Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k(geekwire.com)
geekwire.com
Amazon more than doubles max base pay to $350k
https://www.geekwire.com/2022/amazon-more-than-doubles-max-base-pay-to-350k-for-corporate-and-tech-workers-citing-labor-market/
461 comments
I get at least 5x the emails from Amazon as Google/Microsoft/Facebook. And lately I've told every single one until they have fully remote teams, I'm not interested and to stop emailing me. And yet almost every other week, a new one messages me.
Amazon chickens coming home to roost.
Agree. Looking at HN, Blind, Glassdoor, very rarely do I remember seeing an engineer that would openly state that they love working there.
Plenty of software developers would kill to work for Amazon, sure the work conditions and prestige is not as great as the other big companies but Amazon still pays pretty darn well.
The big issue is the developers Amazon wants to hire are not the same as the developers who want to work there, so Amazon is basically paying a huge premium to attract people. That said let's not kid ourselves, the majority of people at Amazon are happy to be there, get paid very well, and are reasonably competent.
The big issue is the developers Amazon wants to hire are not the same as the developers who want to work there, so Amazon is basically paying a huge premium to attract people. That said let's not kid ourselves, the majority of people at Amazon are happy to be there, get paid very well, and are reasonably competent.
I don't know how well that impression is born out by the generally short tenures and increasing growth of base pay that we're observing. Lots of decently large tech firms pay well beyond Amazon's rates and manage to retain people for far longer - this move specifically seems to be highlighting that the compensation Amazon was offering was insufficient for the pain employees were being burdened with.
I do also think FAANG built up a reputation for inaccessibility to intermediate devs which gives them an air of prestige but also significantly impairs their hiring ability.
I do also think FAANG built up a reputation for inaccessibility to intermediate devs which gives them an air of prestige but also significantly impairs their hiring ability.
Clearly with their base pay and RSUs, they still weren't offering enough.
A doubling of base pay means that they realize they have been way off the mark.
A doubling of base pay means that they realize they have been way off the mark.
I'm a senior SDE (L6) @ AMZN (currently IMDb) with seven years tenure -- opinions my own, obvs. I've had some negative experiences with individuals / organizations over that time, but on balance I can honestly say I love working here. It is quite possible to get maneuvered into a bad situation such that you end up having to leave through no real fault of your own, but it's also possible to find a good fit and do exactly what the motto says: "Work hard, have fun, make history".
I work at Amazon. Less than 2 yoe but is comp is solid, even compared to Goog and Meta, perhaps cause I'm currently top of band.
Wlb is amazing. Did 5-6 hour days on last team. Coworkers were chill. Now I work more (6-7 hour days) cause I'm on a systems team, but I get to learn a lot about how EC2 servers are run. My manager cares about my learning and I get basically an hour a week with the tech lead where I can ask them questions.
Have been able to meet a couple principal engineers and they've even reviewed some of my work.
I have nothing bad to shared about my experience so far.
Did I mention I don't have deadlines?
Wlb is amazing. Did 5-6 hour days on last team. Coworkers were chill. Now I work more (6-7 hour days) cause I'm on a systems team, but I get to learn a lot about how EC2 servers are run. My manager cares about my learning and I get basically an hour a week with the tech lead where I can ask them questions.
Have been able to meet a couple principal engineers and they've even reviewed some of my work.
I have nothing bad to shared about my experience so far.
Did I mention I don't have deadlines?
I would kill to not have deadlines... I also work here heh
Amazon recruiting is a disaster. I’m used to receiving a reach out once or twice a year, but late last year I had at least four recruiters reaching out, three simultaneously. I think one even attempted to automate the process because I received two separate emails from him along with follow ups on each in a matter of four hours, and my replies never got through as they were completely ignored as he continued to follow up (on both original emails) several times over the next week.
> I think one even attempted to automate the process because I received two separate emails from him along with follow ups on each in a matter of four hours, and my replies never got through as they were completely ignored as he continued to follow up (on both original emails) several times over the next week.
This happened to me. I got the exact same recruiting email from the exact same recruiter a week after I had already responded by declining.
This happened to me. I got the exact same recruiting email from the exact same recruiter a week after I had already responded by declining.
Amazon Recruiting is indeed a disaster.
I got approached by an Amazon recruiter, and instead of just ignoring him, I decided to see "what's out there". I'm a staff SWE level at a decent company, so not exactly desperate to leave.
He proposed a hard time for a phone call later that week. I replied saying that I have conflicts at that time, how about we do it next week? Didn't hear back from him for a couple of days, and then he replied saying he's too busy next week. OK then, can you let me know when you're free?
Never heard from him again.
Sounded very unprofessional to me.
I got approached by an Amazon recruiter, and instead of just ignoring him, I decided to see "what's out there". I'm a staff SWE level at a decent company, so not exactly desperate to leave.
He proposed a hard time for a phone call later that week. I replied saying that I have conflicts at that time, how about we do it next week? Didn't hear back from him for a couple of days, and then he replied saying he's too busy next week. OK then, can you let me know when you're free?
Never heard from him again.
Sounded very unprofessional to me.
Nah, they just want to find the people who are enthusiastically looking to join their organization. They want the mindless drone who will do what they're told and when asked to jump, reply with "how high?"
You didn't meet that criteria otherwise you would have bent over backwards to adjust your schedule to make the proposed time, so "obviously" you don't really want this job enough.
You didn't meet that criteria otherwise you would have bent over backwards to adjust your schedule to make the proposed time, so "obviously" you don't really want this job enough.
No, no. Trust me, it's just pure incompetence.
I've been at Amazon for like 4-5 years now. Recruiting quality and practices are widely bemoaned. It sucks on both sides of the fence. We'll sit through brutal interviews because recruiting just throws everything at the wall in hopes something will stick. It's demoralizing for everyone involved.
Even the little things drive me insane. I get emails from lazy, zero-effort recruiters asking if I'd like to join Amazon because "they saw my profile on Linkedin and it looked like a great fit!" Like, holy shit, can you not put in even a little bit of effort? You're just shotgunning canned emails all over the place making us all look like spammy dopes?
Sigh...
I've been at Amazon for like 4-5 years now. Recruiting quality and practices are widely bemoaned. It sucks on both sides of the fence. We'll sit through brutal interviews because recruiting just throws everything at the wall in hopes something will stick. It's demoralizing for everyone involved.
Even the little things drive me insane. I get emails from lazy, zero-effort recruiters asking if I'd like to join Amazon because "they saw my profile on Linkedin and it looked like a great fit!" Like, holy shit, can you not put in even a little bit of effort? You're just shotgunning canned emails all over the place making us all look like spammy dopes?
Sigh...
No joke there about how disorganized they are. At one point a couple of years ago I had 3 different recruiters simultaneously reach out to me to work for Audible for the same role. I wonder if their pay is partially commission-based and they have to be so cut-throat, even against fellow recruiters.
lmao there was a period of time where I'd get 3 or 4 Amazon recruiters at a time emailing me. It started with polite "no thanks, I'm good" and worked to "please stop emailing me". Then when no one would respond to those, I started saying "yes, I'd love to work for you", just so I could get a response from a human and get them to acknowledge my "stop emailing me" requests.
Amazon is the only FAANG recruiter I ignore. Working 60 hour weeks just so I can get PIPed within 9 months of starting? No thanks.
Your mileage may very but I only worked 40 hours a week when I was there and I also got promoted in about a year and a half.
Why did you leave?
GOOG pay + benefits > AMZN. No on-call at GOOG too which is nice and I get to work for Google maps which is like my favorite software application as I use it every time I drive.
I'd consider going back for a fully remote job with like a 35% pay bump though. Although if I'm just going for the money, I'd probably switch to one of the trading firms that have been hounding me. Got one email recently for a fully remote job with compensation wide open (anywhere from 275k-650k+).
I'd consider going back for a fully remote job with like a 35% pay bump though. Although if I'm just going for the money, I'd probably switch to one of the trading firms that have been hounding me. Got one email recently for a fully remote job with compensation wide open (anywhere from 275k-650k+).
You have to understand their concern though, there are so many terrible stories about working for Amazon that it seems to be the expected norm rather than the reverse.
What's even worse is that it permeates throughout the entire company, every division, every org.
You have this article written nearly 7-years ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...
Money quote:
> “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” he said. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”
The culture only seems to have gotten worse.
Another person posted elsewhere but Amazon seems to be doing anything they can but actually fixing their toxic culture.
I've worked one bad job and there's no amount of money I would accept to mitigate the loss in quality of sleep, becoming depressed when going to work, and dreading when I had to communicate with anyone.
What's even worse is that it permeates throughout the entire company, every division, every org.
You have this article written nearly 7-years ago:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-...
Money quote:
> “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” he said. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”
The culture only seems to have gotten worse.
Another person posted elsewhere but Amazon seems to be doing anything they can but actually fixing their toxic culture.
I've worked one bad job and there's no amount of money I would accept to mitigate the loss in quality of sleep, becoming depressed when going to work, and dreading when I had to communicate with anyone.
> Doubt more money is going to fix this though perhaps ...
There's certainly some amount of money that would get me to work for them in the short term. But only if there wasn't a clawback clause that made me lose money if I found the experience unhealthy.
There's certainly some amount of money that would get me to work for them in the short term. But only if there wasn't a clawback clause that made me lose money if I found the experience unhealthy.
Yep, ditto my experience here. Amazon is far and away the company that reaches out most aggressively - which is generally fine - but what's very annoying is that the jobs they want me to apply for are so poorly targeted.
I have probably about a dozen emails from AWS even though I've been doing mobile apps for the past >10 years and that's readily evident if you even bothered looking at my CV.
I can't think of another major company whose recruiters spend so little effort pitching a relevant role to the candidate. At this point I don't even open the emails any more - which seems like it's long-term detrimental to their recruitment efforts overall.
I have probably about a dozen emails from AWS even though I've been doing mobile apps for the past >10 years and that's readily evident if you even bothered looking at my CV.
I can't think of another major company whose recruiters spend so little effort pitching a relevant role to the candidate. At this point I don't even open the emails any more - which seems like it's long-term detrimental to their recruitment efforts overall.
> During the height of the pandemic I got one wanting me to move to Ireland to work in an Amazon office there.
There's probably some engineer out there who's always wanted to live in Ireland. That said, I imagine if you're in the "hire to fire" bucket it would suck extra to be in anouther country with no job.
There's probably some engineer out there who's always wanted to live in Ireland. That said, I imagine if you're in the "hire to fire" bucket it would suck extra to be in anouther country with no job.
We had an office near an Amazon office. I interviewed a lot of people trying to leave Amazon. I don’t ask candidate’s compensation, but a lot of them volunteered it anyway. I was always surprised at how effectively low their comp was in the first few years due to the vesting schedule. The internet is adamant that everyone with FAANG jobs is rolling in TC, but there are a lot of people out there who are getting into FAANG companies (especially Amazon) at lower compensations with the hopes of moving up to those higher levels.
OTOH, the backloaded vesting system works. It was easy to hire people out of their first year at Amazon, but almost impossible to hire someone after a few years when the bulk of their vesting was right around the corner. I talked to a lot of people who admitted being miserable but felt they couldn’t leave until they got the equity that they had been toiling over for the past few years.
Weird situation all around. We eventually reduced our recruiting out of that particular Amazon office because so many of the people coming out of it were deeply disgruntled with the tech industry in general. Really changed my view of Amazon.
OTOH, the backloaded vesting system works. It was easy to hire people out of their first year at Amazon, but almost impossible to hire someone after a few years when the bulk of their vesting was right around the corner. I talked to a lot of people who admitted being miserable but felt they couldn’t leave until they got the equity that they had been toiling over for the past few years.
Weird situation all around. We eventually reduced our recruiting out of that particular Amazon office because so many of the people coming out of it were deeply disgruntled with the tech industry in general. Really changed my view of Amazon.
What is TC?
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TC stands for total compensation - base salary, bonus, and equity.
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This doesn't match my experience. I guess it depends on the role but for engineers it's well known Amazon has been throwing large sign on bonuses to close the vesting gap for years.
For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs.
Is it possible that when folks were voluntarily disclosing comp they were just including base comp and not total comp?
For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs.
Is it possible that when folks were voluntarily disclosing comp they were just including base comp and not total comp?
If you don't mind me asking what is your experience level?
If you're gunning for a job why would you want to represent your comp as lower?
I’ve had a similar experience, albeit with lower TC numbers. The RSUs were backloaded, but there were big cash grants for years 1 and 2 that flattened it out somewhat.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon values their stock grants as if it grows 15% every year. Obviously this is pretty optimistic and makes their offers not directly comparable to other companies that value their stock using current prices.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon values their stock grants as if it grows 15% every year. Obviously this is pretty optimistic and makes their offers not directly comparable to other companies that value their stock using current prices.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Amazon values their stock grants as if it grows 15% every year. Obviously this is pretty optimistic and makes their offers not directly comparable to other companies that value their stock using current prices.
They're easily comparable because current prices incorporate all publicly available information (and even some non-public). If you accept the 15% assumption, you're letting them hoodwink you.
They're easily comparable because current prices incorporate all publicly available information (and even some non-public). If you accept the 15% assumption, you're letting them hoodwink you.
This isn't responsive to my comment. I said "not directly comparable," which is true, because the dollar figures stated for TC have different stock growth models. I agree that current prices are the best available estimate of future performance (i.e., flat growth model) and the optimistic stock valuation Amazon uses is misleading and deliberately so.
When does the 15% come in to play? If your recruiter tells you $xxx in stock, they actually discount that and you get a grant for 15% less shares than current market price?
The signing bonus is some N shares of stock. The $xxx figures in their comp packages are inflated in years 2, 3, and 4 by optimistically valuing those shares.
So, if the recruiter says $500k in RSU, and the stock stays flat for 4 years, the grant is actually only for $425k (or less with compounding)?
Or, are you saying, they justify small grants by telling you the stock will grow?
Or, are you saying, they justify small grants by telling you the stock will grow?
Let's say you're applying for a position where usual FAANG TC is 300k.
Then Amazon recruiter wants to "match" that, so 300 * 4=1200k over 4 years.
Base pay is maxed at 160 (until today's announcement), so 1200k-(160 * 4) = 560k to come up with with stocks and cash bonus.
Let's say Amazon 30 day moving average share price during negotiation is $1200 a share
So now recruiter must make math such that:
- TC stays relatively flat. On year 3 & 4 you get 40% of award, but only 5% year 1 and 15% year. (so a cash bonus to offset year 1 is ~35% of grant amount, and cash bonus offset year 2 is ~25% of grant amount)
- TC assuming 15% growth of stock
So, they'll offer you 220 units:
Year 1:
with only 5% * 220 * 1200=$13k from RSU, you need (300-160-13)=127k cash bonus , now your TC year 1 is 300k.
Year 2:
15% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15=46k from RSU So cash bonus of 94k.
Year 3:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^2=140k RSU that's 300k of TC
Year 4:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^3=160k RSU That's even more, 320k TC \o/
So all the math here is done using fictional share price that grew 1.15^n for each year. But in concrete, your offer says 220 units. If Amazon grew much more than 15% a year, on year 3 you're still making 40% * 220 units, no matter what the share price is.
But the final offer is:
160k / year base, 220 units over 4 year with 5%/15%/40%/40% vesting, and 127k cash bonus year 1 + 94k cash bonus year 2.
Amazon is one of rare FAANG where the RSU offer is given in share count in offer itself, not in $.
Then Amazon recruiter wants to "match" that, so 300 * 4=1200k over 4 years.
Base pay is maxed at 160 (until today's announcement), so 1200k-(160 * 4) = 560k to come up with with stocks and cash bonus.
Let's say Amazon 30 day moving average share price during negotiation is $1200 a share
So now recruiter must make math such that:
- TC stays relatively flat. On year 3 & 4 you get 40% of award, but only 5% year 1 and 15% year. (so a cash bonus to offset year 1 is ~35% of grant amount, and cash bonus offset year 2 is ~25% of grant amount)
- TC assuming 15% growth of stock
So, they'll offer you 220 units:
Year 1:
with only 5% * 220 * 1200=$13k from RSU, you need (300-160-13)=127k cash bonus , now your TC year 1 is 300k.
Year 2:
15% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15=46k from RSU So cash bonus of 94k.
Year 3:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^2=140k RSU that's 300k of TC
Year 4:
40% * 220 * 1200 * 1.15^3=160k RSU That's even more, 320k TC \o/
So all the math here is done using fictional share price that grew 1.15^n for each year. But in concrete, your offer says 220 units. If Amazon grew much more than 15% a year, on year 3 you're still making 40% * 220 units, no matter what the share price is.
But the final offer is:
160k / year base, 220 units over 4 year with 5%/15%/40%/40% vesting, and 127k cash bonus year 1 + 94k cash bonus year 2.
Amazon is one of rare FAANG where the RSU offer is given in share count in offer itself, not in $.
I believe you're agreeing with GP; this is just a more fleshed out concrete example.
From your example, they offer you 220 units, valued at 13+46+140+160 = $359k.
However, if the stock stays perfectly flat, the actual value is $264k (220 * 1200).
From your example, they offer you 220 units, valued at 13+46+140+160 = $359k.
However, if the stock stays perfectly flat, the actual value is $264k (220 * 1200).
Ah you're right, removing the "No, no, no" at top of my comment!
In my case they built in a back loaded effective salary increase rather than being perfectly flat. Cost of living perhaps?
E.g. your example becomes TC (285, 292, 305, 318) or something similar.
Thanks for the example.
I went back to look at the AWS offer I turned down. There was no mention of a 15% assumption anywhere, but it did spell out total RSU, base salary, and first two year bonuses, which ends up making year 1 about 8% more than year 4 for the same stock price.
This seems at odds with what you've presented.
I went back to look at the AWS offer I turned down. There was no mention of a 15% assumption anywhere, but it did spell out total RSU, base salary, and first two year bonuses, which ends up making year 1 about 8% more than year 4 for the same stock price.
This seems at odds with what you've presented.
> So, if the recruiter says $500k in RSU, and the stock stays flat for 4 years, the grant is actually only for $425k (or less with compounding)?
Yes, exactly (less with compounding, about $370k -- see sibling thread).
Yes, exactly (less with compounding, about $370k -- see sibling thread).
Allegedly, if it doesn’t hit the 15% per year, you’ll get a top up refresh for the difference. Except you’re now stuck waiting another year for that to vest.
You don't need to wait according to the changes announced today.
Of course you only get that number if your new target compensation is in line with that number.
So other companies have locked you in to your performance at interview time, while Amazon can give you a 15% paycut each year if your performance isn't high enough to at your offer level.
Of course you only get that number if your new target compensation is in line with that number.
So other companies have locked you in to your performance at interview time, while Amazon can give you a 15% paycut each year if your performance isn't high enough to at your offer level.
> I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k.
I don't understand the appeal of cash signing bonuses. This just seems to me like another way of saying you got hired for a $485k annual salary while giving Amazon the freedom to cut your salary a year from now by up to ~67%. Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base salary that is stickier over the long term?
I don't understand the appeal of cash signing bonuses. This just seems to me like another way of saying you got hired for a $485k annual salary while giving Amazon the freedom to cut your salary a year from now by up to ~67%. Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base salary that is stickier over the long term?
Sounds like a really good way for a manager with a hiring-based OKR to get short term good hiring numbers. Maybe the manager is also planning on leaving or maybe someone else is on the line for retention and this strategically benefits the hiring manager :D
Cash gives you the freedom to diversify. If you really wanted to be all in on Amazon, you could use the cash to buy shares. You get RSUs in the latter years to make up for the lack of cash bonus, which you can hold or sell.
I don't see what downside there is?
I don't see what downside there is?
