<Former Amazon>
I won't go on about the work quality at Amazon, there are plenty of other places to read about that.
It _is_ important to note that the average retention at Amazon (even for excellent people) is ~50% for 1 year, and ~20% or lower for the 2nd year.
Therefore, these comparisons should really take that into account. Amazon MAY look higher than Microsoft (for example) but because you only see 20% of your total vest the first two years, and everyone in the company makes a max of $160k with anything else bringing you up to market rate being a yearly "bonus", you likely won't see the majority of your earnings.
</Former Amazon>
It's unfortunate that this practice of giving almost the entire base salary amount as additional stock (RSU) has not spread outside the bay area. In other regions (such as LA, NY, Seattle, etc.) engineers only get base salary and sometimes a very small bonus. These base salaries are often competitive with the bay area, but the lack of the enormous RSU makes the total comp often 2x or more worse.
The following are excluded from the collection of OES wage data:
Attendance bonuses
Back pay
Clothing allowances
Discount
Draw
Holiday bonus
Holiday premium pay
Jury duty pay
Meal and lodging payments
Merchandise discounts
Non-production bonuses
On-call pay
Overtime pay
Perquisites
Profit-sharing payments
Relocation allowances
Severance pay
Shift differentials
Stock bonuses
Tool/equipment allowances
Tuition repayment
Uniform allowance
Weekend premium pay
Year-end bonuses
This means that BLS data is basically garbage for software engineers. And it's somewhat harmful, because companies probably use this trusted government data to check market rates. Even if a company has good intentions and wants to pay market rate, if they use this data they won't realize just how little that is compared to the true market rate.
It's strategic because they know that most candidates barely know what an RSU is and salary is the main factor they will take into consideration. So companies can get by with paying the workers half what they'd make at Google and still make it seem competitive because the salary may be the same.
And another bad thing is that I don't really find RSUs for most startups that attractive. I'd rather have RSUs from some public company like Amazon or Google than some non-public startup. At least I can easily sell Amazon stock.
I would be more interested in data that shows how much money an engineer takes back home (net income) compared to the rest of the world.
eg
Software Engineer from Atlantis earns 100 000 USD but pays 55% of tax so takes home only 45000
Software Engineer from Middle-Earth earns 60 000 USD but pays 10% tax and takes home 54000
It's very hard to make these kinds of comparison (take a look at the Economist's Big Mac index which attempts to illustrate relative buying power in different places). Similarly income tax may be low (e.g. Texas) but property taxes, sales tax, and tolls may be high (e.g. Texas) and social services may suck (e.g. Texas). There are some cost of living calculators around which try to calculate equivalent salaries around the US but they have not been more accurate than guesswork in my experience.
It's will be almost impossible to compare at that level since there are so many contributing factors that affects much one gets taxed. How much does the employee contribute to 401K, does he have dependents, medical claims?
Amazon keeps asking me to interview and everyone tells me it's a terrible place to work. After seeing this compensation via equity I'm thinking it might be worth it. Anyone work at Amazon and loves it or think it's really worth it?
I'm a former Amazonian. Since you asked my opinion, I'll give it.
It's a truly horrible place to work and I would never ask my worst enemy to go work there. Engenders the worst in humanity (people review, anyone?), terrible technical architecture, many systems based solely on tribal knowledge that leaves the door every day, comp structure that is nearly outright lying... I could go on.
Some people say that it was just the group I worked in but I worked in retail (1 year), new businesses (1 year) and AWS (1.5 years). There's virtually no difference. I still have PTSD (or at least what feels like PTSD) about by 3.5 years there, and I'd give anything to get that time back.
BTW, I'm now at another 20k+ person company which is doing very well, and making 30% more than my total comp when I was there.
I quite like it there. I work on DynamoDB where I'm surrounded by pretty amazing engineers. I have written code that had a major impact on the service. I've solved important problems and that has helped make new things possible. Just yesterday, I was in a room with 20 or so top engineers from across AWS; that was pretty rewarding.
When I started, I expected that I'd be there a couple years then move on to Google, but I'm not even excited about talking to Google, Facebook, Uber, or the others at this point.
P.S. We're hiring on DynamoDB. We need for software developers and SRE-type folks. My e-mail is in my profile if you're interested in finding out more.
