Ask HN: How much do you make at Amazon? Here is how much I make at Amazon - <AUTHOR> To people who work at Amazon, how much do you make? I work at Amazon, and my pay is below.
Discussing pay is awkward, so most people don't. But this creates an imbalance of power in salary talks. A person I trust who was recently promoted was offered in the range of $55K for their new role. However, I know of one or two people who were hired into the same role from outside the company who apparently started at $70K+.
I suspect that internal candidates have less leverage in pay negotiations than do external hires. I think most people probably won't decline a promotion, even if the raise is weak, because the alternative is no promotion and no raise. Transparency corrects this imbalance.
Me:
Position: Developer (not classified as SDE, do not manage ppl) Tenure: 2 years Job Level: 5 Base Pay: $73,000 Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, $21k Year 2 2016 Stock Vest: 104 shares LY Review Score: Exceeds LY Pay Increase: 4%, plus 35 shares of AMZN Most Recent Promotion Increase/Stock Grant: N/A - no promotions Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes
If you're wondering about Native English Speaker, I included it because I think it might be interesting.
I'm not aware of any Amazon policy which prohibits sharing one's own compensation, but I still made a throwaway. A shift of power is never welcomed by those whose authority is diminished.[2]
To non-Amazonians, perhaps you could start an "Ask HN: How much do you make at XYZ" for your own employer so you and your coworkers can share the same thing. Comparing compensation for different companies could also be interesting.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation
[1] That isn't to suggest that I suspect Amazon of taking part in any illegal activity. I don't believe Bezos would even entertain the idea. I like Amazon, and overall I'm happy here. What I want is a more fair salary negotiation process.
[2] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/frederickd134371.html <comment><USER2> I work at Amazon too. Last year I wanted to collect compensation information about tech industry professionals (software engineering or PM) in Seattle. I created an anonymous Google Form and sent it out among my circle of friends.

Here are the results: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133LBigv7pOkgpTkA6bHH...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/133LBigv7pOkgpTkA6bHHQQ8rJMrlcBbK8ulavbw2CSo/edit?usp=sharing)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was an System Engineer III at Amazon from 2001-2006. I got hired on at $70k and I think I was making roughly $90k when I left.

When I was hired I had to tell them "No" and hang up the phone (in the middle of the 2001 recession) to a $63k job offer. They called back the next day and bumped the offer to $70k. I later learned that I had one of the only "strong hires" ever given out by the bar raiser and the HR rep was told to hire me at all costs. HR played (and probably still plays) insanely hard hardball in negotiating salary.

Other SEIIIs hired at around the same time came on at $60-63k and were stuck there. Once the economy recovered in 2003/2004-ish we eventually started hiring SEIIIs at >$120k starting salary.

Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes for myself and the other two or three employees I'm thinking of.

</comment><comment><USER4> Staying anonymous is probably best but fwiw, policies which prohibit sharing one's own compensation violate federal law.

[http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy- policies...](http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at- work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood)

<comment><USER5> Also FWIW most states are at-will employment, and can fire you for no reason

<comment><USER6> Careful, they can fire you for NO reason, but they can't fire you for ANY reason.

<comment><USER7> So they can just fire you, have an escort and done?

<comment><USER8> Yes. Just as you can quit, walk out, and be done. For no reason. But they can't fire you for health reasons, personal reasons, etc.

<comment><USER9> > Yes. Just as you can quit, walk out, and be done.

What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.

I always see "well the employee can always leave at any time too," but is that _really_ something that disappears in places without at-will employment?

<comment><USER10> > What is the flip-side to at-will employment though? Without at-will > employment, do employees become slaves that cannot quit their job? Or are > there only a small list of "legal" reasons for you to quit your job.

The following is true for a sizable part of Europe. The flip side(s!) are:

* I can't just walk out on a job, I have to give a 4-week notice (for any reason, though. It can be anything, from "I feel like I need a new challenge" to "I hate ever single one of you motherfuckers"), during which I'm expected to do my job more or less as usual. Everyone understands you're not as motivated, no one plans for major stuff to happen during someone's N-week notice.

* My employer has a small, but very open-ended list of reasons why he's allowed to fire me, which includes things like me underperforming (but he has to give proof that this actually happened -- i.e. he needs to have an actual evaluation process, has to warn me that I'm not performing as expected first and so on), shrinking clients base which means that they literally no longer need so many people and I drew the short stick and so on.

My employer is also required to give me a four-week notice, during which he has to pay me as usual, and he also has to pay for any vacation days I didn't take in this time (the idea being that I could have lounged in Belize instead of working my sorry ass at the office).

Furthermore, _if_ I am being fired, my employer is also required to allow me to go to interviews during business hours (for obvious reasons).

Regulations vary from one country to another, but that's the gist of it. In general:

\- Notices are _typically_ 4 weeks for non-management positions and 6 weeks for management positions. The law around here allows these periods to be longer, but not shorter than this, and they're negotiated as part of the contract.

\- However, they _can_ be skipped by mutual agreement (i.e. if I want to leave _right now_ and my employer doesn't have a problem with that, we sign an additional paper that says we both agree to leaving without a 4-week notice and I'm out).

\- They don't apply for the duration of the test period at the beginning of an employment contract (if there is one). During that period (typically 3 months), both resignations and firings are effective immediately. I did it once, it' a very refreshing feeling :-).

I work for the European branch of a relatively small American company, which is how I've come to know all this. My colleagues from the US are mesmerized whenever they hear about these things.

<comment><USER11> In Costa Rica, which follows a similar system, you can also buyout your notice period, which I think is fair for all sides.

Basically, if your notice period is 1 month, you can opt to pay the company 1 month's salary instead of having to work that time. If a company wants you gone, they pay you the equivalent wages for the notice period you were required to provide.

I think it's fair because both sides have agreed that $X amount is a fair exchange for the employees services. If those services cannot be replaced with $X then that's really the company's problem for taking advantage of the worker.

This buyout is in addition to any other severance package the worker might be receiving.

Anyways, I think it's pretty nifty as it allows the flexibility of leaving immediately, but also puts in some structure into the situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked for Amazon (Audible.com) from 2011 to 2014.

1 - Full-time freelance audiobook editor.

$30/hr

2 - Post-Production Associate - Level 6/4

$50,000/yr

35 shares of AMZN per year for three years

3 - ACX Production Coordinator - Level 7/5

$65,000/yr

Additional 20 shares of AMZN per year for three years

I am no longer ashamed to write these figures out to the public because I now make more than twice the salary that I was making before I left the company. I found that my salary at Amazon was always far too low given what I did, and my job titles were not at all representative of the job I actually did (for the 2nd and 3rd jobs they were almost entirely software engineering jobs.)

NOTE: Audible and Amazon have different job levels - Audible's job levels are two points higher than the same Amazon job level.

<comment><USER13> Full-time freelance audiobook editor? I didn't realize that was a position. What exactly does this entail and how did you get started with it?

<comment><USER12> I got my education in audio engineering at a leading music conservatory, so moving into audiobook editing was a pretty easy sell for me.

An audiobook is made in four basic steps:

1\. A voice actor records the narration for the book.

2\. The editor takes the raw audio recordings and edits these files for pacing, flow, and aesthetic flavor. The editor also makes note of any errors in the narration which require a re-record.

3\. After making all re-records and inserting the new audio, the audio is listened through one more time. They call this a "QC pass."

4\. Finally, the QC'd audio is mastered and encoded for delivery.

I was the owner of step two for all Audible Studios productions.

<comment><USER14> Hey what software are you using for this?

I was thinking I really wish there was a good app where you can listen to audio articles. It is partly solved in iOS as you can speak selected text, but problem is you cannot select all text easily and you don't wanna mess with it while driving.

Was wondering what would be a great UI for the transcriber and whether you could create p2p network to share the transcriptions.

<comment><USER12> The audiobook editors at Audible used SoundForge. I started out on SoundForge, but I led a real charge to get the department to switch to Wavelab. I was able to get Audible to buy me a license for Wavelab and I never really got anyone else to switch, but it made me _super efficient_. At that point though I was heading into a more dev role at the company so I was already drifting away from audiobook editing at that point.

<comment><USER15> Wavelab is so good – it's a shame it's not more commonly used.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Microsoft employee, not Amazon, but these sort of discussions absolutely need to happen and I'd like to do my part.

Salary: $115k base, no regular bonus or stock, $50k offer in stock over 4 years if I remember correctly although I don't know offhand how many units that came out to.

Level: SWE1 (60 internally)

Tenure: 2 years internally, 7 in industry

Yearly pay increase: Averaged ~6k/y thus far.

Internal candidates have NO leverage. The only way to get a promo is to be in the right place at the right time, and have both high visibility and a manager who has proper political influence and will fight for you. If you want a salary boost, leave and come back a year or so later. "Performance" reviews, accomplishments, hours put in, is all moot unless you have the above, in which case it's a nice bit of ammo if your skip level has a lot of competition for his promo budget, but proper political clout can likely force through a promo without. (To add another tidbit that I've always wanted to clear up anonymously: Stack ranking absolutely still exists, if not in a formal process but as a necessity from how budgets are assigned and promos divvied up.)

<comment><USER17> I'm SDE II an earn just a little more base than you ($117K). Judging by conversations with team members about which tax brackets we fall in and how much we save/invest per year, I'm fairly sure I'm underpaid for my level.

There's a college hire PM in my team (not PM II, so he's either 59 or 60) who's single and in the 33% bracket. That means he's making at least $189K a year.

Edit: I should add, my PM coworker could be wrong about his tax bracket. I can't fathom how they would offer him that much in base salary + stock. But he did mention being in the 33% bracket.

<comment><USER16> I've seen some outliers, but mostly in terms of promotion velocity. I assume you know about the "bench program"? (Microsoft Fight Club) That could potentially explain it.

I really want to empathize with your underpaid for level statement, I certainly have a pile of stories, I'm just hesitant to tell them because they're rather identifying to anyone who knows me, so you'll have to trust when I say "A good number of us have gotten the short end of one stick or another, often beurocratic or political"

<comment><USER18> What's the "bench program"?

<comment><USER16> An internal "High Potential" program in which candidates get faster promo tracks, bigger promos, face to face access to higher level execs, and other perks. They are not supposed to talk about this program, as well, and it is invite only.

<comment><USER17> I had never heard of that. I'm fairly sure my team has two people in the "club". Both are quite young and are already principals.

<comment><USER16> It's really a shame how things like that that are handled, from where I stand. Turns it into the closest parallel to the cool kids table that used to exist in highschool that I've seen in the decades since then.

Also, if you're a 2 and only at a slightly higher base than I am, you're "somewhat on track" from the conversations I've had, as far as pay per level for us normals :) That being said, I really botched my negotiation when coming in and didn't push my position, which left me coming in at a 59 from an industry position with greater responsibility, and role seems almost harder to change than pay from what I've seen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The most important thing you can do for your career is:

* Accept a job somewhere

* Get promoted (doesn't matter how)

* let yourself get hired away from your current company

Getting hired away from your current company is the only way to get a fair raise based on increased experience. Companies never give substantial raises to current employees.

<comment><USER20> This simply isn't true. I received a >$30,000 raise at one of my previous employers after they realized that I was being grossly underpaid for the work I was doing. Granted, I had to bring my managers' attention to this, but they were understanding & did right by me.

<comment><USER21> Your anecdote is the exception to the rule. I've been in the industry for 20 years and can affirm the rule: you don't get raises from your current employer. You get raises by changing employers.

<comment><USER22> I second his anecdote. Have received large raises twice, but had to negotiate hard for it, with offers from outside in hand.