I think you're comparing a cash bonus to a stock bonus, but my comparison was versus a base salary. Given the choice between base salary $X and cash signing bonus $Y or base salary $(X + Y), it seems like the latter is strictly better.
The bonuses are not traditional bonuses in the sense that they're not guaranteed and based on company performance.
The employment contract is "x per year and an extra y year one" not "x per year and y year one under the right conditions".
It gives them the freedom to not increase your salary or give you more stock, but you should still have a guaranteed known rate for 4 years.
The employment contract is "x per year and an extra y year one" not "x per year and y year one under the right conditions".
It gives them the freedom to not increase your salary or give you more stock, but you should still have a guaranteed known rate for 4 years.
> Why give your future self that risk instead of looking for a higher base salary that is stickier over the long term?
You're exactly right. Signing bonuses - and even equity compensation - are designed to lower your TC over time. The idea is that companies offer a high TC to entice you through the door, with the understanding that at the end of your 4 years your TC will drop precipitously but at that point you'd be too invested/too afraid to interview/etc to leave.
This is why in nearly all companies equity refreshers are always significantly smaller than what would be necessary to keep your TC level. The point is to over several years converge you to a lower TC that is middle of the pack rather than the top-of-band packages FAANGs have to offer to recruit candidates.
It does seem ass backwards - and if you're an engineer who cares a lot about TC (IMO rightly so) and interview well, you will consistently cliff out every 4 years as a result.
You're exactly right. Signing bonuses - and even equity compensation - are designed to lower your TC over time. The idea is that companies offer a high TC to entice you through the door, with the understanding that at the end of your 4 years your TC will drop precipitously but at that point you'd be too invested/too afraid to interview/etc to leave.
This is why in nearly all companies equity refreshers are always significantly smaller than what would be necessary to keep your TC level. The point is to over several years converge you to a lower TC that is middle of the pack rather than the top-of-band packages FAANGs have to offer to recruit candidates.
It does seem ass backwards - and if you're an engineer who cares a lot about TC (IMO rightly so) and interview well, you will consistently cliff out every 4 years as a result.
This is exactly what is happening
Only because I'd rather ask and make sure I'm tracking acronyms properly while reading comments:
TC is "Total Compensation" right? As in salary + equity and other benefits and etc? Or does it usually refer to just cash salary?
TC is "Total Compensation" right? As in salary + equity and other benefits and etc? Or does it usually refer to just cash salary?
TC includes salary, stock, and bonus pre-tax. It doesn’t include 401k, medical, food or other fringe benefits.
It doesn’t include 401k, medical
Ahh interesting, I assumed it included things like bonuses and equity, but am surprised to learn 401k contributions are not considered TC. Is this the case even for matched contributions made by the employer?
Meaning if I contribute x (money I was compensated already as a portion of salary), and employer contributes %/x (money the company effectively "gives" me), is that percentage not considered part of the "TC" terminology? OR am I exhibiting an unfortunate misunderstanding of 401k matches?
Ahh interesting, I assumed it included things like bonuses and equity, but am surprised to learn 401k contributions are not considered TC. Is this the case even for matched contributions made by the employer?
Meaning if I contribute x (money I was compensated already as a portion of salary), and employer contributes %/x (money the company effectively "gives" me), is that percentage not considered part of the "TC" terminology? OR am I exhibiting an unfortunate misunderstanding of 401k matches?
It's a factor one ought to consider - but at the salary ranges that we're typically talking about and at the typical match levels most employers offer, including 401K contributions doesn't change the math much, so it's mostly not counted.
For example, an employer who does a 1:1 match up to the IRS limit would be contributing at most ~$20K to your total comp, but when you're dealing with the rest of the package being in the $500K-1M range it tends to get glossed over.
For example, an employer who does a 1:1 match up to the IRS limit would be contributing at most ~$20K to your total comp, but when you're dealing with the rest of the package being in the $500K-1M range it tends to get glossed over.
Matched contributions to 401k are generally not considered part of total comp because there is no implication that the match can be converted into cash immediately, though this is often the case. Similarly, HSA contributions by the employer usually are not counted as total comp even though it is a form of cash benefit.
The rubric for all of these complicated and indirect forms of compensation is "benefits". These benefits are significantly limited in terms of practical cash value and rules around their use by regulation, whereas there is no bound on TC.
The rubric for all of these complicated and indirect forms of compensation is "benefits". These benefits are significantly limited in terms of practical cash value and rules around their use by regulation, whereas there is no bound on TC.
One way to look at this is a way for employers and employees to cope with uncertainty.
The employee is likely to underperform for the first few comp cycles after being hired, due to the new role, new context, etc. So the employer is willing to guarantee an "optimistic" salary up front for the first year (or, with equity vests, perhaps longer).
But the employer is unwilling to guarantee this indefinitely; after a year or two, they want to see you performing at level--and thus qualifying for merit increases--or else you'll revert to the lower salary.
Viewed this way, a rational employer will offer you a lower total comp for the first year if it's all salary; taking more of your first year's comp as bonus represents a bet on your own impact (and the fairness of the merit-based comp modeling).
The employee is likely to underperform for the first few comp cycles after being hired, due to the new role, new context, etc. So the employer is willing to guarantee an "optimistic" salary up front for the first year (or, with equity vests, perhaps longer).
But the employer is unwilling to guarantee this indefinitely; after a year or two, they want to see you performing at level--and thus qualifying for merit increases--or else you'll revert to the lower salary.
Viewed this way, a rational employer will offer you a lower total comp for the first year if it's all salary; taking more of your first year's comp as bonus represents a bet on your own impact (and the fairness of the merit-based comp modeling).
There are no guarantees: it's an at-will employement. In the worst case, the employer needs to soend 6 months building a case to fire the employee.
I don't follow. Are you saying Amazon might opt to not pay out the bonus as outlined in my offer letter for no other reason than a gotcha? I guess it's possible but highly unlikely...
No, I'm saying that after the first year, they are now only committed to the base salary.
I get a significant cash bonus paid out in year 2 as well. They are just as committed to the bonus in both years as they are the base salary. I think I'm missing something here though.
If the cash bonus is guaranteed, it's arguably less risky to get that up front because you could get fired or laid off after one year and not see the benefits of the higher base salary.
No that logic is a bit off. You shouldn't be benchmarking against your past self. You should be benchmarking against what you could get elsewhere and, more importantly, what you're actively getting now.
If you found yourself getting a similar TC excluding the signing bonus at another company, and have reason to believe that's actually a fair price for your labor, the cash signing bonus will still more than offset your switching costs. It's also, simply put, an absurdly high bonus. Nothing stopping you from collecting another one of those in a couple years at another company.
If you found yourself getting a similar TC excluding the signing bonus at another company, and have reason to believe that's actually a fair price for your labor, the cash signing bonus will still more than offset your switching costs. It's also, simply put, an absurdly high bonus. Nothing stopping you from collecting another one of those in a couple years at another company.
>For instance I received an offer that was 160 base, 325 cash bonus and 5% of my RSUs for my first year, putting my TC at ~510k. Second year was a slightly smaller bonus, and 15% of my RSUs.
Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that give an idea of the complexity of code that 510k developers are writing?
Man you got me day dreaming about that kind of money: I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities.
Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
For reference: I do Angular and Python development. Is there like some open source project or code samples that give an idea of the complexity of code that 510k developers are writing?
Man you got me day dreaming about that kind of money: I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities.
If you look at it as FANNG's employing people to keep them from working for others it makes a bit more sense.
That makes no sense
"I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities."
reference didn't go unnoticed. nice one.
reference didn't go unnoticed. nice one.
If I put a smile on at least one person's face, I consider that a big win! :D
> What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
They quit when the numbers don't match what they feel they are worth. You see the same thing in finance. One bad year can send 20-30% of your workforce walking out the door in a matter of a few months post bonuses.
They quit when the numbers don't match what they feel they are worth. You see the same thing in finance. One bad year can send 20-30% of your workforce walking out the door in a matter of a few months post bonuses.
Where do they go? Is it that easy to hop from one FAANG to another?
If only the code was the hard part.
Its not different, its not more complex, the employees are unremarkable, the hours are 10am-6pm, the engineers are still undervalued to the organization.
You can easily be in a team or circumstance that is more demanding, inspiring on your engineering journey, or even toxic. But you can just as easily coast.
The compensation is supposed to make it worthwhile not to do your own startup or project. So expect comp to continue rising.
You can easily be in a team or circumstance that is more demanding, inspiring on your engineering journey, or even toxic. But you can just as easily coast.
The compensation is supposed to make it worthwhile not to do your own startup or project. So expect comp to continue rising.
> What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
A meager defense follows. I've worked both "midwest design shop" and FAANG-adjacent jobs, from junior to staff to manager.
The main thing is supply and demand. The supply of engineers willing to work at a FAANG, in a region that FAANG is willing & able to support, and are willing and able to go through the technical hazing process called a "hiring panel," is very much short of demand. On the other side, profits per employee are phenomenal at scale, so making hires at these rates still makes sense financially.
But to answer your real question: it's less about the complexity of the code on a day to day basis, and more about the complexity of the system you have to work within, both technical and political, and the expectations of scale. A microservice system has both network and political boundaries to work through, whether making changes or RPC calls.
Then, while a small scale system might see a one-in-a-million event once per year, a large system will see it many times per hour, or even per minute. Managing simple things like changes to a database becomes a multi-step process, involving tools and stakeholders, instead of just a quick 2 minutes of scheduled downtime. Engineers need to be capable of thinking through those sorts of things. Stuff gets real weird at scale.
As a result, of both the above, engineers frequently find themselves doing highly specialized work, which is even harder to hire for. The guy who knows scaling properties of Postgres inside and out hasn't written production web code in a decade; his skills are almost worthless outside of FAANG-scale problems. Amazon has folks working for years on all sorts of niche network optimizations, because microseconds matter to them, but good luck transferring those skills back to fullstack web dev.
Last, a not insignificant number of engineers at FAANG are doing fantastically easy work on the same pay scale. Someone has to manage the wordpress (or whatever) installation for the docs site, or some backend process written in Django just for six important people. They often still get an engineer title and pay scale. So, it frequently is harder, but certainly not always.
A meager defense follows. I've worked both "midwest design shop" and FAANG-adjacent jobs, from junior to staff to manager.
The main thing is supply and demand. The supply of engineers willing to work at a FAANG, in a region that FAANG is willing & able to support, and are willing and able to go through the technical hazing process called a "hiring panel," is very much short of demand. On the other side, profits per employee are phenomenal at scale, so making hires at these rates still makes sense financially.
But to answer your real question: it's less about the complexity of the code on a day to day basis, and more about the complexity of the system you have to work within, both technical and political, and the expectations of scale. A microservice system has both network and political boundaries to work through, whether making changes or RPC calls.
Then, while a small scale system might see a one-in-a-million event once per year, a large system will see it many times per hour, or even per minute. Managing simple things like changes to a database becomes a multi-step process, involving tools and stakeholders, instead of just a quick 2 minutes of scheduled downtime. Engineers need to be capable of thinking through those sorts of things. Stuff gets real weird at scale.
As a result, of both the above, engineers frequently find themselves doing highly specialized work, which is even harder to hire for. The guy who knows scaling properties of Postgres inside and out hasn't written production web code in a decade; his skills are almost worthless outside of FAANG-scale problems. Amazon has folks working for years on all sorts of niche network optimizations, because microseconds matter to them, but good luck transferring those skills back to fullstack web dev.
Last, a not insignificant number of engineers at FAANG are doing fantastically easy work on the same pay scale. Someone has to manage the wordpress (or whatever) installation for the docs site, or some backend process written in Django just for six important people. They often still get an engineer title and pay scale. So, it frequently is harder, but certainly not always.
People are paid based on value created and responsibility. All else being equal, better to work for companies where you create more value.
Put another way, work-context can matter as much as work-content. A bartender in Manhattan is going to make more than a bartender in Puerto Rico for the same work-content. Same with an engineer from non-FANG to FANG.
Or another way, the revenue per employee at FANG-like companies is higher than non-fang-like companies, so the company can afford to pay them more.
Or another way, the revenue per employee at FANG-like companies is higher than non-fang-like companies, so the company can afford to pay them more.
“People are paid based on value created and responsibility.”
Oh you sweet, sweet child.
Oh you sweet, sweet child.
> Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
Nothing, for nearly all of them. Hell, half the time they're not even particularly impressive at executing on the totally-ordinary things they do. The companies just have firehoses that spit out money so can afford to spend more on developers, and choose to do so for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with how challenging most of the work actually is.
One reason (of several): insanely high comp means everyone (more or less) wants at least some time in a FAANG(-alike) job to bank some money. The flip side is that their hiring process is hellish. Put those together and you have high motivation for people to apply from one side, and a strong disincentive for anyone who's got any amount of doubt in their ability to pass the interview, any reluctance to put in the time to prep for them, or low bullshit-tolerance, or whatever. The result is that practically their entire candidate pool would be good hires (=good enough at the actual job, and willing to jump through hoops), so they don't have to bother figuring out how to spot good (for their purposes) developers, they just keep comp high and interviews unpleasant and time-consuming, and it all sorts itself out.
Combine that with several companies all in similar situations trying to do the same thing, and you get what you see before you WRT developer compensation in a narrow slice of the industry. Except when they collude to keep wages down, which they have done and (speculation) almost certainly are still doing in less-obvious ways.
[EDIT] Just to be clear, some of the work they do is Actually Hard, but that's not unique to FAANG (though it probably is more common there than, say, at your average Web agency or whatever). More of it's not especially hard but is hard to get experience with outside of FAANG (scale-related and fine-tuning stuff mostly, some of which is hard but much of which isn't more difficult than most other development or ops stuff, just different)
Nothing, for nearly all of them. Hell, half the time they're not even particularly impressive at executing on the totally-ordinary things they do. The companies just have firehoses that spit out money so can afford to spend more on developers, and choose to do so for a variety of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with how challenging most of the work actually is.
One reason (of several): insanely high comp means everyone (more or less) wants at least some time in a FAANG(-alike) job to bank some money. The flip side is that their hiring process is hellish. Put those together and you have high motivation for people to apply from one side, and a strong disincentive for anyone who's got any amount of doubt in their ability to pass the interview, any reluctance to put in the time to prep for them, or low bullshit-tolerance, or whatever. The result is that practically their entire candidate pool would be good hires (=good enough at the actual job, and willing to jump through hoops), so they don't have to bother figuring out how to spot good (for their purposes) developers, they just keep comp high and interviews unpleasant and time-consuming, and it all sorts itself out.
Combine that with several companies all in similar situations trying to do the same thing, and you get what you see before you WRT developer compensation in a narrow slice of the industry. Except when they collude to keep wages down, which they have done and (speculation) almost certainly are still doing in less-obvious ways.
[EDIT] Just to be clear, some of the work they do is Actually Hard, but that's not unique to FAANG (though it probably is more common there than, say, at your average Web agency or whatever). More of it's not especially hard but is hard to get experience with outside of FAANG (scale-related and fine-tuning stuff mostly, some of which is hard but much of which isn't more difficult than most other development or ops stuff, just different)
Given $160K + $350K bonus for the first year, I assume this was an L6 role. In Amazon, an L6 engineer pretty much functions like a staff engineer and even a senior staff engineer. That is, they spend majority of their time sorting out priorities, convincing teams which direction to go with, and align all kinds of stakeholders. They are also responsible for the project management of those projects that span across multiple teams and sometimes multiple orgs.
So in a word, Amazon pays L6 engineers to sort out ambiguities and to shepherd teams. This may not be more complex than your work, mind you. It's just Amazon or companies large enough to have a tech ladder value this kind of role.
So in a word, Amazon pays L6 engineers to sort out ambiguities and to shepherd teams. This may not be more complex than your work, mind you. It's just Amazon or companies large enough to have a tech ladder value this kind of role.
> Jeebus man. What is it that you FAANG developers do that is so much more complex than what regular developers do?
I worked at the N in FAANG for four years. It's not that we did anything so much differently, it's the people we did it with. When I worked for non-FAANG, there were some people who I'd have to work with and think, "boy, how does this person get/keep their job?". They just were not great to work with, had a hard time understanding hard concepts, and didn't produce great work.
I never had that at Netflix. Every person I worked with was someone I'd want to work with again and could trust and depend on. When a hard problem presented itself, everyone had a great solution, and we'd discuss the pros and cons, and then someone would implement that solution.
Also, many of our internal tools were best in class. Sure they had their warts, but not like the ones other companies had. Even our corporate directory had cool features and was actively developed.
So that's really the difference. It's the people you get to work with and the tools you get to use.
> Is there like some open source project or code samples that give an idea of the complexity of code that 510k developers are writing?
https://github.com/Netflix is a good place to look. Again, it's not that it's more complex, it's just the way it came about.
I worked at the N in FAANG for four years. It's not that we did anything so much differently, it's the people we did it with. When I worked for non-FAANG, there were some people who I'd have to work with and think, "boy, how does this person get/keep their job?". They just were not great to work with, had a hard time understanding hard concepts, and didn't produce great work.
I never had that at Netflix. Every person I worked with was someone I'd want to work with again and could trust and depend on. When a hard problem presented itself, everyone had a great solution, and we'd discuss the pros and cons, and then someone would implement that solution.
Also, many of our internal tools were best in class. Sure they had their warts, but not like the ones other companies had. Even our corporate directory had cool features and was actively developed.
So that's really the difference. It's the people you get to work with and the tools you get to use.
> Is there like some open source project or code samples that give an idea of the complexity of code that 510k developers are writing?
https://github.com/Netflix is a good place to look. Again, it's not that it's more complex, it's just the way it came about.
Almost nothing special, actually - although the average developer in FAANG/etc. in my experience is considerably better than an average developer outside, that is in part because "the outside" is much larger.
I think the best analogy here is sports... there's a sharp pay cut when you go from playing in an NFL team, to not playing in an NFL team. NFL teams have N slots and they want the best players. That means that the N-th best football player modulo measurement noise is going to be paid much more than the N+1-th.
FAANG/etc. job count is not fixed and measurement noise is probably much higher (i.e. we can't actually determine which developers are best with that much confidence, and so I think a lot of developers could make it into a FAANG and do fine work there), but the same principle applies.
I think the best analogy here is sports... there's a sharp pay cut when you go from playing in an NFL team, to not playing in an NFL team. NFL teams have N slots and they want the best players. That means that the N-th best football player modulo measurement noise is going to be paid much more than the N+1-th.
FAANG/etc. job count is not fixed and measurement noise is probably much higher (i.e. we can't actually determine which developers are best with that much confidence, and so I think a lot of developers could make it into a FAANG and do fine work there), but the same principle applies.
My God. How long do you have to stay for the sign-on to payout? I'd do that job for a year just for the sign-on bonus. $325k is like 2. Decades of saving up.
It's prorated, a portion is paid out every pay check starting from day 1. It's just like normal base cash compensation but they call it a sign on bonus to hack around the low max base comp.
Nice
Have you considered there is a selection bias here? The people with low TC are the ones who want to leave.
Pretty much textbook abusive relationship.
Get people feeling that they can't leave because of sunk cost and it's all going to be worth it soon, even though they're actively miserable.
Get people feeling that they can't leave because of sunk cost and it's all going to be worth it soon, even though they're actively miserable.
I was thinking sunk cost as well, but I don't know if it applies here. Can you call it sunk cost if the thinking is "if I get through this day, it's one less day to the pay off" as opposed to "I've already put so much effort to this, I can't leave now!"?
It's actually better for leaving because the cash is paid monthly in the first couple years, and you don't have to wait for the next quarter or half or whatnot if you decide you want to leave.
That's the opposite of a sunk cost. That's a pending reward.
When the average tenure is 1.8 years, it certainly is working. That's nearly 50% of their tenure resulting in less than 20% of their equity vesting.