One of the tables has this important piece of information at the bottom:
"Amazon's vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, and 40% over the 4 years"
This is a significant deviation from the industry standard, which is to have a one year cliff, and have stock vest month-to-month afterwards. What happens if you leave in the middle of year 3?
SDE3 is a quite senior role at Amazon. I don't know very many of them, and almost all of the ones I know are extremely bright. Seems like they're getting ripped off.
Most teams require some on-call time every month or two. That's a big factor for me—I value my sleep.
Additionally, last time I interviewed there they did not have remote work in any form. If you get a 2am page, you have to drive in to the office. (And you have to commute.)
I love it. You either love it or hate it. Read the leadership principles. If you align with what they're saying, you'll enjoy it. If you don't like them, you won't like Amazon.
Needs a bit of definition for levels, I take Level 1 is straight out of college, L2 is some (3-5 years) experience, kind of default, L3 "senior" (internal promotion, really good experienced candidates) and L4 super-senior?
The numbers don't seem obviously way off when compared to the numbers of folks I know. This is with the caveat that, for example, I don't know the compensation of that many people who are T6 at Google or at Amazon at any level. The only thing that looks off is that the numbers for Microsoft look low.
Why would that be? I suspect that's more because the pool of people I know is biased than because the pool that posted is biased -- some orgs in Microsoft will match offers from other companies even though average compensation is relatively low, so if you're new and you know a lot other people who are new, the sample of people you know is probably biased high.
To be clear, I think that's bad both for Microsoft and for Microsoft employees. I'm just trying to figure why the Microsoft data is anomalous relative to the numbers people have personally told me. The reason it's bad for employees is obvious. The reason it's bad for the company is that it's pretty common for people who have been here a long time to shop around, find out that they can make much more elsewhere, and then get a matching offer from MS. Once word gets around that the best way to get a fair raise is to interview elsewhere, people start interviewing elsewhere, and some of the people who interview are going to leave, even if that wasn't their original intent.
We actually suspect that people who are paid less or are underpaid are more likely to report their salaries. For example, it seems like Glassdoor data skews low.
There's obviously going to be a bias of some sort, but it would probably be worth looking at the distribution of the reported salaries to get a better sense of that. (The author may have already looked at the spread of salaries, I haven't read through the whole thing yet).
You could also try comparing with visadoor.com or another source of H1B data for the same companies to try to see where they fit in. There may be a systematic difference between H1B salaries and the larger employee base at these companies, but at least you're not limited by self-reporting.
Holy crap, I didn't realize that starting salary at Google was $175K. That seems a bit high for new college hires, but I suppose I'm comparing that to my salary as a freshie sdet.
Would like to see a discussion of possible systematic bias. The "hacker" group generally prides itself on a) creatively messing systems up, and b) anticipating (and preventing) creative system mess-ups, I have to wonder how accurate this data is. Sure, there's little incentive to lie - but there is a small incentive, which is simply to mess with people. (And there might even be another, which is to exaggerate income to encourage others to ask for more money, which might eventually positively affect you.) I wonder if there is any way to measure this effect, or eliminate it.
There are a bunch of spreadsheets. We consolidated and standardized the data on a few of them, but we still have more to do. We clean the data, and then we try to see what type of synthesized info we can provide back.
Would be interesting to see hours worked too, are those $200k+ bonus salaries 84hr work weeks with 3 weeks vacation you can never take or normal hours.
I would like to see one of these analysis break down base salary versus total compensation. I have never received less than 95% of my total compensation in base salary. Neither has my non-technical wife. I have no idea what is "normal" in that respect.
I'd also like to see a breakdown by market, as I have been led to believe that my salary is only slightly below market for Dallas, but the median compensation numbers posted in this article for my experience level are three times what I make now, and it's depressing.
It's hard to compute non-base compensation precisely, because stock price is inherently volatile, especially over four years. If your vesting schedule includes absolute numbers of shares you will receive in 1, 2, 3, 4 years, you cannot possibly predict the value of those shares, and therefore cannot reliably measure your per-year compensation.
For example, if you knew four years ago that you would receive 30 GOOG stock in 2016, you would assume in 2012 that would mean a $10k bonus. But now the stock has gone from $325 to $754, the bonus is actually $22k.
If you work for a company with an increasing stock price, then stock based compensation can also create the illusion that your "salary" is increasing each year, even if you get no promotion.
Base salary vs total comp data from the research can be eyeballed from the first graphic in the article.