<comment><USER23> Ah, the outside offer is an absolute game changer, which IMO puts it in the same league as actually changing jobs. Often you have to show that you are willing and able to leave for a much better salary to actually get the much better salary.

If you are just internally lobbying for a salary increase at your existing employer, regardless of how successful you may be, how much revenue you are bringing in, etc. I would say at the vast majority of companies you will not see nearly the same raise as either presenting a compelling outside offer, or actually taking an outside offer.

Another way of thinking of it is that a company cannot pay their employees an arbitrary amount, it has to be justified up the chain, and usually that justification is based on "grades" or "scales" of some kind or another. Most of these scales will include a fixed range for annual raises. By bringing an outside offer, you are providing the necessary documentation that your manager, HR, all the way up the chain is required to actually sign off on the raise. The outside offer means no one is sticking their neck out to justify an out-of-spec raise, or claim someone was being previously underpaid, it's just a simple equation -- the employee has an offer, and the company can make a counter-offer or not.

Of course the trick is if they decline to counter, or counter low, you have to consider if you then leave, or stay? You also probably can't come back year after year with new outside offers, it's a trick you can only turn to so often.

<comment><USER24> My opinion only, but if I had to bring an outside offer to get an inside raise, I'd take the offer. "We'll pay everyone what we can get away with, except the few who we need for the moment that make a stink." But then, I make too big a deal about personal relationships, and I forget that it's just bidness.

That said, I did get a raise once with an outside offer. But I left just inside a year later.

<comment><USER23> I agree and it can be personally very distressing when you know you are delivering tremendous value and are not getting nearly the financial reward for the value you bring.... and yet can't seem to convince the bosses to put up!

That's why I look at it now as a system that just needs the outside data point in order to properly process the request. It's not a person holding back the raise, more often the process which the outside offer fixes.

If there was such a thing as an "employee appraisal" service maybe you could do it without actually going to interview, which would be pretty cool!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been at Amazon for a bit over 5 years with 12 years total. Joined with about 7 years of prior experience. From the other post I see I did a very poor job of negotiating when I first joined with my experience. I've always saved the stock and considered it more retirement savings than spending cash.

Hired: 2011

\- Level: SDE I (4)

\- Location: San Francisco

\- Salary: $96k base, $20k bonus, relocation, ~160 stock over 4 years.

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $150k

Promoted: 2013

\- Level: SDE II (5)

\- Location: San Francisco

\- Salary: $110k base, 168 stock

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $170k

Relocated: 2015

\- Level: SDE II (5)

\- Location: Seattle

\- Salary: $125 base, ~160 stock, relocation

\- Average yearly total comp: ~ $190k

<comment><USER26> Wow, you got a bump in 2015 and went somewhere with lower cost of living (plus no state income tax). That's definitely a win-win.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is perfect timing as Google Seattle is hiring around 1000 devs and promotions are being revealed in April.

I used a throwaway account, but I'm sure I'm identifiable by this information if my manager sees this. I'm not too concerned. I think it's in Amazon's and the employees' best interest for this stuff to be transparent. Besides that, while I like my work, I can easily get an offer from Google, Facebook or pretty much anywhere else.

Position: SysDE 2 in AWS Tenure: 1.5 years Job Level: 5 Base: $120000 Stock: 140 RSU (granted at signing, almost none vested) Bonus: $20000 + relocation at signing, $15000 will come after 2 years Gender: M Native English: yes

I was hired at L4 as SE 1, moved to SE 2/L5 after a year, and now SysDE 2. There was no raise for SE2->SysDE2.

<comment><USER28> > 140 RSU (granted at signing, almost none vested)

Is it still the ridiculous 5-10% year 1, 5-10% year 2, and then the rest spread out over years 3-4?

<comment><USER29> Why is it so ridiculous? Isn't it trying to serve as a retention incentive?

Obviously it can back-fire on the company. If the share price drops a lot then people that were planning on staying till the 6 monthly vesting may quit.

<comment><USER30> From what I heard from people who worked at Amazon during the especially rocky years, their share compensation is tied to a monetary value - if the share value tanks significantly, they'll issue shares to compensate. If you're into gambling, this can be a -very- good thing considering Amazon has gone on to double in value over very short time periods historically. Otherwise, its a fair concession on Amazon's part

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Ex amazonian here, but in Ireland, I left (thankfully) at the end of 2015.

I was a systems engineer in Dublin and the only significant payraise I got was after I left the company for 4 months to then rejoin, my salary was bumped up 12k euros, for a total of 62k/yr, with 150 shares over 4 years (sorry I do not remember the vesting scheme).

The HR department in AMZN has the tendency to screw internal employees upon promotion. The way it was unofficially explained to me by a low-level buddy in HR is that there are salary ranges for each corporate level, and during a promotion you get just over the lower bound of the salary range for your new corp level, that's the policy, that's what happens.

New hires instead have negotiation margin and, while the hiring manager can't offer a salary higher than the approved salary range, more often than not the offer will end up in the upper bound of the range, to lure the candidate in.

Furthermore, there are huge differences between salary ranges in job roles, a Systems Engineer will always be paid 15 to 30% less than a Software Development Engineer at the same level, despite the fact that the skills and duties are not that much different, why? Again unofficially "because Amazon values more people that write software". Except the fact that in my ex-team, we all wrote software and the expectations were all the same regardless the job title (there was however a difference between levels).

So yeah, as internal promotion you have absolutely NO leverage regarding salary, if you want a salary increase and your organization is hungry for people but is having trouble in hiring (like it happens frequently in Dublin where the job market is quite competitive), I'd suggest you start looking around for a new job, accept the offer and then come back to your same team 4 months later. If you leave the company for less than 6 months and your position hasn't been filled in the meantime, the hiring manager is able to extend an offer without sending you through an interview loop, you'll get your old job back but with a nice pile of money on top.

<comment><USER32> Seems dickish toward the company you work at for 4 months though.

Were your offices by that famous Gaol? I thought it was interesting seeing a mix of the old and new so close together.

<comment><USER31> I was speaking with another company, but unforeseen family matters took precedence and I ended up not taking the job there. Another ex amazonian did accept an offer from the same company I was speaking with and in hindsight it was for the best, it did not work out exactly smoothly form him so...

And yes, the office was exacly in front of the Kilmainham Gaol, unfortunately the office was quite depressing, so much so that it was an inside joke that the Amazon office was 21st century Gaol.

Luckily they moved in a much better place now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> IMHO you're being underpaid quite a bit with that base salary in the Seattle area. Time to start interviewing at Microsoft, Google, etc. Those companies usually start fresh out of college developers with a base pay a bit over $100k, then bonuses, stock awards, etc. on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you taking stock into consideration? At current price, 104 shares of AMZN equals $57,408 which puts my total 2016 pay at $130,408.

<comment><USER34> You get stock annually? Otherwise, you have to vest that over several years, severely reducing your annual. AND you're locked in for years just to cash out at maximum value.

Unless you get that kind of equity yearly—which is crazy, and brings up dilution questions—you're better off taking a higher salary and investing as much as possible.

But—adding X market value for equity vesting over Y years with 40% capital gains tax for the first 12 months of holding it leads to a 2016 pay of.... just your salary.

Oh, and you get equity every else in addition to that nice pay, and they don't strap your pager to your face.

<comment><AUTHOR> >>You get stock annually?

At my annual review last year I received more stock along with a pay increase. So, thus far, yes.

>>But—adding X market value for equity vesting over Y years with 40% capital gains tax for the first 12 months of holding it leads to a 2016 pay of.... just your salary.

Can you elaborate on this? I'm not following.

>>Oh, and you get equity every else in addition to that nice pay, and they don't strap your pager to your face.

What do you suggest I do?

<comment><USER34> > Can you elaborate on this? I'm not following.

Well, if you do get more stock it complicates things—but you have to distribute out the pay out over the vesting period. In other words, collecting the entire value of the equity into one pay period implies you'll get the same amount of money the next pay period—which is only true if you get that amount of equity annually. It sounds like this may be a possibility

Furthermore, it assumes you'll be at the company for the entire vesting period. Which you might not want to do.

Additionally, you can't cash out the equity you DO get in 2016 unless you want the government to take a sweet 40% off the top.

> What do you suggest I do?

Don't wait for the equity to vest fully, work hard for some good recommendations, and get out of that sweat shop. Amazon rewards ambitious workaholics. Everyone I've talked to who USED to work there (key point being these people left) has issues balancing work, pay, and a life.

To be clear—I'm not arguing anything but that other companies will use you a little more compassionately, and you might make a little more cash in the meantime. You're still doing very well for yourself, Amazon is far from the worst place to work, and you might be very happy there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> On a related note, someone at Google started a spreadsheet about a year ago where people could post (anonymously or not) their salary and a few more interesting datapoints (gender, age, location, etc.) I'm not sure whether the spreadsheet did anything to highlight gender/ethnicity/visa-status disparities (the biggest disparities I remember seeing were based on location, but that's understandable) but it was a great tool to start a conversation about increased transparency in salaries.

I have to praise Google for the way the situation was handled: the company didn't force the spreadsheet to be taken down (in fact, it's still up as I write this), nobody that I know of was fired for it and it generated a healthy amount of internal discussion. After hearing some stories from the Amazon counter part, I wouldn't expect the reaction to be the same.

<comment><USER36> > I have to praise Google for the way the situation was handled: the company > didn't force the spreadsheet to be taken down (in fact, it's still up as I > write this), nobody that I know of was fired for it and it generated a > healthy amount of internal discussion. After hearing some stories from the > Amazon counter part, I wouldn't expect the reaction to be the same.

Taking action against this would've been a violation of US labor law with steep penalties.

<comment><USER35> Well you know how that goes. It's not like that has stopped companies from firing people in the past. This is an "at will" employment state, so if they really wanted to fire people they could've made any excuse up and fire them. Actually, they wouldn't even need to make anything up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is for a new grad in 2014.

* Area: Seattle, WA

* Position: SDE

* Base Pay: $90k

* Signing Bonus: $20k immediately, then $17k paid in 12 monthly installments after you reach 1yr in employment.

* Stock Units: $53k (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on) Note: this vesting schedule is AWFUL.

Needless to say, I rejected this offer and did not work for them. Best decision I ever made.

<comment><USER38> I think the vesting schedule is back loaded because they give you a pretty large sign on bonus in the first two years.

Your total comp in year one would have been 112.6k which seems about right. The stock price doubled last year, so you would have been looking at at least 125k in year two.

<comment><USER37> Given the competition, I don't think the sign-on bonus is that large. It only barely makes up for the difference in salary that you can get from a competitor.

E.g you can easily pull $100k to $110k in base pay from similar companies out of school (think LinkedIn, Twitter, FB, Uber). Even well respected startups pay more than $90k (and that's not including any additional bonuses they will surly pay)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> While this doesn't have as much information as you listed, Glass Door ([https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm](https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/index.htm)) has information on job title/salaries at many companies. It's a "share your info and we'll let you see ours" set of rules, so be prepared to make a profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> Funny that you mention this, because the character limit forced me to cut this out:

Sites like Glassdoor are useful, but what they don't provide is company- specific detail. I can view Amazon's average SDE salary, but is that figure for a job level 4 or job level 5? (At Amazon, pay is based on job levels. Two people can hold the same position but have different job levels. For example, Area Managers who are promoted from hourly positions start at level 4, but new hire AMs come in at L5).

Other things Glassdoor can't provide:

-Pay increase percentages for internal promotions

-Pay increases and stock award amounts for annual performance reviews based on performance grade

-Compensation data broken down by race, national origin, native language, etc.

