3 ms·

Are a lot of these 300k-500k TC positions putting in 40 hour work weeks or more? I think that's worth bringing up because it's a huge factor at the end of the

by nickjj 5y ago

Are a lot of these 300k-500k TC positions putting in 40 hour work weeks or more? I think that's worth bringing up because it's a huge factor at the end of the day. For example, getting 400k TC but you routinely put in 60-80 hours a week is much different than 40 hours a week. Personally I would much prefer working 30-40 hours a week for X vs 60-80 hours a week for X * 2. The amount of taxes you pay in the X * 2 range are so massive you end up not getting anywhere near a true 2x amount in your bank account but you put in a true 2x amount of hours. Working 70 hours a week as a typical employee role isn't sustainable in my opinion.

farnsworth 5y ago
I think plenty of these people are lying on the internet and um, rounding up a little.
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  Eh, I helped several people job hunt this year, here are the offers accepted (total comp, not salary, which tends to cap around 200k). None of the people listed have more than 5 years of experience: 200k (fresh grad) 352k 452k 507k 412k
  - nickthemagicman 5y ago
    All at a FAANG? What kind of interview process?
    - Hermitian909 5y ago
      None at FAANG (aside from Netflix, none of the other letters pay top dollar for anything below staff anymore anyway). These were mostly companies that had IPO'd more recently, very late stage startups close to IPO. All had the format: -Hiring manager phone screen -Technical phone screen -(virtual) On Site 3/5 had leetcodes, 2/5 had no leetcode. No leetcode was harder than medium. All had behavioral interviews All but the fresh grad had design interviews For the non leetcode, coding questions two main forms: 1. General line of business code e.g. take some JSON, derive statistics, turn it into new JSON, etc. 2. Bug squash in a new codebase (find the bug, write regression tests)
      - nickthemagicman 5y ago
        Thanks for this info. This will help with future job searches!
  - zz865 5y ago
    fuck me, I need a new job.
  - qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
    Why is it that I don't see these kind of numbers on levels.fyi?
    - therealdrag0 5y ago
      I see some 5yoe in the 400s at Stripe on levelsfyi.
Hermitian909 5y ago
I work in the bay area at a large company. Generally, people at big companies work less than at small companies. Most software engineers I know making more than 400k work ~30 hours a week. Things get different at the super senior levels making several million, usually a lot more meetings, hard to speak to their specific hours. But on the other hand, they get to retire after two years if they want so...
- nickjj 5y ago
  > Things get different at the super senior levels making several million Right, everything changes at that point of income. Putting in ~70 hours a week for a few years to make 3-5 million seems like a no brainer. But grinding 60-70 hours a week for 300k-400k, I don't know. That's a much harder sell. You'll probably burn out before you could retire. I don't know what taxes would look like in CA but it would probably be like an effective 9.5% in state taxes and then another effective 30% in federal. I know there's maxing out a 401k for deferring taxes and other deductions but quick napkin math probably puts you at like 180k take home on 300k income. Not sure on the total cost of living in SF but maybe 40k to live in a studio with no family while living reasonably well? So you have 140k to save and invest every year. That's a lot of years of 60+ hours / week to retire comfortably.
  - btheshoe 5y ago
    The rent for a studio blows through most of 35k
  - Hermitian909 5y ago
    > But grinding 60-70 hours a week for 300k-400k Not to be rude but did you read the entirety of my post? This doesn't happen that much, the people putting in those hours are generally making 250k or less at mid level or above. Those making 300-400k generally either don't have to work many hours or are capable of passing interviews that will allow them to work significantly less. > 180k take home on 300k income Without going into too much detail, often by the time your stock is paid out to you it's worth much more than what you signed at so that you had an effective pay raise of sometimes 50% or more. You're also leaving out bonuses, which at some companies can be substantial. Suffice to say, plenty of people retire in a decade.

by nickjj 5y ago

farnsworth 5y ago

I think plenty of these people are lying on the internet and um, rounding up a little.

Hermitian909 5y ago
Eh, I helped several people job hunt this year, here are the offers accepted (total comp, not salary, which tends to cap around 200k). None of the people listed have more than 5 years of experience: 200k (fresh grad) 352k 452k 507k 412k
- nickthemagicman 5y ago
  All at a FAANG? What kind of interview process?
  - Hermitian909 5y ago
    None at FAANG (aside from Netflix, none of the other letters pay top dollar for anything below staff anymore anyway). These were mostly companies that had IPO'd more recently, very late stage startups close to IPO. All had the format: -Hiring manager phone screen -Technical phone screen -(virtual) On Site 3/5 had leetcodes, 2/5 had no leetcode. No leetcode was harder than medium. All had behavioral interviews All but the fresh grad had design interviews For the non leetcode, coding questions two main forms: 1. General line of business code e.g. take some JSON, derive statistics, turn it into new JSON, etc. 2. Bug squash in a new codebase (find the bug, write regression tests)
    - nickthemagicman 5y ago
      Thanks for this info. This will help with future job searches!
- zz865 5y ago
  fuck me, I need a new job.
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  Why is it that I don't see these kind of numbers on levels.fyi?
  - therealdrag0 5y ago
    I see some 5yoe in the 400s at Stripe on levelsfyi.

Hermitian909 5y ago

I work in the bay area at a large company. Generally, people at big companies work less than at small companies. Most software engineers I know making more than 400k work ~30 hours a week. Things get different at the super senior levels making several million, usually a lot more meetings, hard to speak to their specific hours. But on the other hand, they get to retire after two years if they want so...

nickjj 5y ago
> Things get different at the super senior levels making several million Right, everything changes at that point of income. Putting in ~70 hours a week for a few years to make 3-5 million seems like a no brainer. But grinding 60-70 hours a week for 300k-400k, I don't know. That's a much harder sell. You'll probably burn out before you could retire. I don't know what taxes would look like in CA but it would probably be like an effective 9.5% in state taxes and then another effective 30% in federal. I know there's maxing out a 401k for deferring taxes and other deductions but quick napkin math probably puts you at like 180k take home on 300k income. Not sure on the total cost of living in SF but maybe 40k to live in a studio with no family while living reasonably well? So you have 140k to save and invest every year. That's a lot of years of 60+ hours / week to retire comfortably.
- btheshoe 5y ago
  The rent for a studio blows through most of 35k
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  > But grinding 60-70 hours a week for 300k-400k Not to be rude but did you read the entirety of my post? This doesn't happen that much, the people putting in those hours are generally making 250k or less at mid level or above. Those making 300-400k generally either don't have to work many hours or are capable of passing interviews that will allow them to work significantly less. > 180k take home on 300k income Without going into too much detail, often by the time your stock is paid out to you it's worth much more than what you signed at so that you had an effective pay raise of sometimes 50% or more. You're also leaving out bonuses, which at some companies can be substantial. Suffice to say, plenty of people retire in a decade.