- It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of these organizational “open secrets” are hidden and must be earned through work experience, which costs time and career opportunity.
- Even if you do have some access to a network, these schemes evolve over time. Salary especially (levels not so much). Having up to date data is huge for assessing options during a job search or even planning for one.
The site isn’t perfect— a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves, and the comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles. But its a huge step in the right direction towards empowering employees.
Also a huge fan. When I got my first full time engineering job at $50k I thought that was amazing. It literally allowed me to leapfrog my entire family and secured what I thought of as a middle class existence.
Then I got a salary adjustment to $70k because my new manager knew (although I didn't) that they'd lose me quickly.
And then I picked up the phone and talked to a recruiter and all the sudden I had a counteroffer for six figures. Can you believe that!? Never in my life thought I'd amount to anything especially after dropping out of college. A 6 figure job made me feel like I had made it.
Stayed close to that number for several years. Then I went remote for a big company with a high base and great RSUs. Now I'm a one percenter. My mom was a drug addicted waitress with an 8th grade education. I will own my beautiful home free and clear in my 30s. I have the means to travel the world limited only by my time. I will be able to retire in my 30s.
It's all so amazing, but I also took nearly a decade to wander into that final band of compensation that many are introduced to right out of the gate at top companies. Open information like this site is very valuable to people like me who come from a non-traditional background and live in a flyover state.
1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on.
2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (perhaps 50%, or even double), because you aren't at a FAANG company (or whatever we're calling them now). It can really make you feel like you haven't learned/grown/accomplished anything in your career when you see people starting at a similar comp to what you get for a decade+ of experience.
Some people act as though these companies are an easy alternative for anyone, but the reality is that there are only a handful of them. For me, with a ruby background(+), I'm not particularly interesting to any of them, and I know I'm not the only one.
It's neat that between Facebook/Apple/Google you can compare apples to apples, but for a lot of people, it's really an apples to oranges comparison, and a frustrating one.
Also, I imagine it's that much worse for people outside the Bay Area.
(+: While I'm happy to learn new languages on the job and not tied to any stack, it's still not easy. For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in Python); another time a Microsoft recruiter insisted that I do the interview in Java and then got frustrated when I struggled with syntax I hadn't touched in 5 years.)
I agree that it is a great site. This is the kind of thing the Internet was, or at least should be, made for. I would also encourage people who like this kind of thing to think, or take it, one step further. Because even in countries where salaries (tax returns really) are public information getting a decent, or even predictable, salary remains a problem.
Some of this is that there is a difference between data and information. Even though you have the data, the information asymmetry remains. After all your interests are often at odds with people whose job it is to look after the company's interests and sometimes with other people in the job market as well. But maybe most of all it is a practical problem. And it isn't usually information that solves practical problems, but what you do with the information you have.
> a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves
eh? the leveling data is local to each company. within each company, of course it's subjective because ladder criteria are subjective. but AFAICT it's accurate. in general "senior" is 5 years at any company. senior means you have a 4 year degree and adequate work experience to have applied your book learning to a professional environment and so you are now adept at basic skills, advanced and current platform/framework/library/environment knowledge, know how to use many modern toolsets, have delivered software that has made it to the maintenance and maybe replacement part of the lifecycle. beyond that, some companies have more grades and some have fewer which represent larger org structures and so more people and bigger deployments, and more money.
> comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles
Agreed. This has been an eye opener for me as someone who has worked mainly in smaller companies whose job levels didn't go beyond junior, mid-level, senior/lead in my profession. Granted, the concept of target schools still adds some bias to candidate hiring, but it's better than in many non-technical careers.
And to the "outsiders" from outside US, it should be written that 40-45 percent is taken away as taxes. So, if someone is making a total comp of 200k, it is basically 120k. This should be written in bold on this website.
Actually i would say, instead of having these charts which compare total comp, its better to have a survey on how much people save after rent, taxes, and basic living expenses (not including loans etc.)
Maker here, posting this as a top-level comment for visibility. Lots of folks are interested in the salary information alone. We have a dedicated page for compensation information: https://www.levels.fyi/comp.html
Here's a slightly related open question: Are Engineers in the US just much richer than in the UK?
For perspective, I started my career with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Hardware Design Engineer at £35k (I out-earned most of my fellow graduates). It seems like these salaries are just comically disjointed from my entire experience of life. Can anyone here speak to the differences? Everything I've seen points me to Californians just living an incredibly well-off lifestyle, but everything I read also indicates the people who have those lifestyles do not feel well-off?