-Differences in pay for positions based on team, department, geographic location, etc.

<comment><USER40> While it doesn't help for all of that, looking at H1B data on a site like [http://visadoor.com/](http://visadoor.com/) helps fill out some of the picture. You can see specific numbers instead of just ranges while also adding some context about national origin.

<comment><USER34> Those are also deflated prices compared to americans with equivalent education and skills, though. Which is the entire point of the H1B.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I created a throwaway just to pretend my salary isn't public record.

Location : Eugene, OR.

Position: Assistant Professor of Mathematics Tenure: 3 years Base pay (9 month) $72,000 in 2013, increased to about $75,000 in 2016. (minus union dues). Will increase to $82,000 when I make tenure.

Signing bonus: $0

Stock: $0

Pension : keeping my fingers crossed.

Experience when hire. Ph.D plus 5 years post-doc (at Princeton.)

Gender : M Native speaker: Yes.

<comment><USER42> This is exactly the reason I decided not to stay in academia after I got my Ph.D. I could not rationalize working 10 to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, trying to teach, conduct research, scramble for funding, participate in department politics just to attain tenured position at an R1 school while making barely 75K starting.

I now work in a development position at a large tech company for which I'm overqualified. I work about 7 hours a day plus a couple of meetings. I never work weekends, have plenty of free time to conduct research on the side and make well into 6 figures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Seattle Googler here (throwaway account).

Position: Senior Software Engineer (level 5)

Tenure: 4 years, no prior experience

Comp: $300K (160 salary, 40 bonus, 100 stock)

Male, native English speaker

P.S. We're hiring.

<comment><USER44> Just adding not all Googlers make that much. I have 7 years in industry, L4, and make 117 base with 40k of stock a year in San Francisco (was 30k at grant time). If you can convince Google you're worth more they will pay it but not all Googlers are making crazy cash (btw wish I was in Seattle given CoL difference).

<comment><USER45> I believe 117 base is low for SWE3.

<comment><USER44> Not SWE is the catch. Still primarily coding role though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Position: SDE III Tenure: almost 1 year Job level: 6 Base Pay: $150000 Signing bonus $50k year 1, $40k year 2 Stock: 450 shares, spread over 4 years, 5%/15%/40%/40% No promotions or reviews yet Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes Location: Seattle

<comment><USER47> Wow, nice. Is Level 6 pretty high? What was your experience coming into the job?

<comment><USER46> Level 6 is a senior engineer. Roughly 90th percentile of engineers. We have principal engineers, but not a lot of them.

I had 15+ years of experience before coming here.

<comment><USER48> So, to put things in perspective, Google TechLevel-5, which is "Senior Software Engineer" which is basically 1 level above Amazon's "SDE III" position.

Competitive pay offer: $180k /year $50k signing bonus 15% bonus per year 800 RSUs vested equally over 4 years (200/year) 600 RSUs vested in 100-chunks every quarter for the first 18 months.

Counting up, in the first 12 months, pay is about $670,000.

I gotta get seriously bumped at the end of 18 months to keep it up, otherwise my pay will slip to $350,000.

And that is what a competitive offer from a company that values their employees looks like.

I have friends who have totally gotten the $1m RSUs/year for 4 year offers from both Google, Facebook and others. These positions exist.

It helps to change jobs a bunch :-)

<comment><USER49> Do you mean that's 800 RSUs overall or 800+600=1400 RSUs over 4 years?

<comment><USER48> it's 800 over 4 years, and 600 over 18 months. So 1400 total.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> While traveling the world, I feel in love with Cape Town so much, that I decided to apply for a job at Amazon since their recruiters were constantly emailing me anyways. EC2 was started in Cape Town and that office does mainly AWS support tools, but not as much EC2 work any more.

I do not remember the details too much, but it was something like $84K for my first year, after stock and all that nonsense. The salary is not much compared to the US, but very good for South Africa. However, the offer was in Rands, which has since collapsed. I would have lost about 30% of my salary when converting to dollars.

I did not take the job for various reasons, with very few having to do with Amazon. The team itself was excellent and I regret not joining, but I am glad I did not partly because of collapse of the Rand.

I still miss Cape Town. One day I will return for another visit.

EDIT: I can provide more detailed numbers if people are interested. Would need to dig up the offer letter. Very few Americans must have applied like I did, so Amazon could very easily figure out who I am. Hey, I loved your team, it just was not meant to be!

<comment><USER51> Speaking as someone who just finished a 2-year rotation through Cape Town as an SDE - massive, core parts of EC2 are still there and aren't going anywhere. "not as much EC2 work" is definitely not accurate.

<comment><USER50> Perhaps what I meant to say is that "control" of EC2 went to Seattle, from what I understood.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Germany, Lead Engineer at a company with a couple of hundred employees, my role involves architecture, full-stack coding, cloud stuff: ~$81k (some part of that variable bonuses, depending on companies targets).

While the job market seems to be in favor of job seekers these days (it seems to be practically impossible to recruit developers for small/medium shops, you get pinged by recruiters all the time) the salary does not really reflect this. it's rising but pretty moderately. you get offered $100k jobs once a while, mostly in finance.

Also the air gets pretty thin in germany when you actually want to do technically interesting and challenging things. Most jobs on the market are quite dull and involve enterprisey and/or legacy things. Most developers I worked with, however, do not seem to mind the backwardsness, are happily married to their languages and tools, and tend not to be overly passionate about their work (which might just be the right attitude).

</comment><comment><USER53> I worked for Amazon (2013-2014), fresh out of college.

Title : Software Development Engineer (SDE I)

Base : 98,000

Sign on : 50,000 (2 year period)

Relocation : 10,000 (2 year)

Stocks : worth $70,000 (4 years)

<comment><USER54> Above someone mentioned being SDEIII, what's the meaning of these levels ?

<comment><USER55> I is fresh grad, basically right out of school, II is mid level, III is basically senior engineer. at that point it goes onto principal and beyond.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Ieee FML this has been a depressing read. Is anyone else realizing they are severely underpaid?

 _Passes the virtual whiskey_

<comment><USER57> Question is, do you work in the same geographic area? Pay ranges are extremely regionally-based, because cost of living varies wildly.

<comment><USER23> I'd say it's not so-much the cost of living which really drives the pay ranges, it's more the level of local competition for talent. The actual cost of living difference between, e.g. metro-west Boston and Bay Area probably can explain less than half of the salary difference.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Apologies for the bad formatting, it wouldn't let me edit for some reason. Here is a more readable version of my compensation:

Position: Developer (not classified as SDE, do not manage ppl)

Tenure: 2 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $73,000

Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, $21k Year 2

2016 Stock Vest: 104 shares

LY Review Score: Exceeds

LY Pay Increase: 4%, plus 35 shares of AMZN

Most Recent Promotion Increase/Stock Grant: N/A - no promotions

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

<comment><USER58> i've witnessed the same internal hire negotiation imbalance at another company. you're definitely right, external hires have more leverage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Would very much love to see frequent "Ask HN: How much are you making?" threads.

<comment><USER59> Post one! (Maybe wait until Monday morning, or whenever prime time is on here, to maximize participation.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> I was working in one of the Indian offices and was recently offered a move to Seattle. I had 1 year experience(was still an SDE-1 but my manager was considering me for a SDE-2 promotion) - they offered 110K base pay with 25k signing bonus which vested over 4 years + around 86k worth of shares which again vested over four years.

I chose to not take the offer but went to join a different company.

I just want to say that if you're quitting for reasons other than compensation, then don't ever listen to competing offers from your current team/company. That way you save yourself a ton of regret if your new job doesn't go well. #lesson-learnt-for-me

<comment><USER61> What'd you do/take instead? Company/Salary?

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> Position: Senior SDE Tenure: 6 years Job Level: 6 Base Pay: $141,000 2016 Stock Vest: 162 shares Review Score: Exceeds Gender: F Native English Speaker: Yes

<comment><USER63> Senior SDE. Tenure: 2.5 years level, 7.5 total Level: 6 Base pay: $127,000 2016 Stock Vest: 273 Review Score: Achieves (don't know this year's yet) Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes

<comment><USER64> Wow that's stock heavy.

How does that vesting work? 60some shares per quarter or each half year?

I'm really not a fan of having so much comp be stock. It's a way to go I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I hope this takes off. I always thought it was weird hiding how much you make -- this only helps employers, and not employees.

<comment><USER66> I am not sure whether keeping salaries confidential is good for the employer, employee, neither, or both, but you are stating what appears to be the most common belief.

Different people have different preferences, and some managers probably have mistaken beliefs about what is good for them and their employees.

<comment><USER67> One mechanism by which it's good for the employer is information asymmetry. The employer knows all of the employees' salaries, but the employee does not have this information.

<comment><USER66> On the other hand, the employee might feel like others are being paid more than them even when it is not the case. The employee may also resent the management's lack of transparency.

I could see it going both ways, and I'm not sure how to figure out what the impact of wage secrecy is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I'm male, a native English speaker, and worked in Seattle around 2013-2015. I was already in Seattle, so I didn't need to move. I was an SDE1, though I came in with a bit of experience (~5 years).

My base pay was right around $100k. I had a $20k signing bonus the first year, and something effectively similar for the second year (though less cash and some stock was thrown in).

<comment><USER64> Sde I with 5 years experience?

<comment><USER17> MSFT hired me at the lowest level (SDE I level 59) when I already had about 6 years experience.

I know someone who was a had a senior role at one company and was a lead at another and was also hired as SDE I.

I think it's a bad case of "doesn't matter what they did before, we're freaking MSFT, no one's good enough for us to be hired into a higher position."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I'll add my $.02 for LinkedIn.

Sr Software Eng at LinkedIn in CA.

$165,000 Base

$25,000 Hiring Bonus

$300,000 Stock (25% 1st year, then quarterly for the remaining 75% over 3 years) ($300,000 at the time, now it's only about half that).

10% annual bonus.

Male. Native English Speaker.

I can also speak to a friend here all the stats are the same except he got a $35,000 moving stipend instead of a hiring bonus.

<comment><USER70> Hey, that's a good deal! I can hear the clicking sound of all the devs sending their resume to linkedin right now ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I am an ex Amazonian, worked for a year and a couple months from 2014-2015 for AWS. I was a straight-out-of-college hire. Base: 93k Stock: 177 options over 4 years. bonus: 30k signing bonus upfront + relocation to Seattle, additional 25k after 1 year tenure spread out in 12 payments, one per month Review: Exceeds, and Rolemodel for Amazon leadership principles. Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes

More info: I was promised a promotion and raise, but the problem was they only do promotions once a year, in april. Once I said I was going to leave, I was offered $120, but I left anyways. Now I moved out of seattle and am making more, but in a lower Cost of living location. Also, I had to pay about 8k for "relocation" back to amazon because I left before 2 years.

<comment><USER72> Amazon does 2 promotion cycles per year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't work at Amazon, but I have caught on to what, to me, seems to be an unsettling concept. This may or may not be new, but the concept I am getting it is often referred to as "internal equity" \- considering what salaries are already in place for similar positions.

This appears to be one of many variables HR uses for salary negotiations and I recognize that. I don't see why this necessarily matters for most work places. Shouldn't you just pay for what the candidate brings to the table (skills, experience, etc.) and not consider what, even someone with a similar background is currently making in the company. I suppose salary negotiations/the labor market isn't an efficient market where a price can be assigned given x, y, & z.

</comment><comment><USER73> After reading some of these comments...

Holy shit, I am under paid.

