20 ms·

Ask HN: Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there?

• JojoFatsani 2y ago
  AI/ML unicorns.
  • hiddencost 2y ago
    The problem with those is that they have to raise at very high valuations because their capital costs are huge. Anthropic and OpenAI are pretty good because they offer huge comp packages, but many of the others are mediocre because there's limited upside to their stock (rather than raising at a $50m valuation, they might raise at a $1B valuation. A $4B exit is much more life changing when you own 20x as much of the company. And they're very risky.)
• rvz 2y ago
  > -- Are there people outside of FAANG and Big Banks / HFT firms making those kinds of monies? Yes. > -- if So who are they? and what do they do? OpenAI, Anthropic and crypto bug bounty hunters.
• mlhpdx 2y ago
  Are you counting the $1m in options as compensation? If so, plenty of startups will offer you that.
  • swarnie 2y ago
    Sure they can offer it on paper, unsure if it'll be worth anything in four year or even four months. At least with FAANG you know barring cataclysmic events It'll be valuable down the road.
    • __s 2y ago
      if you think the company's stock is worthless then you shouldn't expect them to be successful enough to compete with FAANG on salary
    • mlhpdx 2y ago
      To each their own. Comparing startup options to mature company RSUs is apples to oranges, and a retelling of the basic trade off between risk and reward. Upside, downside, taxes et. al. combine to inform individual decisions. Both paths have merit. Suggesting startup options are somehow inferior to RSU is simply disingenuous — I would have done much more poorly with RSU than options.
      • vineyardlabs 2y ago
        Come on, let’s be realistic. Startup options can have merit sure. Maybe they worked out for you, for some lucky people who make the right bet they work out handsomely. But we can do the math on this. What’s the percentage of say, Series B funded companies that make it to a successful exit, let alone an exit for multiple billions of dollars. It’s really low. So what’s the expected value on an option in a series B startup? You can believe in the company all you want, it doesn’t matter. Good companies fail all the time for reasons out of their control. Unless you’re taking options from a startup very deep in rounds that has a clear path to profitability and is obviously close to IPO there are very few situations where it would make logical sense to take an offer with options over one with RSUs. This is kind of like saying it’s disingenuous to say that working for a salary is better than buying lottery tickets.
        • mlhpdx 2y ago
          If we’re going to be realistic about it, then maybe we should take that $1m RSU grant down a notch or two. Those are extremely, extremely rare. The typical numbers are far lower than that, and if you’ve been there, you know it’s true. That being the case, the amount of stock options and the exit criteria for an equivalent startup exit are far lower than you posit. It doesn’t need to be a unicorn to put your annual compensation into the mid to upper six figures.
  • bilalq 2y ago
    The stocks come as RSUs of publicly traded shares for FAANG+. That's a lot more cash-like than the monopoly money of most startup options.
• jmpman 2y ago
  Yes, the top cloud customers of the big three cloud providers are making similar, if not more. Startups in the cloud space are similar.
• almostgotcaught 2y ago
  you answered your own question > a similar base, and then $1mil in stock for 4 years. so are there firms with similar market caps and/or growth?
• padraicmahoney 2y ago
  Yes. Some of the opportunities exist in odd corners of the software universe. To offer just one example, I'm aware of a software company that does nine figures in ARR making high performance computing software for very large financial institutions. There's basically no chance you've ever heard of them. They're very low key. The company hasn't grown headcount much in the last decade, and their employees don't really leave. But some of their people writing really low-level code are certainly making multiples of representative peers at FAANG.
  • fleabagmange 2y ago
    I used to work at such a place. Contracts with places large as BAML and other places you e never heard of… Unless you’re the low level wizard you’re just going to make an industry standard salary, maybe a bump but nothing special.
    • uh_uh 2y ago
      What does a low level wizard need to know more specifically?
      • sigmoid10 2y ago
        Assembly would be a good start. But to really make use of that you need to learn the internal intricacies of processor architectures and operating systems. If you want to be employable, there's just a gigantic amount of seemingly boring details to learn before you can even start to build something interesting. With high level languages you can jump into the job market almost immediately, so the cost of entry vs. potential reward is better for most people. If you don't have fun when spending years of your life banging your head while digging down incredibly complex rabbit holes, it's probably not worth it.
      • esprehn 2y ago
        Magic missile, garbage collection enchantment, server resurrection.
• jigneshdarji91 2y ago
  I see levels.fyi has a good list of "top paying companies"[1]. Is that helpful? Side note: The difference at Staff Eng is slightly more wide. Eg. IBM Band 9 pays TC ~$250K while Meta E6 is ~$640K. Side note 2: From what I understand, Big Tech often brings in Staff Eng from smaller companies to a Senior Eng role. Reverse is also true, Sr Eng at Big Tech are often able to join Staff roles at smaller companies. [1] https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/Software-Engineer/Entry-Level-Engineer/country/United-States/ https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/Software-Engineer/Entry-L...
  • red-iron-pine 2y ago
    IBM isn't the big deal that it used to be.
• dboreham 2y ago
  Look for organizations that have very large amounts of money, where software is critical to them continuing to make that money (or where their money was given to them to create something that in turn someone believes will be worth large amounts of money). Generally follow the money.
  • antupis 2y ago
    Also, look for those goldrush phases where there is lots of money thrown around eg now AI,
  • MrDresden 2y ago
    > "..where software is critical to them continuing to make that money.." Having worked in the finance world, where the wheels are made out of software at this point, I never got the feeling that the old guard that still ran the place fully understood how crucial software was to their business, and how much it saved in labour costs. The software department was generally seen as a cost center, with the salaries and outsourcing of projects reflecting that. So I agree with the sentiment, just saying it doesn't always hold up.
    • Log_out_ 2y ago
      Great way to grow new guard buisnesses.
      • MrDresden 2y ago
        Monzo, N26, Revolut and all of the other nouveau banks would agree with you.
        • gregolo 2y ago
          But they don't pay well, so...
• schmookeeg 2y ago
  Using your own example, every "avg startup" engineer who is overemployed with only two gigs is matching FAANG money.
  • throwaway4pp24 2y ago
    Show me the average startup engineer who has the time to be overemployed please...
    • jumploops 2y ago
      I met a dude at a bachelor party who was working for three startups simultaneously. I don’t recommend it.
  • offices 2y ago
    The unspoken assumption about salaries are that we picture earning that amount for the rest of our careers. $500k at one job feels much more secure and mortgage-able than $500k dependent on maintaining an illusion and level of work that will lead to burnout.
• tayo42 2y ago
  Any company that has rsu as part of their comp basically in the same range.
• itake 2y ago
  Foreign companies setup offices in the USA to attract ex-FANGA engineers, and thus are willing to compete on compensation, with the additional benefits of being publicly traded,.
  • sofixa 2y ago
    Really? Why? If anything I'd expect the opposite, non-American companies to eschew hiring engineers from the US because they'd cost more than equivalents in lower cost countries where those companies presumably are / can access more easily.
