I’ve also been recurring for the last 10+ years and can concur with total comp is the #1 factor by far, followed by remote-friendly / remote-first work.

A 3rd factor for me however has always been the tech stack. Engineers I recruit are keenly aware that if they get stuck in a non-modern or too-modern tech stack that it could hurt their future career opportunities.

You can’t just contribute to open source and reach a high level, at least not very quickly very often. They want to jump into a high growth company and contribute to large interesting apps / services that get used in production. Open source is great, but on a resume, it’s nothing like saying you launched an app that handles millions of dollars in transactions, or billions of API requests.

> > Ex-Colleague: Pay is great. Not a lot going on. Not a lot of fuss on the job. I easily own a house and pay a mortgage and have a lot left over. Definitely put in less than 9-5 worth of effort. Probably can retire early at this rate.

The gilded cage.

As you get older, you have seem to have less time. It's some sort of biological illusion, but having to spend time prepping for interviews, running your life, family and so on, means the incentive to move from a very comfortable job to another has to be a lot more than when you were in your 20s.

On the flip side, dissatisfaction about engineering work conditions at AMZN (the notorious PIP culture) is a rising deterrent.

I can't say for certain, but it seems there are lots of squeaky wheels about it and lots of chatter on the internet about them, but AMZN/FB/whoever else aren't actually facing any serious repercussions in terms of being able to hire. (I hope I'm wrong, because I do feel there needs to be a moral reckoning about how we technologists—whatever the specific discipline—are contributing to the world, and whether it's truly for the better.)

> I can't say for certain, but it seems there are lots of squeaky wheels about it and lots of chatter on the internet about them, but AMZN/FB/whomever else aren't actually facing any serious repercussions in terms of being able to hire

Trust me - among people who can get those jobs - they are getting less views. Of the people I know in SV - and I know a few - all have very unfavorable views of Amazon and working there. People only take it as a stepping stone or last resort. The top experienced candidates who are able to get offers from most companies are not going to Amazon these days. I haven't seen any of the people I know who are good engineers go to Amazon. And - I mean - I am with them. I am at a place that is known to work their engineers to death as well and I'm getting too much shit thrown down at me. But I'm here because I needed this as a stepping stone for rep before I can find a better place that'll let me coast as a staff eng instead of churning through one hellish startup one after another.

Curious where youre at? Hope it works out for you, and it sounds like you already know this, but it all comes down to leetcode. So dont kill yourself learning "programming", companies only want leetcode medium perfection. Slack at the job, do not slack on the algos

This might be accurate but it’s…bleak? I genuinely hope you do get what you’re looking for.

I think amazon is absolutely facing pressure from word getting out about working conditions. They raised their pay band for a middle level engineer 100k.

You'd think it would be cheaper for them to just improve working conditions.

So much of "working conditions" are habits and culture. Changing those is a lot harder than installing new lighting or safety guards. Worth it? yes, but there is lag time.

It’d also likely require change from the top down - which is never happening. They’d rather pay people more than change their own behavior.

But they don't want to. The working conditions that everyone rags on about there are a feature for them, not a bug.

That's a great point and corroborates other stories I've heard about increasing mid-level pay. It does continue to support the thesis that is (in simplified form) "everybody has a number".

When?

A few months ago

I don't know about FB, but I think the fact that Amazon's sourcers are shotgun shelling every warm body with a modicum of engineering experience says something about how difficult their hiring is.

Anecdotally, I get offers to come interview for roles in different countries for Amazon, Facebook etc, like in sure most of us do.

I politely say no every time not giving any reason other than I don't want to relocate for the job, but the reality is I don't want to either work at that company due to the horrible things they are doing or the horrible reputation of the working environment.

I've asked other engineers if they have similar requests and they do and the reject for the same reasons I do.

Same here. I don't even bother reading the Amazon or Facebook recruiting emails anymore. It's not literally true that "you couldn't pay me enough to work there" (you totally could) -- but they're not offering nearly enough to overcome my aversion.

One of my friends said: "In this market good people can choose where they want to work, but even the bad ones can choose where they don't want to work"

Is dissatisfaction with PIP dissatisfaction with work conditions? I thought it was dissatisfaction with job security and the knowledge that your job was less dependent on your work than on political games your manager had to play on your behalf.

PIP severance after 2 years is just an early RSU payout and then you can get another job with a signing bonus.

> you can get another job with a signing bonus

Not exactly on your schedule though.

I was looking for this comment. The OP and the current top comment seem to think that many engineers wouldn't jump for 10-20K increases. While that is true if they are in a good role, many salary increases from jumping are high double digits right now.