<comment><USER74> Right? I like the one from amznnewgrad: $90k base as a new grad and "needless to say" they declined the offer. Needless to say?

I was hired after a year out of college in 2010 at aboyt $37k and it felt like I hit the lottery. Granted, where I live costs much less than Seattle, and I also make significantly more now, but still not $90k.

<comment><USER75> amznnewgrad is trolling for sure!

<comment><USER76> I'm not sure why you'd say that. TripAdvisor, my first FT gig, offered new hires $85K in Boston in 2010, plus a pretty significant stock package. Today, in 2016 (or even last year), $90K in a similar CoL, similar demand market is nothing to write home about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If your reaction to this thread is "wow I am really underpaid" then it's working. The playing field for your next salary negotiation is now a little more level.

<comment><USER77> I feel like every developer in the UK is underpaid when compared to US devs lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Google San Francisco Test Engineer III (level 4) ~130k base, 15% annual bonus target, w/ stock around ~200k annual total compensation *non-native speaker

I do have a decade of industry experience. Also my 1 bedroom apartment rent is going to be 2900/month this year (annual lease was 2600/month last year, they raised it by 300 because fuck you where are you going to live, it's 2800/month across the street and do you really want to get roommates in your 30s?)

</comment><comment><USER79> Throwaway account.

I don't work for Amazon but here is my salary information, for anyone who is interested

Current position: 50-100 employee startup in Palo Alto, $170k and .1% equity vested over 4 years

Previous position: Google, $130k base, 15-20% annual bonus, around 64 shares vested per year (so around $170k annual net comp) Previous position: Small startup, $90k base

I live in the SF Bay Area. When I interviewed, most offers from startups were in the range of $140k-$170k.

</comment><comment><USER8> Amazon, and any other major company, has created a salary range for any role. As someone who has hired for many of these companies, I can tell you: Sharing your compensation is taboo, but do it anyway. So long as you do it honestly and completely. Talking about only salary in a company that rewards heavily in stock is not useful.

There is negotiation room. However, playing the game of show me your hand first is just plain annoying. Why should a company pay you more than is standard in your role? Are you leaving bonus/stock money on the table to come there? Relocating? Losing money on a lease? Tuition? Costs covered by your current employer or another offer (ie housing, transportation, childcare, etc)?

It's a myth that all companies are out to lowball you. The more successful a company is, the more likely it is that they've realized internal equity is at least as (if not more so) important than being competitive in the market.

Go see twitter #talkpay. A lot of great data points were shared there.

</comment><comment><USER80> The OP is being kind of cagey about what their role is. Nearly everyone at Amazon who does what we would generally be considered a primarily dev role is either an SDE (Software Development Engineer) or a WDE (Web Development Engineer). Are you a support engineer, by chance?

As for salary negotiations, the best piece of advice I got was to never say a number. You really don't have to, you can just keep saying some variation of "industry standard", their median salary numbers on Glassdoor, etc.

This is true for Amazon specifically: I never told them a number despite being asked by several different recruiters, and the offer I ended getting was slightly above their average. If you want more than that there may be some other technique involved, but if you're more concerned about being undercompensated, definitely don't get tied to any number.

<comment><AUTHOR> _The OP is being kind of cagey about what their role is._

You're right, I am.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> Some facebook internal compensation numbers -- [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E1Jz00naFjdfP5RVC3AY...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1E1Jz00naFjdfP5RVC3AYDeDXHdkw8PfWZNhYV0e59oM/edit#gid=0)

</comment><comment><USER82> If you are good, just leave AMZN. I was underpaid there as SDE 2 and when I resigned, they threw $100k extra a year on the table to keep me but I still left anyway because I did not know what they would do to me if I stay. That $100k extra would put me close to $300k total a year.

<comment><USER83> _they threw $100k extra a year on the table to keep me but I still left anyway_

That was a _smart_ move, especially if your skill-set was unique in your company. I've given this advice more times than I can think and I've been ignored _at least_ half of the time. I can think of only one case where it worked out well, but that friend was a CEO at a multi-national and the board of directors was the salary decider. The others were gone within a year.

Be _very_ suspicious if it's a _huge_ increase in salary (or dwarfs your current offer), but generally any "counter offer" is not a good idea to take.

When you get a _large_ counter offer, you have to think one thing: Why?

At first you may be inclined to think "It took me having a foot out the door before they _finally_ valued me!" Unfortunately, what they've valued is the _risk_ you represent. Within a few days, after your manager has discussed "contingency plans" for all of the things you did. You'll be spending the next few months making "the documentation a little more clear" and "cross-training" your colleagues. They may finally fill that position they've been promising to hire for to "give you some help". A few months of this will go on and someone in management will ask how your salary is justified (this will likely not be asked directly to you). Unfortunately, all you've been doing is documenting and training others, the _real_ work that contributes to the bottom line has been ignored and you're now behind! How can they justify paying you so much if you're getting _nothing_ done![1]

I even had a colleague who thought the answer was to turn down the job, take the increase and find another. It might have worked were it not for 2008. He went 6 months unemployed and took a job for a lot less than he was making prior to the increase (specifics were not offered or asked).

[1] It doesn't always (hopefully not even _often_ ) happen with such calculation or disregard, but a variation of this almost always plays out.

<comment><USER82> I couldn't agree more with you. It was tempted but honestly ultimately it came down to 3 reasons: 1\. I did not trust my manager(s) in that AMZN division 2\. I did not like AMZN culture 3\. Their counter offer was only 2% more and it was structured in a very weird way.

I am really glad I did not stay, new job has been way more challenging.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Position: Developer in Seattle

Tenure: 4 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $143,000

2016 Stock Vest: about 140 shares

Review Score: Exceeds

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

<comment><USER85> Even with a throwaway, isn't that enough info for Amazon to identify you and possibly take punitive action? I understand that Amazon is big, but without adding a certain fudge factor or range to all the numbers, then I would think it's possible to identify a person.

<comment><USER86> how would that prove that it was actually her/her though? It could be easily be one of her higher ups who knows his salary details.

<comment><USER87> Alternatively it could be completely made up numbers that happened to match a real person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> I honestly don't know why I'm so worried to post from my main account since I don't work there any more, but I am, but here was my salary. I only worked there for 12 months as an SDEII, part of my package involved being relocated from a different continent.

My compensation was as follows: Year 1: 122,000 + 28,000 bonus + Relocation + a lot of other benefits. After that, the base assumably would have went up, but the bonuses I was given were 250 AMZN rsu's 5% after one year anniversary, 15% on the second anniversary, 20% each 6 months after.

Amazon does an amazing job of woo-ing people and making attractive offers, unfortunately they don't put the same effort into retaining their staff.

</comment><comment><USER89> Location might be useful information. I'm assuming most of the folks responding here are in Seattle. If so, all the salaries listed in this thread seem shockingly low to me.

<comment><USER90> I think you're not doing the math on the stock (which is currently over $550). e.g. $73k base + $21k bonus + $57k stock = $151k for an engineer in their second year (no info about previous experience). Absent a lot of other context it does sound fair to me, or at least not "shockingly low".

<comment><USER89> I value those things differently, because the bonus is only for the first two years, and the stock is a one-time grant. Just like there's 'no replacement for displacement' in engines, there's no replacement for base salary in compensation. What I'm seeing in that compensation package is no incentive whatsoever to stay after you finish your second year, and no real incentives to start in the first place. $150k in Seattle is not great in my mind anyway, that's roughly equivalent to $90k where I'm living right now, but the average base salary in this area is around $120k...

<comment><USER91> Equivalent to $90k? Do you live in the US? The cost of living for most lifestyles is nowhere near $60k different between Seattle and anywhere in the US.

<comment><USER92> Using a random cost of living calculator (like this: [http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost- of-l...](http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/savings/moving-cost-of-living- calculator.aspx)), it looks like many places aren't $60k different. But Atlanta, Dallas, Indianapolis, and lots of other cities are ~$50k different. Rural places are ~$60-70k different.

<comment><USER91> What number are you using?? For $150k, I see Atlanta, Dallas, etc. as $15-20k different, which seems correct.

<comment><USER92> Going from San Francisco to Dallas, using $150k gives me $81717.69.

Meaning the equivalent income to maintain your standard of living in Dallas is $81k, or ~70k less than San Francisco.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> I created a throw away account to answer this but I will say that my teammates at Amazon and I discussed salary openly. We all were making far below market except for the 2 teammates who had been there 4+ years.

I think for lasting that long, Amazon really pays off in equity compensation which they dole out willingly (with 4 year cliffs of course).

I made 90k as an SDE I straight of college. 20k sign on bonus. Second year bonus of 15k. 150 shares of stock with the regular 5%, 15%, 20% cliffs. Biggest raise I got was 4k when I received an exceeds.

<comment><USER94> This is a key difference between Amazon & Google. At AMZN you have to be there 4 years before your comp levels off at acceptable levels. At GOOG they have a much nicer vesting schedule that starts your level comp after 12mo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> I was an intern over the summer, just graduated and was offered 95,000 salary, 27,000 signing bonus with my first paycheck, and another 20,000 over months 13-24. In addition, I get 53,000 in RSU that are payed out: 5% after my first year, 15% after my second year, and 20% every 6 months after that until I've been there for 4 years. Finally, i got a 10,000 relocation lump sum.

I have friends who interned the summer before and they were offered the exact same thing. This is for SDE 1 position.

<comment><USER78> You're getting jacked around, interview at Facebook/Google and walk away with piles more cash and guess what no bullshit pagers to carry around either!

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> If I could upvote this more, I would. All companies hide the salaries do they can underpay. Glassdoor under estimates typical salaries and are not meaningful. OP - Please consider opening a simple google doc and let anyone fill in the detail.

</comment><comment> wde-sde I was hired as a "Web Development Engineer I" several years ago (level 4). My base compensation was virtually identical to yours, but my signing bonus and base pay were a little less than half. Stock grants were also very similar at hire. After a couple years my job role changed to SDE, I remained level 4 and was given a better than 10% raise.

In my fourth year my total compensation was estimated to be around 120k.

It's worth looking at the H1B data. I've got some limited anecdotal data, but the H1B data appears to clearly delineate the same salary ranges Amazon gives to US Citizens. (Maybe they will pay citizens 10% more, but the ranges actually look pretty similar to what I've heard.)

[http://h1bdata.info/](http://h1bdata.info/)

(I am a US Citizen, English speaker, in Seattle.)

Main moral of the story if you choose to stay at Amazon: don't worry about your level, focus on your job role. You can probably keep doing the work you're doing and become an SDE if you talk to your manager and frame the conversation right.

</comment><comment><USER97> If you really want to do this, start a Google spreadsheet.

<comment><USER98> Didn't a Google employee catch heat for doing this at Google a year or two ago?

<comment><USER35> "Heat" maybe, but as far as I understand nobody was fired. The spreadsheet is still up and going strong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> I work for one of AMZN's subsidiaries down in SF. Its kinda hard to say exactly how much I earn since most of my compensation is in retention and acquisition bonuses.

Roughly $130k a year base, $150k a year in retention and $100k (for one more year) in pre-acquisition stock.

6 years in the industry, no higher education. SDEII (I think?)

</comment><comment><USER100> I'm starting this summer in Amazon Seattle as an SDE II

\- 4 years of experience \- Non-native English \- They sponsored my H1B application \- 145k base \- 20k bonus yrs 1 and 2 \- 100 RSUs \- 15k relocation bonus, 10k extra for relocation expenses. And they give me a full container to move my stuff. \- Male

</comment><comment><USER101> What general region or city is this? Cost of living can be a major effect on pay, comparing, say, the insanity of the SF Bay area to anywhere else.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mentioned this below, but I don't think location matters because Amazon doesn't provide cost of living adjustments. Location obviously matters from the individual's perspective, but from the company perspective it isn't factored into compensation.