    • datadrivenangel 2y ago
      More expensive is better! Anecdotally I've heard that the larger chinese tech companies love exFAANG, because 'American engineers are better'. Maybe the Silicon Valley Mythos is another export?
      • meiraleal 2y ago
        Or maybe the fanga ones know secrets worth paying
  • red-iron-pine 2y ago
    Which foreign companies are paying FAANG rates? Outside of Chinese ones I can't see that happening much. Why pay easily 50-200% more for US talent when they can often get solid talent in Japan / Europe / China / etc. Outside of a small business and localization team, why bother?
    • saagarjha 2y ago
      Bytedance, Coupang, etc. I assume
• aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 2y ago
  Don’t ignore the other aspects of compensation: raises, bonuses, vacation days, health insurance, etc. It’s not just salary.
  • throwaway4pp24 2y ago
    All of these are very significant at a FAANG and generally not as great elsewhere.
  • chipdart 2y ago
    > It’s not just salary. The "not just salary" bit is very often used as a mirage intended to fool employees to take a lower compensation than what they can get, and then tag a bunch of conditions that can't possibly or realistically be met.
    • freeqaz 2y ago
      There is certainly a balance to be struck. Being in a meat grinder that pays well is not super fun, and a lot of people would gladly take 70-80% of that in exchange for work/life balance and strong PTO. TBH that's one of the reasons I chose the company I'm at now. I had other options, but having a team that I love and very healthy PTO won me over. To each their own!
    • aYsY4dDQ2NrcNzA 2y ago
      Members of my family have serious health problems, and the company’s PPO plans cover medical treatments with world-class providers. It would probably be prohibitively expensive for us to purchase such a plan on the open market.
      • nottorp 2y ago
        Basically a modern form of company town? Instead of being indentured by spending company scrip at the company store you're staying because of health insurance that would otherwise be unaffordable to you.
• jimt1234 2y ago
  Story time: About 6 years ago a close friend with years of software experience was bored with her job and decided to look for another. She received plenty of solid job offers, all with excellent pay, but one of them stood out. It was a company that made back-end software for credit unions. Not sexy work, but what stood out to my friend was the how genuine the people she talked to during the "interview" process seemed. They asked about her life experience more than her work experience. When she met with execs they never even talked about actual work. She said they were very upfront about the fact that they couldn't compete with "the big guys" on pay, but they take their supportive company culture very seriously - the average length-of-employment was over 10 years. She said they offered her access to the office, where she could freely "interview" anyone rando she wanted about the company. She did, and everyone she talked to raved about working there. She decided to accept the offer from the not-sexy credit union software company, knowing she could've earned at least 30% more elsewhere. She kept using the word "genuine" when she talked about the people she met during the "interview" process, and that's what attracted her. Well, about 2 years after accepting the offer she was diagnosed with breast cancer. (tl;dr = dealing with cancer sucks. constant doctor appointments. chemo treatments. pain. vomiting. life/death uncertainty. and so on.) She said her company was unbelievable during her cancer battle. She didn't work for almost a year (her bosses wouldn't let her), and they never even talked about sick leave or FMLA or disability - nothing. They just kept her on the payroll like normal, for almost a full year! She said her bosses would call all the time, asking about the latest test results, how she was feeling, did she need anything, etc. And, to her surprise, after about 2 years of treatments, almost the entire company showed up to watch her ring the bell. Moral of the story: Money is great, but it's really not everything.
  • slekker 2y ago
    Great story. With most interviews nowadays happening on-line, how can you recognize companies such as your friend's?
    • devjab 2y ago
      I’m Danish so this might not apply to an American context, or even a non-Danish context. I’ve been on the hiring side of things a few times, and I’ve worked in a lot of different organisations, and what I personally look for these days is companies which let you interview them as much as they interview you. This shows that they are looking for someone to be the right fit and that they know this process goes two ways. I had an offer recently where it was online, it had gone through one of those ridiculous LinkedIn recruiters and it had been completely “missold” (not sure what the English word for misleading a “sale” is) to me. I figured this out after about 5 minutes of me asking them questions about their place and the work they wanted me to do, at which point I flat out said something along the lines of “I think I’m the wrong fit” to which they agreed, but they wanted to offer me another type of job in architecture and management. I didn’t want that, but the process of them being very open to me interviewing them helped us both out immensely in not picking each other. It’s obviously only something you can really engage in if you don’t “need-need” a job.
• ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
  I made $4 million profit last financial year with my own software businesses.
  • flawn 2y ago
    What would be one piece of advice to keep in one's head for a young, aspiring entrepreneur/dev?
    • eps 2y ago
      Have a plan B.
    • karmakurtisaani 2y ago
      When someone online tells you they made millions, you have no obligation to believe them.
      • flawn 2y ago
        I like to err and still see what people have to say. Thanks for the reminder, i'll watch out!
        • karmakurtisaani 2y ago
          Ha, no worries, I was mainly being cheeky.
      • ryandrake 2y ago
        Best advice in this entire comment thread. Everyone on HN makes $2M/yr, has a vacation home in Tahoe and drives three Ferraris.
    • ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
      Don't go looking for ideas. Either build for yourself or build for the obvious market gap in your industry. Anything else has a high failure rate.
• jefozabuss 2y ago
  Can confirm the 500k+ jobs in HFT/crypto (well the latter might not be a life insurance). I saw a couple of these job postings mostly in the Cyprus/Switzerland area. You could also make these amounts in adult/gambling marketing but that's another can of worms..
  • game_the0ry 2y ago
    > ... adult/gambling ... Interested. Tell me more.
  • hurrrr 2y ago
    can you share some names of these hft/crypto firms?
• Bugabuga24 2y ago
  Yes, I'm working in the UK for a medium size company and gets the same as my friend that works for Google(he does get slightly higher bonuses) But I work 35 hrs a week while he works 45 and fly abroad every two weeks.
  • calini 2y ago
    Are you guys hiring :D?
  • thorin 2y ago
    I'm under the impression that Google/Microsoft etc get paid far less in the UK than in the US though, would you say that's correct? I've been working in the UK since the late 90s. Started in banking and banking contracts are still probably the primary source of big cash in the UK as there aren't many startup and much less FANG. I moved away from banking pretty quickly as I didn't really want to stay in London much longer and found the work fairly boring. Maybe I just don't like money :-( .
    • JofArnold 2y ago
      Meta etc pay less in UK but not much less. Still a lot by any measure.
    • piltdownman 2y ago
      Yeah the employers side of hiring someone in UK/Ireland is far more expensive than in the US, plus we have incredibly strong workers rights and mandatory 23 day paid leave + 11 other bank holidays/national holidays a year. Not to mention redundancy pay. Downsizing ain't a knee-jerk thing here, it's a costly process. In France its basically like they don't want a tech sector. Employee's rights are skewed so far to the left that Employers are often hamstrung and startup-culture is completely stagnant. Even running a Cafe you can end up paying an employee for a year or two who literally can't or won't show up for work. In short though, Ireland/UK/Belgium are the highest paying areas for tech in Europe outside of a few select Financial/Banking enclaves in Geneva and Zurich, with the majority of non-FAANG Seniors capping out at €120k or thereabouts without going into the niche areas like SRE or Algo or Cloud Architect.
