28 ms·
It's not a typo. The author alludes to these inflated salaries several times. Examples: "while other people who just picked a better company to work at 20 ye
by bradford 2y ago
It's not a typo. The author alludes to these inflated salaries several times.
Examples:
"while other people who just picked a better company to work at 20 years ago and never left have been growing their wealth by a couple million dollars per year every year for almost their entire career"
"What is it like to join a company where all the co-workers your same age have made $10+ million over the past 4 years while you are joining with nothing?"
You'd have to be very high in the org chart at a FAANG style company to make that kind of income.
- madamelic 2y agoI can't tell if the author is being funny / hyperbolic or has never looked at levels.fyi. Google pays basically the same salary as a series A startup would (ie: $150 - $180k / yr). Yes, you'll get your salary again in stock but you aren't necessarily getting left behind by choosing to punch lottery tickets because you enjoy it. People need to, and I need to say this to myself too, smell the roses occasionally. You are paid an absurdly comfortable salary to basically solve puzzles all day. The meetings and people can suck occasionally but I can't imagine a much better life if I have to work for a living.
- rescripting 2y agoThe only thing I can think of is the author is calculating these numbers as if employees never sell the stock they are granted until retirement. If you work for 10-15 years at a tech giant, bank your $150k in RSUs per year and then sell them all at retirement then maybe the numbers add up, if you're extraordinarily lucky.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago> Google pays basically the same salary as a series A startup would (ie: $150 - $180k / yr) Entry level. But with ~5 years experience and two promos you’ll be pushing $400k. If you joined Google 5 years ago then you had at least one annual stock grant double in value. If you work at FANG for 10 years you should be able to hit retirement money. If nothing else you’ll have invested 600k into your 401k which should be enough for CoastFire. IE it’s all the money you’ll need at retirement age.
- madamelic 2y agoI've always heard the L5 ($210k on levels.fyi) is generally the highest the vast majority of people will ever get. Is that incorrect? I know I've just heard that promo boards are really difficult to get to Senior and anything above that basically requires a miracle / someone far above gunning you. EDIT: See above. I already addressed the fact TC is much higher. I am only talking about cash comp. > Yes, you'll get your salary again in stock but you aren't necessarily getting left behind by choosing to punch lottery tickets because you enjoy it.
- morgante 2y agoL5 is correct, but you should be looking at total comp (not just base). L5 at Google is $372k which is enough to get to CoastFIRE after a decade.
- loeg 2y agoL5 is correct but total comp is a lot higher than $210k.
- moandcompany 2y agoThe typical software engineering employee at a company like Google will be L4 or L5. Staff-level (L6) and higher is a relatively small percentage of employees. The base salary and bonus component will be in the ballpark of $200k/yr USD (base salary * 15% of base salary). Annual RSUs will often be $100k/yr.
- nerdponx 2y ago> Yes, you'll get your salary again in stock but you aren't necessarily getting left behind by choosing to punch lottery tickets because you enjoy it. But you are. $100k in liquid stock is worth about $100k. Startup options are expensive lottery tickets. One is worth substantially more than the other. Therefore one amounts to substantially greater compensation than the other.
- forrestthewoods 2y ago> I am only talking about cash comp. You're talking about it wrong. RSUs are functionally equivalent to cash, and taxed as such. You can't talk about only cash comp. If one person is making startup $200k cash + lottery ticket and another person is making $200k cash + $200k RSU then yes the startup person will get left behind if their lottery tickets never hit. > heard that promo boards are really difficult to get to Senior and anything above that basically requires a miracle / someone far above gunning you. Nah. I don't know Google's exact ratios. But I would estimate that ~10% of their SWEs are L6 and 3-5% are L7+. I think pretty much anyone can hit L6 if that's a goal. The percentage of SWEs that have 15+ years experience and are L6+ should be relatively high. The bulk of the workforce is quite young. Varies by company and I haven't worked at Google but I have worked at FAANG. They're all pretty similar afaict.
- morgante 2y agoHe's looked at levels.fyi. He even links to it from his resume. His problem is that he thinks L10 is the benchmark to compare against, when the vast, vast majority of engineers (including many with decades of experience) would never make it to L10.
- moandcompany 2y agoL10 is generally the Vice President level at a company like Google or Facebook. The vast majority of engineers will never make it to L10.