Hi, I'm one the makers of Levels.fyi. Happy to answer any questions and would love to hear feedback! We have a lot of features in the coming months that we think folks will love!
I've been using levels.fyi and really liking it. It provides much more useful data than paysa. I strongly believe the economy needs a functioning free labor market, and price discovery is crucial to any free market.
The main feature I'd like to see is information on typical refreshers. Also useful would be a way to just get a list of companies sorted by comp at a given approximate level. Additionally, information about refreshers and career trajectories at different companies would be nice too, for evaluating medium-long term prospects of working at any given company (e.g. I've read anecdotes that Apple offers more generous refreshers than most companies).
I'd also like to see data on equity aggregated across small-medium startups, perhaps as a function of valuation, employee number, employee experience and time since last valuation. AngelList has some data about listed equity but it's very broad, and I'd like for some actual data of the sort that startups privately share with each other but keep secret from employees / job-seekers.
Edit: It would also be cool if you guys can get some companies to post job ads with compensation ranges included for the posted levels. It would be useful for everyone involved; it would help candidates avoid needlessly applying to companies that can't match their desired comp, help out companies that offer competitive comp in sourcing candidates, and add more revenue for you guys as well.
Consider adding non-binary genders to the comp reporting. Something as simple as 'other' or 'non-binary' would be nice. The challenges that non-binary folks face can sometimes be different, and it might be nice to see that reflected in the comp tool.
Edit: I wouldn't ask, except that the tool already asks for gender. If you are already asking for a gender, you should consider include options beyond male/female.
Curious about the downvotes without responses. Tech has people who are non-binary, whose salary negotiations may be impacted by that, and who may struggle to find data that represents them.
Hi and thanks for the info. A couple of things if I may. Please don’t hijack the browser history, played around with some companies and levels and when I tried coming back to HN the history was full ;-) Also it would be good if you could include some extra details about each level (e.g. education, years of experience). I think I’ll give Triplebyte a try, reminds me of HackerRank.
Clicking around on the page adds to the tab's history. I had to click back 10x to go back to this thread. Seems kind of pointless to record state in this usecase?
I added my comp at one of the listed companies a couple weeks back and it never showed up in your list. I'm not sure if there are bugs in your front end or lots of false negatives in your spam filtering or what. I'm happy to contribute to such an effort but not to the point where I have to figure out how to game your submission process.
Thanks for putting this site together! Two pieces of feedback:
1. It would be valuable to ask for years at company and years in industry along with the reported compensation.
2. When reporting my compensation, how should I account for additional bonuses/RSUs due to being promoted? (E.g. climbing a level). I historically receive an additional 100k grant when I’ve been promoted, but I don’t anticipate that 100k on non-promotion years.
Do you believe that self-reported salary data will be biased either high or low? Do you attempt to measure bias? How do you account for the difference between the salaries reported on your site and the averages/medians published by salary.com and glassdoor.com? Is it that your site only focuses on outlier (top) companies?
Interesting site - it's nice to have such straightforward compensation numbers.
Worth mentioning, though - several tech companies intentionally and transparently attempt to pay more for some locations. My company, for instance, pays way more if you're in Silicon Valley than pretty much anywhere else.
It'd be nice aggregate, summarize, and compare companies based on a single location.
Does anyone know of similar data but for EU countries? As was already mentioned in this thread, salaries differ from the US quite a bit, but it would still be nice to know what the norm is.
I'm considering moving to Germany and have no idea what salary I should be asking for in interviews for a senior software engineer, nor do I know where to find out this information.
Sites like this are recruiter-bait. (Notice that Triplebyte is a recruiter). They purport to have real salary info from the richest companies in the world to unsettle employees. (With no claim to even be telling the truth). This inspires people to be job flippers when they are closer to the average salaries that pay well but don’t compete at the high end.
Changing jobs every year might get you quick raises early but actually achieving meaningful results takes time and gets you bigger raises/satisfaction in the long run. Don’t let recruiter-bait push you into someone who hops around out of envy and never really commits to anything.
Amazonian here. Can anyone else from Amazon speak to whether you think these numbers look accurate?
I'm sitting here in almost disbelief at how little I apparently make at AMZN. I don't think I have anyone to ask that would know and would be willing to give any kind of answer.
I've been fairly content at Amazon. I've done good work, and have been a resource to others on my team. But if these numbers are right, I don't think I can stay much longer.
