7 ms·

If you're a halfway decent engineer, you can make north of 180k/yr at Google/MSFT/Facebook. You can also do this in a market like Seattle where there is no inc

If you're a halfway decent engineer, you can make north of 180k/yr at Google/MSFT/Facebook. You can also do this in a market like Seattle where there is no income tax. Serious question, who in their right mind would take a paltry 1.5% equity and <= 130k/yr for these salary numbers at the level of talent these startups are seeking?

opendais 12y ago
People Google/MSFT/Facebook won't hire. People who wouldn't want to work at #LargeCorp.
- optimiz3 12y ago
  I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. The people who would make it through are going to demand founder-level equity to compensate for the risk associated with the lack of money being offered.
  - opendais 12y ago
    > I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. I basically told a #LargeCorp to fuck off, politely, when they told me they wanted to do a tech screen during business hours [which would mean taking PTO off for it]. I've never had that issue with startups and/or small companies. They've been willing to cooperate and start things off at 4pm. I highly suspect I'm not the only person that isn't willing to take time off "for the chance to work at #LargeCorp".
    - seivan 12y ago
      I see that way as well. Good to see I am not alone.
    - chillacy 12y ago
      To be fair, nobody at LargeCorp wants to stay late to interview someone who probably won't even be on their team. It's a chore at that scale
      - opendais 12y ago
        If its so complicated you "finish late" if you start at 4pm? Well, I think your tech screening process could use some work then. There is something wrong if you can't finish a tech screen in an hour imo.
        chillacy 12y ago
        Not defending it, just mentioning why it might be that way at large corporations. Also note that it'll take the interviewer extra time to do their writeup afterwards, so it does amount to extra work on their part. At smaller companies they'll probably have less bureaucracy, so they can make hiring decisions quicker with less paperwork. Also team members will care a great deal more, since they'll be personally working with the candidate.
  - vonmoltke 12y ago
    > I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. Considering how little Google and Facebook care about false negatives, even seemingly priding themselves on having candidates interview for the same job two, three, or four times over years, I doubt that demographic is really that small.
lpolovets 12y ago
I worked at MSFT and GOOG, and also joined two startups when they were ~15 people. Google and Microsoft pay well and have great perks. Startups can't really compete with that. However, at a startup 1) people tend to learn a lot more and learn it faster, 2) people are closer on a personal level, 3) people usually have a lot more impact, 4) there's much less bureaucracy, etc. At this point, if I really needed money, I'd try to go back to Google, but if $120k was sufficient -- and it's more than sufficient for most people -- I'd prefer to work at a startup. Even if the equity is worth nothing, it can be a wonderful experience.
scarmig 12y ago
Serious question: is 180k base now actually the going rate at G/MS/FB for a mid-career engineer?
- optimiz3 12y ago
  It was several years ago, I'm assuming the market has only strengthened.
- steven777400 12y ago
  I have 10-15 years of experience and my base offer from MSFT (Bellevue) was $110k/year.
  - Bahamut 12y ago
    That seems to jive with all I've heard with Google from some friends & acquaintences who are stellar in the Valley - is there anyone else at one of these big companies who can confirm/deny?
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - smm2000 12y ago
    You were low-balled or have particularly shitty resume. 110k is offer for new grads. The right approach to maximizing offer is to get 5-6 offers, do bidding war between companies you do not want to work for and then ask the company you want to work for to match the highest offer.
    - tptacek 12y ago
      Microsoft semi-(in)famously had a strategy of paying 70% of market salary.
      - daniellorenc 12y ago
        When I was at Microsoft ~3 years ago, the strategy was to pay at the 70th percentile of market salaries, not pay 70% of the current market salary.
patio11 12y ago
Startups get to pick their answer for this question, or die. One option is to develop sources of talent which Google's hiring process doesn't reach. They are helped in this by the fact that Google's hiring process is, as has been widely reported, a disaster. Another option is telling folks that working at a startup with not be like working at BigCo. This is sometimes explained using some or all of: you'll be part of the family, work on things that directly impact users, learn quickly about a wide variety of topics rather than getting to be the world's leading expert in configuring BigCo's proprietary form generator and then repeating that every two weeks for the rest of your career, get to live an extended adolescence during your tenure there (foosballs and drinking and laundry taken care of for you!), etc.
blazespin 12y ago
Simple answers, all startups are born not equal. When you take a job at one (assuming you're talented and can work at a Google) you are looking at the particular poker hand that startup has been dealt. Some are worth 1.5%/130K per year, some are not. If you can't read poker hands like that, you are pretty screwed no matter what.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
You don't have to work at any of those places to earn a better deal than what these startups offer. I certainly don't work at those places, and it's unlikely I ever will for a variety of reasons, and I'd be taking a steep (> 15%) pay cut to work for $130K/yr. Compared with my current salary, any equity would have to be worth at least approximately $25K/yr (before any discounts against the lost income are applied, so it's a low figure). At 1.5% equity, that's a valuation of about $2M/yr for the startup. That's not a lot compared to the exits these companies may make, but it's not insubstantial, either, and is probably an aggressively optimistic estimate given the preference for investors, dilution, etc.
rgovind 12y ago
Is this figure including bonus and stock? In either case, even if you are decent engineer, I think getting in is troublesome...although not tough. I believe lots of times, interviewers are not judging the candidates right...so getting in becomes tough.
argonaut 12y ago
I personally know someone who has worked at a company for the past 3 years, making ~100k base for <1% equity (4 year vesting). When he joined the company, everyone knew it would IPO in a few years. The company recently IPOed. He made the equivalent of $400k/year (base + 3 year vesting of equity), which is AFAIK more than what his friends who went to Google/FB/etc. make. Of course, this involved taking on a small risk that the company would not end up IPOing. But everyone in the industry knew it was on its way up, and the company was already mid-sized when he joined.
- itchyouch 12y ago
  Sounds like Twitter.
  - argonaut 12y ago
    Wrong. AFAIK Twitter doesn't pay that low in cash.
danielweber 12y ago
Glassdoor doesn't have Microsoft paying that much in Bellevue (I chose Bellevue because of other guy in the thread). Here they are sorted high to low: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-microsoft-salary-SRCH_KO0,27_SDAS.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-microsof... I suspect so many salary numbers I hear on the street are bullshit, either designed to get me lower my price or raise my price against my best interest.
virmundi 12y ago
Perhaps someone who never wants to work at those companies. I presently am trying to start my own company. I make $0 a year. Still, I'd rather work at Liberty Mutual than at Google/MSFT/FB. There is an ethos for those companies that I just don't like. I'd feel slimy working there. I know they make some interesting products, and employ smart people, but they feel like they are exploitive even at their salaries, especially with the H1B visa shit they're pulling.