For anecdote, approximately 66% of my total compensation is in base salary. When I first started working 5 years ago, it was 92%.
These numbers are probably skewed somewhat by Bayarea salaries, which have to compensate a little for the high cost of living (compare for example Facebook/Google to Microsoft/Amazon, which are primarily Seattle-area employers). In general, I've found the Bayarea salary bump doesn't overcome the Bayarea cost-of-living bump. So these salaries are only higher on paper.
The second chart should show the compensation breakdown across salary, cash bonus and equity.
In NYC and SF, there's high demand for and short supply of developers, which drives up compensation. Companies in these cities will recruit from across the country to get talent. Cities like Dallas though also have a much lower cost of living, so that should be taken into account. There was a Hacker News thread about this at one point.
We don't yet have enough data on each market, but we plan on breaking out the analysis by city once we get that data.
Holy cow! Facebook's median signing bonus for Level 1 (new grad) engineers is $75K! Why is that higher than for experienced engineers? How can the other companies compete with that?
The expectation, I've heard from recruiters, is that as a new grad you have a higher need for cash immediately (to buy furniture for your first apartment, e.g.). As an industry hire, you are probably already established and don't have a particular need for a lump sum right out of the gate (especially since relocation is provided for separately).
Good question. We checked the raw data again, and the signing bonuses are all consistently high for Facebook Level 1. We also know a couple of people at Facebook who have received signing bonuses in line with the $75K. But we don't yet know why it's so high compared with the other companies.
Why does MS pay their engineers less than other tech companies when most of their services are not free? It's like getting paid at tight budget startups. Despite of the reported salary here, I admire the engineers there. Is it because MS has great work culture and excellent benefits?
I'd be surprised if any of the big companies didn't provide at least 401K and as much matching as the law will allow. There really isn't a lot of freedom to innovate in this space that I'm aware of.
With that said, Google did have this odd thing where you could do an in-plan Roth conversion, and put post-tax dollars into your 401K. I did this in 2013 or 2014, and I think Google was one of the few companies to offer this at the time.
One interesting area of differentiation is health care. When I left Google in 2015, they were cutting health benefits to avoid Cadillac plan taxes. Lots of people were saying that Facebook had better plans.
Unfortunately, we don't have that information right now. We could try to find out. It just wasn't part of the compensation data that the people on Hacker News had posted.
[+] [-] FmrAMZN_TA|10 years ago|reply
It _is_ important to note that the average retention at Amazon (even for excellent people) is ~50% for 1 year, and ~20% or lower for the 2nd year.
Therefore, these comparisons should really take that into account. Amazon MAY look higher than Microsoft (for example) but because you only see 20% of your total vest the first two years, and everyone in the company makes a max of $160k with anything else bringing you up to market rate being a yearly "bonus", you likely won't see the majority of your earnings. </Former Amazon>
[+] [-] cpprototypes|10 years ago|reply
EDIT:
After writing this, I was curious how the BLS calculates wages. Here is the answer from their FAQ: http://www.bls.gov/oes/oes_ques.htm#overview
This means that BLS data is basically garbage for software engineers. And it's somewhat harmful, because companies probably use this trusted government data to check market rates. Even if a company has good intentions and wants to pay market rate, if they use this data they won't realize just how little that is compared to the true market rate.[+] [-] pyrrhotech|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chris11|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eulji|10 years ago|reply
eg Software Engineer from Atlantis earns 100 000 USD but pays 55% of tax so takes home only 45000 Software Engineer from Middle-Earth earns 60 000 USD but pays 10% tax and takes home 54000
etc
[+] [-] Tloewald|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stepny|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aioprisan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wesd|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dsmithatx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] FmrAMZN_TA|10 years ago|reply
It's a truly horrible place to work and I would never ask my worst enemy to go work there. Engenders the worst in humanity (people review, anyone?), terrible technical architecture, many systems based solely on tribal knowledge that leaves the door every day, comp structure that is nearly outright lying... I could go on.
Some people say that it was just the group I worked in but I worked in retail (1 year), new businesses (1 year) and AWS (1.5 years). There's virtually no difference. I still have PTSD (or at least what feels like PTSD) about by 3.5 years there, and I'd give anything to get that time back.
BTW, I'm now at another 20k+ person company which is doing very well, and making 30% more than my total comp when I was there.