• markus_zhang 2y ago
  Reading the comments, I figured being a low level wizard really pays off in both satisfaction of curiosity and satisfaction of pocket. I'd also argue that sometimes you get lower pay but in low cost places, with good benefits and work-life balance. It's more reasonable to take other things into the equation.
• muzani 2y ago
  According to levels.fyi, FAANG only pays the most at the most experienced levels. I'm not sure if those are even hired for, they might be promoted into. Of the rest, the top paying ones seem to be fintech and AI startups. Only Netflix still scores high in top salaries. It would make sense too, as they have a lot of leverage. Lots of people joining are happy to take a cut just to have the FAANG name on their resume. And I saw someone mention the average tenure is about 1.7 years.
  • hiddencost 2y ago
    Those salary websites are very wrong.
    • saagarjha 2y ago
      What about it is wrong?
    • muzani 2y ago
      It's odd because top level salaries are a tool to hire the best. If someone is paying a good salary, it makes good sense to broadcast them. Otherwise, what's the point? Who's going to go after invisible carrots? All you can do is spread rumors or expect that people act on delayed rumors. There's the argument that salaries are opaque so someone within wouldn't feel bad about getting a lower salary, but this is only really the case is someone is paying a L6 differently in US vs UAE vs India or something. But they know what market they're in.
    • brotchie 2y ago
      Levels.fyi is to be trusted. 100% accurate for Google SWE ladder at least. Can be an apples-to-oranges comparison for some other companies with large stock appreciation (e.g. Meta), where a lot of the comp number are vested TC rather than granted TC. The numbers accurately reflect longer term employees W2s, but not the offer you’d get if you joined today.
• ryandrake 2y ago
  50 comments so far and nobody has named a single company. You might as well not post if you’re just going to be vague and coy. “They exist, trust me bro” and “I work in a medium sized company that does…” are pretty much a zero-value comments. HN should have a higher bar.
  • ManlyBread 2y ago
    It's all about as trustworthy as the mythical high salaries for retired mainframe developers. I've never seen a single job posting nor any other proof that this is indeed true, in fact I've saw evidence to the contrary.
    • tigeroil 2y ago
      To be fair I'm in this position but it's with a small company that aren't exactly regularly hiring. I suppose the point is, these jobs exist but it's quite hard to replicate as it's not common with large firms that are regularly hiring.
    • viridian 2y ago
      Those do exist, but as far as I'm aware the most common structure currently is that it's mainframe consulting companies and their consultants that command those salaries. Anyone in an actual employee position I've never heard of making above 100k/year. I have a friend who went from being the form to the latter and immediately doubled his salary, despite the consulting firm making it clear that he was at the bottom of the totem pole, despite his being 5 years or so into mainframe work.
    • tsavo 2y ago
      Most of these jobs would never get posted in the first place, you need to already be a known entity with these groups/be trusted before they let you close to the mainframe. Have a friend in one of these roles currently, ~10hrs/wk, remote, 6 figures. People in these roles don't want to draw attention on their sweet comp packages which is why you won't see them crow about who/where they work.
  • manuelmoreale 2y ago
• bbkj 2y ago
  [flagged]
• nunez 2y ago
  Salary, absolutely; stock: much more difficult. That said, some folks in consulting pull off those numbers and it is, theoretically, possible to exceed those numbers on a good year in presales (at a place where commissions are uncapped).
• dzonga 2y ago
  it'a catch 22 with some of those companies. 1. they don't hire often & usually have small teams 2. they make so much money, that they don't make noise about it. & you won't hear about them, unless one day you randomly run into one of their employees saying they're hiring on reddit / hn 3. they work in unsexy industries or high risk stuff e.g gambling 4. they're usually located in places you wouldn't expect
  • ozim 2y ago
    High risk stuff pays well but I take my decent salary making crud web apps over it, along with work life balance and no stress.
    • pavel_lishin 2y ago
      Same. I'm 40, and I have a wife and child. I will absolutely give up those rock star salaries if it means having the time to spend with them, and not taking ulcer medication.
  • Zambyte 2y ago
    What are some examples of unsexy industries that are high paying?
    • amonith 2y ago
      Ironically probably porn is the most unsexy on a CV.
      • PaulHoule 2y ago
        Funny I worked for a place that, before I was there, was a major vendor of search engines for the porn industry despite the owner being a conservative mutual fund manager. (e.g. I had a poster for an ETN I liked on the wall of my office and it got taken down before he visited) I know things went bad and I had something in my contract that I'd be immediately dismissed if I was found to have pornography on my laptop or any other computer belonging to the company.
• alephnerd 2y ago
  > then $1mil in stock for 4 years Most FAANG engineers are NOT getting $1M stock grants. That is the stock grant for Google L6-7, Amazon Principal SDE, and Microsoft L67. These are engineering levels comparable to Director of Engineering or Engineering Manager and extremely rare. > a Staff Engineer at an avg startup might get $250k base salary, in a HCOL area and maybe a 10-20% bonus This is the norm at FAANG as well. Just add a $60-150k/yr stock grant, which is normal at other public companies in the Bay Area and Seattle tech scenes as well.
  • khalilravanna 2y ago
    This is incorrect information. Check out levels.fyi. The average stock grant for Meta E6 is well over $1M/4years. Just one example. Plenty of data on other companies offers there.
    • alephnerd 2y ago
      E6 is adjacent to Engineering Manager at Meta. Companies give the option to either go Management Track (Manager, Director VP) or Technical Track (Principal/E6, Fellow, Distinguished Engineer) In public companies, most Engineers will peak at the L5/L64/SDE3/E5 level by their 30s. > Plenty of data on other companies offers there Plenty of companies offer that kind of compensation, but the competition is intense as the number of roles paying that much are limited, and WLB is atrocious as it's basically a Architect/Team Lead role. If anyone thinks they deserve a L6/L7 role with less than a decade of experience at peer companies they need to adjust their expectations or remain unemployed
      • ryandrake 2y ago
        > If anyone thinks they deserve a L6/L7 role with less than a decade of experience at peer companies they need to adjust their expectations or remain unemployed I think a lot of HN commenters simply assume that every role at these companies is L6/L7+ and pays $1M/yr or whatever the meme is currently. Like it's the default for "Software Engineer" at these companies. In reality, these roles are exceedingly rare. You won't even often see them publicly posted, simply because there are just not many of them. People see one example of this kind of compensation and declare, "See, it is possible to make this money at a FAANG." which is true, but in the same sense that it is technically possible to get struck by lightning. Your median FAANG employee is probably L4 and not making $1M/yr in compensation. They're probably not even making $150K, depending on their location.
• __s 2y ago
  Where are you getting those FAANG numbers? I maxed out bonus/stock at MS as Senior my last year, still left for PeerDB. But MS pays much less in Canada I guess
  • layer8 2y ago
    Microsoft is not FAANG.
    • SketchySeaBeast 2y ago
      Is that because it's actually that different, or because it would mangle the acronym?
