4 ms·

The reason to work for Amazon is strictly $$$. Facebook and Apple offer the same $$$, with much less toxicity. If you can't get a job there and need money, Ama

The reason to work for Amazon is strictly $$$. Facebook and Apple offer the same $$$, with much less toxicity. If you can't get a job there and need money, Amazon is a rational choice. At my cost-of-living, if I worked for Amazon for about five years, I could retire. In my current job, I get half to a quarter of what I'd make at Amazon, but enjoy life. That's worth it. But if it stops being meaningful and fun, perhaps at some point I might go somewhere where I can pay off my mortgage in two years.

scarface_74 3y ago
I doubt you are making a quarter of what you would make at Amazon. Even I as a standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta was making about 2/3rds of what mid level developers make at AWS and maybe half of what senior developers make. I specialize in enterprise app dev + AWS. The logical place for me to at least have on my resume is AWS Professional Services. It was the quickest , easiest method to get into BigTech. There was no coding interview, it was fully remote and there was a never a return to office mandate. One fortunate thing about AWS is they have a very easy approval process for ProServe consultants to sanitize their work and publish it to the open source AWS organization on GitHub and its MIT licensed. https://github.com/aws-samples https://github.com/aws-samples I open sourced everything and forked it to my private profile. It gave me a nice open source portfolio that I could say was used in real world projects and I was able to use 5 of the 8 projects at my current job. Two of the others were using now deprecated techniques. The pay increase wasn’t that dramatic. It was about a 35% pay difference than what I was being offered pre-Covid. It was about a 20% pay cut to leave and work for a smaller consulting company full time. You would absolutely hate yourself trying to survive at AWS for five years. I knew after the first year I wasn’t going to be able to take more than my initial four year offer and I planned according. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302 As far as enjoying my life, I would never satisfy my current work life balance for working at any large company. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767599
- frognumber 3y ago
  > I doubt you are making a quarter of what you would make at Amazon. Even I as a standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta was making about 2/3rds of what mid level developers make at AWS and maybe half of what senior developers make. I don't think you know my current job or my level of seniority. 1) I am a sufficiently well-known developer that, while you wouldn't recognize my name, I am a major draw when I give presentations by name recognition in my field, and people have asked me for e.g. autographs before. You would have heard of the project I am best known for, even if not who built it. 2) I am not a "standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta." I work for a non-profit. It's engaging, meaningful, and impactful work, and it pays my bills. My last job offer from tech was at double my current level of compensation, and that wasn't a FAANG, but a late-stage startup. I know peer salaries at FAANG, and a quarter is a pretty good estimate. I know people at FAANG making 10x, but I'd need to get very lucky to get that (a job lining up with my unique background). It might be 2x if my background completely wasn't taken into account (which it wouldn't be, for many roles).
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
    People significantly underestimate how much FAANG pays, especially for very experienced developers.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      I’m not underestimating anything at all. I know how much the average developer gets paid at Amazon in particular. There was an “anonymous” internal Slack channel called #pay-equity. Wheee you could use post your compensation via A workflow (?)
      - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
        Good people are getting 600-900k at amazon. Lead developers on major products like S3 are getting even more. There are tiers to amazon comp that doesnt get spoken about.

scarface_74 3y ago

I doubt you are making a quarter of what you would make at Amazon. Even I as a standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta was making about 2/3rds of what mid level developers make at AWS and maybe half of what senior developers make. I specialize in enterprise app dev + AWS. The logical place for me to at least have on my resume is AWS Professional Services. It was the quickest , easiest method to get into BigTech. There was no coding interview, it was fully remote and there was a never a return to office mandate. One fortunate thing about AWS is they have a very easy approval process for ProServe consultants to sanitize their work and publish it to the open source AWS organization on GitHub and its MIT licensed. https://github.com/aws-samples https://github.com/aws-samples I open sourced everything and forked it to my private profile. It gave me a nice open source portfolio that I could say was used in real world projects and I was able to use 5 of the 8 projects at my current job. Two of the others were using now deprecated techniques. The pay increase wasn’t that dramatic. It was about a 35% pay difference than what I was being offered pre-Covid. It was about a 20% pay cut to leave and work for a smaller consulting company full time. You would absolutely hate yourself trying to survive at AWS for five years. I knew after the first year I wasn’t going to be able to take more than my initial four year offer and I planned according. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37969302 As far as enjoying my life, I would never satisfy my current work life balance for working at any large company. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767599 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36767599

frognumber 3y ago
> I doubt you are making a quarter of what you would make at Amazon. Even I as a standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta was making about 2/3rds of what mid level developers make at AWS and maybe half of what senior developers make. I don't think you know my current job or my level of seniority. 1) I am a sufficiently well-known developer that, while you wouldn't recognize my name, I am a major draw when I give presentations by name recognition in my field, and people have asked me for e.g. autographs before. You would have heard of the project I am best known for, even if not who built it. 2) I am not a "standard CRUD developer working in Atlanta." I work for a non-profit. It's engaging, meaningful, and impactful work, and it pays my bills. My last job offer from tech was at double my current level of compensation, and that wasn't a FAANG, but a late-stage startup. I know peer salaries at FAANG, and a quarter is a pretty good estimate. I know people at FAANG making 10x, but I'd need to get very lucky to get that (a job lining up with my unique background). It might be 2x if my background completely wasn't taken into account (which it wouldn't be, for many roles).
- ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
  People significantly underestimate how much FAANG pays, especially for very experienced developers.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I’m not underestimating anything at all. I know how much the average developer gets paid at Amazon in particular. There was an “anonymous” internal Slack channel called #pay-equity. Wheee you could use post your compensation via A workflow (?)
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 3y ago
      Good people are getting 600-900k at amazon. Lead developers on major products like S3 are getting even more. There are tiers to amazon comp that doesnt get spoken about.