Compensation, WLB, and benefits matter FAR FAR more for the majority of people than "good projects" or "smart colleagues". If you want those and can't get it in your job, well that's what open source work is for.

One other thing - in evaluating a new role, the thing I can be SURE of...is comp. Everything else is a nicety, but I can't rely on it.

So if I'm looking to jump...well, either my current environment isn't great, or the salary is enough to attract me. There is no situation where my current environment is good, and you offer me a salary comparable to what I'm making, and I would make the jump, because you are a -complete unknown-.

So you can talk to me about the brilliance of my colleagues, the amazing projects, the great work/life balance, the autonomy to work on what matters in the most efficient way possible...and all of that might be true. Or it might not be. I've been lied to by hiring managers in the past, both intentionally and unintentionally. But ultimately the only thing I can truly rely on, that is protected by law, is compensation.

> But ultimately the only thing I can truly rely on, that is protected by law, is compensation.

In some countries, the working time is also protected by law, hence your hourly wage as well, which makes it easier to compare offers. Too many people focus on the TC without realizing that working 2x the time for 1.5x the pay is often not worth it.

Fair point; in the US any of these roles will be salaried and exempt, so actual hours will be up in the air.

> "good projects" or "smart colleagues"

Those are very very good for retaining people you already have though, so while not super important for hiring they are important for keeping the folks you hired (after all, what is the point if you keep losing people you hire).

> If you want those and can't get it in your job, well that's what open source work is for.

Not necessarily. If your area of interest aligns with your work then even open source work is more productive if you have a use case for it. For example - say my interest is distributed systems, then technically my work will have more impact if it is being used on large clusters with large number of concurrent systems. Open source does not happen in vacuum.

I refused a 30k increase due to a bad commute.

I think that "pay a lot" and "full remote" are basically the dream for anyone who's currently responsible for supporting a family. Your company sounds like it offers some great things, but those things would be much more valuable to single and empty-nest folks. At this point in my own life, with four growing kids and an overwhelmed spouse, I don't have the luxury of being able to trade time and money for "really cool work."

It's actually the opposite. While the company I work for doesn't do remote, the absolutely rock-solid stability and superb work-life balance alone attract people who support families and people with mortgages. The average age is also a lot higher, since we have zero qualm interviewing people with 25+ years of unfashionable industry experience. Their family—husband, wife, kids, pet cat—can basically always depend on them being there outside of standard work hours. We don't even allow work to be on people's personal devices, including cell phones, so no off-hours Slack or email buzzes.

Most of my colleagues have children or grand-children, and have been working here for at least 10 years.

Many, many middle aged people with families actually say they prefer the office because it's impossible to get any work done at home with 4 kids. That may be a consequence of their home or their family, but it's what I hear very frequently. In any case, we have a WFH policy, so we are very flexible and accommodating to family needs.

Statistically, fresh college grads vying for excellent resume decor aren't attracted to stability, 401k's, etc. So we see proportionally fewer.

Good points. There's more to work-life balance than just being able to work remotely and save time with no commute, getting chores done in parallel at home, etc. There are definitely organizations that will burn you out while you work from home.

> Many, many middle aged people with families actually say they prefer the office because it's impossible to get any work done at home with 4 kids

The kids are supposed to be at school pretty much during the same office hours, so I am not sure what you mean. There may be more or less 1 hour of overlap in the morning and late afternoon but that's about it. Morning is usually the times I go through my emails and schedules so I can do that while the kids are taking breakfast and preparing themselves, when they come back home I give them a snack and ask them to do their homework. Sure there is the occasionnal arguig between each other but that is only covering a tiny fraction of my work time. I definitely trade that tiny parenting time against commuting time and I'd rather be at home than finding out they burned the house while I was at the office.

I really wish hiring managers understood that there's a second class of people who value #2 over #1 a lot more. Last time I worked as an employee I was making ~$175k TC (which is apparently a entry level salary these days) and completely miserable commuting 1 hour each way on Bart every day. I'd happily take a $75k fully remote job now that I've lived in the middle of nowhere and found that I like it very much.

I worked my normal week and 1/1-1/2. Now I'm officially on call for the next 7 days. I'm a midlevel with 10 years experience making under $100k. Fml

It's an under-discussed topic that this apparent utopia isn't available to everyone. Race, gender presentation, academic background, country of residence or origin, Twitter blue-check, etc. all seem to be correlated (no numbers; purely anecdotal) to those who enjoy (or don't) this utopia. Being masterfully technical, social, or political have a lot to do with it too, it seems.

