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Getting FAANG salary isn’t enough?
by coin 3y ago
Getting FAANG salary isn’t enough?
- clipsy 3y agoIs a FAANG salary enough for Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk?
- clipsy 3y agoIt would be lovely if some of the folks downvoting this could explain precisely why it is that I should accept my FAANG salary as "enough" while tech billionaires apparently shouldn't, rather than just trying to make this post disappear. It's a perfectly reasonable question -- the ownership class has never considered (and will never consider) any amount of money to be "enough," so why on earth should any of the rest of us?
- quesera 3y agoIt is not a reasonable question. Employee wages and founder equity are not comparable things. What if Bezos said "y'know what, I'd good with AMZN at $10MM market cap, I'm all set"? There'd be no jobs at Amazon. And no one to complain about the jobs at Amazon. I would venture to guess that none of your Axis of Excess is particularly motivated by money. They do what they do because they enjoy the game. The game of global corporate titan. Money is an abstract metric that lets them keep playing.
- Madmallard 3y agoWith return to office it's nowhere near enough on the west coast. Unless you hold a top position at a large corporation on the west coast you don't even have enough money to buy a house. Considering you're helping generate billions in revenue yeah, I'd say you should be being paid more.
- ghiculescu 3y agoThe only homeowners in CA, OR, and WA are top executives at large corporations?
- Madmallard 3y agoI know probably a dozen devs that I regularly talk to from school and the only ones with their own homes have been seniors or higher positions for half a decade or longer.
- beoberha 3y agoI bought a million dollar home in Seattle after less than 5 years of employment out of college at a publicly traded non-FAANG company in the area. It’s doable, you just need to compromise on location or luxury
- Madmallard 3y agoDefinitely the exception to the rule
- zeroonetwothree 3y agoA million dollar home only requires around 200-250k of income which isn’t that much for these areas. And if your partner is employed as well it’s even easier. I even know people that make sub 100k in the Bay Area that bought their own homes after 10-15 years of saving.
- qwerpy 3y agoI've been in the Seattle area since graduating and hung out with people in both the tech industry and in aerospace (Boeing, etc.). Everyone who wanted a house had one within 5 years of starting work. They were smaller, older houses in trendy neighborhoods or nicer houses in further out suburbs, depending on the person's preferences. Seemed a reasonable result for young adults in their late 20s.
- beoberha 3y agoThis isn’t true at all and paints a dangerously dystopian view of things. You could easily buy a home in Seattle or the neighboring area after 5 years of senior level employment at most publicly traded companies. It’s not going to be an amazing home and there certainly will be some sticker shock when comparing that price tag to most other cities, but it’s totally feasible. The idea that you need to have a “top position” is ludicrous
- Madmallard 3y ago5 years at senior level means 8 plus years in industry and you actually have to be promoted to seniority and it has to be at a company that actually pays well. It is far beyond reasonable considering the value that developers provide. So yeah, I think you're completely wrong.
- sv123 3y agoIf all Amazon engineers made a salary in their first year which enabled them to afford a Seattle home purchase, then home prices would rise even higher... Until you need to work for 8 years to afford one again.
- theK 3y agoFunny how senior came to be "has worked three years". Isn't it?
- Madmallard 3y agoI also said "and you actually have to be promoted to [it]"
- theK 3y agoApologies, this wasn't a jab directly at what you wrote. More of a general observation that there is a false understanding somewhere in this industry, that somebody who worked 3 years, realistically qualifies as a "Senior" Dev.
- 3y ago
- spicyusername 3y agoNo.
- programmarchy 3y agoBetter to think in terms of percentages. Wages vs GDP has decreased while profits vs GDP has increased. Maybe tech is an outlier compared to the broader economy. Would be interesting to see the numbers.
- Uehreka 3y agoCan people on this site please stop acting like everyone in tech (or “everyone in tech who matters”) is working for FAANG and getting a FAANG salary? Believe it or not there exist software developers who make less than $100k.
- plugin-baby 3y agoSurely tech workers at Amazon Seattle are getting FAANG salaries by definition?
- Uehreka 3y agoYes, but GP was referring to tech workers in general.
- MortimerDukePhD 3y ago[dead]
- coin 3y agoCorrect, not everyone is fortunate to get FAANG-type compensation. But the article in question is about Amazon workers (one of the As in FAANG).
- thebytefairy 3y agoWhich are the companies that have generated billions for VCs that don't pay higher end salaries? I agree many startups pay less, but I wouldn't say those have 'made it'.
- b345 3y agoWhy should it be when you can be laid off even when the corporation is making record breaking profits
- jrflowers 3y agoNot if you’re getting laid off
- ok_dad 3y agoNo, we shouldn’t even have to work for nice scraps, they’re still scraps.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- btheshoe 3y agothe nba player's association has secured nba players a nice share of revenue. seems to me like engineers could do something similar.
- refurb 3y agoIf you're one of a dozen engineers in the world who can do what you do, then sure, you can get a similar piece of the pie as NBA players. But most tech workers aren't like that. They are relatively easily replaceable in comparison.
- janalsncm 3y agoIf US tech workers could be replaced for a tenth of the compensation they would’ve been. Maybe that will change in the future but until then the fact that there is some scarcity means unionization is possible.
- refurb 3y agoWho said anything about a tenth of the wages? There are plenty of US programmers making way less than FAANG wages happy to take those jobs.
- Thermosetty 3y agoIt's all relative isn't it? To some 250k+ is a dream salary. To others it's just a start.
- davesque 3y agoNo, it isn't.
- janalsncm 3y agoNo it’s not. That salary is relatively high for the US but that is only because every other industry has been eviscerated for decades. Every other industry told themselves “it’s fine, I’m being paid well so I won’t worry about it” and then their job got shipped to Shenzhen.
- o1y32 3y agoEVERY time someone talks about ANYTHING related to benefits, someone tries to use the salary as a counterargument, as if a $250k salary means you are supposed to give up your whole life and NEVER ever complain about anything. Seriously?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]