opendais 12y ago

People Google/MSFT/Facebook won't hire. People who wouldn't want to work at #LargeCorp.

optimiz3 12y ago
I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. The people who would make it through are going to demand founder-level equity to compensate for the risk associated with the lack of money being offered.
- opendais 12y ago
  > I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. I basically told a #LargeCorp to fuck off, politely, when they told me they wanted to do a tech screen during business hours [which would mean taking PTO off for it]. I've never had that issue with startups and/or small companies. They've been willing to cooperate and start things off at 4pm. I highly suspect I'm not the only person that isn't willing to take time off "for the chance to work at #LargeCorp".
  - seivan 12y ago
    I see that way as well. Good to see I am not alone.
  - chillacy 12y ago
    To be fair, nobody at LargeCorp wants to stay late to interview someone who probably won't even be on their team. It's a chore at that scale
    - opendais 12y ago
      If its so complicated you "finish late" if you start at 4pm? Well, I think your tech screening process could use some work then. There is something wrong if you can't finish a tech screen in an hour imo.
      - chillacy 12y ago
        Not defending it, just mentioning why it might be that way at large corporations. Also note that it'll take the interviewer extra time to do their writeup afterwards, so it does amount to extra work on their part. At smaller companies they'll probably have less bureaucracy, so they can make hiring decisions quicker with less paperwork. Also team members will care a great deal more, since they'll be personally working with the candidate.
- vonmoltke 12y ago
  > I suspect this is a small demographic - chances are startups don't want to hire people that wouldn't make it through a Google/MSFT/Facebook tech-screen. Considering how little Google and Facebook care about false negatives, even seemingly priding themselves on having candidates interview for the same job two, three, or four times over years, I doubt that demographic is really that small.

lpolovets 12y ago

I worked at MSFT and GOOG, and also joined two startups when they were ~15 people. Google and Microsoft pay well and have great perks. Startups can't really compete with that. However, at a startup 1) people tend to learn a lot more and learn it faster, 2) people are closer on a personal level, 3) people usually have a lot more impact, 4) there's much less bureaucracy, etc. At this point, if I really needed money, I'd try to go back to Google, but if $120k was sufficient -- and it's more than sufficient for most people -- I'd prefer to work at a startup. Even if the equity is worth nothing, it can be a wonderful experience.