I've been in the software industry for idk, 9 or so years now and nowhere have I worked where there was like a level up system. You're judged - and paid for - by merit and personality (the last one is unfortunate, I'm a bit autistic and cynical so I'm nowhere near where I could be income-wise). We do have people with job titles from time to time beyond 'developer' but they seem like exceptions - like, having to invent a CTO title because the guy hit some income ceiling for the software development department.
With anonymous submissions on sites like these (see also: Glassdoor), I wonder if there's any sabotage going on where companies submit fraudulent information about competitors.
Isn't it a potential downside to this open approach without any verification?
It's an interesting site, and it seems like a nice way to compare salary and the possibilities for advancement at the companies included.
However, am I the only one who kinda thought it'd give a bit of information about the responsibilities and required skillsets for each level? Personally, I've always found the hardest bit around shopping around for a job knowing exactly what they expect of a hire with X number of years of experience, or what they consider a junior/middleweight/expert engineer. It'd be interesting to see something like this which says say, Google expects a Senior Software Engineer to know these languages and have these skills, whereas Facebook expects them to know these languages and have these other skills or what not.
I like how the sample question on Triplebyte tests API memorization instead of algorithms knowledge.
Of course, you can't win. At a whiteboarding session, there will always be applicants who give out the method from the library instead of providing an algorithmic solution.
What is it like working at Google? I work at a startup, and these numbers are insanity to me. I have 10 years experience in mostly Haskell & FP (and that's what I enjoy doing). What would I do with my skills at one of the bigger tech companies?
The expectation for each level is:
L3: you are expected to do projects assigned to you well
L4: you are expected to lead a project in your team well
L5: you are expected to lead a project across multiple teams in your organization well
L6: you are expected to lead a project across multiple organizations well
I think the L6 engineer is basically a CTO role in many other companies. L7 is even beyond that.
Senior staff is something like <10% of all engineers (probably closer to 5%), the technical equivalent to a managerial “Director” title. Most engineers top out 2 promotions below.
Just rumors I've heard but the people who make that much (and I've heard some crazy numbers) are people who have a lot of knowledge of proprietary systems internally in Google. I don't know if there are actually a lot of them though.
Years of experience don't matter as much as output.
If you are capable of outputting at t7 level after 10 years of experience, that would make you one of the best engineers (by Google ratings) in the world. And yes, you could be earning a million a year.
Why not? Folks with this level of knowledge are usually capable to establish their own company, which can lead to even more financial outcome. I don't see any reason for Google (or any other business) pay them to improve already existing services.
No, there are very few of them, maybe on the order of 10-100. The biggest factor in comp at many of these companies is tenure; large stock grant at Google or Facebook from 8 years ago has appreciated nicely as it vested.
As an average potential software engineer in the Midwest, it's at first exciting to see these salaries, but I also feel the need to check myself and realize that, in some ways, this is another universe to which I probably don't have access.
Perhaps a stupid question, but are the comparable levels for equal seniority or impact of work, or equal compensation? If the latter, they definitely don't line up, especially FAANG vs. non-FAANG. If the former, it seems about right; wife and I are both staff-level at two different companies and the tiers are next to each other.
We take a holistic approach to level comparisons. The ultimate goal being to answer, "If I join X company, what level will I be placed at?". Compensation as you've pointed out, is not reflective of this because it varies wildly based on the size of company.
[+] [-] seattleeng|7 years ago|reply
- It lets “outsiders” to the tech scene understand salary and levels at big companies. If you went to MIT you probably already have frat brothers/sorority sisters or an alumni network that consists of senior engineers at these big companies that know the promotion and compensation schemes well. But if you were an equally smart student who went to a non target school, many of these organizational “open secrets” are hidden and must be earned through work experience, which costs time and career opportunity.
- Even if you do have some access to a network, these schemes evolve over time. Salary especially (levels not so much). Having up to date data is huge for assessing options during a job search or even planning for one.
The site isn’t perfect— a lot of the leveling data is subjective AFAICT and not based on cross company moves, and the comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles. But its a huge step in the right direction towards empowering employees.
[+] [-] nouseforaname|7 years ago|reply
Then I got a salary adjustment to $70k because my new manager knew (although I didn't) that they'd lose me quickly.
And then I picked up the phone and talked to a recruiter and all the sudden I had a counteroffer for six figures. Can you believe that!? Never in my life thought I'd amount to anything especially after dropping out of college. A 6 figure job made me feel like I had made it.