[+] [-] planckscnst|10 years ago|reply
When I started, I expected that I'd be there a couple years then move on to Google, but I'm not even excited about talking to Google, Facebook, Uber, or the others at this point.
P.S. We're hiring on DynamoDB. We need for software developers and SRE-type folks. My e-mail is in my profile if you're interested in finding out more.
[+] [-] yannickt|10 years ago|reply
"Amazon's vesting schedule is 5%, 15%, 40%, and 40% over the 4 years"
This is a significant deviation from the industry standard, which is to have a one year cliff, and have stock vest month-to-month afterwards. What happens if you leave in the middle of year 3?
[+] [-] umanwizard|10 years ago|reply
SDE3 is a quite senior role at Amazon. I don't know very many of them, and almost all of the ones I know are extremely bright. Seems like they're getting ripped off.
[+] [-] loeg|10 years ago|reply
Additionally, last time I interviewed there they did not have remote work in any form. If you get a 2am page, you have to drive in to the office. (And you have to commute.)
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] debacle|10 years ago|reply
That said, one of them is the kind of person that I would expect to do really well in an Amazonian environment, and the other now works at Nintendo.
[+] [-] eclipxe|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lazyant|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] overcast|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] luu|10 years ago|reply
Why would that be? I suspect that's more because the pool of people I know is biased than because the pool that posted is biased -- some orgs in Microsoft will match offers from other companies even though average compensation is relatively low, so if you're new and you know a lot other people who are new, the sample of people you know is probably biased high.
To be clear, I think that's bad both for Microsoft and for Microsoft employees. I'm just trying to figure why the Microsoft data is anomalous relative to the numbers people have personally told me. The reason it's bad for employees is obvious. The reason it's bad for the company is that it's pretty common for people who have been here a long time to shop around, find out that they can make much more elsewhere, and then get a matching offer from MS. Once word gets around that the best way to get a fair raise is to interview elsewhere, people start interviewing elsewhere, and some of the people who interview are going to leave, even if that wasn't their original intent.
[+] [-] stepny|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wehadfun|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smeyer|10 years ago|reply
You could also try comparing with visadoor.com or another source of H1B data for the same companies to try to see where they fit in. There may be a systematic difference between H1B salaries and the larger employee base at these companies, but at least you're not limited by self-reporting.
[+] [-] shivsta|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ones_and_zeros|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] jpatel3|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ninjakeyboard|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vonmoltke|10 years ago|reply
I'd also like to see a breakdown by market, as I have been led to believe that my salary is only slightly below market for Dallas, but the median compensation numbers posted in this article for my experience level are three times what I make now, and it's depressing.
[+] [-] chatmasta|10 years ago|reply
For example, if you knew four years ago that you would receive 30 GOOG stock in 2016, you would assume in 2012 that would mean a $10k bonus. But now the stock has gone from $325 to $754, the bonus is actually $22k.
If you work for a company with an increasing stock price, then stock based compensation can also create the illusion that your "salary" is increasing each year, even if you get no promotion.
[+] [-] loeg|10 years ago|reply
For anecdote, approximately 66% of my total compensation is in base salary. When I first started working 5 years ago, it was 92%.
These numbers are probably skewed somewhat by Bayarea salaries, which have to compensate a little for the high cost of living (compare for example Facebook/Google to Microsoft/Amazon, which are primarily Seattle-area employers). In general, I've found the Bayarea salary bump doesn't overcome the Bayarea cost-of-living bump. So these salaries are only higher on paper.
[+] [-] stepny|10 years ago|reply
In NYC and SF, there's high demand for and short supply of developers, which drives up compensation. Companies in these cities will recruit from across the country to get talent. Cities like Dallas though also have a much lower cost of living, so that should be taken into account. There was a Hacker News thread about this at one point.
We don't yet have enough data on each market, but we plan on breaking out the analysis by city once we get that data.
[+] [-] rajathagasthya|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] felixhandte|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drewg123|10 years ago|reply
With that said, Google did have this odd thing where you could do an in-plan Roth conversion, and put post-tax dollars into your 401K. I did this in 2013 or 2014, and I think Google was one of the few companies to offer this at the time.
One interesting area of differentiation is health care. When I left Google in 2015, they were cutting health benefits to avoid Cadillac plan taxes. Lots of people were saying that Facebook had better plans.
[+] [-] stepny|10 years ago|reply