- MarkSweep 2y agoI think L8 is equivalent to vice president. L10 is labeled as "Google Fellow" on levels.fyi. There is a Wikipedia category for Google Fellows and it has 9 people listed. I'd be surprised if this count was off by more than an order of magnitude or two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Google_Fellows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Google_Fellows
- wepple 2y agoFellow and VP are not the same track. L8 is director level. So L10 might be both fellow and VP, given that Senior Director exists so is probably L9
- moandcompany 2y agoL8 and L9 are Director/Senior Director positions. In the software engineering family of career ladders, it is part of the Engineering Manager career ladder, which generally starts at L6, with occasional L5 managers (L5 SWE individual contributors transitioning to manager track). The technical/individual contributor track also has L8 and L9 Director/Senior Director levels. Sometimes it's referred to as a "Principal" level in Product Areas like Cloud, but there are far fewer L8+ people on individual contributor career ladders (i.e. tracks) than on management ladders. L8 is considered the start of Google's "executive levels," where individuals at this level and above are privy to executive-level training, perks, etc. Google Fellows are generally L10 (i.e. Vice President equivalent level), if I recall correctly. Jeff Dean would be a canonical example of a Vice President equivalent level, however Jeff Dean also ended up being a manager/organizational head of the Research Product Area for several years as a Fellow. Vint Cerf may be another useful example of a Fellow / Vice President equivalent. (My statements here are from having personally done statistical analysis of career ladders and levels at Google and Alphabet as a whole)
- alfalfasprout 2y agoAs always, level matters. $180k/yr is quite low for Google and frankly and near or post IPO company at least at a non-junior level. > You are paid an absurdly comfortable salary to basically solve puzzles all day No, you are paid commensurate to the value you can deliver. This "be grateful" attitude is becoming more prevalent in tech and is leading to companies getting away with lower pay and worse working conditions. Companies are waking far more $$ from you than they pay you. Especially profitable tech companies.
- geodel 2y ago> Companies are waking far more $$ from you than they pay you. Especially profitable tech companies. Well of course they are. But then asking to pay more will not help. What's the leverage of people who should be paid lot more ? Because IMO if any of those engineers have leverage they are not taken for chump and get paid appropriately when they negotiate.
- janalsncm 2y ago$150k seems high but in reality it’s barely keeping up with the cost of life expenses. In 1950 a house cost $7300. Average salary was $3000. So you could make 41% of a house in a year. You would be taxed at 17%. In 2024 the median house price is $420k. So someone making $150k only makes 36% of a house in a year. You will be taxed at 19%.
- Panzer04 2y agoBecause houses are the benchmark for all costs? No need to reinvent the wheel, inflation stats exist for a reason. Inflation-adjusted, 3k in 1950 is ~40k today, so 150k leaves you much better off in general. Also, 150 is definitely high (though not crazy or anything). It's more than twice the average US wage.
- janalsncm 2y agoInflation stats are just measuring the prices of a set of goods without regard to whether you need them or how much you need them. If inflation stats say you can buy 2x the number of cheeseburgers today that doesn’t mean you will. I specifically mention housing because it is one of the main things (aside from education and healthcare) that our neoliberal economic system has not been able to import, and which have skyrocketed in cost since the 70s. And everyone needs housing.
- Panzer04 2y agoYou're incorrect. Inflation numbers do account for substitution effects (ie. People buying a cheaper replacement good). Something no one buys that goes up in price 100x has no substantial effect on inflation, while food that everyone buys going up 10% goes straight into it. Depends on the agency doing the stats and calculations, but it's probably in the ballpark. Adjusted, people have more purchasing power today, even if they are spending relatively more on housing. High house prices suck, and definitely are a big problem, arguably self-bflicted in most places by increasingly onerous regulations (zoning, building quality, minimum sizes, and so on). Certainly there are some benefits to that, but all comes at the cost of increased house prices. The other thing is labour has become relatively very expensive compared to most goods today, and houses embed a huge labour cost component - so their price (along with other labour-intensive sectors like, well, education and healthcare), have gone up much more than eg. Food, which can be produced largely with capital investment (tractors and so on)
- benterix 2y agoThat's the main point that make the article harder to read. Some of it is obvious hyperbole but some is just too much.