<comment><USER102> Yeah they do. I was offered a job after a summer internship but told them I'd only work in California -- after first declining, they offered me a position in SF the next day. When I arrived in SF to start there was ~12% added to my salary for cost of living adjustment over Seattle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps they do for SF, given how high cost of living is there. I was told that cost of living increases are not offered, but maybe they were only referring to Seattle?

<comment><USER102> Yeah, it was a pleasant surprise to me on my first day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER103> Seattle summer intern -> SDE1 Full Time offer

$95k/yr

$27k signing immediate

$20k signing 2 year vesting

$53k stock 2 year vesting

Ended up turning it down because I didn't want to work at Amazon, so no negotiation.

</comment><comment><USER104> Research Scientist First full-time job 150k

(I saw us make offers as high as 200k for fresh ph.d.'s)

</comment><comment><USER105> Position: developer, not an SDE though. No oncall.

Experience: college hire (beginning of 2015)

Level: 4

Base: $90,000

Signing bonus: $22,000 immediately, $18,000 monthly over 2nd year

Stock: 200 shares of AMZN (5% at 1 year, 15% at 2 years, 20% every 6 months after)

Location: Seattle, WA. Relocation was included over 2 year prorating.

</comment><comment><USER106> Position: SDE II Organization: Kindle (Seattle based) Base pay: $101.500 Bonuses: $28.000

I've been at Amazon for about a year and a half. I always suspected I was quite overpaid. And I'm a non-US citizen on top of it.

</comment><comment><USER107> You're not getting "ripped off" by having a base salary of 125K USD (with benefits and equity) fresh out of college.

Tell you what, with a Bachelor's in Chemistry (in my year 176 people started, only 42 finished the degree so it's not a free lunch) I can expect to make between 40K and 60K CAD out of college _and_ pay higher taxes than in the US. With a master's that I'm working towards, I'd be on the upper end of that spectrum. So _boo-hoo_ to those making only 125K with equity and benefits.

:/

<comment><USER108> >I can expect to make between 40K and 60K CAD out of college

A chemical engineer with a BS in Alberta can make $120k CAD base-pay, easily.

>and pay higher taxes than in the US.

A San Franciscan making $120k USD pays $46,176 USD in taxes (state+fed)

An Albertan making $120k CAD pays just $32,974 CAD in taxes (prov+fed)

When software engineers want $120k, they move to SF/Seattle and work for <soul-crushing corporate tech-company>. If you want $120k, move to Alberta and work for a gas company.

The vast majority of software engineers (let-alone 'entry level' SEs) in the US aren't making six figures. The ones who move to tech-topia and work for tech-giant and end up getting paid 20% less than their peers who did the same ARE getting ripped off.

<comment><USER91> > The vast majority of software engineers (let-alone 'entry level' SEs) in the > US aren't making six figures.

While I'm sure this is true in the total sense (there are a LOT of bad software engineers), decent and good ones should be making over $100k easily.

<comment><USER109> What separates a bad SE from a decent SE?

<comment><USER110> A good grasp of computer science fundamentals.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> > I'm not aware of any Amazon policy which prohibits sharing one's own > compensation, but I still made a throwaway.

IANAL but I'm pretty sure it's illegal as fsck for them to retaliate against you for discussing your compensation.

According to the National Labor Relations Act, enacted in 1935, private-sector employees have the right to engage in "concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection."

Again, I am not a lawyer. Just a bunch of pixels on the screen, really.

</comment><comment><USER112> FYI, it is illegal in the USA to restrict employees discussing their salary amongst themselves. Unfortunately it is common for companies to declare this information confidential and covered under employee confidentiality agreements.

[http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy- policies...](http://www.npr.org/2014/04/13/301989789/pay-secrecy-policies-at- work-often-illegal-and-misunderstood)

</comment><comment><USER113> While at Amazon, I worked in two different roles. I don't have the exact numbers, but I'll put ballparks in here:

(1) Support Engineer * Base: $72,000; increased at 1yr to $74,000 * Bonus: $20,000; half in first check, other half over months 13-24 * Stock: I don't remember

(2) Software Development Engineer * Base: $82,000

Gender: M Native English: Yes I honestly don't recall if I was L4 or L5 or both.

Both of these were in Seattle. I do know for a fact that there were/are others who were hired and paid more than me.

<comment><USER114> What was your education and experience ?

<comment><USER113> B.Sc. in Computer Science, fresh out of undergrad. Applied conservatively for jobs to get into something I could excel at from the get-go and learn how to work in the corporate world before throwing myself at complex technical problems.

I've moved on to greener pastures, and I think where I positioned myself from the start put me in a hungry mentality, and as such I've been able to grow rapidly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER115> I work at a podunk Santa Clara, CA startup

20+ years experience. Working remote from southeast U.S.A.

Tenure so far: 2.5 years

Salary: $150K

Stock: purportedly .75% of company 4 years 1-year cliff, with small follow-on grant later, don't know what recent dilution is, though I think more recent funding has been "debt" at low interest with preference

Not a regular VC situation, company funded through other means.

Outlook -- real uncertain, market has definite need, execution so far has been very mixed, company willing to re-do things the right way

</comment><comment><USER116> * Area: Austin, TX

* Position: Systems Engineer

* Level: 5

* Base Pay: $98k

* Signing Bonus: $18k immediately, 15k over months 12-24

* Stock Units: ~$120k, 5% first year, 15% second, 20% every 6 mo after. Additional (smaller) grants starting year 2.

</comment><comment><USER117> I work in Portland, have 5 years of experience, and I'm making about 90k after bonuses (no stock or sign-on bonus). I love Portland, my hours are very nice (~35hours), and I have a good amount of technical freedom. But boy....Maybe I should make the move up to Seattle.

It'd be nice if people mentioned how many hours/week they work for me to get a good idea of what to expect. Especially since we're talking about Amazon.

<comment><USER118> There's plenty of money to be had in Portland. Drop Airbnb, Nike, or any of the myriad of startups in town a line.

<comment><USER119> When did Nike start hiring competent people?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> Out of curiosity, what does this add that GlassDoor.com doesn't?

Note: as of right now, GlassDoor is down for "Scheduled Maintenance" but the question stands.

<comment><AUTHOR> See this comment I wrote ITT:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314076)

</comment></comment><comment><USER121> At my old company, I was a "Jr Sysadmin" in title, but really a mid level Syadmin. I started at $42k/yr, then moved up to around $49k/yr. I should be making $55-65k/yr given my certs, experience: 8 years as generalist IT, mostly Windows Sysadmin, some Linux. Familiar with ShoreTel, comfortable with security -- really REALLY want to make a lateral move to it.

I'm also an SME & do reviews for a certain book publisher to see if I think it is worthwhile, accomplishes the goals set out by the author & is technically correct. I'm unfortunately currently unemployed, so things suck, but I have no qualms about sharing my salary, where I think I should be & why.

Yes, I may not be using crazy automation stuff & yes, I need to learn something as ubiquitous as VMWare, but it's not hard. A monkey can do those things. What I want to get into is SCCM & serious Windows automation. It's just, the positions are few & far between :-(

</comment><comment><USER122> Still in first year.

Position: SDE 1 Location: Seattle Base: 110,000 Signing: 25k over two years RSUs: 40k when stock was high in 300s

</comment><comment> martin-adams I worked for IBM and we had a policy where you couldn't discuss salary with your peers.

I had a long discussion with manager at the time where I asked the question: "How do I advance my financial career?". We concluded that being an external hire is the best way, and as such, pretty much meant if I wanted more money, get a job elsewhere.

So in the end I did. It was the money that triggered it, but ultimately there were other factors, such as not being given the role I was promised, a miss communication about who would decide my promotion (my old or new department), and of course, being asked to accept a band promotion for no extra money.

I also recall there being published market data you can get from HR which shows the average for your role, and I did notice I was way below average in compensation.

I don't miss leaving one bit.

</comment><comment><USER123> SDE, Level 5, four years, started w/ bonus: $126k, ended: $117k New job: 175k + equity (fuck you amazon)

<comment><USER124> Is it common for salaries at Amazon to decrease?

<comment><USER123> It is when your signing bonus/cash advances expire and raises are never higher than 2%. Also had 100 or so RSU's.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER125> Position: SDE1 Tenure: <1 years Base Pay: $110k Signing Bonus: $20k Gender: M Native English Speaker: Yes

Beat my best bay area offer overall, so quite good with the low cost of living here. It does seem like you have to move companies every 2 years to keep climbing the salary ladder.

</comment><comment><USER126> I knew the UK salaries can't compare, but I wasn't aware the difference was so high.

It would be interesting to see the difference in pay in the same company between US and UK offices.

Looking at these numbers makes me wish I had moved to the US when I was younger.

</comment><comment><USER127> These discussions feel good, but are ultimately useless. This is just going to be a collection of anecdotes from people who self-select to report because they feel good about where they're at, or because they feel righteously justified in complaining about their situation. And, as they say, the multitude of anecdote does not data make.

Unfortunately, salary "surveys," like the recently-reported Stack Overflow one, or the classic Computerworld one, are much the same. Self-selection ruins the data. The responses have to be random to be useful. And the silly thing is that most people who are involved in this business know this.

<comment><AUTHOR> I disagree, I think it is useful.

You are correct that this is nothing close to scientific, but that is not the goal. The goal is to increase transparency around employee compensation in order to correct the imbalance of power in salary negotiations that results from not knowing what others in similar roles are being paid.

For this, statistically valid data is not necessary. It can be enough to know of one or two individuals' compensation to shift power in a salary negotiation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER128> A friend of mine when he graduated got a base developer salary of $90k in 2011, shares & benefits (whatever that works out to), and I think $10k bonus for every year he stayed with Amazon. He worked in the Seattle, WA, area.

</comment><comment><USER129> I'm not an Amazonian (for some reason I laugh when I hear someone refer to themselves as this).

I started out at about 64k which after 2 years on the job became roughly 90k, this year I'm on track to make a little under 100k. I think at the moment my role is the equivalent of an SE II or an SE III.

Because of the place I work at, I don't get stock or profit sharing, etc. I think that software engineers across the board don't receive the right compensation until it becomes shockingly apparent to the company and they risk losing us. Honestly, my org didn't bump my pay up until I started putting out feelers to move on.

</comment><comment><USER130> Stating which location you are in would be important for salary comparison purposes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually not in this case, as Amazon doesn't provide cost of living adjustments. Location isn't factored into pay amount.

<comment><USER131> Are you sure about that? I have at least three anecdotes that seem to directly contradict that claim, and while I realize the plural of anecdote isn't data, but it's still enough to make me skeptical of your claim.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is what I was told, but others ITT seem to have heard differently. In the examples that you know of, was the person relocating to Seattle or somewhere else, like SF?

It may be that what I was told was correct, but they were referring only to Seattle and not places like SF where cost of living is very high.

<comment><USER131> A college friend and I both got hired to Amazon in the same round of campus hires. We both accepted Seattle positions, but then between accepting the position and graduating, his team moved to SF, and his offer got increased to compensate for the higher COL there.

Two other situations involved coworkers transferring teams from Seattle, one to Toronto and one to India, both had COL adjustments to their salary.