> Being masterfully either technically, socially, or politically have a lot to do with it too, it seems.

I don't think you need to be a master to get more money. What I have noticed as a hiring manager/tech lead is candidates/team members fall into either asking for more money or not.

I have guys on my team who if they asked for money I could easily add 20 - 50k to their salary. But they don't, they also don't shop themselves about. They're low risk of jumping ship and if they do, I can offer them a huge amount to stay or with the savings I have made over the years I can replace them at market rates, suffer the disruption of introducing a new team member and still be ahead.

I luckily learnt early on the best thing to do for your career is just ask for more money. Every 6 months I ask for a pay rise. I don't always get it and if I don't I ask 'what do I need to do get more money'. Your boss should be able to tell you what you need to do to justify another 10 - 20k to your salary

Allow me to give a slightly different perspective. When engineers are consistently outperforming their wage, I immediately recognize that with an unsolicited pay increase to match their performance. This has always been met with appreciation, as it demonstrates both that outperformance is actively recognized and rewarded, and secondarily that management is looking out for the benefit of the employees. This has positive cultural impact.

This is more or less difficult depending on the company. In a few cases, I had to go to war with HR to get a deserving employee a raise who deserved it but hadn't asked for it. Other companies have processes that are highly amenable to it.

In many cases, if employees have to ask for more money when they've earned it then it is a management failure.

I understand this management philosophy well, but it’s also very dangerous because you risk hiring people like me, who share salary information with everyone that wants to.

A few decades ago I started working at a place where a couple of really talented people had never asked for a raise. I negotiated indirectly by talking about better opportunities and head hunters with my boss as well as asking for more pay. I got it every year. After a couple of years someone asked me what I was making and it turned out I was making a significantly amount more money than a lot of the senior staff members.

This was very nice for the budgets, but it eventually lead to everyone important to the department finding new jobs over a period of five years. When I stated it was a great place to work with really talented people, when I left it wasn’t because the talent had left and management had a really hard time convincing their managers that they needed to up the starting wages, because the budget had been just fine for so long.

This is very anecdotal of course, but underpaying technicians for years can be a very dangerous strategy under the right circumstances.

Just as the tools and processes in building a product must be documented and improved over time ... so too must the compensations of the employees be improved, documented via employee handbooks, and communicated by culture that "if our business succeeds - you will succeed for it is written!"

and the talented, who are focused on their craft - will feel that the company will take care of them _as a matter of course_.

If the talent feels a Quality of Life upgrading process is met - then they will stop wondering how green the grass is somewhere else. Then and only then will the business be ready to foster a culture of mentorship, collaboration, and documentation from Senior to Junior.

It makes me very sad to see a junior developer I had taken onto my team at my last company 3 years ago - a budding talent in systems who didn't know how to ask for help - is still considered a "junior developer." if you don't know how to give people hope don't be surprised if they're hopeless.

I think maneuvering a pay discussion and "shopping yourself around" qualify to me as being somewhat masterful both socially and politically. Especially if you're just plain average at your job and have no successes of note. I do agree more people could get more money by asking, but what turns many off to doing that is what to do in the face of rejection.

This just feel unjust for me.

It bothers me to see a coworker getting underpaid just because they have certain personality traits (that are unrelated to their actual work).

I will be less likely to stay at such a place, even if for me personally the pay is fine.

One thing to realize is that a manager has a lot of things to consider for their job in totality. Hiring, planning, documenting, budgeting, retention, lateral and upward management, team stability, etc. I'm not suggesting to be apologetic to them, but at most places, a manager has to put up a bit of a fight to get a significant raise for a subordinate. Even more so if it's out of salary band. Even more so if it's out of cycle. Most managers know their budget of political capital, and know the abstract cost on getting someone a raise out of thin air, and many feel it's squandering.

If a manager is just plainly average at their job, then they'll probably prioritize what is very clearly and evidently an issue/task for them to do, which is usually what their boss is asking them to do, for better or for worse.

So it's not that a manager is being deeply unethical and withholding promotion potential because they're evil, they just may not see it as a priority among everything else they have to do, especially if the subordinate in question appears happy and fulfilled.

I agree with some others here. To really ensure you're being paid fairly as an employee, you do have to normalize making it a discussion with your boss. If it's a priority for you, it'll more likely be a priority for them, assuming they look at you in favorable light.

I wouldn't blame anyone personally, but it is what it is. If eventually, this is what's happening often, then the workplace feels unjust to me. It doesn't matter if the cause is some manager, HR, CEO, etc.,. (Sometimes I imagine it can even be the cultural impact of somebody that already left the company...)

