Mega corp comp doesn’t work like that. It takes years to adjust their bandings. As a hiring manager it always frustrates you because you’re hopelessly out of touch with the pervading market for comp. If they want to reduce costs they’ll slow hiring before reduce comp.

Both Amazon and Microsoft recently increased pay.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/amazon-boosts-max-base-pay-f...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/16/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-...

Isn't this mostly just due to the shift away from equity-based compensation? Nobody wants your stock if it's tanking.

That said, as small-medium companies start crashing and burning, the megacorps that quickly ramp up hiring incentives will be in a pretty awesome spot in 5 years, as they'll have snatched up more great talent than their slower-moving competitors.

Successfully negotiating for more equity usually depends on other offers. Now that mega corps are clearly outperforming the Uber and DoorDashes and Squares of the world they have no competition other than other megacorps and don’t have to counter with more equity simply because someone has an offer from Uber.

Didn’t mean pay would drop below a band but you’re likely going to be able to get away with the lower end instead of the higher end of a band if you’re perceived as “safe” in this market

If you already have a job then they’re explicitly competing against your existing employer even without other offers. You’re right though if you can’t shop other jobs it might depress your upside, and if you’re coming in off a layout you should expect parity unless you have competitive offers. Ultimately though comp models won’t change.

Stock valuations had a pretty large pullback though so RSU compensation for existing employees is a lot lower than it was at the height of the red hot market.

there are plenty of ways a company can pay you less without having to change their entire comp model and wasn’t suggesting that was what was happening

the point is a flight to safety gives Megacorps leverage they didn’t have 1-3 years ago. they can pay you at the lower end of a pay band or interview you for a lower level than you asked for. and if people are desperate enough because they are in a tanking company or laid off they might take it.

And when everyone is thinking the same thing they can be pickier and get better quality talent for the same money regardless

They won’t. I’ve spent 30 years in fairly senior positions at mega corps. It’ll take a few years and only if the other mega corps reduce pay. Their response to a lot of available talent isn’t to pay less it’s to reduce their conversion rates and be more selective. They aren’t competing for talent against startups or even places like Coinbase and Uber for the most part. It’s against each other.

Amazon and Microsoft just announced that they are massively increasing their comp budgets.

that's base pay. has nothing to do with equity comp which is where the big money comes from.

The “big money” only comes from “equity comp” if the stock market is going up - which it isn’t doing now.

Both companies are increasing their base pay precisely because employees like the assurance that their pay isn’t based on stock price.

For me personally, it would have taken a lot less work dealing with real estate if I could just have handed the bank my W2s with all cash compensation than having to deal with a 2 year prorated signing bonus and a 4 year vesting schedule.

Don’t you think that Netflix’s employees are kind of happy that their compensation is all cash right now?

Except for the few who foolishly chose to take their pay in cash + future RSUs instead of cash.

Both MS and Amazon announced they were increasing total compensation. Amazon specifically is slowly starting to weight cash comp over stock.

Got an email last week from Apple “People team” - aka HR. They said they’ve increased the salary pool for this year, so I guess we’ll see how that pans out.

As long as they’re not colluding but competing, this seems unlikely. As a sibling comment pointed out, wages “tend to be sticky”.

There are pay bands. If you have multiple offers you can usually counter for more equity. In this market if you’re a megacorp you have the upper hand when the competition is Uber and their stock is down 70% eg you don’t need to counter so aggressively and offer so much more money whereas you might’ve a year ago