      • red-iron-pine 2y ago
        Aye. I've heard MAANGA used. They're not in the FAANG but you'd better believe they still pay well. levels.fyi has most of these rough TCO numbers, for big orgs. SF firms pay the most but you're also paying $5900/month for an apartment with a reasonable commute in the Bay Area, and greater Seattle ain't that crazy yet.
        • sprobertson 2y ago
          The M in MANGA is an update from Facebook to Meta
      • Anon1096 2y ago
        It pays dramatically lower than actual FAANG-type companies and has a lower hiring bar to compensate. Senior positions are around half the TC you'd get at Meta.
        • feyman_r 2y ago
          Amazon and Microsoft are very close in their compensation; in fact they except Meta and Netflix, everyone is very close to each other. You should check out levels.fyi if you don’t have sources from those companies.
• devoutsalsa 2y ago
  Start your own business & you COULD make way more than a FAANG salary!
  • meowtastic 2y ago
    With the most likely outcome being 0.
    • _f9cu 2y ago
      [dead]
  • Aperocky 2y ago
    Or with far higher likelihood, sending your entire saving down the drain
    • devoutsalsa 2y ago
      You don't have to quit your day job while starting a business. And a business can be started for nearly $0.
  • triceratops 2y ago
    You COULD also make way less than a FAANG salary. At FAANG you will definitely make exactly as much as a FAANG salary.
• avnfish 2y ago
  Bytedance, Nvidia, OpenAI, Stripe, Anthropic, Checkout.com, maybe parts of Shopify
  • jagger27 2y ago
    Shopify’s salaries are nowhere near competitive. No clue where you got that from. I encourage the downvoters to provide evidence to the contrary.
    • red-iron-pine 2y ago
      Maybe for Canada.
      • jagger27 2y ago
        I say this as a Canadian living in Ottawa, their salaries are not good.
        • TimPC 2y ago
          They used to give a pretty good stock package but it lead to chaos in the company when the stock went down 10x and people were paid 50% stock.
        • raydev 2y ago
          Yep, you're better off working for a US-based company with a presence in Canada. The non-FAANG big and mid names offer dramatically higher comp than Shopify, and it's pretty sad.
  • shmatt 2y ago
    Nvidia is based on past performance. An offer letter from them doesn't come very close to FAANG
• gedy 2y ago
  If $250k base salary is "not enough", you should really step back and look at what you really want in life. Even in HCOL area, consider relocation and/or remote. And to clarify, I'm not saying it's greedy or wrong, just that you'll be happier in life with clear goals beyond a salary number. I found that what I wanted was attainable with lower salary and not working for FAANG or living in Bay area
  • pyrrhotech 2y ago
    I think most would agree $250k is a comfortable lifestyle, but if your neighbor is making $1M/year in the same profession just because he works at a different company, a bit of bitterness and or desire for more is hard to combat. Your neighbor can retire at 45 with $10M+, why should you be content with the low end of upper middle class and working until 60 for a more average retirement?
    • gedy 2y ago
      I don't disagree, just to your point about early retirement, be aware of what you really want vs just chasing comp. If it's comp, then it also begs the question of why not FAANG then.
    • qwerpy 2y ago
      This is exactly it. Chasing high salaries for many of us isn't about buying more expensive things. It's about obtaining freedom in your life as early as possible. Add in a family, and the only way to do it in your mid 40s when your body is still capable of doing anything, is to make numbers like what you mentioned. A common retort is "stop working for FAANGs, then maybe you won't be in such a rush to get out". I completely disagree. I don't care who I'm working for, even if it's myself, it's the fact that my time is controlled by some outside force that I'm trying to escape.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• red_admiral 2y ago
  There's the kind of job where you need security clearance and a full background check. Not all of those pay well (I assume the janitors at NSA are security cleared in some way), but some absolutely do. Especially when, like Snowden did, you leave the actual org after a bit and then get hired back as a private contractor.
  • atonse 2y ago
    Yes I’ve read this is a huge problem for these agencies. They invest in training people, getting them clearances, etc and then the people leave for the private sector because they make 5x as an ex-NSA cybersecurity expert etc.
    • Der_Einzige 2y ago
      Why we need to legalize weed, cus the glowies have already asked for it since they lose so much talent to the herb.
  • the_jeremy 2y ago
    > the kind of job where you need security clearance and a full background check That's like saying "a tech job". Most jobs that require those things pay poorly. Big defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, etc. pay worse than most tech companies. I have over a dozen friends in defense (I used to work for a defense contractor) and none earn comparably to big tech. It's not a matter of clearance, to be clear - most of those dozen have TS/SCI and had to go through a full polygraph. Unless you meant working directly for the government, not a contractor. That would put you on the GS payscale, which does not have carveouts for SWEs, meaning it won't pay as well as any private developer role.
• zxexz 2y ago
  I’m aware of a couple people at health systems/hospitals that work maybe 400 hours/year making $500k+/year. Experts in legacy languages, specifically COBOL and MUMPS. For legacy billing and EMR/EHR and related systems code, respectfully. One guy gets flown out to the east coast from his ”chateau” in Utah every month or two; the only downside is he’s on-call pretty much all year round. I’ve heard banks have people like this on-site too but I’ve never met any.
  • epgui 2y ago
    > respectfully I think you mean "respectively"
    • zxexz 2y ago
      You are right! Though I do have immense respect for those languages - not love, but respect. The way one respects a grouchy aging tiger. Not extinct, its ilk will be around forever, and I don’t want to be the one caring for it.
      • seabass-labrax 2y ago
        Your comment reminded me of a certain other tiger that one might want to be careful around..! https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/05/26 https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1987/05/26
  • barryrandall 2y ago
    Multiple airlines do this as well.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • rqtwteye 2y ago
    I have heard/read of these people but people I know who work at hospitals doing MUMPS get paid very little. Same for COBOL programmers. There are some mythical people who make bank but most COBOL guys make way less than the typical JS guy.
• fnbr 2y ago
  Yes, many AI startups pay more than FAANG for ML talent.
  • neilv 2y ago
    I think FAANG-like big IC offers right now are flying around for technical people familiar with the current hot "AI" methods. A lot of hype, a lot of situational ethics around copyright, and some investment scams, but some of the tech is ready for legitimate things people want to do, at acceptable quality levels for the application. Also, one thing that happened early in the dotcom gold rush is that a ton of people swarmed in, all suddenly acting like experts and professionals, with little/no prior experience. Meanwhile, Internet people who were also prolific programmers were, like, who are all these people, and why do many of them have fashionable eyeglasses like nerds would never try to pull off. I don't know how much we'll see something like that this time.
    • ai4ever 2y ago
      agree 100% with this nice comment from a fellow dot-com crash observer. Many HackerNews readers are young'uns who are seduced by FANG salaries, and the latest AI/ML bandwagon. They dont have the perspective one gets having seeing the highs and the lows. I can bet there will be another rude awakening around the corner which will wipe out the "pretenders". After the dot-com bust, many pretenders left the silicon valley with anecdotes of leased BMWs abandoned at SFO airport. After the AI/ML hype deflates, there is likely to be a similar separation. Folks in it for real will be separated from the folks who came in for the riches. And for the history-buffs this rhymes with the CA gold-rush circa late 1800s - some found it, most didnt, levis profited selling denims to them.