The way Amazon does vesting is a scam for any engineer willing to work there, IMO. Big shiny number that they can dangle in front of engineers, and everybody thinks "Oh, sure I can do 4 years for that..."
The way Amazon does vesting is a scam for any engineer willing to work there, IMO. Big shiny number that they can dangle in front of engineers, and everybody thinks "Oh, sure I can do 4 years for that..."
"Their equity" is the wrong way of thinking about it - the RSU schedule is fully visible up front, and in the first 2 years low RSU grants are offset by a sign-on bonus. In my case, I was told what my target TC per year was, and that is what I've received (at minimum), just made up of a varying mix of bonus and RSUs. Saying that un-vested RSUs are "mine" is like laying claim to next year's salary before having done any of the work to earn it.
I'm pretty sure every other big tech company offers sign on bonuses with an evenly distributed vesting schedule.
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What are your big tech companies? Does it include Google? If so, your statement is incorrect.
More correct:
Of the big tech companies, only Amazon structures its RSU so it's heavily backloaded.
More correct:
Of the big tech companies, only Amazon structures its RSU so it's heavily backloaded.
Exactly this. Google sign-on equity is actually front loaded now: 33%, 33%, 22%, 12%. Refresh grants (nominally every year) vest equally at 25% per year. Vests are monthly or quarterly, depending on the size of your grant.
Since initial grants are larger (roughly 2x) than refresher grants, the equal vesting of the initial grant (old behavior) could cause a significant drop in compensation for new hires after 4 years at the company (the dreaded equity cliff). This would only happen for relatively "flat" performers, as if you're on an upwards trajectory the larger size of later grants would eventually catch up to your initial equity grant.
Let's say the sign on equity was 200 shares, and refreshers were 100. With equal vesting it would look like:
Year 1: 50 shares
Year 2: 50 + 1 x 25 = 75 shares total
Year 3: 50 + 2 x 25 = 100 shares total
Year 4: 50 + 3 x 25 = 125 shares total
Years 5+: 4 x 25 = 100 shares total (20% drop!)
The problem has actually been worse, because grants are actually in dollars and the stock has been growing consistently year over year. Which means earlier grants are worth more in dollars in later years than new grants, despite having the same dollar value at the time of issue. Let's say 20% yoy, which is not far off from average over the last 10 years. We'll work in dollars and say the initial grant was worth $200K at sign-on time and later grants worth $100K.
Year 1: $50K = $50K
Year 2: $50K * 1.2 + $25K = $85K
Year 3: $50K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $127K
Year 4: $50K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $177.4K
Years 5+: $25K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $134.2K (23% drop!)
With the frontloading this becomes:
Year 1: 66 shares
Year 2: 66 + 1 x 25 = 91 shares
Year 3: 44 + 2 x 25 = 94 shares
Year 4: 12 + 3 x 25 = 87 shares (7% drop)
Years 5+: 4 x 25 = 100 shares
With stock appreciation this becomes:
Year 1: $66K
Year 2: $66K * 1.2 + $25K = $104K
Year 3: $44K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $118.4K
Year 4: $24k * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $132.5K
Years 5+: $25K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $134.2K
So the dip is entirely smoothed over. Add in natural increases do to career growth and you no longer notice it.
Since initial grants are larger (roughly 2x) than refresher grants, the equal vesting of the initial grant (old behavior) could cause a significant drop in compensation for new hires after 4 years at the company (the dreaded equity cliff). This would only happen for relatively "flat" performers, as if you're on an upwards trajectory the larger size of later grants would eventually catch up to your initial equity grant.
Let's say the sign on equity was 200 shares, and refreshers were 100. With equal vesting it would look like:
Year 1: 50 shares
Year 2: 50 + 1 x 25 = 75 shares total
Year 3: 50 + 2 x 25 = 100 shares total
Year 4: 50 + 3 x 25 = 125 shares total
Years 5+: 4 x 25 = 100 shares total (20% drop!)
The problem has actually been worse, because grants are actually in dollars and the stock has been growing consistently year over year. Which means earlier grants are worth more in dollars in later years than new grants, despite having the same dollar value at the time of issue. Let's say 20% yoy, which is not far off from average over the last 10 years. We'll work in dollars and say the initial grant was worth $200K at sign-on time and later grants worth $100K.
Year 1: $50K = $50K
Year 2: $50K * 1.2 + $25K = $85K
Year 3: $50K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $127K
Year 4: $50K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $177.4K
Years 5+: $25K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $134.2K (23% drop!)
With the frontloading this becomes:
Year 1: 66 shares
Year 2: 66 + 1 x 25 = 91 shares
Year 3: 44 + 2 x 25 = 94 shares
Year 4: 12 + 3 x 25 = 87 shares (7% drop)
Years 5+: 4 x 25 = 100 shares
With stock appreciation this becomes:
Year 1: $66K
Year 2: $66K * 1.2 + $25K = $104K
Year 3: $44K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $118.4K
Year 4: $24k * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $132.5K
Years 5+: $25K * 1.2^3 + $25K * 1.2^2 + $25K * 1.2 + $25K = $134.2K
So the dip is entirely smoothed over. Add in natural increases do to career growth and you no longer notice it.
It's only a scam if you assume the first year you work there you are as productive as the 3rd. It takes most people at least 3 months just to get started, let alone actually contribute. Based on that, I don't think it's unreasonable to pay less for the first X months etc. That's all this is really.
It's pretty standard in Finance that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason.
It's pretty standard in Finance that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason.
> It's only a scam if you assume the first year you work there you are as productive as the 3rd
It's a scam when it's compared to how every other tech company does it. The standard is a 1 year cliff at which point you get 25%, then uniform vesting every quarter.
> that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason
This is exactly the standard in tech as well, but we're talking about an equity grant vesting schedule, not a bonus payout.
It's a scam when it's compared to how every other tech company does it. The standard is a 1 year cliff at which point you get 25%, then uniform vesting every quarter.
> that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason
This is exactly the standard in tech as well, but we're talking about an equity grant vesting schedule, not a bonus payout.
Do you get a sign on bonus thats like 50% of TC for the first two years at other companies? Because thats what amazon does.
First sign on was ~25% of my base salary, and ~15% for every subsequent year.
That does change the math if Amazon is giving $100k bonuses each year for the first two years.
That does change the math if Amazon is giving $100k bonuses each year for the first two years.
Yeah, I wonder if that's part of the confusion. "Signing Bonus" is a weird name for what amounts to a large salary boost for the first 2 years. I think a lot of people think of a signing bonus as a lump sum you get when you are hired.
> It's a scam when it's compared to how every other tech company does it.
Often but not always. I worked as a senior exec in a near-FAANG, large public corp and at one point the board changed the equity comp of my level and up execs to a pretty complex formula that was significantly back-ended but also had possible multipliers in the event our stock metrics exceeded the avg stock metrics of a composite of several similar firms in similar markets. At the time it was started, a lot of us assumed we might get about the same at the end of the day and maybe a little more but have to wait longer for it.
After four years, we actually maxed all the multipliers and ended up making >200% what we would have under the previous standard vesting. I heard that HR and the board comp committee felt they'd made a 'mistake' because we'd ended up getting so much more than the 'intended' range - however, we also worked our asses off and the companies stock was soaring, so they couldn't really complain. BTW, the net-effect of the back-loaded vesting and soaring stock was that we all ended up holding for longer than we otherwise might have which ended up adding nearly another 100%. Since we're already talking about pretty hefty comp numbers, post-multipliers plus a ~doubling of the stock price, it ended up being life-changing money. Good times, indeed.
So, not every 'non-standard' equity vesting schedule is necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes they are structured as a set of trade-offs, where the downsides are balanced by upsides tied to certain things and need to be assessed on that basis.
Often but not always. I worked as a senior exec in a near-FAANG, large public corp and at one point the board changed the equity comp of my level and up execs to a pretty complex formula that was significantly back-ended but also had possible multipliers in the event our stock metrics exceeded the avg stock metrics of a composite of several similar firms in similar markets. At the time it was started, a lot of us assumed we might get about the same at the end of the day and maybe a little more but have to wait longer for it.
After four years, we actually maxed all the multipliers and ended up making >200% what we would have under the previous standard vesting. I heard that HR and the board comp committee felt they'd made a 'mistake' because we'd ended up getting so much more than the 'intended' range - however, we also worked our asses off and the companies stock was soaring, so they couldn't really complain. BTW, the net-effect of the back-loaded vesting and soaring stock was that we all ended up holding for longer than we otherwise might have which ended up adding nearly another 100%. Since we're already talking about pretty hefty comp numbers, post-multipliers plus a ~doubling of the stock price, it ended up being life-changing money. Good times, indeed.
So, not every 'non-standard' equity vesting schedule is necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes they are structured as a set of trade-offs, where the downsides are balanced by upsides tied to certain things and need to be assessed on that basis.
> the net-effect of the back-loaded vesting and soaring stock was that we all ended up holding for longer than we otherwise might have which ended up adding nearly another 100%.
+1. Every amazonian i know who stayed at the company a while had crazy good equity because of the holding and stock growth. The historically stable growth really encouraged people to stay longer, and internally people always talked about how much the stock was when they joined. I know plenty of people who cashed out their equity and got houses in seattle area, in cash. Hearing these stories as a young engineer, and old alike really makes you feel compelled to stay and see where it goes for you. If you're young, you want to get in for when it goes up (FOMO), and if you've been there, you want to stay because you've been so well rewarded, and waiting a little longer will get you a bit more money because of refreshes and growth.
+1. Every amazonian i know who stayed at the company a while had crazy good equity because of the holding and stock growth. The historically stable growth really encouraged people to stay longer, and internally people always talked about how much the stock was when they joined. I know plenty of people who cashed out their equity and got houses in seattle area, in cash. Hearing these stories as a young engineer, and old alike really makes you feel compelled to stay and see where it goes for you. If you're young, you want to get in for when it goes up (FOMO), and if you've been there, you want to stay because you've been so well rewarded, and waiting a little longer will get you a bit more money because of refreshes and growth.
> It's pretty standard in Finance that you're not eligible for a bonus until you have been with the company for a full year for exactly this reason.
I don't think I've ever heard of this? I started at a bank in Q4 and got a pro-rated bonus.
I don't think I've ever heard of this? I started at a bank in Q4 and got a pro-rated bonus.
Yep. Especially common to negotiate a "make whole" which compensates for whatever equity and annual bonus you're leaving on the table to jump.
And to put it another way, if you're moving jobs in financial services without negotiating a make whole, you're not getting the best deal.
And to put it another way, if you're moving jobs in financial services without negotiating a make whole, you're not getting the best deal.
I mean it's like the easiest negotiating position ever, you don't even have to come out and say it.
"I'm very interested, but unfortunately I can't make any moves until February, when I get my bonus. Sucks, but what can you do?"
"I'm very interested, but unfortunately I can't make any moves until February, when I get my bonus. Sucks, but what can you do?"
Scam is the wrong way to look at it. Basically, it's like airlines charging you fees for overhead baggage. If you can get into a big tech company without back-weighted vesting, of course you're going to take that. The difference is on the margin.
Developers who went to tier C schools, 3.X GPA, 2-sigma IQs instead of 3, they have a shot at getting into Amazon and actually making way more and getting much better equity than they would working in IT at their local HR company (<$100K salary, negligible to 0 equity)
Again though, if you are capable of getting into any other FAANG, of course do it.
Developers who went to tier C schools, 3.X GPA, 2-sigma IQs instead of 3, they have a shot at getting into Amazon and actually making way more and getting much better equity than they would working in IT at their local HR company (<$100K salary, negligible to 0 equity)
Again though, if you are capable of getting into any other FAANG, of course do it.
All FAANG interviews are easily studied and passable by anyone that's motivated. Ridiculous to imply FAANG only hires geniuses. And since sign on bonus offsets backloaded vesting it hardly matters unless you truly believe amazon stock growth is going to rapidly increase in the next two years (and even then you could just buy the stock yourself with your bonus).
The average tenure numbers are misleading when a company rapidly expands and hires many new people.
I don't believe it is. My understanding is the 1.8 years average figure is how long those who already departed had stayed for. I might be wrong though, where I heard it from didn't specify.
It will be good to know how tenure is calculated. It is not sustainable to hire 30% more each year and most of them to leave in years.
The "waiting for my vesting" mindset only makes sense to me if your TC is back-loaded, but I think Amazon offers are usually pretty consistent TC over the first 4 years, it's just that the balance shifts from bonus to stock.
So lets' say I start in January with 5% vesting after 1year, 15% after 2 years, and 20% every 6mo for the next 2 years. The signing bonus starts large and then shrinks proportionally to keep the TC constant. In my mind the only change is that my salary gets more "lumpy" at the end because I'm getting paid every 6mo instead of every 2wks.
So right before a vest I'm thinking "it's worth it to stay for 1 more week for 20% of my stock" but right after a vest the question is "is it worth it to stay 6months for 20% of my stock and 6 months of base pay?". That latter question seems the same whether my TC is cash or stock.
So lets' say I start in January with 5% vesting after 1year, 15% after 2 years, and 20% every 6mo for the next 2 years. The signing bonus starts large and then shrinks proportionally to keep the TC constant. In my mind the only change is that my salary gets more "lumpy" at the end because I'm getting paid every 6mo instead of every 2wks.
So right before a vest I'm thinking "it's worth it to stay for 1 more week for 20% of my stock" but right after a vest the question is "is it worth it to stay 6months for 20% of my stock and 6 months of base pay?". That latter question seems the same whether my TC is cash or stock.
Let's say Amazon stock doubles in the first two years you work there. So maybe your TC was $250K your first two years, but if you stay that third year, you'll vest in $500K in stock, and if it keeps going up, that fourth year might be $800K in stock (which up until 18 months ago was pretty common).
So you'll get people who can't walk away because they can't get TC of $500K somewhere else.
So you'll get people who can't walk away because they can't get TC of $500K somewhere else.
For SDEs median is closer to 2.2. But that just talks about those that are still there though. It doesn't show when those that are not quit.
What happens to those incentives if the fed increasing rates bumps the stockmarket back to flat or down for some time I wonder.
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Someone since deleted this comment:
> While the stock vests in year 3 and 4, you get an equivalent amount of cash in year 1 and 2. It’s not uncommon for that cash to be 6 figures, almost doubling your salary for the first two years. I wouldn’t call that a pittance.
This was my experience ~8 years ago. There was an initial signing bonus, a retention bonus after a year, and then the RSUs start kicking in. The bonuses were prorated monthly. It was a little different than what other companies do, but it didn't feel unfair.
> While the stock vests in year 3 and 4, you get an equivalent amount of cash in year 1 and 2. It’s not uncommon for that cash to be 6 figures, almost doubling your salary for the first two years. I wouldn’t call that a pittance.
This was my experience ~8 years ago. There was an initial signing bonus, a retention bonus after a year, and then the RSUs start kicking in. The bonuses were prorated monthly. It was a little different than what other companies do, but it didn't feel unfair.
I think an important point here is that Amazon is viewed as an easier interview to pass than other FAANG+ companies. Being able to go from 50K-100K as an entry level non faang engineer to 150K-200K+ is a massive jump for many people and a very big name on their resume. Its a lot of folks first faang job.
FAANG was a coping mechanism for Amazon employees. It was always just FANG.
The original single A was for amazon: "FANG was an acronym coined by Jim Cramer, the television host of CNBC's Mad Money, in 2013 to refer to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. Cramer called these companies "totally dominant in their markets" [0].
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FANG,_FAANG,_and_MAMA...
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FANG,_FAANG,_and_MAMA...
When I've recruited people somewhere within their multi-year vesting schedule, I've found that they absolutely hate the "golden handcuffs." It leads them to resent their employer and ultimately motivates them to leave.
Delayed vesting is a terrible practice. Perhaps we'll see more companies offer immediate vesting of equity comp as a way to compete for talent. This is what Netflix does.
Delayed vesting is a terrible practice. Perhaps we'll see more companies offer immediate vesting of equity comp as a way to compete for talent. This is what Netflix does.
"but there are a lot of people out there who are getting into FAANG companies (especially Amazon) at lower compensations with the hopes of moving up to those higher levels."
And there are a lot of us who don't even get into FAANG and can't even dream of $160k, let alone $360k.
And there are a lot of us who don't even get into FAANG and can't even dream of $160k, let alone $360k.
>>lot of people out there who are getting into FAANG companies (especially Amazon) at lower compensations with the hopes of moving up to those higher levels.
A lot of FAANG down level you while hiring, that way they ensure you are basically at the same level even after a promotion(the next 4 - 5) years. Mandatory firing quotas, brutal performance standards(stack ranking included) and delayed vesting schedules effectively mean most won't make it to the big paydays.
OTOH, those who are there for a few years, have survived through years of political darwinism inside the company have to an extent figured out the 'secret sauce', and are gradually climbing their way up.
In these set ups, attrition is a feature for the long term employees, people who leave basically free up spaces in the ladder for others to take. No matter where you go you write software, so it doesn't really make much difference where you work at. On the other hand positions in the hierarchy no matter what the company are effectively pay grades and one must actively work on grabbing promotions.
If you observe carefully job hoppers don't really make much in life. Quitting saps energy due to context switching, by the time you arrive at a good pay day you have already hopped to the next company. For the people who quit often, good days are always in the future. And real cheddar lies in grabbing assets and looking after your health as you age. Both demand relative stability to raise debt and spend time working on your body.
That being the case the real winners are people who are doing long terms at companies, investing time learning political, investment and fitness skills.
A lot of FAANG down level you while hiring, that way they ensure you are basically at the same level even after a promotion(the next 4 - 5) years. Mandatory firing quotas, brutal performance standards(stack ranking included) and delayed vesting schedules effectively mean most won't make it to the big paydays.
OTOH, those who are there for a few years, have survived through years of political darwinism inside the company have to an extent figured out the 'secret sauce', and are gradually climbing their way up.
In these set ups, attrition is a feature for the long term employees, people who leave basically free up spaces in the ladder for others to take. No matter where you go you write software, so it doesn't really make much difference where you work at. On the other hand positions in the hierarchy no matter what the company are effectively pay grades and one must actively work on grabbing promotions.
If you observe carefully job hoppers don't really make much in life. Quitting saps energy due to context switching, by the time you arrive at a good pay day you have already hopped to the next company. For the people who quit often, good days are always in the future. And real cheddar lies in grabbing assets and looking after your health as you age. Both demand relative stability to raise debt and spend time working on your body.
That being the case the real winners are people who are doing long terms at companies, investing time learning political, investment and fitness skills.
About time, given the amount of horror stories coming out of The Forest. More money will definitely increase (at least to a certain extent) how much bullshit people are willing to put up with.
Is The Forest just a play on the name Amazon, or is it a reference to some content about Amazon the company? It's hard to google for.
Amazon built a literal rainforest for their employees:
https://www.seattlespheres.com/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2018/01...
https://www.seattlespheres.com/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2018/01...
> Is The Forest just a play on the name Amazon
Yes.
Yes.
Im curious how long till words play will be the „Farm Land”
Thanks.
It's a horror game[0].
Never thought it was an allegory for Amazon, though. Unless you mean something else?
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/The_Forest/
Never thought it was an allegory for Amazon, though. Unless you mean something else?
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/242760/The_Forest/
It's a joke. Amazon (the company) is named after the river and so is the surrounding rainforest.
I think "The Rainforest Bookstore" would've been cuter and clearer
I think "The Rainforest Bookstore" would've been cuter and clearer
It is of my (very important) opinion that it was not a good joke.
[deleted]
As a Googler I was approached by Amazon, and when I started to look at the culture, a photo came out with Jeff Bezos using a door because he was too ,,frugal’’ to buy a desk… I would never join an office where people are proud of that.
this the dude who just bought a 500mm yacht?
worth 500 million after he graced it with his presence. Its a repurposed shipping container
Says a lot that they need to trot out an old photo to keep the myth alive.
