Is there any actual evidence of this, though? Whenever software engineer salary comes up on HN, there are always one or two people who come out of the woodwork to share this oh-so-secret information. "Despite the pay bands that all big companies have and some even publish, there are secret squirrel individual contributor software engineers who make $600K and get million dollar bonuses! Trust us, it happens, guaranteed!" But nobody ever actually produces evidence of this, and none of these unicorn engineers ever post to confirm it. Inevitably, someone will point to one of those online self-reported surveys and one of the rows will show some ridiculously huge salary. But that's the only thing I've seen that even remotely looks like evidence that there is this secret cabal earning millions as employees writing software.
Yes there actually is "secret squirrel" business going on. Secrets are a thing, especially around money. It's a fact some computer programmers get profit sharing and it is not advertised.
Him: "Is there actual evidence of this?"
You: "Yes. But it's a secret."
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by logicslave on Thursday July 23, 2020 @04:11PM
(#23931726)
You think the people inventing the critical algorithms behind amazon s3 and aws in general are line of business employees making what everyone else in their band makes? A trillion dollar corporation is going to let that guy walk out the door to save instead of chipping him an extra million?
This isn't about people who get their work done fast and execute on projects well.
I have no idea--that's why I'm skeptical and would love to see evidence. In some of these companies, veteran outlier high-performers end up getting promoted several times to things like "Distinguished Engineer" and have enormous staffs of engineers reporting to them. They are executives in all but title, so I'd expect them to be in the executive pay bands and get executive salaries. Those aren't the people we're talking about. We are talking about regular "top performer" individual contributors (write code as their job, no direct reports). Why would a company artificially keep them at some low promotion level but pay them as if they were multiple levels higher?
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by Followerer on Monday August 03, 2020 @10:12AM
(#24037983)
Do you think a multi-billion corporation would pay a low level employee an extra million just because they can? You may overestimate the value of individual engineers, big corporations don't. That's how they become big. The money they make is the difference between the value of your work and the money you make. The smartest and best connected people in the company are working to make that gap as wide as possible.
Yes, but if this engineer's achievements are well known, competition between companies is what drives crazy comp because they are seen more like a strategic asset rather than another engineer. They wouldn't quite be a low-level employee, these unicorn ICs often report directly to middle management or above. I'm surprised how little industry experience some of these commenters seem to have given that it's HN.
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by Followerer on Wednesday August 05, 2020 @11:38AM
(#24062010)
Competitors are also multi-billion corporations. I do work for one of those big multi-billion corporations, it's my second, and I've also worked for others not so big. Only newbie engineers fresh out of college believe the myth of the genius engineer who gets grossly overcompensated because they're so smart. You can find 10s of thousands of brilliant engineers in any of these companies, that's the bottom line. Not a single one of them is, on their own, irreplaceable. Specially valuable individuals get awarded distinctions like "fellow" or "distinguished". They're valuable, more than anything else, because of their contacts and rapport within the industry. It's never technical competency; not that they're technically incompetent, but most of their underlings will likely be more technically competent than them (if they're smart, after all, they will do the technical work). If you haven't figure this out yet, don't worry, you'll get there.
You clearly don't work for one of the ones that grant 7 figure salaries. I'm not saying they're common or that any engineer can aspire to achieve one, I'm saying they exist, I've seen it first hand, and I don't understand why it's so hard for you to accept they exist. Nothing in your comment constitutes novel insight to me, and neither of us have a good measure as to which of us have more credibility than the other, but I suspect you're just judging based on your own narrow experience.
Edit, just for more context I'm speaking of FAANG level companies here and very rare individual unicorn engineers who have been specifically hired into these kinds of positions for past achievements that have impact across the whole industry. I would agree with your general skepticism in any other context.
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by Followerer on Monday August 10, 2020 @08:20AM
(#24108460)
As I said, I'm on my second FAANG. The "very rare individuals" you mention are hired L9 or above. That is, distinguished engineers+. You don't get to L9 with "a valuable technical contribution", you get there because people know who you are, you have strong network of connections within the industry, and you are in a position to make strategic decisions. It's very much not a technical position, it's borderline executive. Let's put it this way, the people with that kind of compensation, you know who they are. It's never an anonymous whizz kid who's very good at solving technical problems, it's the guy who hired them and/or knows how to direct their work.
As you said, you don't know me and I don't know you, so I don't have a reason to doubt your word. If you say you've met engineers who get that kind of compensation, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Everyone I've met or I've known to be in that level of compensation were the people I already knew were making that kind of money.
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by amznthrowaway5 on Saturday July 25, 2020 @04:18PM
(#23952073)
Getting special bonuses is more about being part of an inner circle than being a "top performer" or inventing critical algorithms for s3. Yes, the people truly behind a lot of the important stuff are standard engineers making within band compensation (possibly out of band only due to stock appreciation).
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by derangedHorse on Friday July 24, 2020 @08:47AM
(#23938794)
Just because something would make sense to be true doesn’t mean it is, so I’m not sure if that counts as a valid argument
People who see it happen don't even have enough hard details to confirm it to themselves aside from the fact that they're witnessing it firsthand. The best I can do, for example, is to say that at FB I worked with someone who was very well known as a very highly ranked IC, and that the comp in the band he was known to be in is astronomical (1m+ annually). Another factor is that we don't want to dox ourselves by giving out biographical details that would otherwise have built a case. This particular engineer had built foundations of particular unprecedented things within industry with enormous current relevance, even to laymen, before acquiring their current rank. I can't get more specific than that, but $1m is absolute peanuts compared to the size of the market sectors these engineers have a hand in shaping.
Whoever told you there's no bonuses at Amazon is not a top employee.
So that's how Amazon works - people can't even get a straight answer from management as to the existence of a bonus structure (let alone how it works)? They need to whisper it to each other offer coffee, or... go on Hacker News to find out what the actual deal is?
Sometimes not even management has the whole picture knows. I know someone who was a former employee (top performer) at FB. He would have his end of year (or half year? Not sure what the cycles were) with his boss, receive his bonus and salary increase. Then his boss's boss would pull him aside and give him another bonus, that his own boss was completely unaware of.
Imagine working at a place this toxic. Holy shit.
> I know someone who was a former employee (top performer) at FB
Yup, checks out
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by logicslave on Thursday July 23, 2020 @04:02PM
(#23931653)
I mean just think about it. You write some critical piece of Amazon S3, generates massive value for the company. Amazon knows they cant lose you, how are they not paying you a ton of money? Individual employees can get into situations where they have massive bargaining power over large corporations. Your average or even regular top performer is not getting this, but people definitely are.
The bonus structure works like this.
1.) You provide massive value, maybe move the needle on the bottom line
2.) Someone way high up who probably doesnt even know you wants to know whos responsible.
3.) He tells HR, give that guy an extra million and let me meet him
Re:Ask HN: Is all of FAANG like this?
by amznthrowaway5 on Saturday July 25, 2020 @03:59PM
(#23951945)
I've seen bonuses like this at Amazon. You forgot the detail where some clown who has been taking credit with no technical understanding of the project gets the bonus while the people who delivered the actual value are ignored.
Whoever told you theres no bonuses at Amazon is not a top employee