> I have guys on my team who if they asked for money I could easily add 20 - 50k to their salary. But they don't

Give them a raise, proactively.

I apparently check the right boxes. I just suck at life.

Hey random Internet stranger. Don't feel terrible. I have a CS PhD, work in AI, have a fancy job title and decent resume ..yet, I am not making anywhere close to these crazy numbers. I painted myself into a bad corner and am somehow stuck. I work crazy hours to keep myself up to date so I can get myself unstuck. I think most engineers are not making 300K-500K .. it is a bit like social media .. you just hear about the winners and not the losers. Also, the stock market was up like crazy in the last 2 years .. I think this accounts for some of the insane numbers we are seeing, people retiring, etc. The biggest mistake I made is my job doesn't give me shares/RSUs, etc. It was somewhat obvious that this was a problem but it wasn't terrible until most major tech companies did a x3 in 1 year. This was a 1 time lottery I missed (and I suspect many others did too). Things could have gone the other way too (I graduated from my PhD in 2008 and recall how terrible those days were).

Lottery tickets don't always pay off either.

I make... nowhere near 300k-500k. But I got decently lucky with a startup earlier in my career. And a bit later I got some hefty bonuses at another company.

But that hasn't really happened the last, say, 8 years. If I kept hitting that luck, I could have been around 500k/year average total comp. But I didn't and I'm not in the 300k+ club.

You are just one conversation away from changing it. Either with your current manager or your next one. Have no fear!

this. AI is such a hot market, with a phd you may double your comp in one move, or, absolutely get your current employer to give a significant raise every 6 months to keep you.

You’re being too hard on yourself.

You suck at interviewing, you suck at applying to high-paying jobs, or you don’t live near high-paying jobs.

I got about a 4.5% effective pay cut this year. I'm 10 years in with an MS and I'm only a midlevel making under $100k. I don't think those excuses apply.

None of that has any bearing on what I said. If anything, having an MS and mid-level experience only make it easier for you than most.

But you’ve been complaining about your job for months and you’re still there. And you talk about all other jobs like they’re beneath you.

"And you talk about all other jobs like they’re beneath you."

Source? I haven't said any jobs are beneath me.

"only make it easier for you"

Basically what I'm saying - I don't suck at interviewing etc. There aren't many high paying jobs in my area. I do just generally suck.

Alright, you convinced me.

I'm not a US person. Is it common to see a 50-100% pay raise on switching jobs?

Sure if you pay me twice my current salary, I will probably do whatever you ask me to without complaint. But around here such a big pay increase would be a fantasy.

HN really exaggerates these things.

The mythical 50-100% pay bump can happen if you’re making the leap from some local, no-name small business to a FAANG type job, but it’s not like you can continue repeating that over and over again. It’s kind of a one-time leap that people make from average jobs to top paying jobs. Going into the $500K type jobs isn’t as automatic as people here like to make it sound, unless you’re looking at people who started at rocket ship startups before the stock took off. Even those engineers struggle to get back to those compensation levels when the dust settles and their RSUs go back to normal.

It’s also not as common to find remote work combined with sky-high salaries as HN suggests some times. While I do know a lot of people with remote FAANG jobs, it wasn’t easy. Basically years of working their way specifically into those positions with hard work and building a reputation to warrant it.

> While I do know a lot of people with remote FAANG jobs, it wasn’t easy. Basically years of working their way specifically into those positions with hard work and building a reputation to warrant it.

This _used_ to be true. Post-Covid, many (all?) FAANGs offer remote to almost anyone requesting it.

It's not common, no, unless you're going to a FAANG-like or extremely well-funded startup and are in a favorable negotiating position. The big numbers typically come from stock compensation; base salaries rarely soar.

I'd say 20% is more likely and considered significant.

It depends but it is not uncommon in certain fields (only computer adjacent fields are growing like this in the US). At lower levels for high performing individuals in FAANG adjacent areas it is very doable. Having spent a good portion of my twenties massively underpaid it was pretty easy to double pay a few times over but it helps to start 50% below the median. Moreover a company will not give you pay increases while you work there that are commensurate with the market rate. A job swap is the primary way to realize the benefits of personal growth and a rapidly ballooning market.

There are differences on that order of magnitude between tier 2 and tier 1 employers at the same seniority, and between different seniority levels. So yes these bumps exist, but it’s not like they stack repeatedly if you switch 4 times.

Re: Amazon, I think most of other faang or establishing growing company employees usually don't even response to amazon recruiter which seriously limits their capability to hire even if the comp was going to be very high, there is no way to convey the pay increase they'd get until they respond.