Stayed close to that number for several years. Then I went remote for a big company with a high base and great RSUs. Now I'm a one percenter. My mom was a drug addicted waitress with an 8th grade education. I will own my beautiful home free and clear in my 30s. I have the means to travel the world limited only by my time. I will be able to retire in my 30s.
It's all so amazing, but I also took nearly a decade to wander into that final band of compensation that many are introduced to right out of the gate at top companies. Open information like this site is very valuable to people like me who come from a non-traditional background and live in a flyover state.
[+] [-] JimboOmega|7 years ago|reply
1) If you aren't at one of these companies, it's not a fair comparison. It's really difficult to find a pre-IPO company who is going to compensate you like these, if for no other reason than that options are just not something you can easily stick a dollar value on.
2) It's kind of depressing. It's very easy to find people at similar experience levels as you making FAR more money (perhaps 50%, or even double), because you aren't at a FAANG company (or whatever we're calling them now). It can really make you feel like you haven't learned/grown/accomplished anything in your career when you see people starting at a similar comp to what you get for a decade+ of experience.
Some people act as though these companies are an easy alternative for anyone, but the reality is that there are only a handful of them. For me, with a ruby background(+), I'm not particularly interesting to any of them, and I know I'm not the only one.
It's neat that between Facebook/Apple/Google you can compare apples to apples, but for a lot of people, it's really an apples to oranges comparison, and a frustrating one.
Also, I imagine it's that much worse for people outside the Bay Area.
(+: While I'm happy to learn new languages on the job and not tied to any stack, it's still not easy. For instance, a Google recruiter once told me to spend a few months becoming a Python expert, and then they'd interview me (in Python); another time a Microsoft recruiter insisted that I do the interview in Java and then got frustrated when I struggled with syntax I hadn't touched in 5 years.)
[+] [-] hoaw|7 years ago|reply
Some of this is that there is a difference between data and information. Even though you have the data, the information asymmetry remains. After all your interests are often at odds with people whose job it is to look after the company's interests and sometimes with other people in the job market as well. But maybe most of all it is a practical problem. And it isn't usually information that solves practical problems, but what you do with the information you have.
[+] [-] jiveturkey|7 years ago|reply
eh? the leveling data is local to each company. within each company, of course it's subjective because ladder criteria are subjective. but AFAICT it's accurate. in general "senior" is 5 years at any company. senior means you have a 4 year degree and adequate work experience to have applied your book learning to a professional environment and so you are now adept at basic skills, advanced and current platform/framework/library/environment knowledge, know how to use many modern toolsets, have delivered software that has made it to the maintenance and maybe replacement part of the lifecycle. beyond that, some companies have more grades and some have fewer which represent larger org structures and so more people and bigger deployments, and more money.
> comp info seems a bit skewed for some companies and more senior roles
what do you mean, skewed?
[+] [-] ccdev|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] symbolepro|7 years ago|reply
Actually i would say, instead of having these charts which compare total comp, its better to have a survey on how much people save after rent, taxes, and basic living expenses (not including loans etc.)
[+] [-] Zaheer|7 years ago|reply
There's also a short url: http://www.comp.fyi :)
Edit: You can also contribute by adding your comp here: https://www.levels.fyi/addcomp.html
[+] [-] slivym|7 years ago|reply
For perspective, I started my career with an MEng in Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a Hardware Design Engineer at £35k (I out-earned most of my fellow graduates). It seems like these salaries are just comically disjointed from my entire experience of life. Can anyone here speak to the differences? Everything I've seen points me to Californians just living an incredibly well-off lifestyle, but everything I read also indicates the people who have those lifestyles do not feel well-off?
[+] [-] imbusy111|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zaheer|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ummonk|7 years ago|reply
The main feature I'd like to see is information on typical refreshers. Also useful would be a way to just get a list of companies sorted by comp at a given approximate level. Additionally, information about refreshers and career trajectories at different companies would be nice too, for evaluating medium-long term prospects of working at any given company (e.g. I've read anecdotes that Apple offers more generous refreshers than most companies).
I'd also like to see data on equity aggregated across small-medium startups, perhaps as a function of valuation, employee number, employee experience and time since last valuation. AngelList has some data about listed equity but it's very broad, and I'd like for some actual data of the sort that startups privately share with each other but keep secret from employees / job-seekers.