(Admittedly the evidence is less strong in the latter two cases because they involved simultaneous country changes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER132> Mountain View Googler here:

1 year prior professional SWE experience at the time of hiring, CS undergrad degree from a state university

Female, mixed ethnicity, American/native English speaker

SWE II, L3

$110k base, ~$45k in stock, 15% target bonus ($172k total assuming stock price stays stable and I make said bonus)

Worth noting that I tried not to give my then-current pay to the recruiter during the hiring process and was (very politely) told that they'd cancel my application if I didn't give them a number. Also tried to negotiate the base salary up (asked for $120k) and again, got very politely told to take it or leave it.

<comment><USER133> Here's a link for you. Recruiter in the story works at a different company. [https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2bu1id/m...](https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/2bu1id/my_recruiter_friend_just_pissed_me_off_by/)

Also if it's an electronic form then I put 1 dollar. It's fun.

<comment><USER132> Frustrating read. It wasn't in the form, she asked me over the phone after I passed the final interviewing step and they were going to extend an official offer. Good tip though, I've done that before and it's worked well.

I was at a disadvantage in that a) I didn't have any other job offers for a comparable company and wasn't likely to get them anytime soon (see: state university degree, just 1 year experience) and b) wasn't really willing to walk. My company at the time couldn't compete with Google. There was no better offer for me out there, career making opportunity, etc. So when I got told to take it or walk I took it.

<comment><USER134> Think about this. You've just gone through a lengthy and highly selective interviewing process. You've succeeded where many others have failed. The company has invested a lot of its employees' valuable time in interviewing you. They've decided you are a good fit and are skilled enough for the role. There are no red flags (like a criminal history, ineligability to work in the country, etc) that would prevent them from hiring you. Then they ask how much you made at your previous company and you refuse to tell them.

Do you really think that after all that time and effort, after sifting through a mountain of undequalified candiates, they would now turn around and let a qualified, well-fitting candidate slip through their fingers over a bit of irrelevant trivia? Not on your life.

Demanding you tell them your previous salary or they'd cancel your application was a bluff, pure and simple. Same with them pretending that you were in no position to negotiate once they'd chosen you and make you an offer. Companies always start low and expect to be negotiated up, at least a little. And once they choose you and made you an offer, the power is in your hands. "Take it or leave it" is a bluff.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER135> Non Amazonian(final interview with Amazon) but had to chime in:

Based in AZ Base Pay: $80,000 Bonus: 12-15% holiday bonus My Experience: 2 years front end dev, self taught. Company: Won't name. But ~200 people in the company. 40ish engineers.

Interviewed with Amazon for Web Dev I . Each time salary was discussed, base range was for 85-115k, sign on of $10-25k and I can't recall stock. Confirmed with friends who work there, all are SDEs making 6 figures.

Throwaway account as well, just want those in my area anyways to be aware that earning potential is good.

</comment><comment><USER136> Ex Amazonian here. I worked as a SDE1 in the Downtown Seattle set of offices from about 2012 to 2014. My compensation was $95,000 base, and about 105,000 once you took into account stocks.

</comment><comment><USER137> Love this idea! Made a quick site to help everyone post and share easily, hope it helps!

[http://honestsalary.com/](http://honestsalary.com/)

</comment><comment><USER138> Honest question + comment + disclaimer

question:

why not add your info on glassdoor.com? (is there some evil behind glassdoor I don't know about?)

comment:

Probably worth noting general location of employment, like the metro region you're in.

disclaimer:

I've been researching salary myself in the bay area based on glassdoor data:

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BoMvtY_mICEYygy0jXVG...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BoMvtY_mICEYygy0jXVGwmGIJxFs2zsAXsQvM6K8BEk/edit?usp=sharing)

</comment><comment><USER139> This is a web application for anonymously sharing salary information among a pool of participants. Each pool is identified by a UUID. A user cannot view the results of the pool unless they first share their information; the pool must also meet a minimum number of contributors set at pool creation time.

[https://gist.github.com/anonymous/894b151cc981f783e3af](https://gist.github.com/anonymous/894b151cc981f783e3af)

</comment><comment> amzn-thread Position: Developer Evangelist

Tenure: 1.2 years

Job Level: 5

Base Pay: $130,000

Signing Bonus: $25k Year 1, ~5k year 2

20XX Stock Vest: 10 shares

LY Review Score: Exceeds

LY Pay Increase: 1.1%

Gender: M

I really enjoyed my job and would go back. No counter offer when I left but that was at my request. Was up for L6 when I left.

</comment><comment><USER140> This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. For reference, my wife and I bought an 1800 sq ft house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k.

I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3 years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.

</comment><comment><USER141> This thread is depressing, but I'll post my information:

Company: small, non-startup software company in DFW

Position: Senior Research Software Engineer

Tenure: 4 years

Experience: 14 years (4 EE, 2 non-IT SysE, 8 SwE)

Salary: $92,500 (started at $78,000)

Signing bonus: $0

Yearly bonus: $0

Stock: 0

Many of the comments here make me feel like I ab seriously underpaid. However, over the past several years in my interactions with prospective new companies (ranging from startups to subsidiaries of huge defense contractors) I get the impression that my salary is slightly above average.

<comment><USER142> Yeah that is low compared to the major tech hubs but sounds calibrated to the area you are living in.

It only takes one person to set a price provided they honestly believe in they value... and that person can be you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER143> MS employee here, with a bit of anonymization

Location: Seattle area

Gender: Male

Category [1]: White

English native: no

Age: 35-40

Years in MS: 5

Title [2]: Senior SDE

Level [2]: 63

Hiring bonus: 0

Base salary: ~$140k

Annual bonus: ~16k

Annual stocks: ~17k (over 5 years)

Annual benefits: ~$25k

[1] [http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/multiracial- time...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/interactives/multiracial-timeline/)

[2] [http://geekologist.co/decoding-microsofts-sde-titles-and- lev...](http://geekologist.co/decoding-microsofts-sde-titles-and-levels/)

</comment><comment><USER144> * Area: Seattle, WA

* Position: SysDE II

* Base Pay: $120k

* Signing Bonus: $75k over 2 years

* Relocation: Fully paid + $2.5k

* Stock Units: $115k [200 RSUs] (5% at 1yr mark, 15% at 2yr mark, then 20% every 6 months from then on)

* Gender: M

* Native English Speaker: Yes

I have ~2 years of experience.

<comment><USER145> This seems ridiculously good for a SysDE with that much experience. I had two years at a smaller company previously and was hired as a SysEng I for way less. Not in Seattle but still felt as though I got a raw deal underestimating myself.

<comment><USER144> I think I understated my experience in my first comment, total I'd put it closer to 4-5 years. But yea, the amount they offered me was more than expected.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER146> Why not just check here: [http://data.jobsintech.io/](http://data.jobsintech.io/) real data from H-1Bs

</comment><comment><USER140> This is super interesting. A lot of responses make me feel underpaid, but I'm not really sure because it's dirt cheap to live in Reno: You can get a 1 bedroom apartment for $500-$1000 a month. My wife and I bought an 1800 sq ft house on 9000 sq ft of property for $230k.

I've been a software engineer at a small software company ~20 employees for 3 years now, but I've only been out of school for a year and I make $75k.

<comment><USER147> Compared to an engineer at a startup in SF making $150,000/year and paying over $3,000/mo [1] for a one bedroom apartment + California income/gains taxes, you're not doing too poorly at all. Your quality of life is also likely better and you're less exposed to crime.

[1] [https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco- ren...](https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/)

<comment><USER148> _" Quality of life"_

But Reno though!!

<comment><USER140> Reno is actually a surprisingly great place to live. I think visitors see things differently because they mostly experience the casinos downtown.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> I work as and SDE2 in Germany: ~€70k base pay + ~€20k RSUs

</comment><comment><USER150> Here is an offer for someone with 5 years of experience in San Francisco:

Base 180k Sign on 80k over two years 189 RSU over four years with 5-15-40-50% vesting schedule.

<comment><USER151> Is that 189K RSU?

<comment><USER152> Almost certainly not.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=amzn&oq=amzn](https://www.google.com/search?q=amzn&oq=amzn)

$552 $/share * 189 shares = $104,328 over 4 years = +$26,082 per year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER153> By federal law, an employer cannot discriminate or retaliate against employees for discussing compensation. One of the good things that unions made happen in the past before they made themselves their own worst enemies.

Some companies treat this as "you can discuss internally but it's a company trade secret externally" which I don't know how the courts have actually treated it (if at all.)

</comment><comment><USER154> Ex Amazonian but I was an SDE1 ~1 year of experience before joining. I worked in Seattle

Salary: $100k Bonus: $25k Stock: I forget but it was not much

</comment><comment><USER33> I'm genuinely curious, this post has over 208 points and is only 3 hours old.. why is it falling off the front page already?

<comment><USER33> And now just suddenly it's back to near the top of the front page. What's going on HN mods?

<comment><USER155> Not a HN mod, but been around long enough to take a guess:

HN penalizes entries (topics? articles? discussions? whatever) that gain a lot of comments really quickly. I think I've seen dang refer to this as the "flamewar penalty". The penalty was probably removed manually, because it was a false positive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER156> Ex-Amazonian here. Started as an SE1 in 2012 @ $98k, $20k signing bonus ($18k second year), 160 RSUs, and relocation expenses.

</comment><comment><USER157> Started at 110k + 15 sign on bonus my first year. I got at least 90k over 3 years in stock after the prices went up so high.

</comment><comment><USER158> Position: SDE 2

Joined: Last year

Base Pay: 145,000

Native English Speaker: Yes

</comment><comment><USER159> your pay is probably fairly unique since you listed it down to the stocks allocated and per year performance. I have to imagine that the list that includes all the attributes that you have is a fairly short list(probably just you).

just a word of caution if you do fear retaliation at all. might want to fuzz the numbers a touch.

</comment><comment><USER160> You're getting screwed, big time. Quit now.

Source: I was hired at Amazon as an SDE1 in 2004 at a base salary of $85,000.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are you taking stock into consideration? When stock is included, my total compensation for 2016 comes to $130K.

Are you still at Amazon? If so, what is your current salary?

<comment><USER160> My signing bonus was $10k/$10k, so I can compare that. Stock wise, I think it was like 3000 shares, which at the time were going for $30-ish. Don't fully recall.

Not still at Amazon. When I left, I thought I had it good, with total comp peaking just a hair over $200k. And then I went and got multiple job offers that put my BASE at $250k. So, yeah.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER161> There can't be an amazon policy against sharing your compensation (well, there can be, but it would be void). It's legally protected in the US, under the laws which support union/labor organizing.

(I'm not a lawyer; I'm not your lawyer; this is not legal advice.)

</comment><comment><USER162> Company: midsized South Bay startup (50-100 people)

Position: Developer (not web)

Age: 25-30

Tenure: 2 years

Initial Salary: $105,000

Current Salary: $120,000

Signing Bonus: 20,000 shares, vesting over 4 years (Taking into account current valuation and strike price, assume stock is worth, to me, ~$0.50/share)

Annual Bonus: None

Additional stock since hiring: 25,000 shares, vesting over 4 years

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

</comment><comment><USER163> I'm in Montreal, full-stack developer at a small/medium-size company, four years experience, ~$80k. Feel like I messed up a bit and they would have gone for 90 or 100. But they give great benefits and a 35/hr work week.

</comment><comment><USER164> Salaries for Germany anyone?

<comment><USER165> It would be awesome to see such a thread for not only Germany but Europe. There is no way you can compare the salaries from the US with the salaries here.