To be fair, that's a smaller fraction of his wealth than almost everyone spends on a car.
How many people do you think it took to build that yacht?
Seems pretty easy to me to differentiate someone's personal spending from their business values.
sounds like roundabout way of saying being super stingy with employees so he can live large. pretty much in line with everything else I know about Amazon/Bezos.
Is that the size of the main gun?
That would be just slightly larger than the largest (modern) naval gun ever fielded (on the Yamato in WW2).
Amazon today and Amazon in 1996 are two different things.
It may be true, but the perception didn't change much (and the glassdoor scores are still bad).
I love Amazon as a customer though
I love Amazon as a customer though
I don't think improvised desks are inappropriate for early-stage startups, especially in the 1990s. Apple started in Steve Jobs parents garage.
Yeah but when I interviewed on site in Seattle for the S3 DevOps team, they kept bringing up how they all use cheap doors on concrete blocks for their desks to remind themselves of that “frugality” and that was just the first red flag of how weird their top-down corporate culture was at the time. This was in 2010.
Right, but Amazon isn't an early-stage startup. It's a tech giant that wants all the employee-squeezing benefits of being an early-stage startup: sacrifice your life and comfort for the sake of the company. It's Day One, after all.
The problem is that what makes that sacrifice potentially worth it at an early-stage startup is the potential for equity before hypergrowth. Amazon has virtually no chance of startup-like hypergrowth anymore; recently its stock has even started declining. So employees are being asked to provide outsized sacrifice for declining returns. Predictably, massive resignation and retention problems are the result.
The problem is that what makes that sacrifice potentially worth it at an early-stage startup is the potential for equity before hypergrowth. Amazon has virtually no chance of startup-like hypergrowth anymore; recently its stock has even started declining. So employees are being asked to provide outsized sacrifice for declining returns. Predictably, massive resignation and retention problems are the result.
The door desk story you are commenting on is from the 1990s.
Google started the same way:
> Brin and Page filled the garage with desks made of old pine doors set on sawhorses, a turquoise shag carpet, and a Ping-Pong table.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-...
> Brin and Page filled the garage with desks made of old pine doors set on sawhorses, a turquoise shag carpet, and a Ping-Pong table.
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2014/04/sergey-brin-amanda-...
Brin and Page plausibly could have needed to do so since they were grad students when they founded Google.. Bezos was a SVP at a hedge fund before starting Amazon. Slightly different circumstances. Made a good marketing / "culture" shibboleth though.
I mean there's nothing wrong with this. A solid wooden door is nearly the perfect desk size and width.
I feel like the OP was being a little too drastic, there are many reasons to dislike Amazon but one being that Bezos used a door as a table is a little out there.
I feel like the OP was being a little too drastic, there are many reasons to dislike Amazon but one being that Bezos used a door as a table is a little out there.
I use a door as a desk at home. With some finishing it looks as good as a solid wooden desk, and its much sturdier and nicer feeling than a plastic desk, while being the same price.
Honestly, a proper solid wooden door may well cost a lot more than a cheap folding table. Yes, missing the point, I know :-)
Jeff was even an early google investor, maybe the door desk idea got around…
https://www.growthink.com/content/story-jeff-bezos-250000-in...
https://www.growthink.com/content/story-jeff-bezos-250000-in...
There's a difference between frugality and necessity though...
You may enjoy this article that argues the door desks were both more expensive & possibly more about marketing an idea to employees than actually saving money - https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2011/10/16/the_true_story_of_th...
Either way the door desk is an interesting piece of tech history.
Either way the door desk is an interesting piece of tech history.
Sorry I can't picture this - had he taken it off it's hinges and put it on a couple of stools?
Am curios if the Google founders were frugal in their early days or not..
BTW, a frugal startup is better any day than a startup that blows up all its cash on unimportant activities and subsequently closes shop.
BTW, a frugal startup is better any day than a startup that blows up all its cash on unimportant activities and subsequently closes shop.
'Frugality' is an Amazon core value.
That's one of my issues with Amazon. 'Frugality' invites so many idiocies and abuses that I can't help but assume it's penny wise/pound foolish in practice, as well as lots of ill will.
As a Xoogler I would have been very pleased indeed with a door-sized desk instead of the little A4-sized desks they were cramming everyone on when I left in 2018. The downward trend of personal space in the industry has been awful. As a part-time undergraduate sysadmin I had a private office. At my first commercial job in the 90s I had a door on filing cabinets. My last desk at Google wasn't even big enough for my display and laptop at the same time. The only bright side of permanent WFH, IMHO.
Sure, open offices were a disaster, I was mostly working at Google until 2013, and when I joined again later, all the walls were taken out to ,,save space''. I also think WFH is the only way to go at this point.
What a weirdly specific issue to have. Almost every company will have stories like this where founders were being scrappy or wanted to be perceived as scrappy.
Aren't plastic Costco tables now the new door desk, for startups? Maybe due to earthquake safety?
Genuinely interested...Why does that bother you?
I think it's well-known that Amazon doesn't provide in-house meals and haircuts and kombucha like many of the SV companies. Personally it's something I appreciate because it makes the area around the office a bit more lively with more foot traffic and private businesses catering to the office workers.
I think it's well-known that Amazon doesn't provide in-house meals and haircuts and kombucha like many of the SV companies. Personally it's something I appreciate because it makes the area around the office a bit more lively with more foot traffic and private businesses catering to the office workers.
As a low-ish level MSFT employee I laughed at this line:
> The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
As a ~62/63 (almost senior or senior) at Microsoft my peers at Facebook, Google, and Amazon can easily make literally twice as much compensation a year in salary, stock, and cash bonuses.
Microsoft isn't even in the ballpark. If I didn't absolutely love my job there would be zero reason to stay at Microsoft.
> The move promises to bring Amazon’s base pay more in line with other big tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
As a ~62/63 (almost senior or senior) at Microsoft my peers at Facebook, Google, and Amazon can easily make literally twice as much compensation a year in salary, stock, and cash bonuses.
Microsoft isn't even in the ballpark. If I didn't absolutely love my job there would be zero reason to stay at Microsoft.
I always thought about MSFT as like working for the government: A somewhat boring, stable, 9-5, predictable workplace, but you're exchanging that for lower total compensation. But you can stay there for an actual career, family and all that.
Whereas the more "fun" companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon will chew you up and spit you out, and you just have to make as much money as possible in your 20s/early 30s before you burn out.
This could be a slightly unfair stereotyping of these companies, but from the people I've spoken to it rings true.
Whereas the more "fun" companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon will chew you up and spit you out, and you just have to make as much money as possible in your 20s/early 30s before you burn out.
This could be a slightly unfair stereotyping of these companies, but from the people I've spoken to it rings true.
> I always thought about MSFT as like working for the government: A somewhat boring, stable, 9-5, predictable workplace
That obviously wasn't true in the 90s (see the famous Microserfs book), but might be true today, so I would argue against the "always" for those of us around then.
That obviously wasn't true in the 90s (see the famous Microserfs book), but might be true today, so I would argue against the "always" for those of us around then.
To be clear: working at Microsoft is a hell of a lot better than working in government. You're generally fulfilled creatively and paid extremely well - at least in comparison to everywhere but the very top paying tech firms.
What the commenter is saying is true though, Microsoft is a place where you can have an actual career and great work-life balance. It's been that way for at least a decade now.
What the commenter is saying is true though, Microsoft is a place where you can have an actual career and great work-life balance. It's been that way for at least a decade now.
I can't really judge that, I mean, I've worked for Microsoft but not the government. Just that...the "work-life balance" thing wasn't anywhere near the stereotype when I was school in the 90s (but I did not work for them then either).
One thing I liked when I was there, which was wow, 15 years ago, now... everyone[1] got their own closed-door office. It was a lot more like academia or how I might envision a Japanese corporation.
[1] Depending on your department and logistics, the definition of 'everyone' occasionally varied.
[1] Depending on your department and logistics, the definition of 'everyone' occasionally varied.
You can stay at Google or Facebook forever, it's just a matter of finding yourself on the right teams with the right work-life balance. If you chase the most exciting projects at any company, it's a recipe for burn out because you'll be working a lot more than you would be on a "necessary, stable, boring" project/system.
I agree! I have not had the opportunity to work at Google or Facebook but at my current job I always take up forsaken projects as that usually has a lot of up potential and very less down potential. Everybody wants to work on the shining new tech but no one wants to work on that maintenance project which is actually is creating those new tech opportunities in the first place.
That hasn't been my experience at Google. I feel like the work life balance is pretty good, and I typically work under 45hr/wk.
Google has pretty good work/life balance - it's much more of a "lifestyle" company now than Apple/Facebook/Amazon. I get the sense Netflix is heading in that direction as well.
You're still working on pretty complex codebases and tough technical problems though, so while you usually do not need to pull extra hours outside of business, you really do need to concentrate intently while working.
You're still working on pretty complex codebases and tough technical problems though, so while you usually do not need to pull extra hours outside of business, you really do need to concentrate intently while working.
64 here. I do occasionally dream about going elsewhere for beaucoup bucks (not that I'm complaining about my TC), but also, I do really love what I do, who I work with/for, etc. So I acknowledge the trade-off I'm making -- good W/L balance, very low stress, but not as much money as as my principal engineer friend @ Amazon makes.
I was a 63 being considered for 64 during my time at Microsoft. I loved it. Great W/L balance. Interesting work. Great coworkers. Was really looking to make that a long term gig.
But my org got disbanded, and I got rolled into Mobile (circa 2008/2009 when Ballmer was using the economic conditions as an excuse to shutdown orgs). I was there building the first Windows phone. I hated that org. It was all schedule chicken and politics (you could have an iPhone, but you couldn't use it during meetings in front of GM or higher). I had code reviews rejected for "You aren't going to need that". I'd point them at what was coming in the next cycle and got lectured about "you should be focused on your current tasks not future tasks" in writing. But in person (i.e. no written record), I was told to write the code how the reviewer wanted (a 64 or 65 as I recall) and just keep the changes stashed for when the real work showed up. I hated working that way. So I got blackballed for a shitty attitude (and rightfully so. My attitude was shit).
With that said, I'm still friends with some people at Microsoft. And they love it. Just gotta find the right org (just like Amazon, Google, etc.)
But my org got disbanded, and I got rolled into Mobile (circa 2008/2009 when Ballmer was using the economic conditions as an excuse to shutdown orgs). I was there building the first Windows phone. I hated that org. It was all schedule chicken and politics (you could have an iPhone, but you couldn't use it during meetings in front of GM or higher). I had code reviews rejected for "You aren't going to need that". I'd point them at what was coming in the next cycle and got lectured about "you should be focused on your current tasks not future tasks" in writing. But in person (i.e. no written record), I was told to write the code how the reviewer wanted (a 64 or 65 as I recall) and just keep the changes stashed for when the real work showed up. I hated working that way. So I got blackballed for a shitty attitude (and rightfully so. My attitude was shit).
With that said, I'm still friends with some people at Microsoft. And they love it. Just gotta find the right org (just like Amazon, Google, etc.)
Not really sure 65 = L7. Probably something closer to 66/67 is a better match for Amazon L7/PE. Apples to oranges comparison of compensation.
Source: Done both AWS L8 and MSFT Partner roles. Have hired and led teams with Principal+ in both places.
Source: Done both AWS L8 and MSFT Partner roles. Have hired and led teams with Principal+ in both places.
Is Microsoft a really cozy place to work? Shopify in Canada is similar with weak comp, but it is considered a great place to work.
Most teams at Microsoft these days have great work-life balance. Just stay away from the hardcore teams like core Windows development teams, compilers, Xbox.. The company will support you in any personal goals you have, you'll be able to find internal clubs for just about anything, and at least pre-pandemic, lecturers were frequently invited to campus to give talks on a huge range of topics that anybody could sign up to attend.
Personal opinion:
Not a spokesperson, but anecdotally, I’m part of a core Windows Development team and there is a healthy respect for work-life balance. Both immediate level and upper-level management regularly emphasizes the need for that.
It’s been quite a nice change from previous employers.
Not a spokesperson, but anecdotally, I’m part of a core Windows Development team and there is a healthy respect for work-life balance. Both immediate level and upper-level management regularly emphasizes the need for that.
It’s been quite a nice change from previous employers.
FYI, i work at MS (on a compiler team). The work-life balance is fantastic. I'm not sure where you got the idea that that isn't so. Thanks! :)
Compiler dev at MSFT. As others said, W/L balance is an actual thing at MSFT but your pay will depend on whether you are coming fresh into MSFT or have been there a while. In the latter case, you are probably being underpaid 2x but in the former case, you pay can be very competitive.
Considering Google/Facebook your “peers” is a common mistake people at MSFT make when they complain about comp. MSFT targets 67 percentile pay (which is actually above median, contrary to what everyone says), while GOOG/FB target > 95. They may be your competitors, but they are certainly not your peers (at least market-wise). Microsoft has managed to have great business results with 67 percentile SWE talent for a decade.
Google's official stance is they target 75 percentile pay, not > 95. So not too far off from MS. My guess is they use different peer companies.
Hmm I can't find the source but I thought Google targets the 85th percentile not 75 or 95.
But then again the market data that Google uses isn't public (and certainly isn't levels.fyi) so there could be discrepancies.
But then again the market data that Google uses isn't public (and certainly isn't levels.fyi) so there could be discrepancies.
Well at least the confusion about what Google's target market percentile is isn't just limited to Google (all three of these comments are incorrect, the first one is the most correct, and 3-4 years ago it was more correct than it is now w.r.t. Google, and its correct in that FB targets a higher range than Google does).
Don’t Microsoft have a weird strategy where they’re willing to match pay at peer companies but only if you have a competing offer (either as a candidate or existing employee), which means you’re encouraged to look around and see what else is out there if you want to be paid fairly? And you need to repeat of course because Microsoft won’t increase pay at a comparable rate.
Their offer matched my FAANG comp for a 63/64 position without hesitation. Maybe that's a recent change? I hear all the time on HN that Microsoft has lower salaries compared to other big corps, but it doesn't match my experience.
Does this affect contractors, or just employees?
This year, I noticed Amazon hires international contractors for engineering roles and I don't think I saw that before.
I wonder if Amazon is opening up more roles internationally (via contractors), while increasing wages of employees to retain folks in US/Canada/etc.
I don't have any data to back this idea up, it's just a thought.
These things never apply to contractors.
US tech salary discussions always throw around incomprehensibly large numbers and complain that they are "small"
I'm pretty sure a non-trivial amount of that is talk more than average reality. Which isn't to say that there aren't a bunch of people making a half million or more in total comp at a FAANG company, but there are almost certainly a whole lot more quiet people making 100-200K who aren't going to brag on HN about it.
100-200k is incomprehensibly large for me
It would take quite a bit of effort, but if you get a visa and are confident you can get a job at Amazon, there ya are. I've got a couple Central / South American coworkers that started at tech companies down there and eventually got jobs up here. It was a combination of luck and persistence with the US immigration system.
You realize that’s before taxes, right?
You realize that it's incomprehensibly high in most of the countries in the world regardless of how it's taxed?
I don't think it's quite that simple. Cost of living has to be factored in, at least. Buying a bog standard middle class house in my city is $850K. And this isn't California, obviously.
If we are comparing to the rest of the world, a bog standard middle class house in the US (and the accompanying land) is quite a few deviations from the middle.
money is one thing, you also need to take into consideration how much work US tech expects, how little vacation is provided, and how things like Health Care isn't universal.
That's a very broad brush statement. Many US tech companies have pretty reasonable work/life balance, less vacation than is typical in Europe but still in the 3-4 week range, and you'd probably be hard pressed to find a large or even not-so-large employer that didn't offer healthcare (albeit you may have to pay half the premiums or so).
Point me to a US company paying 150k that doesn’t cover your health care. The majority of companies also have very generous vacation (unlimited in a lot of cases).
You have to account for out of pocket maximums, which are up to $17k per year for a family, and increase every year, plus the risk of losing your ability to earn income, especially in your 50+ years.
Currently, a family of 4 would spend $35k plus or minus $5k on premiums, plus the $34k you need on hand for out of pocket expenses because it’s per calendar year, so if something happens at the end of the year, you need to be able to pay for 2 years worth of out of pocket expenses.
And that is today, so account for quite a bit of inflation if you are starting a family in your 30s, you need to be able to providing until 55 to 60, when the kids should be able to provide for themselves (at your expected quality of life).
Plus education prices, and insuring yourself from legal expenses. I know, 90% of Americans are not and will never be insured against these risks, but once you are in the $200k to $400k income range, you can actually achieve it and come to expect it.
Currently, a family of 4 would spend $35k plus or minus $5k on premiums, plus the $34k you need on hand for out of pocket expenses because it’s per calendar year, so if something happens at the end of the year, you need to be able to pay for 2 years worth of out of pocket expenses.
And that is today, so account for quite a bit of inflation if you are starting a family in your 30s, you need to be able to providing until 55 to 60, when the kids should be able to provide for themselves (at your expected quality of life).
Plus education prices, and insuring yourself from legal expenses. I know, 90% of Americans are not and will never be insured against these risks, but once you are in the $200k to $400k income range, you can actually achieve it and come to expect it.
The only people who say this are those who don't work at the major tech companies. I worked at Google and Microsoft and know plenty of people who work at Facebook, AirBnb, Uber. Neither myself or anyone I know is overworked, or is unable to take plenty of time off for vacation, or doesn't have access to absolutely amazing health care plans.
It's not Goldman Sachs we're talking about here.
It's not Goldman Sachs we're talking about here.
I have worked at many companies in the US where my take home pay was $140,000 + bonus. I got 4-6 weeks of PTO every year, the company paid for my high deductible insurance plane and kicked in an additional $1000 to an HSA. This doesn't include the dollar for dollar safe harbor match on my 401k that was up to $8,000 and more after that at a reduced rate. There as no stock or anything like that. I worked on average 40/hr a week and we played a lot of golf.
Is this the norm definitely not but there are a lot of good companies out there paying well.
Is this the norm definitely not but there are a lot of good companies out there paying well.
It is indeed incomprehensibly large compared both the rest of the world and compared to the cost of most necessities (food, clothing, electricity, whatever electronic gadget...)
Yet, everything changes if you consider housing, medical expenses, childcare, pensions: ta-dah the ratio between income and expenses is worse than in Europe.
Then count your real working hours over a 30-years period and redo the math.
Yet, everything changes if you consider housing, medical expenses, childcare, pensions: ta-dah the ratio between income and expenses is worse than in Europe.
Then count your real working hours over a 30-years period and redo the math.
Perhaps health insurance costs FAANG employees several hundred thousand dollars, but if it doesn't then it's hard to imagine it being better elsewhere.
In my part of Canada, a decent dev salary for a new grad is about 45k USD. After taxes you'll be left with about 32k USD. Rent for a 1 bedroom apartment within a half hour drive of the city is about 1k USD, food for one person for a month is 200-250 USD if you don't eat out but do eat reasonably healthy (frozen vegetables, ground beef or pork chops, pasta, stuff like that). After internet, power, car expenses, telephone costs, etc. come out, you're maybe left with 10k USD to spare each year.
If a new grad in California making $180k+ is left with that little after the same expenses in the USA, I'd be impressed.
Granted, other things become more expensive later on. No doubt childcare is more expensive in California, as is housing. But it's not cheap here - a cheap house within a 30 minute drive of the city here costs about 500k USD, while that might be, what, 1-2 million in California? But a senior dev salary here is about 80k USD, vs 300k+ in California. And sure, the ratio might seem not too bad - 80k vs 300k is like a ~4 times difference, 500k to 2 million is like a 4 times difference. But after you deduct living expenses, you're looking at a much different ratio - unless every living expense is 4x more in California. But I'd be shocked if, for example, 1kg of medium ground beef that costs $10 USD in Canada costs $40 USD in California. Or if a $100 internet plan for 100 Mb/s up/down here costs $400 in California.