Can confirm. I've set up a filter for amazon recruiters and haven't looked at it since. I don't find them worthwhile to respond.

> This type of attitude doesn't appear to be so uncommon, at least among people I know.

It's my case too. I worked until 40 with a great job doing cool things, with a lot of free time. I'm not materialistic at all, don't care about wealth, social status and stuff. Yet, I started worrying for my retirement and savings, wasn't able to buy a house. Now I work for a FAANG for 5 times my previous salary. It's not easy, I don't always adhere to the company's values, oncalls suck, it's a lot about patching broken systems I didn't build. But money is important.

> Someone boycotting AMZN one day will be happy to accept a very healthy salary + benefits package writing legacy Java 6 backend code if it means a good double- or triple-digit percentage in compensatory promotion

Unlikely these are the same people tbh

It could simply be extremely small sample size, but I know 5 (!!) people personally who fall into this intersection. All of them are quite talented. All jumped ship from meh-paying start-ups to a high-paying role at AMZN after railing on AMZN the years prior for being an awful company. One of them even took a department leadership role (or whatever the title equivalent is) and cited a 3x increase in TC.

It could be that their disdain for AMZN was disingenuous virtue-signaling (supporting your thesis), or it could mean the money is just simply the trump card to their personal ethics (supporting my thesis).

Amazon is not so far ahead in comp that the type of dev being talked about has to go with them for a given TC. Until the last few months Amazon was barely competitive in FAANG, it's a very recent development that they've started shoveling money into offers.

So you could always go to another company competing with them for talent with a given offer and (assuming you performed well enough to justify it) you'd have no problem getting something similar. If there was a gap in comp after that you'd be talking single digit percentages, nothing near 3x.

-

For most people in my circles Amazon is no longer a realistic choice for anything than using as a competing offer at a place like Google (which is known to lowball you without a competing offer).

And it's not even a philosophical or moral issue: Amazon just has a terrible reputation now due to URA/Focus shenanigans, on-call nightmare stories, etc... why go with the "worst-in-class" employer?

If you're good enough to get Amazon to give you some band busting offer, some other FAANG company likely will too and you just go with them. Amazon doesn't even have exciting work or prestige compared to the others anyways, so it's not like you're giving up some intangible benefit...

"Just simply get a competitive job offer from the revolving doors of the top-10 top-paying companies and you won't see a 3x increase" is absolutely true, but only useful if you're talking about employees of these revolving door companies. If your getting a TC of 180k at a startup that gave you options of no value, and you score a high enough position at AMZN (as apparently this ex-colleague of mine did), then seeing total comp over 4 years exceeding 550k/year—while perhaps not the norm—is totally possible.

It could be argued that $180k is not a fair number to judge a 3x increase on for the reason you state, but it is what it is, this is a real salary that real people get paid. Not everybody flocks to FAANG as their first career move.

The whole point is if you're getting a TC of 180k at a startup and Amazon offers you 550k/year, Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google are all likely to do similar numbers.

You don't have to already be working at one.

In fact a good number of companies are likely to be closer to 550k/year than 180k since they're also aware they need to compete with FAANG offers.

-

Meanwhile Amazon is not particularly easier to join than the rest of FAANG (modulo the specific team), they're not particularly more prestigious than the rest of FAANG, the work is not particularly more exciting than the rest of FAANG... meanwhile the culture aspect is a huge negative outlier.

Amazon almost has this cartoonish level of negativity hovering over it ever since things like URA and Focus have slowly come out to actually as real things... between all that and the on-call and the general work you'll be doing, it's just not an amazing choice.

How long are they going to last?

Also, are they working on Java 6?

These are important questions because Amazon pays 300K for Rust. That seems like a combo that makes folks wonder maybe let's give them a shot, right?

This is true, these specific individuals not writing Java 6. Three of the five are doing something along similar lines of what you describe: a cool stack + a cool problem that indeed made them say, "let's give them a shot."

I don't think it has to be one or the other. I know people who wouldn't work at certain companies and a lot who are working at those companies while holding their nose to get their paychecks.

Turns out financial + lifestyle security is a good antiethical motivator

I think the trick here is that there's definitely a break point in TC that can buy someone's boredom. Sort of the inverse of "fuck you" money. Call it.. "fuck it" money.

Any chance you can say where you work? Because that sounds kind of like a dream job to me, haha.

Not publicly (prefer to keep work and personal presence delineated), but if you can relocate to SoCal and you're a US citizen, you can send me an email.