  • callalex 2y ago
    But will that still be true in 6-12 months when the bubble pops?
• fuzzfactor 2y ago
  >-- Are there people outside of FAANG and Big Banks / HFT firms making those kinds of monies? I'm very confident there are, but should there be? >-- if So who are they? and what do they do? A lot of times it will be things that are a lot less ethical than big tech or financial firms. >Is it possible to make FAANG salaries without working there? As to the title question, stick around and you'll notice messages from people on the payroll of many of the biggest tech outfits who confirm that you can be quite gainfully employed there for years without having to do any real work at all ;)
  • fuzzfactor 2y ago
    I am reminded of how completely wrong I can be. With all the layoffs over recent times there may never be another message like that. Not a single one. I guess you would have to look over old comments if you want to re-live the experience. Sorry to be so misleading or hurting anybody's feelings.
• joenot443 2y ago
  Definitely there are. I got an email from Stubhub the other day advertising $500-700k for a staff iOS position. I'm pretty comfortable in my current setup, but it's nice knowing the option is there.
  • asylteltine 2y ago
    [dead]
  • wnolens 2y ago
    Interviewed and was given a "huge" offer from them. 50-70% of the comp is non-liquid equity at the valuation of their choosing (ok, technically a 'third party' decides this, but I call partial shenanigans and it fluctuates wildly anyway such that a ton of their employees hired a few years ago at a ridiculous valuation are getting shafted - check blind)
    • RandomCitizen12 2y ago
      It looks like they will IPO at some point, so that valuation issue should go away.
      • wnolens 2y ago
        I look forward to watching the chips fall. I accepted an offer elsewhere for less money on paper and more in my bank account and I think I made a great decision. Not to mention the Stubhub culture, which upon interviewing them, I felt was toxic.
      • vineyardlabs 2y ago
        This really means very little though. Every private startup will tell you they’re 2 years out from IPO if you interview. And it’s common for employee equity to get massively diluted on the path to acquisition/IPO.
• saagarjha 2y ago
  The FAANG adjacent companies, e.g. Uber, Block?
• juujian 2y ago
  I know this is a tangent, but, and I'm putting words in your mouth, is it so important to earn a FAANG salary? And yes, I know, it helps with negotiating salaries but that's circular. Maybe that's just the state of the job market, no desirable jobs left, only thing we can hope for is a high salary?
  • shmatt 2y ago
    if one lives in a HCOL area and does not have family to pay for their living situation, the choice can be move to another state or get a FAANG salary. Getting rent raises that are 1000% higher than annual salary raises, childcare costing like renting another apartment each month, per child, has become the norm Spend enough time in a major US metropolin and you figure its about 50/50 people with very high income, and people who's family is funding their lifestyle
    • mrbombastic 2y ago
      As someone who lived in SF on around 90k a year, I am doubtful this is true even if that was a few years back.
  • wnolens 2y ago
    If you live in NYC and want to own where your family can live on a single income, then it's important to be north of 300k.
  • laweijfmvo 2y ago
    For me, it’s knowing that with a little hard work and a bit more luck in the stock market, I can FIRE after 5 years and actually enjoy my life while I’m still young…
  • ptmcc 2y ago
    More money now means less/no work later, whether its something more flexible or just earlier retirement. With the way compounding works, highly paid years when you're young and can invest much of it sets you up for financial independence and much less money stress for the rest of your entire life, no matter what you want to do. I don't worry about getting fired or laid off or the stress of finding the next job because there is no financial stress about it. Plus in my career so far, the best paying jobs have also been the best culture and WLB. People incorrectly think these big tech jobs are a constant long hours grind. IME, the absolute worst working hours and culture have been in startups and small businesses, with lower comp and equity lottery tickets with an EV of 0. I'm not a maximize comp at all costs robot, but it's a big big factor. I'm selling my time and labor and I want to get a good value for it while I can. There's no guarantees these 300k+ years will continue. Get it while the gettin's good.
• ska 2y ago
  Two tried and tested methods, neither guaranteed of course. 1) Be better than the overwhelming majority of your peers, and be noticed for this. You are quite likely to find interesting opportunities come your way. I do mean overwhelming though - small fraction of a percent. 2) Specialize in something most people can’t or won’t do. This includes difficult, obscure, and unpleasant work. In both cases some of the biggest $ comes from independent consulting, once you’ve built up a network and a reputation for fixing a particular pain point corporations have (bill for value, of course).
  • mitthrowaway2 2y ago
    Even if you're uniquely good at what you do, a lot of companies won't reward it. You do still have to look hard for those opportunities.
    • asveikau 2y ago
      A lot of people who are very good at what they do have a hard time selling it. A lot of people who are good at selling it are not actually accomplishing much. So there is often a gap between perception of high performers and actual high performers.
      • peterb0yd 2y ago
        Solution: partner with a sales/biz person and start a consultancy.
    • ska 2y ago
      If you are actually that good, opportunities will tend to appear. You may not realize or pursue them, but they often do.
  • slashdave 2y ago
    I appreciate the sentiment, but I'll add that it is possible for difficult and obscure work to be quite pleasant, if you have the right skill set.
• karuizawa 2y ago
  It's even possible to work at FAANG without working there
  • aeyes 2y ago
    But will you make FAANG salaries as an external? At my work these are the worst paid employees.
• chollida1 2y ago
  Sure, if you work at many hedge fund you'll make similar money, and likely more if you are good at the job and the fund has success. One other nice thing is that instead of restricted stock you get actual money. And generally the money will be locked up for less time than the 4 year vesting that these companies often follow. And on top of that you can usually invest your money fee free in your own fund to help juice your returns. The downside is that there is almost certainly going to be more stress on you and probably no where to hide if you want to just rest and vest. Your team and company will likely be pretty small and everyone will be very aware of what everyone's contribution to the company's success.
  • makestuff 2y ago
    The other downside is that it is harder to break into because there are less roles.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • packetlost 2y ago
    It's pretty hard to get into these IME. I'm considered a top-performer at the deep tech company I currently work at, and interviewed at a hedge fund awhile back. The process was way less intense than what I would expect a big tech co. interview to be. I made it to the top three candidates, but didn't get it. In hindsight, the role wouldn't have been a good fit, it was "higher up in the stack" than I prefer to be, which is also what they said. I think you need to be a pretty unique individual to succeed in environments like that. Most people I know break down under intense pressure when shit hits the fan, even if they're wildly competent. I can only assume it's that much more intense when tons of money is at stake.
    • diggan 2y ago
      I'm not sure it's enough to experience something once and then assume it looks like that across the industry, it's very context-dependent. While I've done zero attempts to work at any hedge fund, I know plenty of people who both had success when wanting to join one (even though some of them were under-qualified) and people who failed (some who were over-qualified).
• ainiriand 2y ago
  I saw a 450k for a C++ dev in a HFT firm in Switzerland.