scarmig 12y ago

Serious question: is 180k base now actually the going rate at G/MS/FB for a mid-career engineer?

optimiz3 12y ago
It was several years ago, I'm assuming the market has only strengthened.
steven777400 12y ago
I have 10-15 years of experience and my base offer from MSFT (Bellevue) was $110k/year.
- Bahamut 12y ago
  That seems to jive with all I've heard with Google from some friends & acquaintences who are stellar in the Valley - is there anyone else at one of these big companies who can confirm/deny?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- smm2000 12y ago
  You were low-balled or have particularly shitty resume. 110k is offer for new grads. The right approach to maximizing offer is to get 5-6 offers, do bidding war between companies you do not want to work for and then ask the company you want to work for to match the highest offer.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Microsoft semi-(in)famously had a strategy of paying 70% of market salary.
    - daniellorenc 12y ago
      When I was at Microsoft ~3 years ago, the strategy was to pay at the 70th percentile of market salaries, not pay 70% of the current market salary.

patio11 12y ago

Startups get to pick their answer for this question, or die. One option is to develop sources of talent which Google's hiring process doesn't reach. They are helped in this by the fact that Google's hiring process is, as has been widely reported, a disaster. Another option is telling folks that working at a startup with not be like working at BigCo. This is sometimes explained using some or all of: you'll be part of the family, work on things that directly impact users, learn quickly about a wide variety of topics rather than getting to be the world's leading expert in configuring BigCo's proprietary form generator and then repeating that every two weeks for the rest of your career, get to live an extended adolescence during your tenure there (foosballs and drinking and laundry taken care of for you!), etc.

blazespin 12y ago

Simple answers, all startups are born not equal. When you take a job at one (assuming you're talented and can work at a Google) you are looking at the particular poker hand that startup has been dealt. Some are worth 1.5%/130K per year, some are not. If you can't read poker hands like that, you are pretty screwed no matter what.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

You don't have to work at any of those places to earn a better deal than what these startups offer. I certainly don't work at those places, and it's unlikely I ever will for a variety of reasons, and I'd be taking a steep (> 15%) pay cut to work for $130K/yr. Compared with my current salary, any equity would have to be worth at least approximately $25K/yr (before any discounts against the lost income are applied, so it's a low figure). At 1.5% equity, that's a valuation of about $2M/yr for the startup. That's not a lot compared to the exits these companies may make, but it's not insubstantial, either, and is probably an aggressively optimistic estimate given the preference for investors, dilution, etc.

rgovind 12y ago

Is this figure including bonus and stock? In either case, even if you are decent engineer, I think getting in is troublesome...although not tough. I believe lots of times, interviewers are not judging the candidates right...so getting in becomes tough.

argonaut 12y ago

I personally know someone who has worked at a company for the past 3 years, making ~100k base for <1% equity (4 year vesting). When he joined the company, everyone knew it would IPO in a few years. The company recently IPOed. He made the equivalent of $400k/year (base + 3 year vesting of equity), which is AFAIK more than what his friends who went to Google/FB/etc. make. Of course, this involved taking on a small risk that the company would not end up IPOing. But everyone in the industry knew it was on its way up, and the company was already mid-sized when he joined.

itchyouch 12y ago
Sounds like Twitter.
- argonaut 12y ago
  Wrong. AFAIK Twitter doesn't pay that low in cash.

danielweber 12y ago

Glassdoor doesn't have Microsoft paying that much in Bellevue (I chose Bellevue because of other guy in the thread). Here they are sorted high to low: http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-microsoft-salary-SRCH_KO0,27_SDAS.htm http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/software-engineer-microsof... I suspect so many salary numbers I hear on the street are bullshit, either designed to get me lower my price or raise my price against my best interest.

virmundi 12y ago

Perhaps someone who never wants to work at those companies. I presently am trying to start my own company. I make $0 a year. Still, I'd rather work at Liberty Mutual than at Google/MSFT/FB. There is an ethos for those companies that I just don't like. I'd feel slimy working there. I know they make some interesting products, and employ smart people, but they feel like they are exploitive even at their salaries, especially with the H1B visa shit they're pulling.