I can speak for SIEMENS where they publish the pay for open positions internally. However it is very hard to get into SIEMENS currently, given their savings plan.. I heard that the salaries for the open positions are fixed. I have no idea if this is true. I will refer to the IG Metall Entgeldtabelle for Bavaria: [http://www.igmetall-bayern.de/metall-elektro/](http://www.igmetall- bayern.de/metall-elektro/)

\- Level: Entry level Software Developer, Bachelor or Master \- Location: Germany, Nuremberg \- Salary: EG9 ~49000€

\- Level: Sysadmin, min 3 Years experience \- Location: Germany, Munich \- Salary: EG10 ~54600€

They cost of living in Munich are the highest in Germany. So in the end you will probably will have less money if you take the Sysadmin job in Munich.

They don't differentiate between bachelors and masters. I will find out in the near future if you are able to negotiate a higher EG level based on that..

It would be interesting to see some salaries from other companies in Europe. But i'm possibly to late in this thread.

<comment><USER166> > \- Level: Entry level Software Developer, Bachelor or Master - Location: > Germany, Nuremberg - Salary: EG9 ~49000€

Do they not differentiate between entry level + bachelor degree vs. entry level + master degree?

<comment><USER165> They don't differentiate in the position descriptions. They just want a degree.. but it is hard to match most of the requirements with just a bachelor. I talked to some colleagues about the hiring process and if that salary is fixed, regardless if you have a master or bachelor. They said yes, there is not much you can do. Furthermore is it difficult to talk about the salary with others because they think it is a taboo.

I checked glassdoor but there is not enough comparable data for entry positions. However, compared to other companies the salary at SIEMENS is good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER167> I'm not working for Amazon or any other big ones but I think this is a very good idea. Transparency always helps and I wish something good comes out of other people sharing their financial details.

</comment><comment><USER168> Check out the recently launched site Comparably [https://comparably.com/](https://comparably.com/)

It is so much better than Glassdoor at dissecting salary data.

<comment><USER169> How do you have any confidence that any of their numbers are real? Unlike this thread or even Glassdoor, there's a clear incentive to submit fake data to Comparably because they require you to submit a salary before you can see any of their data (and encourage you to sign in with your LinkedIn account).

<comment><USER170> Yikes. Anybody who gives both their salary and LinkedIn information to any company is either insane or stupid.

<comment><USER169> Right, so the salaries are probably biased towards the low end.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER171> If you work at Google, you can continue the discussion here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449)

</comment><comment><USER172> Don't work at Amazon, but..

Social Security(Baltimore)

Sr. UI/UX Dev

Govt. contract at $75 an hour no benefits

In this area you should strive to move your Dev career towards govt. work; govt contracting being the best in terms of hourly pay.

</comment><comment><USER173> (Non-AMZN). ~10y experience UI developer.

$165k base 20% annual bonus 200k worth of stock vested over 4 years.

I like the company so I did not negotiate showing the other counter offers I had at the time of joining.

</comment><comment><USER174> Blind [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blind./id737534965?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/blind./id737534965?mt=8) & [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamblind....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.teamblind.blind) talks about salary ad nauseam... so if you want to see salary discussions, get the app.

<comment><USER175> so this is like, some forum but you have to install some random app? And of course, it wants:

* retrieve running apps * find accounts on the device * modify or delete the contents of your USB storage * read the contents of your USB storage

some other more acceptable ones. Fuck that shit

</comment></comment><comment><USER176> This is really interesting and I am m glad that you shared. the company will typically move mountains to keep you if you are good.

</comment><comment><USER177> It would be interesting if people also posted how many hours they work a week, to get a sense of the work/life balance.

<comment><USER178> And also any unique educational background or special talents, like if they're working in a niche of machine learning or something like that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER179> 25-35 white male 150k base + some equity I haven't paid attention to Senior software engineer (front-end) NYC

</comment><comment><USER180> I wish I had time myself, but it would be really helpful if someone tabulated the results from this thread.

</comment><comment><USER181> You need more context to make sense of pure dollar values - in which city/metro-area do you work?

</comment><comment><USER182> HR can find you based on the numbers you gave if you don't fuzz them a little bit.

</comment><comment><USER183> I own a small software consultancy based in NYC. I should make roughly 500K this year.

</comment><comment><USER184> I was there from 2009 - 2011 as a contractor and made $35.00 an hour as an SDE II

</comment><comment><USER185> Level: SDE II (5)

Location: Van, BC

Base: 99k (CAD currency)

Stock vest in 2016: 60 RSU

Tenure: 2 year

</comment><comment><USER186> 4+ yrs, syseng II, ~107k salary and stock push my total comp to ~145k.

</comment><comment><USER187> I've always wondered how people can make a living doing Turking.

</comment><comment><USER188> This is yet another millennial trying to skirt earning their keep.

</comment><comment><USER189> Base Pay is pretty low for either Seattle or SF Bay Area or NY

</comment><comment><USER190> I don't blame you for being nervous, but it's actually against the law to punish employees for sharing salary data. Companies try to hide it, but the NLRB would be interested to hear about it.

</comment><comment><USER191> SWE II at Twitter. Not in SF.

Salary: $118.5k

Bonus: $10k

RSUs: 4500 over 4 years

</comment><comment><USER192> thats great info, lets make more of these topics!

</comment><comment><USER193> We went through the comp data on this thread and another one on Google comp ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11314449)), and we added it all to this Google Sheet: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11tyJW9KPcSiLZBBuf0Z1...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11tyJW9KPcSiLZBBuf0Z14Uov92EgIGjjLjh4lrmTnyk/edit?usp=sharing)

Feel free to share/add to this doc. We'll post this in the Google comp thread too.

Here are the median comps by level for Amazon and Google, just based on the postings collected in the Google doc as of 3/22\. \--Amazon -- New grad: $141K SDE1: $146K SDE2: $173K SDE3: $250K TPM3: $220K

\--Google-- Level 3: $170K Level 4: $200K Level 5: $312K Level 6: $575K T7: $640K Tech Level 5: $660K

Just a few notes - Total comp includes bonus, signing bonus, relocation bonus, and stock. Bonuses and stock were all annualized straight-line. (I know this is not how Amazon stock comp is done, but we assumed this in our calcs.) Since we took postings from 2 different threads, it's possible that one person could have posted once in each thread, in which case that would show up twice in the Google doc. Also, there's a lot of variance particularly with bonuses which are lumped in, and some of the higher levels only have one data point, but you can look at the data in the Google doc if you want to dig in.

If it helps with comparison between Amazon and Google, here's how Amazon levels map to Google's (from Quora: [https://www.quora.com/How-do-Amazons- engineering-levels-map-...](https://www.quora.com/How-do-Amazons-engineering- levels-map-to-Googles)) Amazon SDE 1 - roughly a Google T3 ("I") or T4 ("II"). Amazon SDE 2 - roughly a Google T4 ("III") Amazon SDE 3 - roughly a Google T5 ("Senior") or T6 ("Staff") Amazon Principal - roughly a Google T6 or T7 ("Senior Staff") Amazon Sr. Principal - roughly a Google T8 ("Principal") or T9 ("Distinguished").

Full disclosure - we're Step ([http://www.step.com](http://www.step.com)), and we're building a platform to help engineers and product managers anonymously crowdsource personalized salary and level estimates from decision makers and hiring experts at tech companies. This thread is especially interesting to us, because it shows the need/demand for more transparency around compensation and company feedback. Right now, we're working with ~10 NYC startups that will assign personalized salary/level estimates and other feedback to anonymous profiles, but our bigger vision is that as soon as someone signs up, they'll see how each and every company values them without having to interview/talk to recruiters.

</comment><comment><USER194> Tried the transparency bit. In larger companies like Amazon it might work because there's still a bit of anonymity. But for most companies large and small here's what happens:

Bob gets hired as a developer in 2012. He's been with the company for 4 years. Bob is a decent developer who gets his work done but makes the occasional mistake. Bob's title is application developer. When Bob got hired he took the job because the pay was as good if not better than his last job and the market was tough back then and he was happy to have the opportunity. Bob makes 50k a year and lives in Florida where the home office of the company is. Bob's title is software developer.

Fast forward to today:

The company is really taken off and they need to hire some top talent and have opened the doors to remote workers. John joined the team back in 2014 at 55k per year. John lives in Florida and is a mediocre developer. Sure he gets work done but it's often late or buggy. He tries hard and has shown much improvement and continues to every day. His title is software developer. There's a new IT manager and his job is to hire in some top talent to work with the current talent to get things moving. Prior to the hiring push the new IT manager sees the salaries currently and decides to bring salaries more in sync with what the market currently is at. As a result of this Bob, between his cost of living increases and this new pay bump is at 65k and John is at 60k.

As he can now look at remote workers he has feelers out around the country. An ace developer applies for a position and has some skills the company desperately needs. She is based in New York and demands a higher salary than the company traditionally pays because the cost of living is higher. The company approves her demands at 90k per year and she starts with the company, also with the title of software developer. Her name is Sally.

A month later the company decides to have transparency across the board with salaries and publishes everyone's salary.

John is immediately offended because in his mind (and by his title) he's doing the same job as Bob and Sally yet is making considerably less. Bob is upset because Sally just got hired and is making an extremely high amount more.

Each of them are considering their titles / positions. None of them are considering the individual situations that have led to the people making what they make.

So how should salary negotiations go. If the company is open and transparent, they should explain to John that basically he's not as good as the other developers so therefore he hasn't gotten the same cost of living increases etc. What he has been getting is an education and the opportunity to improve his craft.

Bob would need to know that he started low and it's just the nature of salaries to creep up the way they have. They'd have to discuss Sally's situation which frankly is none of Bob's business.

While all of them are valued employees, if they all made the same exact amount either it wouldn't be enough or the company would go broke quick. So they can either suck it up and deal with it or find a job elsewhere. They'll be disgruntled either way.

Remember your salary is your salary. Negotiate for what you think is fair. If you want a raise, ask for one. if you feel you should be brought up to current market rates, say so. Ultimately if you are not being treated fairly after giving the company ample opportunity to make it right and communicating with them, then find a new position. Finding out someone has something that is worth more than what you have will always make you want what they have, that's just human nature. Not disclosing salaries is more to keep harmony amongst the workers and people happy in their jobs and focused on THEIR OWN needs as opposed to just trying to get the same thing as someone else for whatever reason.

Are there companies who leverage this for nefarious purposes? Sure but you really shouldn't be working for those companies now should you?

The key here is communicate with your company. If you are valued they will try to accommodate you or at least give you a good reason, if you are met with resistance or reprecussions then maybe reexamine your relationship with them.

</comment><comment><USER195> I'm not an Amazonian, but I wanted to chime in here to say I think this thread is a great idea and I would love to see more like it.

I write about salary negotiation and coach people through it, and I think sharing salaries publicly will encourage more people to negotiate and get paid what they're worth.

I recently coached a new Amazon employee, and he got a very good offer, which he increased by about 15% using VERY simple negotiation tactics that we discussed. If he hadn't negotiated, he would've still been paid well, but would have left 15% on the table before he was even in the door.

I submitted this link yesterday—it's a Salary Negotiation workshop I did for developers in Orlando last week. It's definitely relevant to this conversation:

EDIT: Here's a direct link to the Salary Negotiation workshop summary to save you a click: [http://bit.ly/21zFG5q](http://bit.ly/21zFG5q)

Here's the HN submission for posterity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11305683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11305683)

(Not sure why I originally linked to an HN submission linking to the workshop. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯)

Nice job starting this thread!

<comment><USER196> I'm interested in what your negotiation principles are.