  • sureglymop 2y ago
    Never saw anything like this (also in Switzerland). Seems also especial hard to find a Rust job here (which is just what's most fun these days).
  • borroka 2y ago
    Apart from the fact that the only truth comes from the W2 tax document or equivalent, FAANGs jobs are, in general and in the grand scheme of things, fairly accessible, while some very high-paying jobs people are talking about here are the equivalent of "I saw someone making 5 million USD per year playing soccer".
  • zerr 2y ago
    I've never seen a HFT opening that didn't require existing HFT experience :) Similar to game dev positions, but these pay pennies of course.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• Volrath89 2y ago
  overemployment in multiple 100k-150k year full remote jobs as a sr engineer 2 is easy to do, 3 is manageable. I've heard of people doing more than 3, but most I've personally seen someone do is 3.
  • plicense 2y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted - this is literally what two of the people I know do. They actually make more than what I make at a FAANG. The real kicker? One of their jobs is a contractual position and so they opened up a business for it and hiring family members as employees to save on taxes. So the take home pay is actually higher than me. Doing so however carries a lot of risk and one needs to have a certain mentality to be able to actually do it (I certainly don't have that).
• Rastonbury 2y ago
  Did you check levels.fyi? Companies like Databricks, Roblox, Rppling, Plaid, Airtable etc
• nickdothutton 2y ago
  Be a consultant/contractor for a company who pimps you out to rich customers on a cost-plus basis. They don’t care if you bill them a million a year or more so long as the end customer is re-billed (at their agreed mark-up). High skill, niche, high pressure (although you can always quit and run a cafe if it gets too much).
• unregistereddev 2y ago
  Anecdote: I'm a Sr. Staff Engineer at a large employer in a LCOL city. Typical middle class houses cost $300k - $500k here, with luxury houses costing roughly $1m and small starter homes costing $200k (just using real estate as a rough proxy for cost of living). My base salary is $150k/yr. My cash bonus maxes out somewhere around $80k/yr, and typically falls in the $50k - 70k range. I also receive equity worth roughly $12k - $15k per year. Counting in the value of benefits, my comp package is worth roughly $280k - $300k/yr. I am extremely well paid for the area I live in. It's very unlikely that I could make more money without moving to a different metro, getting lucky with a remote position, or going into niche contracting. Just throwing this out there, because a $250k salary (plus bonus) is doing well even in a HCOL area.
  • orochimaaru 2y ago
    [flagged]
    • coev 2y ago
      Tax rates are marginal, this is wrong.
    • TimPC 2y ago
      You don't understand how tax brackets work. You never make less money by moving up a bracket. The bracket rate only applies to income within the bracket.
      • medvezhenok 2y ago
        The more correct statement is "you never pay more in taxes by moving up a bracket" - though even that is not correct in all cases. There are a lot of things (IETC for example, or benefits, or health insurance) which have $ cutoffs. Or tax breaks (i.e. electric vehicle credit) that only apply below a certain income. Exceeding those fixed points can certainly make you make less money. One thing I ran into recently was fiscal incentives for homeownership (though not directly related to taxes) - there is a cutoff at a certain income level where if you stay below it you get a $10K credit towards closing costs. The tax code is full of things like that.
• totallywrong 2y ago
  There's also the option of making 120k or so working remotely while living in a LCOL country. You end up with about the same purchasing power.
  • toasterlovin 2y ago
    FWIW I think having your descendants live in a HCOL country is underrated.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• gigatexal 2y ago
  Maybe the thing to be focusing on is maximizing savings on the high average salaries that we all can command instead of trying to maximize earnings. Controlling spending is something one can control to some extent once the necessities are paid for. And then that’s the way to accrue and stay wealthy or become independently wealthy over time.
  • callalex 2y ago
    I’ll be sure to tell that to my landlord.
    • gigatexal 2y ago
      > Controlling spending is something one can control to some extent once the necessities are paid for. ...
• oarla 2y ago
  Tangential to this topic, but are there publicly traded companies that pay only in stocks? I'm curious to know if someone who gets paid only in stocks will come out ahead in terms of taxes they owe than someone getting a comparable base pay.
  • alemanek 2y ago
    I don’t see how it would be any different for US taxes. When publicly traded stock vests you are taxed on value of the stock at that time as income. So, it is treated the same as if you received it as cash compensation for tax purposes. I can’t speak to non-public company stock though.
  • simantel 2y ago
    RSUs are taxed as income when they vest, it's only capital gains that are treated differently, so there wouldn't really be much benefit.
  • s3graham 2y ago
    I remember hearing that it was possible at Netflix a long time ago, but I assume not any more.
  • sulam 2y ago
    Actually yes, but you won’t find engineers compensated that way. Usually it’s the CEO. They will take a symbolic base salary (often they will say $1 but HR forces it to be minimum wage behind the scenes) and get paid with stock. The trick is that it’s not RSUs, so not regular income. Instead it’s some form of option (I am not a tax attorney so I hesitate to state the type of option, there’s a variety of them that are used with different limitations). I believe they exercise 83(b) style to avoid AMT as well. As usual, you need to already have a lot of money to make this work. Tax avoidance is amazingly accessible once you have enough money. One trick I could do, but don’t — my bank gives me a line of credit based on assets they manage for me. I could quit my job and easily live for years just using the LoC and report zero income other than passive income from rebalancing trades (which are very minimal).
    • 2y ago
• ziggymo 2y ago
  Yes: https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/ https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/
• ai4ever 2y ago
  FANG envy and fomo. ladder climbing. dont compare yourself with others. focus on your art. be a craftsman at whatever you do. eventually opportunities will beckon or not, and either is fine.
• iamleppert 2y ago
  I made $1.5 million last year selling online data engineering courses.
  • felideon 2y ago
    I was recently wondering if people can still make good money this way, with the proliferation and noise out there of online courses.
  • dbancajas 2y ago
    Would you be willing to teach me how to do this. Develop a course from my expertise (programming/python/whatever) for like 20% of the profits?
• GlenTheMachine 2y ago
  Civil servants living in the DC or SF metro areas max out at about $195k not including benefits. The benefits include an actual pension, really good health insurance, and 1-1 salary matching into a 401(k)-like retirement fund (the TSP). Also, you're actually expected to work 40 hours a week and generally not more, and you're expected to take all your vacation. It takes a while to get to that level, or you need to get hired directly into a GS-15 equivalent position. But it's doable, especially at an agency that does technical work (eg NASA, NOAA, DOE, parts of the DOD, etc.)
  • mettamage 2y ago
    This is being a software engineer?
    • GlenTheMachine 2y ago
      At this point you'd typically be managing a team of software developers. But yes.