Edit: It would also be cool if you guys can get some companies to post job ads with compensation ranges included for the posted levels. It would be useful for everyone involved; it would help candidates avoid needlessly applying to companies that can't match their desired comp, help out companies that offer competitive comp in sourcing candidates, and add more revenue for you guys as well.
[+] [-] Pfhreak|7 years ago|reply
Edit: I wouldn't ask, except that the tool already asks for gender. If you are already asking for a gender, you should consider include options beyond male/female.
Curious about the downvotes without responses. Tech has people who are non-binary, whose salary negotiations may be impacted by that, and who may struggle to find data that represents them.
[+] [-] NKosmatos|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xeromal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phd514|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bronxbomber92|7 years ago|reply
1. It would be valuable to ask for years at company and years in industry along with the reported compensation.
2. When reporting my compensation, how should I account for additional bonuses/RSUs due to being promoted? (E.g. climbing a level). I historically receive an additional 100k grant when I’ve been promoted, but I don’t anticipate that 100k on non-promotion years.
[+] [-] ryandrake|7 years ago|reply
Any plans to add "Project Manager" role?
[+] [-] freyir|7 years ago|reply
Does it not check whether the numbers make sense?
[+] [-] null000|7 years ago|reply
Worth mentioning, though - several tech companies intentionally and transparently attempt to pay more for some locations. My company, for instance, pays way more if you're in Silicon Valley than pretty much anywhere else.
It'd be nice aggregate, summarize, and compare companies based on a single location.
[+] [-] malvosenior|7 years ago|reply
* Would love to see the salary numbers without clicking for easy comparison
* I don't like how clicking around fills my browser history and adds back button clicks
[+] [-] returnInfinity|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m4r71n|7 years ago|reply
I'm considering moving to Germany and have no idea what salary I should be asking for in interviews for a senior software engineer, nor do I know where to find out this information.
[+] [-] kweinber|7 years ago|reply
Changing jobs every year might get you quick raises early but actually achieving meaningful results takes time and gets you bigger raises/satisfaction in the long run. Don’t let recruiter-bait push you into someone who hops around out of envy and never really commits to anything.
[+] [-] amazon_tossaway|7 years ago|reply
I'm sitting here in almost disbelief at how little I apparently make at AMZN. I don't think I have anyone to ask that would know and would be willing to give any kind of answer.
I've been fairly content at Amazon. I've done good work, and have been a resource to others on my team. But if these numbers are right, I don't think I can stay much longer.
[+] [-] henryw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pcurve|7 years ago|reply
Why is this so different than Glassdoor?
[+] [-] Cthulhu_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kaveren|7 years ago|reply
Isn't it a potential downside to this open approach without any verification?
[+] [-] CM30|7 years ago|reply
However, am I the only one who kinda thought it'd give a bit of information about the responsibilities and required skillsets for each level? Personally, I've always found the hardest bit around shopping around for a job knowing exactly what they expect of a hire with X number of years of experience, or what they consider a junior/middleweight/expert engineer. It'd be interesting to see something like this which says say, Google expects a Senior Software Engineer to know these languages and have these skills, whereas Facebook expects them to know these languages and have these other skills or what not.
[+] [-] Apocryphon|7 years ago|reply
Of course, you can't win. At a whiteboarding session, there will always be applicants who give out the method from the library instead of providing an algorithmic solution.
[+] [-] domlebo70|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lordnacho|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yegle|7 years ago|reply
The expectation for each level is: L3: you are expected to do projects assigned to you well L4: you are expected to lead a project in your team well L5: you are expected to lead a project across multiple teams in your organization well L6: you are expected to lead a project across multiple organizations well
I think the L6 engineer is basically a CTO role in many other companies. L7 is even beyond that.
[+] [-] gbustomtv5|7 years ago|reply
You will not be hired as T7 either. Your comp may exceed T7, but not your level.
Yes, you can make a lot of money at Google.
[+] [-] seattleeng|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rifung|7 years ago|reply
I have only ever worked with one and he was one of the first engineers on GCS and Kubernetes.
[+] [-] augbog|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] usaar333|7 years ago|reply
If you are capable of outputting at t7 level after 10 years of experience, that would make you one of the best engineers (by Google ratings) in the world. And yes, you could be earning a million a year.
[+] [-] lph|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RomanPushkin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joejohnson|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whiskyant|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oculusthrift|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robynsmith|7 years ago|reply
Maybe I should be moving? Crazy.
(Sadly, family is here, so moving is unlikely)
[+] [-] unionemployee|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kabdib|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgeburdell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zaheer|7 years ago|reply