That said, as a side note, I do think articles like this tend to sensationalize Google as a whole as the "bad guy". Try to remember, Google is a huge company with lots of people managing its many parts. I personally feel there was a failing here, but if so, it was the fault of a relatively small number of people, not "Google". Even most of the people running this program were good, and the program itself was great (as you said) other than what I said above. There's hundreds of thousands of decisions happening every day at Google. If just a couple bad ones get to define the company as a whole, then no large company can ever be good, no matter how good all the rest of those decisions are.

The only room for negotiation is being willing to walk (usually because you have an offer somewhere else).

Otherwise, it's not negotiating, it's just begging.

I don't think that's really true.

I'm not arguing that there aren't SWEs whose total comp is $600k. There definitely are. However, those people aren't really SWEs. They're managers, architects, and strategists. They have a lot of people reporting to them, they make decisions about very high level things that are only tangentially related to code, and they work on guiding other engineers to find solutions to hard problems. No doubt being a developer before getting to that role is incredibly helpful and makes you better at it, but if you're earning $600k I very much doubt you're spending more than 25% of your time sat at a keyboard with an IDE open.

If you want to earn that much after a decade in work you'd be much better off polishing your management and strategy skills than learning how to write better code.

And yes, I realise I'm totally falling in to the 'no true Scotsman' trap here. But sometimes a Scotsman is just an MBA in a kilt. :)

Just like stores have "up to" 70% discounts. One item is marked off that much, and the rest are given modest discounts.

We shouldn't normalize this number as some plain old average, it'd be aspirational for many.

Using StackOverflow's [0] aggregated statistics of pay based on experience + location we can get some rough estimates

Over a 5 to 10 year span as a developer at Google you'd probably touch: Java, Golang, C++, Python, and some part of GCP (or very similar tech). Pay is also different from market location so if we look only at the USA we can look at SF and Manhattan.

5 years:

    - NYC 25% 96k, 50% 126k, 75% 166k
    - SF 25% 113k, 50% 149k, 75% 197k

    - NYC 25% 107k, 50% 141k, 75% 186k
    - SF 25% 126k, 50% 166k, 75% 219k

Some more data can be gleamed from here: https://www.levels.fyi/

500k+ is L6+, while very difficult to obtain, seems doable if you are determined, know your stuff, know how to find the "right" projects, and are also an inspiring leader.

[0] - https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/salary

Sure, over the 7 years I've met a couple engineers with a similar trajectory and one with a steeper one. But the vast majority will either take more time to get to L6, or plain decide to stay forever at 4 or 5.

IME the "unique backgrounds" are "doesn't have a CS degree or a couple years of experience at a big software shop".

Try "the interview process is bad and has low recall."

> sooner or later, it will matter to you.

It already matters to me.

discrimination can either be legal or illegal. google legally discriminates by giving offers to those who get the hiring committee's approval. i think getting the hiring committee's approval is a form of legal discrimination.

Right, every nonrandom decision is discrimination, but in the US private discrimination is generally legal unless it effects a protected category; because of the rational basis test, in the US, public dsicrimination is generally invalid unless it meets some bar of justification, but unless a particularly protected basis of discrimination is involved or a particularly important right impinged, the bar for validity is very low (a rational relation to a legitimate government function.)

This seems at odds with the article:

>Nearly all residents converted to regular employees, according to the presentation

So people from underrepresented backgrounds should be paid the same as top engineers regardless of output.

Where? lol

2001: SWE at UCSF, making about $75K/yr. This is roughly triple my graduate student salary and higher than my postdoc salary. 2007: Architect at Genentech. Make about $100K/year 2008: Join Google as L5 with a starting bonus of $25K, $125K salary, and about $100K in stock options. Stock options are refreshed every year. One year, Eric Schmidt gives everybody a 10% raise. I get promoted once. 2019: leave to work at a startup for a year, same base pay as Google, and stock grants that are now worth $1M but aren't fungible. 2021: Leave Google as L6 with base pay of $225K, 15% bonus target (which I get), a $45K annual bonus, and $700K stock vesting over four years. I count this as "around $450K/year total comp" before taxes etc.

If I had managed 2012-2016 better, I'd be an L7 or more, making about $550K/year total comp. However, these are all exceptional situations made possible by the insanity that is Google.

I'm making my first comment on Hackernews because I saw your remark. I would encourage you to seek help for this negative thinking or at the very least reflect. I promise the majority of people in society do not view you as subhuman for working at Amazon. This is really an irrational thought.

Based on your post history I think you are beating yourself up over a non issue. You're working at a top company, with reasonable pay, and exciting projects. Yes some companies pay much higher, have more perks, better wlb, etc. but there will always be a better company wherever you work. Your work doesn't define you.

Chin up my friend, and maybe seek some professional help to improve your thoughts. You don't have to go through life suffering like this! I used to get extremely anxious/depressed focusing on my career but after going through therapy, and yes some medication I have been feeling much much better.

Best of luck!

Fuck it and be happy. And while you're working on it, you should consider no longer voicing your negative thoughts. It definitely doesn't help, and there's a good chance it makes it worse. (Or don't, I'm not telling you what to do obviously)

When you get your first yacht, you'll start to notice all the better yachts with mini yachts. It's never ending.

Amazon have one of the most trusted brands in America, rivaling Google in how people view them.

It's your life, so you're welcome to feel as you will, but if it's on inaccuracies then you're just hurting yourself.

Cheer up. And if you're not happy there, move on to a place with a name you're proud of.

Like come on, I have met enough Googlers over the years to recognise that they are not all geniuses. They're all very competent at what they do, but that's not the same thing at all.

Regardless, it's never a good idea to assume you can't do something until you've exhaustively proved it.