Google (and a few others) dealt with retention issues from startups and other companies in SV who's sole recruiting strategy was poach from Google, ie- use Google as a filter and let them do all the work finding great talent and then we'll just hire Googlers (or one of the other major SV tech companies).

So retention is a significant factor for Google and other FAANG companies. They can simply pay enough to make sure other companies can't come in and take their talent.

As a kid I thought this included some obvious jobs, but now as an adult I realize a lot of professions are like this. Some of my doctor and lawyer friends have been dealt the worst hands of all.

The salary expectations from Auburn (where Tim Cook is from) is a lot less than from say UC Berkeley or Stanford.

After all, being MIT or Stanford means that you passed specific type of filter but that filter might not be the silver bullet and even bring monoculture.

Despite the fact that the elite schools have elite opportunities, more often than not, the most impactful things don't come from elite alumni.

It is very different from Brin and Page, that basically catapulted from campus to become billionaires. Their life experience before becoming founders was entirely shaped by Stanford, their identity tied to it. It makes sense that their company reflects this.

Also MSFT isn't part of FAANG.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG

I think Microsoft is up there and competitive in the same landscape, and calling out their lack of inclusion in the original acronym is just pedantic. Everything discussed in this thread applies just as much to MSFT as it does to any of the other FAANG companies.

F: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En...

A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engin...

N: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

G: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

M: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-E...

Easier to use.

Twitter, square, uber, netflix, linked-in, pinterest, dropbox, airbnb, etc are all middle-big sized and are fairly variable comp wise.

The other orgs pay in things like bonuses or RSUs.

Total comp may be as good or higher, but those aren't locked in a specific rate the way a direct deposit to your bank account is; e.g. you could get less bonus, or the stock price could drop, etc.

I'm a solution engineer and only made it here with a BA in English. I learned a lot of code, but I haven't had to much else formally.

My wife is a teacher, and she has to jump through hoops for a teaching certificate, do regular, on-going re-certs, and be covered in basic first aid.

Plus there is a shit-ton of other issues to stay abreast of, like mandatory reporter status -- on top of learning new teaching tools, like integrating with the tablets they use in science class.

I spend 4 hours a day in meetings, and 3 hours a day doing basic code stuff that a fairly bright 17 year old could figure out. Her job is WAYYYY harder than mine.

> Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway.

Attitudes like this are why the state of education in the US is abysmal.

sounds like a death spiral. The attiude is teachers are unskilled jobs, but you also propose that teaching is more involved than engineering (which I don't disagree with: the thought of dealing with minors undergoing puberty increases my stress levels). But if they don't get enough training, the quality suffers and the reputation of the profession and education as a whole is "abysmal".

However, are teachers getting the proper training for that? is 2 years of certification post undergrad and a few more years acting as a TA enough to prepare them for these conditions?

Compare that to university professors, who need a PH.D and much more research to teach. Should that be the low bar for teaching even more rambuncious students "lower down"? The answer is ultimately theoretical, because I imagine the issue is similar to police; there requires a LOT of positions to fill, more than what they could hope to get if they set such high requirements.

I know this certainly to be true for people I know who work in conservation.

Hard disagree. The comparatively low salaries in other sectors are just that, below what workers should be earning. Things are fuzzier in the indie space, but companies like Blizzard, Activision, EA, Epic, Ubisoft, Rockstar, CDPR, etc. all pay low and absolutely rake in profits.

We should call worker exploitation what it is rather than calling fair compensation at FAANG companies "ridiculous".

Besides, people trade compensation for all sorts of things: working at a nonprofit, working in their rural hometown. Why shouldn't problem domain be one of them?

That's easy to measure. These companies have a per-employee revenue which is easily a 5-10x multiple of average total compensation paid per employee, and in some cases it's also much less than the per-employee profit.

So they could pay a ton more while also making a healthy profit. Apple is the worst example of this.

This is not limited to software engineers. I believe the same is true for any worker, from fast food to manufacturing to engineers.

However, in today's economy the situation you describe would have the workers being paid less and the owner trying to keep as much of the surplus value from their labor as possible.

So, even in a failing company, I'd expect the wages to increase for workers if they received 100% of their value.

and this is how gentrification works. Not because a company starts to pay less, but because other companies pay more and make just the act of existing close to those companies (even if you were in fact there first) more expensive.

Your solution is great for tech workers, but ultimately means a large swath of society would suffer.

And you might not know this but "charities" & "ngos" are notorious for bad pay and working conditions

Who defines "should be earning"? You?

Currently, we let the market determine it. It's fine to say you don't like that system, but that's the argument you should make, not "Big game companies are unfair". They're just playing the game the way we set it up.

Alternatively, you could maybe argue "I believe it is possible to make AAA games, pay high salaries, and actually make profits all at the same time", which would be an interesting take, and you could maybe explain how.

But saying "this is worker exploitation" is an uninspired, unproductive argument, IMO.

I don't think the situation in tech is as black and white as "FAANG or QA tester". I have friends working at non-FAANG, non-gaming tech companies that seem fine with their salaries. Ticketmaster isn't as pristine a name but they seem to pay well.

Also, pedantic point: CDPR isn't American. I'd rather not get into the details on international salary because that's a whole other topic.

Aka, if they paid less the local population drops which would reduce supply.