I've always heard that a candidate should never share salary information and require the company to provide the first concrete number in the form of their initial offer.

However, I've repeatedly used all of the "business-professional" and "HR approved" sorts of conversational techniques to enact this advice, and the only result that has ever occurred is either (a) the company literally refuses to even conduct a single interview with me before knowing salary information, or (b) the company finally makes a job offer and it is extremely low, something around 50%, of what I have earned previously in similar roles.

95% of the time I say I am more focused on assessing cultural and technical fit for the position, making sure I would jell with the team, finding out more about the company, learning more about the trade-offs required for the role, etc., as reasons for not providing salary information as literally the first point of communication with HR, it results in an instantaneous rejection.

I still believe candidates should not agree to unfair information asymmetry by revealing their salary or wage preferences first. The problem is it just seems that something like 95% of all hiring managers will outright immediately reject you, on principle, if you don't agree to bear that unfair information asymmetry.

All the great techie blog posts on being a better negotiator, like this:< [http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary- negotiation/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/) > \-- they sound great and give me a pumped up rah rah feeling, but in practice they basically never work.

My interviewing experience with this has covered large multi-national companies, tech firms, small boutique quantitative finance firms, start-ups, consulting companies, and education technology. There certainly are industries I am missing, but it has seemed like a universal phenomenon to me.

<comment><USER195> One of my negotiation principles is "Don't disclose your current or desired salary" during the negotiation. With persistence, the recruiter or hiring manager will usually just move on.

Another principle is that you should always counter.

So I'm _extremely_ surprised to hear that 95% of the time, people have refused to continue talking with you. I can't refute your experience, but I can say this has never happened to me or anyone that I've worked with to negotiate a starting salary.

Patrick's writing, which you alluded to, was a big inspiration for me to write and think more deeply about this subject. He knows what he's talking about.

If you watch the Salary Negotiation workshop (linked in my original comment), you'll see a section on "The Dreaded Salary Question" and there was a 15-minute discussion on it in the Q&A. (Both are linked in the notes below the embedded video.) You might watch those segments to see if anything jumps out at you that yo haven't' tried before.

Thanks for the question!

<comment><USER196> In the handful of cases where the company was OK with my non-answer about salary, and I went on to get all the way to a job offer, the salary ended up being entirely miscalibrated to a candidate of my skill and experience, and the overall interview process (which usually included some technical screens, programming tests, take-home tests, and long on-site technical interviews) was a _massive_ waste of my time, not to mention extremely stressful.

Places where I experienced this gross miscalibration: a large U.S. food retailer's digital analytics team; a small pharmaceutical research software company; a 25-year-old multinational scientific computing and supercomputing consulting firm; and an FFRDC research lab attached to a university.

In one of these places they even went on at length about how much the hiring manager liked me, how I fit all the skills they were seeking, and many team members remarked that I would "mesh instantly" with the team, and so forth. I had walked away from those interviews knowing that I had done a good job and feeling very confident.

Then they made a job offer than was around 75% of what I had been making before in a similar job in a similar cost of living area, and the new job's other benefits were far worse.

When I told them what I was making before, they just said, "it just looks like there's a bit of a gap here that we are unable to make up, but we think you'll be very happy on this team so we hope you'll consider our offer despite that." The people interviewing me in that company had even gone on at length about how successful their business unit had been recently, signing a new important contract, and how their biggest challenge was recruiting good people and staffing up to support some projects that had important deadlines looming towards the end of 2016.

I still continue to avoid sharing salary info, because I'm not convinced that sharing it would be better.

But I think what you might not be accounting for is that almost every single candidate in the tech world _does_ share salary, freely and openly, from the very first minute they are asked, without even realizing it might have any side effects.

A lot of corporate recruiters are conditioned to expect this, and the minute someone fails to share salary, they flag them as "not a dope, can't hire them cheaply" and they just move on. Constraint number one, above any and all talent requirements, is that they _must_ be cheap to hire ... for a lot of firms.

<comment><USER195> It's tough to decide where to leave this reply, and this seems like a good place to address a few things I've seen in the replies to my comment.

Usually, my advice is "don't share you current or desired salary", but the one exception I've discussed with some people is when they're concerned they'll be low-balled. In those cases, I've suggested it might be better to just disclose your desired salary.

 _I 've been rethinking this lately_. I think a better tack might be to ask the company to share the salary range they're offering for the position. (You're only doing this if you're concerned you'll go through the interview process and get an offer so low you can't even counter with anything reasonable.)

In this case, you have virtually nothing to lose: either they'll tell you the range and you'll know if you're wasting your time, or they'll refuse and now you're both refusing to disclose the "desired" salary component. In the latter case, you can choose to continue with the process or not, depending on your general feeling about the opportunity.

The more I think about it, the more I suspect you should _never_ reveal your desired salary because it can basically only cost you money. When you do reveal your desired salary, you're basically guessing and gambling. You're _guessing_ at the range they're offering, and _gambling_ that you don't undershoot and cost yourself money. (See this clip on why I think it's so important to protect the few pieces of information you have in a negotiation: [https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU](https://youtu.be/ndrY2UI-fyU) TL;DR, you have only two or three unique pieces of information that the company doesn't have; the company has oodles and oodles of information that you don't have; they have a significant informational advantage in your negotiation and this is bad for you, but it's worse if you give away the few pieces of unique information that you have.)

This is a worse gamble than simply interviewing to see what they're best offer is, IMO. If you go all the way through the interview process and find they can't afford you, you wasted a few hours of interview time. If you guess and gamble by disclosing your desired salary, you're risking thousands of dollars of base salary over several years. Odds are, the opportunity cost of your time isn't anywhere near the potential downside of guessing wrong with respect to the base salary they're willing to pay.

(I'm going to sleep on this, but it feels right) So, my suggestion is don't disclose your desired salary, even if you're afraid their offer will be way too low or if the recruiter says they won't continue without it. If you're dealing with a very persistent recruiter OR you're afraid they can't afford you, ask them to tell you the salary range they're offering so you can tell them if it meets your requirements. If they won't tell you, then you can choose to continue and possibly get a low offer, walk away, or the recruiter may end the conversation (this is rare, in my experience, but I'd be open to seeing data to change my mind).

All of these outcomes are preferable to the alternative, which is risking thousands (or tens of thousands) of dollars of base salary by guessing at their range and gambling by disclosing your desired salary.

The bottom line is the company has something you need: a job. BUT you have something the company needs: skills and experience that can help them make money. Don't be fooled into perceiving a salary negotiation as a one-sided affair.

<comment><USER196> This is actually an excellent point, and I can't believe I didn't think of this.

If I am the first one to bring up salary, and I request a range because I want to make sure that nobody is wasting their time, then they clearly get the message that I am expensive to hire, and they can efficiently reject me if needed. If they give a number and it's too low, then I can politely tell them it's best for everyone to discontinue the interviews.

But, if they _don 't_ want to give a range, presumably because they _might_ be willing to pay a high wage if they liked me, then it puts me in a much better position to avoid stating what I am seeking.

Then I could say, "OK, it's alright with me if you don't want to explicitly tell me the range ... I just want to be sure that the position is offering compensation in the range that I am seeking. If you prefer to leave the salary discussions for later, that is perfectly understandable."

Now, if they press me for salary info, I can say the same thing they said and refuse to answer.

<comment><USER195> That all sounds very good to me :)

<comment><USER197> A, but there's a catch! I've asked for a company's range many times, and they have yet another non-answer answer: "we don't have a firm range in mind, we're confident compensation won't be an issue for a top candidate".

It's a game of chicken. The best counter I have is "what is the top of your range if we have a perfect fit?", but even that doesn't always work.

At this point, I'm sick of games. If a company refuses to disclose a salary range and/or insists on getting me to quote a number, I lead with $2X0 and see what happens. 80+% of companies aren't willing to hit that high, and the other 20% have been more interesting roles at higher quality companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER169> A reminder to everyone that the National Labor Relations Act prohibits companies from firing employees for discussing their salaries:

[http://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay- salaries/](http://www.govdocs.com/can-employees-discuss-pay-salaries/)

<comment><USER112> But not for divulging confidential information to the world, which is what the OP has done.

<comment><USER198> are you suggesting that companies can get around labor regulations by declaring your compensation to be confidential? I'd check with a lawyer if I were you, that's some pretty thin ice you are skating on.

<comment><USER24> Tangential - I asked my manager where I am on the stack rank once. He said it's confidential information.

I have access to VCS, bugbases, all the documents. We're a very metrics- oriented organization. And the one thing that _defines_ where I stand with the company, I can't be trusted with.

I think if I didn't get a check every two weeks with the number on it, they wouldn't tell me how much I'm paid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER199> I make roughly $20 an hour (about 16 after taxes :( )at the moment as a junior full stack intern working part time (I live and work in US). Sometimes I wonder if I should move on to find some other job, even if its remote...

On the other hand, my work is not that stressful, and I'm still going to school so my job is very flexible on time.

Anyone else been in a position like me?

<comment><USER34> Competitive internships will offer 2-2.5X that.

<comment><USER163> Really? I went through the co-op program at my university and the pay range for everybody going into software was basically $15-25/hr, although I didn't hear of a single person getting over $20.

<comment><USER34> > Really? I went through the co-op program at my university and the pay range > for everybody going into software was basically $15-25/hr, although I didn't > hear of a single person getting over $20.

By competitive, I mean microsoft, facebook, and google. This could be naïve of me, but that's how they position themselves.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER200> You gave enough information that they could find you without using any links in your profile or your online handle.

Another thing that could be interesting is your accent. My eyes were recently opened about the discrimination that happens based on that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, I told my boss about the post before I submitted it. But I was only letting him know -- I didn't ask for permission. The decision was mine and mine alone, so any (unlikely) backlash won't be directed at him. We have a good relationship and see eye to eye almost all the time. He did say that he didn't think there was anything wrong with posting this.

The reason for the throwaway is because I generally try to avoid "stirring the pot." Or at least, don't want a reputation as a pot stirrer. But if some higher up confronts me about it, I won't deny posting it.

<comment><USER200> Some pots should be stirred and I think this is one of those pots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER201> Amazon offered me 104k/year + 18k signing bonus for year 1 and a 14k signing bonus for year 2. Software Developer position.

35k in stock options that would vest over 4 years.

That was March 10th, 2011.

</comment><comment><USER202> Facebook Offer:

iOS Developer

Base Salary: 140k Signon Bonus: 25k Stock / 4 yrs: 200k Annual Bonus: 10%

The job I took this year:

iOS/Android dev Base: 190k Stock / 4 yrs: 3% Bonuses: tied to company revenue

Work History: 4 years over 4 different companies (startups and one big co)

Gender: M

Native English Speaker: Yes

</comment><comment><USER64> Op (and others) adding your office would be informative if you are comfortable with that.

Otherwise compensation is hard to compare.

I quit but my pay was ( Lin Seattle, numbers rounded a bit)

90k base 53k initial grant, backloaded 5% after 1 year, 15 after 2, 20% every 6 months after that. 37k signing bonus, 20k lump sum, 17k spread over 2nd year.

Raises were <1% at first review, 3.5% at second. So when I left after just over 2 years I was at 94k base. They did give me some more stock at my second review, but it was 2 years out iirc

</comment><comment><USER77> I'm starting to think I need to move out of the UK to somewhere that actually pays developers a decent salary.

</comment><comment><USER203> I started out at $35,000 USD / year in Vancouver then I stopped working 9am ~ 9pm including weekends and just started my own SaaS which made less than 10% of that.</comment>