In my part of Canada, a decent dev salary for a new grad is about 45k USD. After taxes you'll be left with about 32k USD. Rent for a 1 bedroom apartment within a half hour drive of the city is about 1k USD, food for one person for a month is 200-250 USD if you don't eat out but do eat reasonably healthy (frozen vegetables, ground beef or pork chops, pasta, stuff like that). After internet, power, car expenses, telephone costs, etc. come out, you're maybe left with 10k USD to spare each year.
If a new grad in California making $180k+ is left with that little after the same expenses in the USA, I'd be impressed.
Granted, other things become more expensive later on. No doubt childcare is more expensive in California, as is housing. But it's not cheap here - a cheap house within a 30 minute drive of the city here costs about 500k USD, while that might be, what, 1-2 million in California? But a senior dev salary here is about 80k USD, vs 300k+ in California. And sure, the ratio might seem not too bad - 80k vs 300k is like a ~4 times difference, 500k to 2 million is like a 4 times difference. But after you deduct living expenses, you're looking at a much different ratio - unless every living expense is 4x more in California. But I'd be shocked if, for example, 1kg of medium ground beef that costs $10 USD in Canada costs $40 USD in California. Or if a $100 internet plan for 100 Mb/s up/down here costs $400 in California.
That is a general problem in most of the US too. The desirable ~25% of town is mostly unobtainable for people who aren't in the top couple percent of the income structure because so few properties come up for sale in those areas that their inflation rate outpaces wage growth in the area. In growing towns and areas that are generally desirable enough that outsiders move there its probably more than 50% of the city is out of reach for say ~80% of the population for the same reason as above, combined with the fact that people moving from high cost of living areas eat up another few percent. You see this in town after town in the US. The younger local population is forced to live an hour drive+ outside of town because the older generation is sitting on properties that are outside of their price range.
The theory says that once those older folks start to die off their children will inherit the windfall, but I'm not really that sure. Its definitely not true for my parents which for various reasons didn't manage to benefit from the real estate/stock market booms over the past ~50-60 years. I know a couple people like this (they have middle class jobs and live in apartments while their parents have tens of millions), while others are like me because their parents burned up imense amounts of money in their later years with travel/health care/etc.
The theory says that once those older folks start to die off their children will inherit the windfall, but I'm not really that sure. Its definitely not true for my parents which for various reasons didn't manage to benefit from the real estate/stock market booms over the past ~50-60 years. I know a couple people like this (they have middle class jobs and live in apartments while their parents have tens of millions), while others are like me because their parents burned up imense amounts of money in their later years with travel/health care/etc.
>Yet, everything changes if you consider housing, medical expenses, childcare, pensions: ta-dah the ratio between income and expenses is worse than in Europe.
this is a gigantic cope. it may be true for lower middle class earners, but in the tech sector american workers really truly are staggeringly more affluent than their british and european counterparts even after you subtract the tuition money and healthcare costs and all the other shit americans have to put up with.
this is a gigantic cope. it may be true for lower middle class earners, but in the tech sector american workers really truly are staggeringly more affluent than their british and european counterparts even after you subtract the tuition money and healthcare costs and all the other shit americans have to put up with.
Citation needed.
I think this is what makes US politics so difficult for outsiders to understand. (And many insiders as well.)
There are a lot of people making 100-200k salaries.
There are also a lot of people making subsistence wages in a system with no universal public health care and meager government benefits.
Those are two very different voting blocks. The first group doesn't want to do anything too radical to rock the boat and mess up the good thing they have going. The second group wants radical change but has trouble organizing against the high paid lobbyists and campaign donors.
And then the really mind bending thing is those two groups often vote for the opposite party you would expect, considering their economic position.
There are a lot of people making 100-200k salaries.
There are also a lot of people making subsistence wages in a system with no universal public health care and meager government benefits.
Those are two very different voting blocks. The first group doesn't want to do anything too radical to rock the boat and mess up the good thing they have going. The second group wants radical change but has trouble organizing against the high paid lobbyists and campaign donors.
And then the really mind bending thing is those two groups often vote for the opposite party you would expect, considering their economic position.
Indeed. I mean what would be the point of talking total comp much smaller than base pay at these companies beyond self-pity and anger.
Lol, I got an offer from one of the more coveted companies a couple years back for a position in TX (where i live) and while it was a few $$ more than what I'm currently making at a company that is considered "cheap" (although like everyone else they claim their compensation is market rate), it wasn't enough to make me jump for a job that sounds like its 3x as stressful as the one I've got.
I'm guessing the San Jose, pay scale for the same job was probably 3x+, the HR person who gave me the offer letter actually apologized and suggested I negotiate for more.. Which I found pretty funny, but they wouldn't budge on the PTO vesting schedule, and I'm at an age where I refuse to be in a situation where I have two weeks of PTO, which isn't even enough to take the kids on a couple trips a year during spring break, summer break, etc.
Plus, for a company with 10's of billions a year in profits, I've never seen so many red flags... From the HR department to the inexperienced parts of the team I met with (and the experienced guys who where apparently "lifers" and unaware of the outside world if you will).
It surprises me that a company will pay someone $$$$ and work them like dogs rather than paying $$$$-10% and hiring another 1/10th of a person so they don't have to work 50+ hours a week with 2 weeks vacation.
I'm guessing the San Jose, pay scale for the same job was probably 3x+, the HR person who gave me the offer letter actually apologized and suggested I negotiate for more.. Which I found pretty funny, but they wouldn't budge on the PTO vesting schedule, and I'm at an age where I refuse to be in a situation where I have two weeks of PTO, which isn't even enough to take the kids on a couple trips a year during spring break, summer break, etc.
Plus, for a company with 10's of billions a year in profits, I've never seen so many red flags... From the HR department to the inexperienced parts of the team I met with (and the experienced guys who where apparently "lifers" and unaware of the outside world if you will).
It surprises me that a company will pay someone $$$$ and work them like dogs rather than paying $$$$-10% and hiring another 1/10th of a person so they don't have to work 50+ hours a week with 2 weeks vacation.
sounds like Apple!
Move to the U.S. where your skills have a much higher value?
hard to get visa. and I don't fancy trekking across the mexican desert to get in the other way.
If you are a Mexican citizen, then a TN visa for a software engineer is pro forma - should be about $50, no caps/quotas and adjudicated in a few weeks. If from further south then why not have an employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time and you either get it or you don't? The employer handles the cost and paperwork. You don't start until they do. If this really is life changing money it seems like the risk-reward profile favors application.
Of course if you're willing to take 20-30% less pay, immigrating to Canada and working for one of these tech companies in Vancouver or the Toronto area is much, much easier.
Of course if you're willing to take 20-30% less pay, immigrating to Canada and working for one of these tech companies in Vancouver or the Toronto area is much, much easier.
briton, just making a joke about how you sometimes see people from all corners of the world land in mexico and take their chances with los coyotes for the journey north
I did get a British accent in your original comment haha, I knew a Briton who moved to South America so I guess it seemed plausible :)
try 50% less once you factor exchange rate and culture of underpaying engineers.
Depends which company, and whether you're looking to work remote or not. I know my employer is far closer to my number than yours, but I do expect wide variance. I'm not sure I'd call it "underpaying" just that market rate is lower in that market.
For instance, folks doing well-paid jobs in let's say China or Hong Kong aren't underpaid, they're paid well, relative to their local market. The same is true in Canada, it's just that Canadians live very close to a very different market with a very different cost structure and externalities - but 'feels' about the same from the other side of the fence. Consider 50% more folks live below the poverty line per capita in the US than in Canada so clearly it's not all bad.
Remember, Canadians can show up at the US border with $50USD and an offer letter in a SWE job and get a 3-year TN status adjudicated on the spot. There's clearly more to it.
For instance, folks doing well-paid jobs in let's say China or Hong Kong aren't underpaid, they're paid well, relative to their local market. The same is true in Canada, it's just that Canadians live very close to a very different market with a very different cost structure and externalities - but 'feels' about the same from the other side of the fence. Consider 50% more folks live below the poverty line per capita in the US than in Canada so clearly it's not all bad.
Remember, Canadians can show up at the US border with $50USD and an offer letter in a SWE job and get a 3-year TN status adjudicated on the spot. There's clearly more to it.
> employer sponsor you for an H-1B around lottery time
The vast majority of employers will not sponsor you for a H1B, esp. if you don't currently work for them.
The vast majority of employers will not sponsor you for a H1B, esp. if you don't currently work for them.
Sure, you have a visa for me? I will be on the next flight over if so
I'm assuming that based on your username, you are an EU citizen? If so, apply for a job with any large US based company in one of their European offices. For example, Google in Zurich or Dublin, Amazon in London, etc.
After one year, you qualify for what's called an L1B 'internal transfer' visa. You can then transfer to another team within the same company that's based in the US. In many cases the company will sponsor your visa application and even the cost of moving (e.g. plain ticket, cost of shipping your belongings, etc.)
Once in the US, you can start the application process for a green card. As long as you're not a citizen of either India or China, this should take 2-3 years.
I'm Dutch and this is the path I took.
After one year, you qualify for what's called an L1B 'internal transfer' visa. You can then transfer to another team within the same company that's based in the US. In many cases the company will sponsor your visa application and even the cost of moving (e.g. plain ticket, cost of shipping your belongings, etc.)
Once in the US, you can start the application process for a green card. As long as you're not a citizen of either India or China, this should take 2-3 years.
I'm Dutch and this is the path I took.
> As long as you're not a citizen of either India or China, this should take 2-3 years
Whats different with these two? Why does it take so long in general?
Whats different with these two? Why does it take so long in general?
India and China go in a different bucket, and it often takes 6+ years for the exact same process. Sucks hard :|
You say that as if it's easy to do.
bi-modal (at least) distribution.
Discussion here is often about a bump to the right of the graph :)
Discussion here is often about a bump to the right of the graph :)
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I briefly browsed Zillow in Seattle. It looks like a good 2-3 bd house is 700k+. And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there. Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition. I get a feeling money is different there.
> And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there.
What? Seattle has one of the most utilized public transit systems in the US.
What? Seattle has one of the most utilized public transit systems in the US.
Not to mention University of Washington is like $12k/yr and is a great school for CS. Literally a signing bonus at a large tech company is enough to likely pay off that amount assuming you went without scholarships or other tuition reductions.
> And of course you need a car since public transport isn’t a thing there.
Are we talking about Seattle? We definitely have public transit here.
> Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition.
If they don't get into UW you mean? UW in-state tuition is only $11,745 (I say "only", but it is much higher than when I went there). However, it is a very competitive state university to get into.
Are we talking about Seattle? We definitely have public transit here.
> Sending children to a good colleage is probably 50k+ a year just in tuition.
If they don't get into UW you mean? UW in-state tuition is only $11,745 (I say "only", but it is much higher than when I went there). However, it is a very competitive state university to get into.
> We definitely have public transit here.
I suppose this light rail train I am watching go by outside my window is just a mirage or something. Same for these buses, obviously a plant.
I suppose this light rail train I am watching go by outside my window is just a mirage or something. Same for these buses, obviously a plant.
Never been, but imagined it to be like SF where everyone complains about 3 hours of daily commute driving the car.
It's comical though - the reason the pay is so high is because the housing prices are so high. The housing prices are so high because the pay is so high. It's a never ending cycle.
Housing prices are high because the supply of housing is very low relative to demand from people who have the ability to pay a high price.
If you took the same amount of high earners and dropped them in an area with five times as many equivalent utility houses, then prices would not be high even though there are the same number of high earners. Hence high housing prices are not a result of a population of high earners simply existing.
As an example, I can afford and am willing to pay $5 for an apple, but I will not because I can easily find an equivalent one for $1.5.
If you took the same amount of high earners and dropped them in an area with five times as many equivalent utility houses, then prices would not be high even though there are the same number of high earners. Hence high housing prices are not a result of a population of high earners simply existing.
As an example, I can afford and am willing to pay $5 for an apple, but I will not because I can easily find an equivalent one for $1.5.
Well that doesn't happen. High earners aren't "dumped" somewhere by some magical god that moves people around. There's often some reason a bunch of high earners are somewhere and when it happens the tap doesn't turn off. It just keeps going until there are no homes left. And at that point there's high pressure for low income people to sell because of the ability for them to get $1.5MM for their $200K house.
...with an interesting "side effect": it allows most people in those cities to buy plenty goods and services made by people in poor countries. And not the opposite.
My target comp here in chicago is $250,000 for the level below senior software engineer and average home price here is $303,559 [0].
Pay is usually max(COL, local market rate). You don't need a super high COL if the local market is very competitive, but COL can raise the pay because you still need to convince people to move to your location and most people won't do that if it has an abnormally higher cost of living without a corresponding pay increase.
The reason house prices are high in Seattle is because geography limits how well they can sprawl to build new houses and lots of people don't like higher density housing.
[0]: https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il/home-values/
Pay is usually max(COL, local market rate). You don't need a super high COL if the local market is very competitive, but COL can raise the pay because you still need to convince people to move to your location and most people won't do that if it has an abnormally higher cost of living without a corresponding pay increase.
The reason house prices are high in Seattle is because geography limits how well they can sprawl to build new houses and lots of people don't like higher density housing.
[0]: https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il/home-values/
Doesn't Amazon provide a shuttle service for employees? Microsoft does, so does Google I believe. There's also a reasonably good bus system here, and they're working on light rail.
Yes, it's also a bit awkward with increasing inequality.
My first tech job I made ~8k$ a year, due to being under 25 years old. My second job as a programmer was 33k$ a year, about 40% more than a cleaner in my city.
It just feels ridiculous that US salary can be 10x this, when costs of living are very similar. Apartments in my city in Sweden is about 200k$, houses 500k$.
It just feels ridiculous that US salary can be 10x this, when costs of living are very similar. Apartments in my city in Sweden is about 200k$, houses 500k$.
It's a large combination of factors that affect this... first off, houses and apartments in top tier tech cities in the US are far more than 200k/500k, the labor market is more competitive, and in some states (like California), non-compete clauses are not enforceable, so switching jobs is relatively low effort/cost for the employee.
Are Swedish salaries given pre-tax or post-tax? Houses with good schools near high paying tech jobs are usually greater than $2M, with taxes that will run 25k/year...
I'm Dutch and moved to the US in early 2016 to work for a bigtech company. Compensation here is about 3x what I would make back home.
After working here for just six years I could move back home and buy a house outright with the money I've been able to save.
I don't need a big house or a big car, but making more money means I can coastfire in the next five years, so it's absolutely worth it to me.
After working here for just six years I could move back home and buy a house outright with the money I've been able to save.
I don't need a big house or a big car, but making more money means I can coastfire in the next five years, so it's absolutely worth it to me.
> It just feels ridiculous that US salary can be 10x this
Those $350k jobs exist, but are very rare and hard to get.
Those $350k jobs exist, but are very rare and hard to get.
In the bay are an apartment where your property and safety are at risk can start at $400k, and a 3 bedroom house would be upwards of $1.5m.
Anyone in a 3rd world country could say the same about salaries in Sweden.
My understanding (from friends who have interviewed at Amazon and received offers) is that they are offered a $160k base... plus a $XXX bonus (guaranteed?) every year, to get their cash comp competitive with all the other tech companies.
So while this might indeed result in pay bumps, I highly doubt the bumps will be very large. This is also a "simplify how we do offers" thing.
So while this might indeed result in pay bumps, I highly doubt the bumps will be very large. This is also a "simplify how we do offers" thing.
I guess this only changes the stable salary component, which will bring the first year's comp to more comparable levels. Amazon pays an insane amount of cash bonus the first two years to make up for their backloaded vesting and capped salary. Even then the total compensation was pretty high. It might be the case that their stock isn't growing as expected leading to employees to be unhappy.
Now let’s see if they can give more than 10 PTO days
Do they tend to let you take unpaid time off or is that not a thing at all?
Uh, what?
At least when I worked there in Seattle, I got 48 hours of personal time, a few days of sick time, and a month of PTO every year.
Granted, my managers never cared about what I used (personal==sick==pto, use whatever) and I rarely actually recorded vacation.
At least when I worked there in Seattle, I got 48 hours of personal time, a few days of sick time, and a month of PTO every year.
Granted, my managers never cared about what I used (personal==sick==pto, use whatever) and I rarely actually recorded vacation.
That's not their official policy IIRC. It's 10 vacation days for your first year, 15 after that. And 6 days of sick time.
There's lots of leeway for your manager not to enforce it though.
There's lots of leeway for your manager not to enforce it though.
New grads get 15 days, no?
Pre-pandemic, I occasionally got some recruiter email from them and they were always really insistent about relocating to the Seattle area (something I wanted to do about as much as I want a hole in the head). Makes me wonder if they've done a good job with their remote culture.
Finally Amazon is realising their trash comp won't get them any hires in the current market. They were not even close to being competitive with other FAANG before. Couple that with the bad culture and I'm sure they were feeling the pressure to get new hires.
Trash comp? You might be talking about FAANG companies but very few Devs (maybe London) in the UK would get close to $160K, let alone $350K. They might want to attract talent but I suspect there are diminishing returns after a while, you only have to look at Amazon music App, Amazon web site, GMail and the Netflix app on my smart TV to realise they are not releasing good stuff all the time.
This is mostly for US, particularly in the Bay Area. There, fresh grads (SDE1s) are making $175k total comp, with $133,500 base salary. The base hardly increased for higher levels (SDE2/SDE3) before today, only being able to rise $26,500 before hitting the old cap.
You also have to look at how much $$ is printed year to year and how much inflation hit IT sector.
After finally deciding to switch jobs I got twice the salary of previous employer when I hoped Ill get 20-30%.
Market is not catching up to goverments pomping out new taxes and inflation.
After finally deciding to switch jobs I got twice the salary of previous employer when I hoped Ill get 20-30%.
Market is not catching up to goverments pomping out new taxes and inflation.
Not necessarily FAANG, but even unicorns pay more than them.
I got better offers from Bloomberg, Reddit, Stripe, and Facebook. Amazon also backloads the equity. You get barely anything if you leave after 2 years.
I got better offers from Bloomberg, Reddit, Stripe, and Facebook. Amazon also backloads the equity. You get barely anything if you leave after 2 years.
Don't worry, it's not like Amazon is paying like that in the UK ;]
US market is kinda special thanks to high concentration of tech companies in SV behind great wall made of Visas/greencard lotteries
My Amazon offer from last year was one of my highest ($500K first year TC for senior SWE in Seattle). Amazon has trouble retaining talent but I doubt compensation is the real cause (at least for recent hires).
Yep if you go on levels.fyi you can see that recent promos to SDE 2-3 make 100-200k less than external hires.
They probably were testing new paybands to see what stuck.
The bleeding has to be pretty bad for them to make an announcement like this though, otherwise they'd quietly bump up pay/bonuses for their top performers.
They probably were testing new paybands to see what stuck.
The bleeding has to be pretty bad for them to make an announcement like this though, otherwise they'd quietly bump up pay/bonuses for their top performers.
they are starting to do better, but from folks i know who have gotten offers from Amazon/Netflix/Google/Apple/FB, Amazon is consistently 10-20% less than the top (usually FB after several rounds of negotiation..)
I believe Amazon significantly increased their offers last year. FB was one of my other offers and they couldn’t match my top offers after negotiation, so I just declined. That being said, it is possible that a combination of my location (Seattle) and career stage (upper side of Senior level) are at play here.
At 500k are you actually working 40 hours or expected to be always working? Also what is considered a senior engineer? Someone specifically specialized in a field or management type role?
