaries in Europe that can be helpful here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15088840 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15088840 Btw, it still accepts new answers. Maybe worth a repost. Edit: reposted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904318 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25904318
- arielweisberg 6y agoFB E5 and E6 look a bit mixed up and E6 is skipped completely?
- faang_employee 6y agoThere's mistake in their slides. Staff Engineer should be L6 https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-Engineer/E6/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En...
- samspenc 6y agoThey also seem to have made a mistake in listing LinkedIn at the top of the "Senior" band by using Staff Engineer salaries at LinkedIn. With that fixed, it looks like Netflix leads the pack for senior software engineers.
- comp_throw7 6y agoNo, this is accurate, at least according to the broadly-accepted level mapping which places LinkedIn Staff approximately parallel to other FAANG Senior. LinkedIn doesn't have a "mid-level" - they go straight from entry-level to "Senior" - and the expectations are correspondingly lower (in terms of experience/responsibilities).
- eganist 6y agoWorth noting that this looks like total comp. Which is fine, but the implication of course is that a good percentage of the comp comes from stock, which is a bit easier to manage as a form of payment than actual dollars.
- ghaff 6y agoAnd stock in many of these companies has had a very nice run. Obviously RSUs are relevant as a component of total comp but, if stock appreciation went away tomorrow, a lot of these comp lists would go from astronomical to merely high.
- shuckles 6y agoThe website asks you to report granted compensation, not including equity appreciation. Sure, it’s unlikely that is what people are always reporting, but the Facebook numbers track with some new hire offers.
- jedimastert 6y agoI think the amounts are set at the time of award, rather than time of vesting, so Facebook says "I want to pay you $10 but in RSU" than you get than many RSU at the current price. What I mean to say is that I don't think the actual stock performance affects these numbers
- slumdev 6y agoThis is true. If you can hire into a FAAMNG during a stock market crash, you're set for life.
- ghaff 6y agoIt depends how people are reporting it. If I'm thinking in terms of my W2 number (which is what I would use if you asked me how much I made last year), that's affected by the price at vest, not at grant.
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- dpmdpm 6y agoLooks accurate
- leetcrew 6y agothe "top US metros" list does not make sense to me. median pay in baltimore is the same as in boston at $155k? I have to wonder if this is a sampling issue or simply a mistake. the actual site doesn't have any data for baltimore.
- draw_down 6y ago“Go and do likewise, gents. Money’s out there, you go pick it up, it’s yours. If not I got no sympathy for ya.” - Glengarry Glen Ross
- chrisBob 6y ago> Senior Engineer: Typically 5+ years of experience. Typically less than 30% of employees in a company are at this level. Where do old programmers go? Are these numbers related to companies that are constantly growing? I expect to be working for another 20 years, so I don't understand how 70% could be at less than 5 years.
- Simon321 6y agoretired would be my guess if i see these huge salaries
- frogpelt 6y agoAlmost none of these companies existed 20 years ago. How much will change in the next 20 years?
- dominotw 6y ago> don't understand how 70% could be at less than 5 years. 70% are below that level not 70% are below 5 years. One doesn't automatically get into that level as soon as they reach 5 yrs of experience.
- sulam 6y agoHonestly, while we can debate what “Senior” should mean, what it has come to mean in the higher paying parts of the industry is that you’ve gotten one promotion. Most companies you _will_ get promoted if you stay there 5 years, even places like Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. If you haven’t been, you have a serious performance problem and they probably wish they hadn’t hired you in the first place.
- ryandrake 6y agoThere are plenty of people in all kinds of companies who go year after year of very high performance, but who do not get promoted. Companies love these employees, because they get consistent high performance but don't have to pay them at the higher level. The ones who are good at interviewing leave after a while, which is how the industry gets the reputation for job hopping.
- zuhayeer 6y agoIf you're having trouble loading the PDF (seems like Google Drive is being super slow), you can also view the report online at https://levels.fyi/2020 https://levels.fyi/2020
- UpsilonAlpha 6y agoRoblox in second place for entry level positions?! I guess that makes sense as a way for them to advertise that they need engineers. I'm also curious why Netflix doesn't show up on this list as I've always heard anecdotal data about them compensating engineers highly for hard work.
- johnmyleswhite 6y agoI believe NFLX doesn't hire the first two entry levels of engineers that other firms have.
- creese 6y agoThere is only one level across Netflix: Senior Software Engineer.
- DC1350 6y agoThanks for sharing this. It's embarrassing to still be a Canadian. Feels awful to know half my coworkers make so much more than me just because they live a few hours further south.
- Spoom 6y agoA small but growing handful of my team hired last year are Canadian and waiting for COVID to abate before moving to the US. I myself moved to the US from Canada a decade ago. The brain drain is real. If you're open to a move, good companies like the ones on this list will generally take care of healthcare to the extent that you won't need to worry about it much, but I still do miss the Canadian model where money generally didn't even enter into the equation. They'll usually take care of the immigration as well, and pay for the relocation. Highest income would be in the Bay Area, but consider if you want to own a home and the costs involved in that; you might find another area to be a better deal (I'm biased toward Pittsburgh). I personally found the Bay Area unworkable when I was looking before, mostly due to the fact that I had a family and wanted a home. If you want to stay, your best bet would be to join a large multinational (Big N) and work at a Canadian office.
- DC1350 6y agoI’m working on moving to the states as soon as I have the opportunity. Do your Canadian coworkers try just as hard? I have a lot of trouble caring about my job here because I know a few weeks of interview prep will do more to my compensation than half a decade hard work.
- grumple 6y agoNote that this data is all self-reported and unverified. Probably doesn't include the average dev. Also median household income in SF is half the top entry level salaries listed, so keep that in mind when looking at the data and thinking about reliability. I suspect all of this data skews high, possibly significantly so.
- godelmachine 6y agoIs there a similar website which gives accurate salaries for service managers / product managers/ verification managers? Edit - also, I am surprised not to see Snapchat in the list until level 4. They definitely pay handsomely to entry level roles.
- cvhashim 6y agoMaybe this: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Product-Manager/ https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Product-Manag...
- godelmachine 6y agoThanks for posting this however it’s specific only to Google. I was looking for an industry wide survey like the one OP poster. BTW, I see PM’s are on an average paid lesser than engineers at Google at all levels. Kindly correct me if I am wrong.
- yalogin 6y agoAre the stock grants also based on location? Something I didn’t think about till now. Wonder how different the stock grants will be across locations. The document above doesn’t have that breakdown even though it seems obvious it is.
- throwthrowawayy 6y agoFor all the people saying "oh it's because they're in SV" you guys do know that majority of companies on that list is allowing employees work anywhere in the US for 90% of their comp.