  • jotux 2y ago
    Just going to jot down some thoughts about this, as it's something I'm very familiar with. GS-15s aren't particularly common (fedscope data says 3.1% of federal employees are GS-15) and overwhelmingly they are supervisory positions (or more commonly supervisor-of-supervisors). Even if you do find a non-supervisor GS-15, the federal government mostly contracts development, so it's exceptionally rare to find a federal engineering position that does something other than contract oversight (generically called acquisition). I'm not saying those positions don't exist, they are just rare, and typically reserved for promotions from within the agency or federal government. Also, since GS-15 is so senior in the federal government, even if the position is technical it will start to be political. Pay is pretty low for new grads and experienced engineers, but decent when you're in the ~3-8 year range of experience. Most agencies are hiring new grads at GS-7 or GS-9 (in SF that's $61k to $75k to start) which is a joke. So even if you can get on at a federal agency as a GS-14 or GS-15 level, you'll have an exceptionally hard time hiring new engineers. Pay at the high end, especially in HCOL areas, very quickly hits the congressional limit and makes it pointless to seek promotion (Look at the SF are GS-14 table: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/24Tables/html/SF.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... ). You can theorhetically bonus up to 20-25%, and I've heard that some intelligence agencies just do that across the board, but most agencies are probably giving a 2-3% bonuses each year. This is a sad and interesting factoid: Long ago congress passed a law saying they need to track federal vs private sector pay and adjust the pay to federal employees to match that. Of course, there is an exception that allows the president to disband this requirement in case of national emergency. So now every year the president literally writes a letter declaring a national emergency and manually decides what the pay increase will be, which is always significantly lower than what is recommended. Here are the national emergency letters from 2023 and 2022, but they have been issued by every president for decades now: 2023: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/08/31/letter-to-the-speaker-of-the-house-and-the-president-of-the-senate-on-the-alternative-plan-for-pay-adjustments-for-civilian-federal-employees-2/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action... 2022: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/08/31/letter-to-the-speaker-of-the-house-of-representatives-and-the-president-of-the-senate-on-the-alternative-plan-for-pay-adjustments-for-civilian-federal-employees/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... Benefits are good, but not amazing. Yes, there is a pension and a wide variety of health insurance options, but they're mediocre compared to what a lot of high-paying tech jobs offer. TSP is basically vanguard with lower fees and a 4% match. You can look at the healthcare options here: https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/healthcare/plan-information/compare-plans/ https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/healthcare/plan-inf... The 40-hour work week it completely true. If you're trying to work overtime, you'll actively be discouraged and told to stop it and go home. There is generally support for telework, but it's very political, and who knows if it will get killed in the future. Lots of agencies, especially the agencies that need a lot of technical work, will require you get a security clearance and that comes with it's own considerations. Drug use and foreign contacts are a big problem and makes recruiting even more difficult. It's possible to find a job at some agencies working on stuff that feels very rewarding and very important, but you will always constantly feel like the bureaucracy is constantly fighting you.
• chasd00 2y ago
  If you're good at networking and making relationships and have technical skills you can go pretty far in a consulting firm. You have to treat the job like building a startup though, complete with finding the right people, marketing, skills/market fit etc. There's no real cap on how much money you can make in the consulting world, it all revolves around how much you can make for the firm. If you make the firm a ton of money and you tell them to give you your cut they will (or at least negotiate). It can be stressful though because, on the other hand, if you don't land good projects and keep your utilization up ( % of time you charge to clients ) then you're costing them money and there's not a lot of grace for that, or really anything besides billing hours, in the industry.
• keiferski 2y ago
  It's interesting how so many people have an aversion to being a business owner / entrepreneur, and will instead put in so much effort to optimize being a well-paid employee, instead of learning how to start and run a business. These salaries listed are great salaries, no doubt, but they are not dramatically more than say, a guy running a successful local plumbing business. And the ceiling is limited as an employee, whereas it's virtually unlimited as a business owner. If you aren't a shoo-in at FAANG and you want to make that kind of money, your best bet is to learn how to start and run a business. I don't mean try to launch a billion dollar social app that needs venture funding. I mean a SAAS that solves a boring problem for other businesses with money to spend.
  • Rinzler89 2y ago
    > instead of learning how to start and run a business Because the stress and risks of running a small business as a solo inexperienced first time business owner are insane compared to a regular 9-5. Especially if you start hiring other people, your liability then increases 10 fold as now anything can happen with them (sick leave, absenteism, low performance, sabotage, etc) but you're still bound to the same deadlines you agreed with your customers or you'll get sued for damages by them. As an employee you have some basic rights and protections from the state on the limits your employer can squeeze from you, more or less, depending on where you live. As a contractor or company however, you don't, and can be fully liable in court for your failures to deliver regardless of your personal circumstances. Unless you know what you're getting into and have the know-how, experience, or mentorship, it's not worth it in most cases.
    • keiferski 2y ago
      I get that, but if you’re trying to get a job at one of the best paying companies in the world, is the stress level actually that different? And there are plenty of examples (search on HN for them) of people running one person internet businesses and making a healthy living.
      • brigadier132 2y ago
• angarg12 2y ago
  I just wrapped up a long job search process, where I got offers from a handful of companies. I currently work at FAANG, so I was looking for a pay bump. The only companies that could beat my current comp are other big tech and finance, but there were a couple of surprises along the way. For example, a Tier 3 (i.e. you never heard about them) company offered me 450k TC for a Staff level position. This compares to the 500k TC for a senior level position at FAANG. I also interviewed for a Startup that offered 650k TC for a Principal level, although the stocks were paper money. To your point, "random" companies can come close to FAANG salaries for high enough levels, but it's far from a given. In fact I'd say most random companies probably top in the 200k range. If you are interested just start every conversation with a recruiter asking for their comp range. I found these days almost all recruiters answer, and then you can decide if it is worth your time to go ahead.
  • y-c-o-m-b 2y ago
    What in the world... I'm a FAANG employee - I think I'm around 18 years of experience now (I stopped counting) - with a great resume (or so I'm told), and I can't even get 100K jobs to respond to me let alone FAANG jobs. I'm talking about the initial step too; I've had zero interviews or screenings.
    • angarg12 2y ago
      That sounds odd. With that much experience you should at least be getting offers in the 200k range easily. Are you cold applying or using referrals? I found these days CVs get screened by software that's very sensitive to keywords, and it's very easy to get auto-rejected. I documented my process of getting job offers here, you can check it out in case it helps https://www.teamblind.com/post/My-experience-getting-offers-in-2024-nO7wjJxJ https://www.teamblind.com/post/My-experience-getting-offers-...
      • avn2109 2y ago
        This is a pro Blind post and I appreciate that you took the time to write it up in such detail :)
• kfrzcode 2y ago
  Stock values can plummet.
• __mharrison__ 2y ago
  I have made decent money working for a company that went public. (Remember to sell ASAP unless you are so confident in the stock that you purchase additional shares with your own $). I do pretty well doing my own thing. But there was a ramp-up, and it wasn't overnight (much like some LI influencers would have you believe). Regarding the effort of creating your own thing, yes, there is a lot of non-sexy stuff that no one talks about because it is non-sexy. An additional benefit for me is flexibility. Being able to go to my kid's school function or help coach a team is more important to me than professional accolades. As far as the work. Yes, it is a lot of work. But theoretically, you are doing your own thing because you like it. My work is generally self-motivating. I can't say the same about when I worked for others.