Senior SWE in the tech industry is typically someone with > 5 YOE who has led at least one big project and is considered a leader in their immediate team. It is not a management role.
Yeah, I’d probably work more than 40 hours a week at Amazon, which is why I didn’t take the offer (I accepted another offer with similar comp and my WLB is pretty good).
Yeah, I’d probably work more than 40 hours a week at Amazon, which is why I didn’t take the offer (I accepted another offer with similar comp and my WLB is pretty good).
500K is a good improvement but I doubt you were the norm.
Before last year they were seriously lagging behind in terms of comp. Even in EMEA I hear they couldn't hire due to low comp compared to other companies. Even non-FAANG were beating them easily.
What I hear from friends at Amazon (joined prior to 2020) is that their comp is well below market rates.
Before last year they were seriously lagging behind in terms of comp. Even in EMEA I hear they couldn't hire due to low comp compared to other companies. Even non-FAANG were beating them easily.
What I hear from friends at Amazon (joined prior to 2020) is that their comp is well below market rates.
But the bad culture stories are out now, and the culture hasn't changed as far as I can see, so what's the point of the increased comp?
What's a 'maximum base' pay? Is that the max salary someone with the right credentials could earn in an entry level position?
No, it's the maximum base pay for all positions.
Beyond entry level, most of the compensation at Amazon and other FAANGs is in the form of stock awards (RSUs). So a senior engineer might have a $160k annual salary and $300k worth of RSUs vesting that year, making for $460k total compensation.
In an environment of rising stock prices, this is a cost-effective way for a large company to pay high salaries because the stock that's worth $300k today was only worth, say, $150k when it was originally granted, and that's the price that Amazon effectively paid in its earnings deductions at that time.
Beyond entry level, most of the compensation at Amazon and other FAANGs is in the form of stock awards (RSUs). So a senior engineer might have a $160k annual salary and $300k worth of RSUs vesting that year, making for $460k total compensation.
In an environment of rising stock prices, this is a cost-effective way for a large company to pay high salaries because the stock that's worth $300k today was only worth, say, $150k when it was originally granted, and that's the price that Amazon effectively paid in its earnings deductions at that time.
No, its just the maximum cash base that amazon will pay anyone, at any level (perhaps without a VP approval, or something). RSU's and cash bonuses are not included, so it does not reflect total comp. E.g. someone might have 160k base and 500k total comp, including their RSUs.
Previously you could not make more than ~$160k in salary at Amazon at any level. Now they are raising the cap.
AIUI, the 160 max only applied below L8.
Nope, L5 here (SDE II) and my base is currently 185. I breached 160 in march of this year. I am confused where the 160 number came in. Maybe Lab126 has different pay bands?
185k cap is for high cost of living area, 160k for the rest. You may be either in California or NYC.
It’s the max salary rate for a given level according to company policies. Once you hit this, no matter how well you do they’ll try to tell you you can’t get a raise unless you get a promotion. Of course, this matters little since they will be shoveling RSUs at you if they want to keep you.
Oh yeah, and mirroring other comments, this is the max base for the highest level in this case, so it is the max max. And also it’s never really true that they can’t exceed it. Everything is negotiable if you’re hot enough shit.
So the base pay was 185, now 350k
Doesn't really make much difference, unless you were hiring finance bros. The total comp is what mattered.
Doesn't really make much difference, unless you were hiring finance bros. The total comp is what mattered.
> The total comp is what mattered.
Assuming you're going to stay at Amazon for a long time, yes, total comp is what matters. If not then base pay matters because you don't get to keep most of the stock if you leave after a year or two. Amazon's vesting schedule is pretty bad. Just 5% at the end of year 1!
https://avieradvisors.com/amazon/amazons-rsu/
Assuming you're going to stay at Amazon for a long time, yes, total comp is what matters. If not then base pay matters because you don't get to keep most of the stock if you leave after a year or two. Amazon's vesting schedule is pretty bad. Just 5% at the end of year 1!
https://avieradvisors.com/amazon/amazons-rsu/
The signing bonus already remediated that.
Not entirely, RSUs are harder to use when qualifying for a mortgage.
Wouldn't you just show your N most recent W2s to your bank? Why would they care about your comp breakdown?
Not for US mortgages, here is what my mortgage broker sent me as a requirement for the second home I am looking to buy:
OK – we can use the RSU’s with the following conditions:
Your borrower will need to have a 2-year history of liquidating the RSU account and evidence the RSUs are received as part of the borrower's regular income. Fannie Mae requires you obtain the issuance agreement, schedule of share distributions, vesting schedule, evidence the stock is publicly traded, and evidence of payout of the RSU per YTD paystub and W-2s for the most recent 2 years. Freddie Mac requires the same in addition to a 10-day PCV. The income will be required to continue for a minimum of 3 years.
If you can get me these items highlighted above, I will send to Underwriting for them to calculate the income and get us a valid number to use for qualifying.
OK – we can use the RSU’s with the following conditions:
Your borrower will need to have a 2-year history of liquidating the RSU account and evidence the RSUs are received as part of the borrower's regular income. Fannie Mae requires you obtain the issuance agreement, schedule of share distributions, vesting schedule, evidence the stock is publicly traded, and evidence of payout of the RSU per YTD paystub and W-2s for the most recent 2 years. Freddie Mac requires the same in addition to a 10-day PCV. The income will be required to continue for a minimum of 3 years.
If you can get me these items highlighted above, I will send to Underwriting for them to calculate the income and get us a valid number to use for qualifying.
This seems extreme.
I think FAANG will get waived. This is probably RSUs for some SPAC company.
I think FAANG will get waived. This is probably RSUs for some SPAC company.
Nope, I work for Google.
whilst warehouse workers earn what...
Why don't they raise the salaries of the Amazon delivery and order pickers instead?
Pretty weak raise compared to what the these people getting with base pay of $350k
How would that help if they're having trouble hiring or retaining software engineers?
Wow, if 350k is what they raised it to then what was it before? I thought Amazon engineers were rolling in money compared to non-FAANGs.
The answer is in the first sentence of the article.
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$160k
It's literally the first sentence of the article
"Amazon will boost its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, from $160,000 previously, as part of an overall increase in total compensation intended to help recruit top talent and retain existing employees."
It's literally the first sentence of the article
"Amazon will boost its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, from $160,000 previously, as part of an overall increase in total compensation intended to help recruit top talent and retain existing employees."
That's all in the article. First sentence: "Amazon will boost its maximum base pay to $350,000 for corporate and tech employees, from $160,000 previously".
Amazon's compensation has historically been very RSU-heavy (aka, you are partly paid in stock), especially at higher levels.
Amazon's compensation has historically been very RSU-heavy (aka, you are partly paid in stock), especially at higher levels.
The first sentence of article stated it was $160,000.
Judging from what an insider in the HR org told me, we're going to be hearing a lot of stories like this going forward. Apparently, Amazon scale is so large and their attrition rates are so bad that in some markets, every potentially qualified candidate has already applied and failed an interview, or previously worked at Amazon and quit. As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent, given their extremely poor reputation.
With this said, from reading the article, this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity. Some people here already mentioned that this was already sort of the case with a sign on bonus compensating for the backloaded vesting structure. From my experience interacting w/ professionals outside the FANG bubble, equity tends to be a bit confusing, so I wonder if a move towards bigger cash portions is a way to try to lure people who wouldn't otherwise be looking at big tech as a prospective career choice.
What's also curious to me is that bumping up cash comp is in direct opposition to the trends from some other tech giants, where they are frontloading equity vesting. My sample size might just be small, but it feels like cash comp seems to correlate somewhat with bearish stock feeling and that frontloaded equity tends to correlate w/ bullish stock feeling. Would love to hear whether I'm off the mark here or not.
With this said, from reading the article, this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity. Some people here already mentioned that this was already sort of the case with a sign on bonus compensating for the backloaded vesting structure. From my experience interacting w/ professionals outside the FANG bubble, equity tends to be a bit confusing, so I wonder if a move towards bigger cash portions is a way to try to lure people who wouldn't otherwise be looking at big tech as a prospective career choice.
What's also curious to me is that bumping up cash comp is in direct opposition to the trends from some other tech giants, where they are frontloading equity vesting. My sample size might just be small, but it feels like cash comp seems to correlate somewhat with bearish stock feeling and that frontloaded equity tends to correlate w/ bullish stock feeling. Would love to hear whether I'm off the mark here or not.
At these bubble valuations and Fed funds rate going up I would hope cash is valued more.
> every potentially qualified candidate has already applied and failed an interview, or previously worked at Amazon and quit.
A company so large as to literally run out of humans.
Happened with their warehouse workers too.
https://www.essence.com/news/amazon-burning-through-workers/
A company so large as to literally run out of humans.
Happened with their warehouse workers too.
https://www.essence.com/news/amazon-burning-through-workers/
> A company so large as to literally run out of humans
It's not the size, its the attrition that's the problem. Everything would be fine if they retained employees, but stackranks for the stackrank god.
It's not the size, its the attrition that's the problem. Everything would be fine if they retained employees, but stackranks for the stackrank god.
As the adage goes, necessity is the mother of invention and Amazon seems to be at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent, given their extremely poor reputation.
So rather than address the problems that are giving rise to this extremely poor reputation and commensurate attrition rates -- the only "fix" that Amazon can think of is to offer people more cash so that the net experience becomes somewhat more palatable.
So rather than address the problems that are giving rise to this extremely poor reputation and commensurate attrition rates -- the only "fix" that Amazon can think of is to offer people more cash so that the net experience becomes somewhat more palatable.
Yes, that's how labor markets work.
At some point, no amount of money is worth it.
I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.
I can hardly imagine earning $350k a year. I've never earned a third of that anually. What I can imagine is a job that places such a demand on my time and attention that I don't have time for a life outside of it.
Exactly. No amount of money can buy you time. You are committing to a significant quality of life deterioration during the period you are employed at Amazon.
You work there 3 years and you'll earn a million bucks. Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want. Many people are willing to make that tradeoff, perhaps not you though.
and you get to say "ex-Amazon or ex-FAANG" on any of your future projects to a completely non-discerning audience that will drown out any nuanced discussion from cynics.
Plenty of life to live after that and a lot of money to do whatever it is you want.
If your children hate you or you lose the love of your life -- or you ruin your health -- then what's the point of all that money and free time?
If your children hate you or you lose the love of your life -- or you ruin your health -- then what's the point of all that money and free time?
Doesn't that kind of depend on having kids or love? There's probably a fair number of people out there skilled enough to do the work that doesn't have those things to distract from having a demanding job.
Ultimately it's a decision that you'd have to make depending on what you care about. You could turn your question on it's head; what's the point of having children or a significant other if you are incapable or unwilling when you could be making money for the things you do care about in life?
Ultimately it's a decision that you'd have to make depending on what you care about. You could turn your question on it's head; what's the point of having children or a significant other if you are incapable or unwilling when you could be making money for the things you do care about in life?
You could turn your question on it's head; what's the point of having children or a significant other if you are incapable or unwilling when you could be making money for the things you do care about in life?
That's a good point, actually.
Which I will bookmark as the perfect description of the kind of personality profile that is most suited to working at Amazon-- and perhaps the only personality type that can thrive there, actually.
That's a good point, actually.
Which I will bookmark as the perfect description of the kind of personality profile that is most suited to working at Amazon-- and perhaps the only personality type that can thrive there, actually.
I'm there and have a great life outside of work and a young family. I've yet to see the crazy culture everyone rants about.
I prefer a bit tougher job that means I'll be financially free in 10 years. It also means my wife doesn't have to work and can really focus on raising our children.
I've worked some long days, but not 16hrs. Plus I really dig the projects I'm on.
I prefer a bit tougher job that means I'll be financially free in 10 years. It also means my wife doesn't have to work and can really focus on raising our children.
I've worked some long days, but not 16hrs. Plus I really dig the projects I'm on.
Ruining your health is an aspect that I think gets far too little attention. If you're honestly working 16hr days your quality of life is going to absolutely tank and you'll be paying serious interest on the damage you do to your heart, back, eyes and wrists for decades to come.
> If your children hate you or you lose the love of your life -- or you ruin your health -- then what's the point of all that money and free time?
You can ruin all that on a 70K job.
You can ruin all that on a 70K job.
Why run home behind a bus when you can run home behind a taxi?
At some point, no amount of money is worth it.
That's the point these companies don't get, and never will get.
All of their mouthed pronouncements about "wellness" and "work-life balance" notwithstanding.
That's the point these companies don't get, and never will get.
All of their mouthed pronouncements about "wellness" and "work-life balance" notwithstanding.
$350k is just the max base salary (cash). Comp packages have multiple components and then the actual total compensation including the value of shares awarded would typically be higher, veritably much much higher for anyone getting $350k base. For a lot of senior tech employees “cash salary” is a small minority of total comp.
100%. I'm approaching the amounts that only a few years ago would have been in a fantasy land category, however there are issues with high stress levels, overtime and many others. I do understand many many people in my position would just pull through just because of money but eventually it wears out as a strong argument.
It’s easy and comforting to imagine that someone getting paid more than you must also suffer more than you – certainly well paid doctors and lawyers and investment bankers seem to suffer terrible working conditions – but it isn’t really true. A software developer earning an ordinary good salary (say $80k-$120k to pick some reference point) isn’t going to be working ‘harder’ than someone with a more manual job[1] earning much less pay or indeed your equivalent software developer in a poorer country, and unlike a skilled tradesman, the programmer is unlikely to reach 40 in a terrible physical condition with his muscles shot and some kind of chronic joint pain. And warren buffet is unlikely to be working much harder than the CEO of some smaller company.
Most of the reason those big companies can pay software developers so we’ll is that they are worth it, and they can be worth it because they have more leverage: if you do something that causes a small company to be 1% better, and if that same thing would make a small part of a massive company 0.5% better, the latter can be worth a lot more just because the denominator is so much bigger. It feels harder to explain why they must pay so much. The first order argument is that there is lots of demand for software developers and that pushes up the price, but these companies are active in markets where developers are paid less well (e.g. Europe) and they could adjust hiring to favour candidates who are good but less competitive (e.g. because they are bad at a particular kind of interview) so I don’t understand why market forces haven’t lead to things being more balanced.
Most of the reason those big companies can pay software developers so we’ll is that they are worth it, and they can be worth it because they have more leverage: if you do something that causes a small company to be 1% better, and if that same thing would make a small part of a massive company 0.5% better, the latter can be worth a lot more just because the denominator is so much bigger. It feels harder to explain why they must pay so much. The first order argument is that there is lots of demand for software developers and that pushes up the price, but these companies are active in markets where developers are paid less well (e.g. Europe) and they could adjust hiring to favour candidates who are good but less competitive (e.g. because they are bad at a particular kind of interview) so I don’t understand why market forces haven’t lead to things being more balanced.
It’s easy and comforting to imagine that someone getting paid more than you must also suffer more than you
However in the case of Amazon this isn't based on "imagining" but extremely widespread reports across multiple sources.
However in the case of Amazon this isn't based on "imagining" but extremely widespread reports across multiple sources.
Well all the examples I gave were from America. It’s true that at some jobs higher pay comes with worse conditions (eg hazard pay or working a night shift) but generally for programming (and many other professional jobs) higher pay comes with better conditions.
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>At some point, no amount of money is worth it.
Speak for yourself, I guess.
I would strap myself into the torture machine from Clockwork Orange for 8 hours a day if you paid me $350k to do it.
Speak for yourself, I guess.
I would strap myself into the torture machine from Clockwork Orange for 8 hours a day if you paid me $350k to do it.
What if you’d been an engineer at one of these sorts of companies for a while and already banked a mill? Two? Five?
Have you ever made $350k?
The magic wears off fast and it doesn’t go as far as you imagine.
The magic wears off fast and it doesn’t go as far as you imagine.
You can start imagining though, 350k is ... not that much in high cost area like Bay/NYC/Seattle
Especially so if you are single income family.
Especially so if you are single income family.
>350k is ... not that much in high cost area like Bay/NYC/Seattle
Yeah it really still is. Living in the bay area as a single 20 something making that kind of money you are approaching 1% status. Rent is a little higher sure, but what really is the difference between $2k/month and $4k/month when you're bringing home $20k+/month? And everything else in California besides housing is the same as anywhere else really in terms of cost of living.
Yeah it really still is. Living in the bay area as a single 20 something making that kind of money you are approaching 1% status. Rent is a little higher sure, but what really is the difference between $2k/month and $4k/month when you're bringing home $20k+/month? And everything else in California besides housing is the same as anywhere else really in terms of cost of living.
For the record.
You don't bring 20k+ per months, more like 9k+ after tax/401k contribution. And stock grants are liquid assets, but they are not cash, and most people I know won't exercise them right away, so they are still numbers in certain DB table
You don't bring 20k+ per months, more like 9k+ after tax/401k contribution. And stock grants are liquid assets, but they are not cash, and most people I know won't exercise them right away, so they are still numbers in certain DB table
Eh for those liquidating them, most are turning most into equity in other companies/funds - ie a number in the same sort of DB table, albeit with a different ticker attached.
401k contributions are still savings, deduct that (at a max contribution rate that’s like 1.5k) and you’re at 10.5k a month. The bit about stock grants is meaningless, if it’s a public company that is straight cash.
Median household income in Santa Clara County is $140k.
How on earth can you say that $350k is "not that much"?
How on earth can you say that $350k is "not that much"?
I mean the average software engineer salary in the area is like 220k-240k.
I meant for like, you know, regular people.
Also, I'd be curious to know where you get your numbers from - simply because numbers for total comp (across all companies) seems hard to come by. One can't go by what's posted on levels.fyi of course, because that's skewed heavily towards people who have ... something to brag about.
Also, I'd be curious to know where you get your numbers from - simply because numbers for total comp (across all companies) seems hard to come by. One can't go by what's posted on levels.fyi of course, because that's skewed heavily towards people who have ... something to brag about.
Just reiterating what some others said. The decision in your career life does not have to be a zero sum balance of low pay vs high stress/hours.
There are several companies where the revenue they create per employee is so astronomical that reasonable work-life balance and high pay are on the table.
There are several companies where the revenue they create per employee is so astronomical that reasonable work-life balance and high pay are on the table.
It's a start. Many other companies haven't gotten the weird idea that people like to be paid more money or they go elsewhere to find more money.
At the end of the day, it's a job. And jobs that pay the most usually recruits the best.
If they're looking at $350k base salary plus incentives, I may give them another look, especially if I can still do WFH.
At the end of the day, it's a job. And jobs that pay the most usually recruits the best.
If they're looking at $350k base salary plus incentives, I may give them another look, especially if I can still do WFH.
What is unimpeachable is that jobs that compensate the best can recruit the best. But that compensation isn't merely a cash amount - it also includes public perception about the ethics of the business (which will vary from person to person), expected quality of life while working (including the caliber of coworker you'll be interacting with) and expected interest - all among many other factors.
Monetary compensation is certainly important and, if driven high enough, can account for extremely poor scores in other areas - but most people will tend to be pretty holistic about their job search. If I posted a job with a 700k compensation that was accompanied by constant 24/7 stress and existential dread you'd be surprised how many senior people would pass on that opportunity.
Monetary compensation is certainly important and, if driven high enough, can account for extremely poor scores in other areas - but most people will tend to be pretty holistic about their job search. If I posted a job with a 700k compensation that was accompanied by constant 24/7 stress and existential dread you'd be surprised how many senior people would pass on that opportunity.
N.B. I have a strong conflict of interest in this conversation, will leave the reason as an exercise for the reader to figure out.
Amazon have launched more successful non-core businesses than any other big tech company. I suspect there's a belief throughout the company that qualities of the culture that lead to high attrition rates are the same qualities that breed revenue growth and success. In turn, that explains the reluctance to address those issues.
Amazon have launched more successful non-core businesses than any other big tech company. I suspect there's a belief throughout the company that qualities of the culture that lead to high attrition rates are the same qualities that breed revenue growth and success. In turn, that explains the reluctance to address those issues.
Could some of that simply be because Amazon has always had non-tech competencies?
Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. Those have always been pure tech plays. Amazon started out competing with Barnes and Noble.
But yes, I get what you mean. Companies are very reluctant to change the secret sauce.
Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc. Those have always been pure tech plays. Amazon started out competing with Barnes and Noble.
But yes, I get what you mean. Companies are very reluctant to change the secret sauce.
This is a great point - the non-tech scaling aspect and intense customer focus contributes to the different culture.
> this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity
I won't read it that way. This is upper threshold, not some number a L5 SDE would hope to get.
Frugality is still frugality.
I won't read it that way. This is upper threshold, not some number a L5 SDE would hope to get.
Frugality is still frugality.
I actually did some statistical analysis of what is supposed to be their hiring strategy and found this exact problem. They apparently use the strategy of always hiring above the mean (so new hires are better than the average employee). This does have some advantages, but I found that it ends up severely limiting growth when you take attrition into account.
It would probably be a lot cheaper to change their hiring practices to be less strict and reinvest some of that money in training.
It would probably be a lot cheaper to change their hiring practices to be less strict and reinvest some of that money in training.
> It would probably be a lot cheaper to change their hiring practices to be less strict and reinvest some of that money in training.
Isn’t that what a boomerang promotion is?
Isn’t that what a boomerang promotion is?
What is a “boomerang promotion?” I’ve never heard of the term
Basically, it's supposed to describe this:
- Bob works at Amazon as a SDE 2
- Bob finds getting promoted to SDE 3 is hard (despite being qualified) because the bar for promotion is too nitpicky/convoluted/whatever
- Bob quits and goes to work somewhere else
- Bob then applies for a job at Amazon again, but for a SDE 3 role. He lands the job, effectively getting a promotion in a really roundabout way.
The premise is that getting hired as a SDE 3 is presumably easier for someone who was already a successful SDE 2 than it is to navigate promotion committee politics internally for that same SDE 3 title.
This "trick" isn't limited to any specific company or role level; rather it's mostly a hypothetical scenario that is used as an insider joke when there's a perception of an overly obtuse promotion criteria.
In the context of this thread, I'm guessing they're saying that lowering the hiring bar would effectively open the floodgates for ex-amazon people to join back at higher paying roles since they were already able to pass the previously harder interviews.
- Bob works at Amazon as a SDE 2
- Bob finds getting promoted to SDE 3 is hard (despite being qualified) because the bar for promotion is too nitpicky/convoluted/whatever
- Bob quits and goes to work somewhere else
- Bob then applies for a job at Amazon again, but for a SDE 3 role. He lands the job, effectively getting a promotion in a really roundabout way.
The premise is that getting hired as a SDE 3 is presumably easier for someone who was already a successful SDE 2 than it is to navigate promotion committee politics internally for that same SDE 3 title.
This "trick" isn't limited to any specific company or role level; rather it's mostly a hypothetical scenario that is used as an insider joke when there's a perception of an overly obtuse promotion criteria.
In the context of this thread, I'm guessing they're saying that lowering the hiring bar would effectively open the floodgates for ex-amazon people to join back at higher paying roles since they were already able to pass the previously harder interviews.
In all my years working in this industry I've seen very no boomerang promotions. Definitely not in the same team. In the same team of course, if you leave your current and future positions are taken by others, there is little logic for anyone to bring you in at a higher level.
Plus most shops will filter you out a resume screening level itself.
Plus most shops will filter you out a resume screening level itself.
There was actually a fairly high profile boomerang in the news last year - and at Amazon, no less - Sukumar Rathnam went from engineering manager at Amazon to CTO at Uber to VP of e-commerce services at Amazon, all in the span of less than two years.
FWIW, Netflix basically has a slider, where you can take from 0% to 100% of your salary in options vs in cash. You get to decide once a year during a sort of "open enrollment" (like how you choose health care plans).
What a great idea. I feel like this would let you make the choice on an annual basis based on your goals for the year, lifestyle needs, etc.
FYI they changed it to 50% max a few years ago, but otherwise yes.
I had a few friends who went 100% stock (which meant that they technically qualified for food stamps and medicare since it was pretax dollars) and some went 70%.
I had a few friends who went 100% stock (which meant that they technically qualified for food stamps and medicare since it was pretax dollars) and some went 70%.
> this move seems reminiscent of Netflix's pay structure, in the sense of offering a higher cash portion but lower equity.
Netflix gives you 100% of your total comp in whatever form you choose: all cash, all stock, or any combination in between. Also, Netflix's stock plan vests immediately-- they don't try to lock you in with 4-year vesting. They view stock compensation as something you've earned, so there are no strings attached.
It's well known that for top roles, Amazon's pay ranges are often well below their peer companies. You can see this on https://levels.fyi. So it makes sense that Amazon is trying to catch up.
Netflix gives you 100% of your total comp in whatever form you choose: all cash, all stock, or any combination in between. Also, Netflix's stock plan vests immediately-- they don't try to lock you in with 4-year vesting. They view stock compensation as something you've earned, so there are no strings attached.
It's well known that for top roles, Amazon's pay ranges are often well below their peer companies. You can see this on https://levels.fyi. So it makes sense that Amazon is trying to catch up.
I think you are on target.
IMO it is an attempt at employee retention as well as attracting new talent.
Purely anecdotal on my part, but I've seen post after post on LinkedIn of senior/tenured Amazonians moving on to other roles after five, ten, and even fifteen years. The stock performance has been pretty flat for the last few years, so the TC growth is lagging behind the gains you could get from being a new hire.
Also a base salary cap of $160,000 is really low. Not everyone joining Amazon wants a large portion of potential comp to fluctuate with the whims of the market. This increases the choices for TC configuration. If you wanna have lots of base and a minimal RSU grant, you now have the option.
IMO it is an attempt at employee retention as well as attracting new talent.
Purely anecdotal on my part, but I've seen post after post on LinkedIn of senior/tenured Amazonians moving on to other roles after five, ten, and even fifteen years. The stock performance has been pretty flat for the last few years, so the TC growth is lagging behind the gains you could get from being a new hire.
Also a base salary cap of $160,000 is really low. Not everyone joining Amazon wants a large portion of potential comp to fluctuate with the whims of the market. This increases the choices for TC configuration. If you wanna have lots of base and a minimal RSU grant, you now have the option.
Is AMZN stock really flat? Looks close to 4x its price from 5 years ago.
It’s been flat for about a year and a half
If you move that slider even just a few months to March 2020 you capture a doubling of the stock price, 1.5 years seems incredibly arbitrary as a cutoff point
It’s when I joined and started watching them. Completely and utterly arbitrary
Ha. Fair enough
If it's just lowering equity payout, then it's not Netflix's structure. Netflix really tries to make its pay structure fair to its employees by implementing the following policies:
1. They give cash that is generally 20% higher than average market price.
2. If you convert your cash into options, you don't pay the income tax for the forfeited cash. It's your choice on how much cash you'd like to convert. And of course, if you joined company by 2015 or so, and consistently converts, say 40% (or whatever percentage other FAANG companies use) of your cash, you should be have enough money to to retire and focus on angel investing.
3. They give you a discount of the options. It used to be 5X. That is, if you forfeit $1 of income and the strike price of options is $1, you get to have 5 options instead of 1. That is, if the stock price increases by 25% compared to the strike price, you'll make even, roughly speaking.
4. They options expire in 10 years! I mean, 10 years!
5. Options vest every month. The strike price is the the price of stock of that month (not sure if it's average of the month or at the time of vest). Combining this and #4, employees will make money as long as Netflix stock has volatility. The only scenarios that employees will lose money is that the stock price keeps going down for 10 years or there is not enough volatility.
6. They don't give bonus. If you perform really well, you will become more important to the company, and you get a hefty raise. The raise stays.
If this is not fair, I don't know what is.
1. They give cash that is generally 20% higher than average market price.
2. If you convert your cash into options, you don't pay the income tax for the forfeited cash. It's your choice on how much cash you'd like to convert. And of course, if you joined company by 2015 or so, and consistently converts, say 40% (or whatever percentage other FAANG companies use) of your cash, you should be have enough money to to retire and focus on angel investing.
3. They give you a discount of the options. It used to be 5X. That is, if you forfeit $1 of income and the strike price of options is $1, you get to have 5 options instead of 1. That is, if the stock price increases by 25% compared to the strike price, you'll make even, roughly speaking.
4. They options expire in 10 years! I mean, 10 years!
5. Options vest every month. The strike price is the the price of stock of that month (not sure if it's average of the month or at the time of vest). Combining this and #4, employees will make money as long as Netflix stock has volatility. The only scenarios that employees will lose money is that the stock price keeps going down for 10 years or there is not enough volatility.
6. They don't give bonus. If you perform really well, you will become more important to the company, and you get a hefty raise. The raise stays.
If this is not fair, I don't know what is.
Mind you, though, Netflix's pay and scope are competitive for up to entry-level staff engineer with very few exceptions (Brendan Gregg is one such exception). That means every engineer writes code, is responsible for one or more services, and uses their services to assert their influence. Very few engineers get more than $800K or whatever comparable packages offered to Sr Staff/Principal engineers in other companies.
I personally view this as a strength of Netflix. They have such a wonderful culture that empowers its engineers to focus on building and being autonomous. They don't need people to drive company wide initiatives most of the time.
I personally view this as a strength of Netflix. They have such a wonderful culture that empowers its engineers to focus on building and being autonomous. They don't need people to drive company wide initiatives most of the time.
> 3. ... if you forfeit $1 of income and the strike price of options is $1, ...
Does this example need another prerequisite "and the current price of NFLX is $1"? Because if the example runs with NFLX at, say $10, then each option already have an intrinsic value of $9.
And combined with #5, those options look like at-the-money call options that expire in 10 years. But in this case it won't make any sense to set the option price (the amount of income to forfeit for each option) according to either strike price or stock price -- shouldn't it be set according to the difference between the two?
Does this example need another prerequisite "and the current price of NFLX is $1"? Because if the example runs with NFLX at, say $10, then each option already have an intrinsic value of $9.
And combined with #5, those options look like at-the-money call options that expire in 10 years. But in this case it won't make any sense to set the option price (the amount of income to forfeit for each option) according to either strike price or stock price -- shouldn't it be set according to the difference between the two?
> and combined with #5, those options look like at-the-money call options that expire in 10 years.
Correct.
> But in this case it won't make any sense to set the option price (the amount of income to forfeit for each option) according to either strike price or stock price -- shouldn't it be set according to the difference between the two?
The difference is always $0. The option strike is the same as the current price. The option price is 40% of the current stock price/strike price.
Let's say you make $180K. You opt to put 50% into stock. So each month you will buy $7500 worth of options. On month one, the stock price is $750. The option discount is 60%, so you get your options at $300 each. You buy 25 options at a $750 strike.
So now you're down $7500. But if the stock goes up 40% to $1050, you've broken even. If you exercise your option you buy the shares at $750, sell it at $1050, and make $300 a share.
But the real advantage comes if the stock goes up say 50%. Now you can make a profit of $375 a share, so you just made a 25% gain on your initial investment. It takes a while to break even, but once you do, you have extreme leverage.
People who went stock heavy usually made more from the options than salary, at least in the 2010s.
Correct.
> But in this case it won't make any sense to set the option price (the amount of income to forfeit for each option) according to either strike price or stock price -- shouldn't it be set according to the difference between the two?
The difference is always $0. The option strike is the same as the current price. The option price is 40% of the current stock price/strike price.
Let's say you make $180K. You opt to put 50% into stock. So each month you will buy $7500 worth of options. On month one, the stock price is $750. The option discount is 60%, so you get your options at $300 each. You buy 25 options at a $750 strike.
So now you're down $7500. But if the stock goes up 40% to $1050, you've broken even. If you exercise your option you buy the shares at $750, sell it at $1050, and make $300 a share.
But the real advantage comes if the stock goes up say 50%. Now you can make a profit of $375 a share, so you just made a 25% gain on your initial investment. It takes a while to break even, but once you do, you have extreme leverage.
People who went stock heavy usually made more from the options than salary, at least in the 2010s.
> The strike price is the the price of stock of that month (not sure if it's average of the month or at the time of vest).
It was on the day of vesting (1st business day of the month) at the close that day. So we used to root for a huge single day drop on the first trading day of the month (mostly jokingly).
It was on the day of vesting (1st business day of the month) at the close that day. So we used to root for a huge single day drop on the first trading day of the month (mostly jokingly).
If that's the case, why do they continue to reject candidates based on their automated algorithm test as the first step in the interview?
If they had too many candidates and not enough positions, it makes sense, but in the opposite scenario you just lose our on candidates that hate those tests.
If they had too many candidates and not enough positions, it makes sense, but in the opposite scenario you just lose our on candidates that hate those tests.
i would guess because thinking of people as interchangeable resources amenable to algorithmic management is deeply embedded in the company's dna.
+1 to this. I will grit my teeth and go through a leetcode/coderpad step (I get it, FizzBuzz and all that) but jumping straight to the technical stuff and not giving me the decency of talking to a human leaves the impression that I'm really just a code-producing machine for the org (Which for Amazon, I no doubt expect I would be).
As a recently posted article here said[0]: "My hunch with those companies was that it wouldn't have been a major issue if I was video-ing in from the State Penitentiary (due to murder charges) as long as I solved the algorithms correctly"
[0]:https://www.joshcsimmons.com/posts/why-i-quit-shopify
As a recently posted article here said[0]: "My hunch with those companies was that it wouldn't have been a major issue if I was video-ing in from the State Penitentiary (due to murder charges) as long as I solved the algorithms correctly"
[0]:https://www.joshcsimmons.com/posts/why-i-quit-shopify
Yeah, I'm definitely not into those tests. It's so played out. This means that the only way I'm going to do one is if I want to work for the company just that bad. And Amazon is not it. If my passion was crushing competition in unfair ways, I'd just take steroids and be a professional athlete.
I will guess that it's because there are a lot of candidates that will do fine in the more "human" parts of the interview, but cannot solve FizzBuzz. It's just more efficient to screen those out quickly, and save the human interviews for those who have already established a baseline technical capability.
The Amazon pre-screener questions are not FizzBuzz. They are more complicated algorithms with a 45 minute time limit.
> Amazon seems to be at a point where it really needs to try everything under the sun to try to attract talent
Maybe, just maybe they can try and get rid of their crazy PIP policies to try and retain talent .
Maybe, just maybe they can try and get rid of their crazy PIP policies to try and retain talent .
Amazon also has this trick where they quote your total compensation with the built in assumption that $AMZN will appreciate by 15% per year.
When I went through the process, it was pretty confusing to understand but the gist is that they try to hit a total compensation of whatever your target is. And when they quote the total compensation of your salary 3 or 4 years in, they assume that the stock has appreciated by 15% per year. So 15% of your potential gains (compounding per year) of getting RSUs and exposure to Amazon stock is removed.
When I went through the process, it was pretty confusing to understand but the gist is that they try to hit a total compensation of whatever your target is. And when they quote the total compensation of your salary 3 or 4 years in, they assume that the stock has appreciated by 15% per year. So 15% of your potential gains (compounding per year) of getting RSUs and exposure to Amazon stock is removed.
I’ve been talking to close to a dozen current and former Amazon employees since the end of 2021, and reached out to people publicly sharing attrition observations. Amazon attrition is really bad, even in AWS (Amazon employees all agree that AWS is a much better place to work in tech than Amazon retail).
At the same time, Amazon has had to pay very high for new hires. Hiring managers used to need to get L10 approval to go out of bands on offers outside bands, but starting late 2021, they could go out of bands up to ~20% higher with no approvals.
To top all of this, Amazon has a 6% internal URA (non-regretted attrition) target: something that has been in place for close to a decade. The Amazon Music group revolted late 2021 as reported by the Big Technology publication in-depth [1] as they didn't have 6% of people to fire, at the very time when they could not hire. Yet they were forced to hit this URA target, just like all other orgs in Amazon. Apparently this “rebellion email” leaked across the company and is sparking Amazon-wide outrage, and adds fuel to the fire.
Amazon has been extremely frugal for the skillset they hire for, very demanding and have created a stressful workplace. They still force 6% of engineers to be fired, even when their own leadership opposes this (Amazon Music).
I wonder why they can’t hire. Also, why is Amazon still part of the FANG abbreviation when they have this culture across many of their organisations?
[1] https://bigtechnology.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_...
At the same time, Amazon has had to pay very high for new hires. Hiring managers used to need to get L10 approval to go out of bands on offers outside bands, but starting late 2021, they could go out of bands up to ~20% higher with no approvals.
To top all of this, Amazon has a 6% internal URA (non-regretted attrition) target: something that has been in place for close to a decade. The Amazon Music group revolted late 2021 as reported by the Big Technology publication in-depth [1] as they didn't have 6% of people to fire, at the very time when they could not hire. Yet they were forced to hit this URA target, just like all other orgs in Amazon. Apparently this “rebellion email” leaked across the company and is sparking Amazon-wide outrage, and adds fuel to the fire.
Amazon has been extremely frugal for the skillset they hire for, very demanding and have created a stressful workplace. They still force 6% of engineers to be fired, even when their own leadership opposes this (Amazon Music).
I wonder why they can’t hire. Also, why is Amazon still part of the FANG abbreviation when they have this culture across many of their organisations?
[1] https://bigtechnology.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&utm_...
> To top all of this, Amazon has a 6% internal URA
So that's where all the Microsoft stack-ranking hawks went!
So that's where all the Microsoft stack-ranking hawks went!
Your link took me to the home page. Is this the story?
https://bigtechnology.substack.com/p/standing-up-for-us-pleb...
https://bigtechnology.substack.com/p/standing-up-for-us-pleb...
Yes, this is the one I meant to link. I can no longer edit my comment, unfortunately.
> Amazon attrition is really bad, even in AWS (Amazon employees all agree that AWS is a much better place to work in tech than Amazon retail).
This one is interesting to me, as my anecdata is the opposite. People tell me not to go to Amazon, but if I do choose to go, refuse any job with AWS on the basis that they refuse to staff it properly.
This one is interesting to me, as my anecdata is the opposite. People tell me not to go to Amazon, but if I do choose to go, refuse any job with AWS on the basis that they refuse to staff it properly.
> Amazon employees all agree that AWS is a much better place to work in tech than Amazon retail
Nut sure where you're getting this from, but IMO this is not true at all.
More 'hardcore engineering' is going on, on average, over Amazon Retail/CDO. But I would not say _at all_ that AWS is a better place to work.
From the datapoints I've gathered, it's the opposite. Oncall for an AWS product generally sucks balls, and the re:invent death march is a real thing.
But this is just like, my opinion, man.
Nut sure where you're getting this from, but IMO this is not true at all.
More 'hardcore engineering' is going on, on average, over Amazon Retail/CDO. But I would not say _at all_ that AWS is a better place to work.
From the datapoints I've gathered, it's the opposite. Oncall for an AWS product generally sucks balls, and the re:invent death march is a real thing.
But this is just like, my opinion, man.
>Also, why is Amazon still part of the FANG abbreviation when they have this culture across many of their organisations?
Because the term had nothing to do with work culture. The term was coined by Jim Cramer, the television host of CNBC's Mad Money, in 2013, who praised these companies for being “totally dominant in their markets”. The original definition still holds true.
Because the term had nothing to do with work culture. The term was coined by Jim Cramer, the television host of CNBC's Mad Money, in 2013, who praised these companies for being “totally dominant in their markets”. The original definition still holds true.
Is Netflix totally dominant still?