• neilv 2y ago
  Yes. I've seen a few in the last couple years: one hard science/tech company, one tech infrastructure company taking on a huge established player, one AI-ish company (but suddenly had a shakeup with senior exodus to hotter AI companies). Non-AI, I got a written offer (for a key T-shaped hands-on technical role in a special unit of a financial institution), for which TC was (put very roughly) about halfway between Google L6 and where non-FAANG IC TC generally tops out. Since you're asking about "non-FAANG", a few comments about that, using one offer as an example... First, requirements: making a lot of money now is higher priority for me than it has been in the past (since I'd previously made money way too low of a priority, and now catching up to do), and FAANG-like TC is a solution, but aspects of culture and mission are still also very important. Some ways that particular financial institution offer was more attractive than FAANG: 1. Every single person I talked with seemed genuine, honest, smart, and down-to-earth, and like they'd be great to work with, not mercenary/arrogant/oblivious like I've seen from some FAANG people. 2. The interview process was collegial and two-way. And some asked some very good questions, including questions that I think would never occur to Leetcode interviewers to ask, and the "correct answer" wasn't in the FAANG interview prep books for people to memorize/practice. 3. A higher executive themself met with me for a substantial meeting, was very smart and straight-talking about everything, and then also brought up growth opportunity they had in mind. In hindsight, I probably should've accepted, but three of the main reasons at the time that I declined: 1. Leadership of my then-employer assured me that a showstopper organizational issue I raised would be fixed, and I felt an obligation to my colleagues to stay and help fix it. (That was my values-based choice, given the information I had at the time.) 2. The compensation was structured in a convoluted way (more complicated than FAANG TC), and the net effect was that there'd be almost no financial quality of life improvement for close to a year. So I'd be working like crazy, like at a startup (but without a startup lottery ticket), yet, although I'd be working for a big financial institution with a gazillion dollars, I wouldn't immediately have enough money and sense of income security to upgrade from a problematic early-startup-grade apartment in a VHCOLA. Buying a fleet of Brooks Brothers no-iron dress shirts would feel like an investment towards the future bonuses, and I'd just have to make sure my old radiator didn't burst and ruin everything in my closet again, until I could find a sufficiently low-risk way to upgrade lifestyle. :) 3. Once the offer was in writing, I got handed off to dealing directly with large corporate HR processes, which had a very different feel from the people I'd been talking with, and my spidey sense (battle scars) tingled. (Not potentially Kafkaesque bureaucracy for bad reasons, like some companies, but maybe the effect of decades of evolution of highly-regulated large business bureaucracy.) Not the kind of thing you want to see, right after you see that the TC structure still isn't going to make you feel financially comfortable anytime soon. This was intuition rather than hard information, but I hadn't yet gotten that disconcerting feeling from Google (where they'd grown up with a Summer Camp for Stanford Students focus on employee happiness, and where I imagine I might be able to find a progressive policy or person who is able help with a bureaucratic machine dilemma, if ever needed). When asking about maximizing your TC, consider whether that's your only requirement, and what qualities of FAANG or FAANG-like-TC companies you have to accept to get that money.
• thecleaner 2y ago
  The work that you do is also different. The level of engg at your avg startup never evolves beyond CRUD shit shovelling. At FAANG its a different story at virtually all levels. For example at your avg startups you worry about which latest GraphQL technology to learn. As Staff at a FAANG you realize how the graphQL engines work and can pretty much critique the design choices made in each. A Staff at avg startup is more like L5 at Google or L6 at Amazon. Having said that, relaize that if you become that good at the craft, its better to found a tech startup. Take the example of DGraph if you are looking for a blueprint. You have got founders advantage because of your deep expertise. And tbh, its in the Faang's interest to keep you on the payroll.
• anothername12 2y ago
  Regular jack off mid western SWE, here. I come to these threads and cry.
  • goatking 2y ago
    Canadian SWE here, who works for half the money that my US colleagues get (same team, same project...): you are not alone.
    • yamazakiwi 2y ago
      At least you're a SWE :)
• mandeepj 2y ago
  > $1mil in stock for 4 years Those are just golden handcuffs! How many of the hired employees get to complete the vesting period?
• Bluescreenbuddy 2y ago
  Those salaries are inflated by RSUs
  • borroka 2y ago
    RSUs are income and the expected value must be factored in when discussing the total compensation offered. Those are not the options that LLM-wrapper companies sling around like candy at Halloween.
  • VirusNewbie 2y ago
    yes, that is true. My target comp is around $370k. My actual comp this year will be ~470k due to stock increase of my initial grant. Eventually it will normalize closer to the lower end as my large initial grant is replaced by refreshers, unless the stock continues to go up dramatically, which is unlikely.
• heurist 2y ago
  I have near-FAANG base plus bonus working as a manager/tech lead at non-FAANG in a series B tech startup focused on industrial production (keeping it vague). It is well funded by tech elites and pays more than a comparable company would pay, and I've been here for a few years. I don't have anywhere near FAANG equity potential.
• hintymad 2y ago
  > For example, a Staff Engineer at an avg startup might get $250k base salary, in a HCOL area and maybe a 10-20% bonus. I think you are taking it in the wrong way. A startup has lower mean income but can have a much higher return in the future. Most startups are also cash strained, so you won't get as much cash for your income. I'd suggest you look into the expected return of your startup instead, and the take into at least the following situations: - Your peers. Do you get to build lasting relationship with truly amazing peers? With such peers, you won't regret it even if your startup fails as you will have great experience, let alone your career will likely take off in the near future. - The problem space. Does the problem you solve inspire you? - The potential of your startup. You get to to evaluate the potential continuously, as the situation of a startup changes constantly. The good news is that a startup is usually quite transparent. You get to know how your company performs easily and how the founders lead too. - Know yourself. How much risk can you take? How optimistic are you? And etc - Your expected income. Take your equity into consideration, but multiply the value with a probability of success in a given time frame. For example, I've never been a big risk taker, but I've made peace with it. Instead, I picked the top (or I thought so) late-stage startups in a category that I like, and I picked the startups that built the products that I used daily. Also, I focus on the startups that have potential scales to build my technical and product chops, as I'm interested in build general abstractions and systems, and am not patient or excited to deal with nitty-gritty details of a customer-facing product. I didn't become filthy rich of course, but my life has been exceedingly comfortable so far with me almost always focusing on building the things I like.
• JSoet 2y ago
  This article may also be of interest to you if you hadn't seen it: https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal-nature-of-tech-compensation https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/trimodal-nature-o...
• link98 2y ago
  I'm a software engineer from China, my annual salary is only 5w USD (which is not a very low salary for software engineers in China), but I need to work more than 12h per day (so tired). This post is very useful for me, thanks a lot. If you want to earn ( correspondingly ) such a high income in China, you can basically only do so by joining a startup or starting your own business.
• tomtomtomtomtom 2y ago
  build an indie saas product
• JSDevOps 2y ago
  In the UK, the tech industry is struggling because the US innovates, China replicates, the EU regulates, and the UK stagnates. As a result, no one in the UK tech sector is earning anywhere near the levels seen in these other regions.