Here’s the actual substack link: https://bigtechnology.substack.com/p/standing-up-for-us-pleb...
Their recruiting process is very onerous too. Very hard to get people who are well paid to even interview when they know it’s so much work, only to get a pay cut.
This is an interesting point. Do you the total rounds/average expect time to complete the loop.
I agree if I'm looking and someone makes the interview process quick that interest will make me more likely to join.
I agree if I'm looking and someone makes the interview process quick that interest will make me more likely to join.
The full in-person loop is 5 60 minute sessions. Maybe another hour for the initial phone screen.
My experience with Amazon was many rounds, several encouraged “coaching” sessions, and a suggestion that I come up with 2-3 anecdotes relating to each of the 14 values. That’s a big ask to take a pay cut.
It seems in line with competing companies.
Not sure why the article mentions Microsoft, or if Amazon really worries about them. MS salary is notoriously low compared to FANG, with talent often leaving only because of money, particularly in the Seattle area where Amazon HQ is, and SF/SV.
This is just an element of normalizing Amazon comp practices versus the rest of the industry, really, right?
I haven't done any interviews since before covid. What resources do people suggest reading in order to prepare? I'm familiar with leetcode but I'm wondering what books I should read besides Cracking the Coding Interview.
Or they are pushing more compensation into cash because cash is a lot cheaper for them than equity. What I mean by that is that they have almost unlimited borrowing capacity at near-zero rates, versus a fixed amount of equity, and as long as the equity keeps growing, the cash pool grows with it. If the employees want to then purchase the equity, then that is upward pressure on the price, versus downward pressure on the price when an employee sells equity for cash.
In theory it's all fungible and doesn't work this way. If it did, they would just take out a loan and buyback their stock and skip all the extra steps.
This is good news for tech workers, but the income disparity between Amazon tech workers and Amazon warehouse/delivery workers is absolutely obscene.
Understandably, skilled vs unskilled labor, and supply and demand, and all that, but as Jon Stewart recently recounted telling Jeff Bezos at a dinner party, “sounds like a recipe for a revolution.”
Understandably, skilled vs unskilled labor, and supply and demand, and all that, but as Jon Stewart recently recounted telling Jeff Bezos at a dinner party, “sounds like a recipe for a revolution.”
not only skilled vs unskilled labor.
but an engineer can produce a system which generates millions of revenue a day. a warehouse worker, cannot scale this way.
but an engineer can produce a system which generates millions of revenue a day. a warehouse worker, cannot scale this way.
This is very true, but at some point you need to value people at a base level. Warehouse work is grueling and you can easily get hurt. 16 /hr, which is the base of an Amazon warehouse worker, is below a livable wage w/o kids in much of the country.
There is what you can get away with and what is right. At some point you just have to do what is right.
There is what you can get away with and what is right. At some point you just have to do what is right.
Not commenting on the substance of your comment, but seems like they hiked it to 18$/hr?
https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-amazon-hikes-star...
https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-amazon-hikes-star...
it seems like learning how to code would be easier than overthrowing the govt (at least it did to me back before I had any skills)
Not everyone can learn to code at a high level for one reason or another. They should still be able to feed and house their family if gainfully employed full time.
Are the Amazon factory workers running around naked in the streets?
Will Amazon at any point start considering hiring more engineers from countries that command lesser salaries like Brazil/EU than they do US engineers?
Why do US engineers command such higher salaries?
Why do US engineers command such higher salaries?
European labor laws are a major factor. It's much harder to fire people and a company like Amazon loves to fire people.
I imagine Brazil doesn't have enough of a talent pool to draw from.
I imagine Brazil doesn't have enough of a talent pool to draw from.
> European labor laws are a major factor. It's much harder to fire people and a company like Amazon loves to fire people.
Not sure why I keep reading this over and over. Yes, it can take up to 6 months to fire somebody here in Europe (usually 1-3 months though). The 6 months is usually for >15 years of uninterrupted work with the same company.
Justifying that "the company cannot easily fire because of labor laws" is just plain wrong.
If the 250k+$ jobs I'm constantly reading about are actually true, it's double the average that I've ever heard about for any type of Senior SW Devs in most competitive / innovative centers in the EU. 350k$ more so. Stocks are not even part of the TC.
In most EU countries, SW Devs make about 50-60k€ as juniors.
To reiterate, the math doesn't add up, so the argument must be talent, not laws.
Not sure why I keep reading this over and over. Yes, it can take up to 6 months to fire somebody here in Europe (usually 1-3 months though). The 6 months is usually for >15 years of uninterrupted work with the same company.
Justifying that "the company cannot easily fire because of labor laws" is just plain wrong.
If the 250k+$ jobs I'm constantly reading about are actually true, it's double the average that I've ever heard about for any type of Senior SW Devs in most competitive / innovative centers in the EU. 350k$ more so. Stocks are not even part of the TC.
In most EU countries, SW Devs make about 50-60k€ as juniors.
To reiterate, the math doesn't add up, so the argument must be talent, not laws.
Speaking only for my own org's stated goals, they try to hire within the same timezone or close-by. So South America, for a west coast team, would theoretically work but Europe would be a tougher sell. Amazon also hasn't historically done a lot of remote work (as far as I've seen anyway) so, pre-COVID, an office would likely need to exist in a given area.
I'm also pissed off when I see HN people seeing 200k or 300k salaries as "too low". Jesus, Americans are millionaires, what the hell?!
I'll tell you the reason: they do this because they can. It's not talent, it's competition. Who in EU is going to give you even 80k as a junior? Nobody. So why bother offering 300k or even 150k when people will take the tole for 60 or 70k?
Inb4 "but housing is more affordable!"
Whatever. That's not related to the employer. It's simply racist. "You earn less because you're European" is the truth. It's not because cost of living is lower (although it's related) but it's just a matter of employers being able to get away with shitty pay.
I'll tell you the reason: they do this because they can. It's not talent, it's competition. Who in EU is going to give you even 80k as a junior? Nobody. So why bother offering 300k or even 150k when people will take the tole for 60 or 70k?
Inb4 "but housing is more affordable!"
Whatever. That's not related to the employer. It's simply racist. "You earn less because you're European" is the truth. It's not because cost of living is lower (although it's related) but it's just a matter of employers being able to get away with shitty pay.
Yes, most likely.
Would that not imply the following?:
- most people will constantly change jobs in search of better pay.
- foreign (especially US) companies have incentives to hire more in Brazil/EU.
- most people will constantly change jobs in search of better pay.
- foreign (especially US) companies have incentives to hire more in Brazil/EU.
"Not sure why I keep reading this over and over."
Because it is true.
Because it is true.
Citation needed.
Because US tech companies are making a lot of money, and could make even more if they hire more engineers.
My friend seems to think you can get the same value in a Brazilian engineer for $120k/yr (or less) compared to a US engineer for $200k-$300k/yr+
Sure you can, it's easy at a small scale[1], but at a certain scale, but you have to expend effort in learning Brazilian labor law, how to run background checks in Brazil and the rest of it and a bunch of factors that add friction. This is the whole silicon valley salaries vs rest of country, writ global.
1. i.e. skirt the laws while relying on mutually-benefiting aspects of the arrangement, assuming a 1-in-a-100 dispute won't happen and/or the tax authorities don't turn their gaze on your operation.
1. i.e. skirt the laws while relying on mutually-benefiting aspects of the arrangement, assuming a 1-in-a-100 dispute won't happen and/or the tax authorities don't turn their gaze on your operation.
2 things why I dont bother interviewing:
1. very difficult long interview that I most likely won't pass 2. I only want to work remotely. driving every day few hours back and forth is very expensive in many ways.
When something changes about those I will think about it.
1. very difficult long interview that I most likely won't pass 2. I only want to work remotely. driving every day few hours back and forth is very expensive in many ways.
When something changes about those I will think about it.
Amazon has remote roles
LOL only took them ... forever ... I left Amazon ~7 years ago to go to FB because my base FB pay was higher than my Amazon total comp. Nevermind FB RSUs ... LOL
They should do this to warehouse workers instead who deserve it way more
I get contacted by Amazon recruiters multiple times a week. Now that I'm actively looking for a job, I thought I'd give them a chance. It would be good interview practice at the very least. So I take the online assessment and it turns out that one of the questions was a LeetCode Hard. Like... what? Did they want me to fail?
This is a nice step towards paying a living wage.
Ok. amazon has a high attrition rate because of it's culture. Making the pay higher won't necessarily fix that.
Does ANYONE in amazon see culture changes occurring at all? I'm willing to respond to the 5 recruiters contacting me BUT only if there is a huge drive to change culture as well.
Does ANYONE in amazon see culture changes occurring at all? I'm willing to respond to the 5 recruiters contacting me BUT only if there is a huge drive to change culture as well.
plus that high pay looks just like a bait to me. you still have to survive brutal (& I mean Brutal) annual reviews for entire duration and also not get PIPed in the process. getting piped for a bullshit reason really sucks, I have never been but have closely seen it happen.
to answer the original question, nope, I have not seen any evidence of culture change, source: a close friend joined & left in a year.
to answer the original question, nope, I have not seen any evidence of culture change, source: a close friend joined & left in a year.
Well, this uptick I've seen only in the last couple months so I'm wondering is there a culture change or impetus for culture change that occurred within the last month or couple months or so?
I think it's unlikely and that you're probably most likely right, but I want to fish out some comments from people in amazon who know what's going on.
I think it's unlikely and that you're probably most likely right, but I want to fish out some comments from people in amazon who know what's going on.
Disclaimer: I work at AWS.
I see comments about the culture a lot and I feel the need to chime in and say that it's not actually bad? At least in my team, the work life balance is fine, my manager is great and the projects are interesting.
Not saying that it's the same for every SDE, but some of the stories you read online make it seem like they shackle you to your desk and PIP you into submission.
I see comments about the culture a lot and I feel the need to chime in and say that it's not actually bad? At least in my team, the work life balance is fine, my manager is great and the projects are interesting.
Not saying that it's the same for every SDE, but some of the stories you read online make it seem like they shackle you to your desk and PIP you into submission.
What about during review season where someone on your team MUST get pipped?
I know that there are teams that are doing well. But if one person or more on your team gets pipped every year something is wrong...
I know that there are teams that are doing well. But if one person or more on your team gets pipped every year something is wrong...
I actually had a talk with my manager about that, as I was curious about how it actually worked (yes you can ask your manager it's not illegal).
There IS an expectation of managers being able to identify the bottom performers in their team, but for the PIP part it's up to the manager. They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed. They would have to write a reason (i.e. "No one on my team is performing low enough that I'd prefer re-hiring") but that's pretty much it.
Anecdotes on the Internet make it seem like we are all scared at review time to see who is going to get PIP'ed, but that's just not how it is...
There IS an expectation of managers being able to identify the bottom performers in their team, but for the PIP part it's up to the manager. They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed. They would have to write a reason (i.e. "No one on my team is performing low enough that I'd prefer re-hiring") but that's pretty much it.
Anecdotes on the Internet make it seem like we are all scared at review time to see who is going to get PIP'ed, but that's just not how it is...
I think your viewing it from a microcosm and that the rest of the internet actually probably has a more accurate view given that you had to ask your manager about this.
What I'm hearing from others is this... there are good teams at amazon... amazon is huge but the overall culture is not what you describe. I guess I'm looking for a more overall picture rather then someone viewing it from the perspective of a good team.
>They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed
You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
What I'm hearing from others is this... there are good teams at amazon... amazon is huge but the overall culture is not what you describe. I guess I'm looking for a more overall picture rather then someone viewing it from the perspective of a good team.
>They absolutely can push back and say that no-one in their team deserves to get PIP'ed
You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
> At least in my team...
> Not saying that it's the same for every SDE...
I think my initial comment had enough disclaimer to make it clear that I don't think this is applicable to every team at Amazon.
> You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
Every company I worked at had some form of "performance improvement plan" that essentially meant "pick up the pace or we will have to discuss options". The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.
EDIT: Re-reading your comment I think I understand why you think this is so weird.
> The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
You don't have to push-back not pip-ing a specific employee, but you will have to justify why no-one on your 20+ people team got PIP'ed during the year. Is that clearer?
> Not saying that it's the same for every SDE...
I think my initial comment had enough disclaimer to make it clear that I don't think this is applicable to every team at Amazon.
> You realize that a pip is not normal? Even one person getting PIP'ed on a team is is an event and abnormal. The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
Every company I worked at had some form of "performance improvement plan" that essentially meant "pick up the pace or we will have to discuss options". The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.
EDIT: Re-reading your comment I think I understand why you think this is so weird.
> The fact that a manager has to "push back" for not pip-ing somone raises a red flag for me.
You don't have to push-back not pip-ing a specific employee, but you will have to justify why no-one on your 20+ people team got PIP'ed during the year. Is that clearer?
>The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.
Maybe so, but the probability that the manager will have to write a justification is rather high (35.8% each year).
Maybe so, but the probability that the manager will have to write a justification is rather high (35.8% each year).
>Every company I worked at had some form of "performance improvement plan" that essentially meant "pick up the pace or we will have to discuss options". The idea that on a team of 20 people, during the span of a year, not a single employee (expected rate is ~5%) is underperforming is worthy of writing a justification.
Disagree. The measure of the entire performance of the team will always be a bell curve distribution. Even pruning the lowest performers doesn't change the bell curve. Think about it. You remove the lowest performer, that switches the lowest to another person on that team who's now at risk of pip.
Here's a way to evaluate the team in a way that makes sense. Ask the manager if he thinks someone needs to be PIP'd rather then asking the manager "who's your pick of PIP for the year? if you don't have one you better justify it"
Disagree. The measure of the entire performance of the team will always be a bell curve distribution. Even pruning the lowest performers doesn't change the bell curve. Think about it. You remove the lowest performer, that switches the lowest to another person on that team who's now at risk of pip.
Here's a way to evaluate the team in a way that makes sense. Ask the manager if he thinks someone needs to be PIP'd rather then asking the manager "who's your pick of PIP for the year? if you don't have one you better justify it"
My Amazon salary history, to anchor some of this story better:
- Joined early early 2017 as an L5 hire (no previous FANG experience, but 10+ elsewhere) with an an offer of base $145K, sign on of $50K year 1, $38K year 2, 150 RSUs (AMZN worth ~$850 = 127500). Vesting schedule: 5% @ 1y, 15% @ 2y, 20% @ 2.5y, 20% @ 3y, 20% @ 3.5y, 20% @ 4y.
- Negotiated without competing offers a bump to $150K base, $60K / $45K cash, 162 RSUs.
- A breakdown based on Amazon's 15% stock aprecciation YOY gives you Amazon's Total Compensation Target. This is Amazon's projection assuming that you perform at the middle of the expectation of your cohort in the yearly performance review (OLR, not forte as the article states)
- Joined early early 2017 as an L5 hire (no previous FANG experience, but 10+ elsewhere) with an an offer of base $145K, sign on of $50K year 1, $38K year 2, 150 RSUs (AMZN worth ~$850 = 127500). Vesting schedule: 5% @ 1y, 15% @ 2y, 20% @ 2.5y, 20% @ 3y, 20% @ 3.5y, 20% @ 4y.
- Negotiated without competing offers a bump to $150K base, $60K / $45K cash, 162 RSUs.
- A breakdown based on Amazon's 15% stock aprecciation YOY gives you Amazon's Total Compensation Target. This is Amazon's projection assuming that you perform at the middle of the expectation of your cohort in the yearly performance review (OLR, not forte as the article states)
- year 1 (8 RSUs): $150K base + $60K cash + 8 * $850 * 1.15 = $218K
- year 2 (24 RSUs): $150K base + $46K cash + 24 * $850 * 1.15^2 = $223K
- year 3 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^2.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^3) = $231K
- year 4 (32 + 33 RSUs): $150K base + (32 * $850 * 1.15^3.5) + (33 * $850 * 1.15^4) = $243K
- year 1 (AMZN @ $1430) = $221K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $157K
- year 2 (AMZN @ $1844) = $247K. OLR bumped base salary for next year to $160K. No stock grant as projected salary > comp target
- year 3 (AMZN @ $1767, $2307) = $292K. Granted 18 RSUs to vest at year 4.5 and year 5
- year 4 (AMZN @ $3338, $3379) = $378K
- year 5 (AMZN @ $3409, $3400?) = $221K
- due to manager / life reasons, didn't progress beyond L5. If I were to pursue this this year, my comp adjustment would have come about a year after starting at that level (but only to the lower end of the L6 band ~ $250K). $30K for a tonne more work seems rather stupid.
- note the golden handcuffs as well as that huge cliff
- some of the above is intentionally inaccurate (but not by a huge amount)Seems like it would be a lot better to realize you have a problem with management if your base (developers in this case) can't be retained or evidently bribed. Something is clearly broken in their organization, I mean holy shit 350k???
In my opinion, not really. Amazon management is far from great, that being said it's more that a developer that can "get into" Amazon can go elsewhere and make way more. FB is paying like, double of many of my friends at Amz right now and moving there is pretty easy. Goog is a bit less but still the same magnitude/ballpark.
You can call raising pay a bribe, but isn't that what work is? I mean shit, I wouldn't do my job if I didn't get paid for it. I have way more interesting hobbies than that... In that sense, is everything a bribe? I feel like those words don't really mean anything.
The increase isn't "we're paying all of our devs 350k tomorrow", it's "we can raise your salary up to 350, whereas before it was limited to 160"
You can call raising pay a bribe, but isn't that what work is? I mean shit, I wouldn't do my job if I didn't get paid for it. I have way more interesting hobbies than that... In that sense, is everything a bribe? I feel like those words don't really mean anything.
The increase isn't "we're paying all of our devs 350k tomorrow", it's "we can raise your salary up to 350, whereas before it was limited to 160"
I think this is a good move. The compensation structure of Amazon (max $160k, rest is RSUs) made sense when the company delivered stock value growth each year. It felt startup-esque. The issue is that the stock performance has been unimpressive for several years now, which means that a lot of higher-ups and older employees were seeing their compensation become significantly below market-rate and would, as one expect, leave.
To give people here an idea, my RSUs lost ~4% in value since I've been at Amazon (more than a year). This is perfectly fine if there's an expectation that the RSUs are a "bonus", it's not fine if you need it to go up 10-15% for your TC to match Microsoft.
To give people here an idea, my RSUs lost ~4% in value since I've been at Amazon (more than a year). This is perfectly fine if there's an expectation that the RSUs are a "bonus", it's not fine if you need it to go up 10-15% for your TC to match Microsoft.
Now is the perfect time to move to amazon as an experienced corp manager.
Your take home will easily exceed $1m which will help you gain a nice bump if you choose to move elsewhere in 18 months or so.
Your take home will easily exceed $1m which will help you gain a nice bump if you choose to move elsewhere in 18 months or so.
More stocks are actually favorable over cash to avoid Medicare and SS taxes which are approximately 15%. To me, this seems like a strategy to counter the volatility in the stock market and it gives Amazon a way to exit equity based employee retention.
Aren’t RSU taxed as income tax anyways?
RSUs are still subject to FICA taxes, see e.g. [0] and [1]. Also, most tech workers are above the income limit for Social Security taxes, so their marginal payroll tax rate is only 2.9%.
[0] https://www.foley.com/en/insights/publications/2020/08/restr...
[1] https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/perspectives-events/blogs/2020...
[0] https://www.foley.com/en/insights/publications/2020/08/restr...
[1] https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/perspectives-events/blogs/2020...
Seems like Amazon was blown through most of the labor supply and now can't find workers, not because they don't exist but because they don't want to work for Amazon. Doubt more money is going to fix this though perhaps pushing for more visas will let them get some workers who haven't been burnt by Amazon yet. Amazon simply has a bad culture which must be fixed. Even then, it'll take time to repair their reputation.