levels.fyi will give you some confidence in the wage.

Google, Meta, Amazon & microsoft all do banding, so the base wages is mostly public (hence why its all bollocks about wage negotiation, there isn't any.) The first level of senior for most of these orgs will tip the scales at around $300k

Having worked at both startup and FAANG, I don;t think startups actually give you the skills to flourish here in corp land. Sure, you might be a good coder, but most of the time its navigating politics that actually gets you promotion (that or good luck with a successful project)

You really don't need to be a good coder to be at a FAANG. Sure there are specialisms as you point out. but most of the time its just entry level CRUD, followed by manic debugging with shitty non-documented tools.

Wage negotiation means getting to the top of the band sooner. Other people might have to perform well at the level to get to the band, but a wage negotiator might just get there on their first day.

Most of the time the wage is not up for negotiation. Forget about it, you can't change it. HR and your future boss are tied up with company policy which says you start at X and you can't change that.

Spend your time instead on getting more vacation from the start. If instead you ask for 25 days of vacation per year instead of the default 10 you have a deal (or maybe they bring you down to 20 days). You can't get 50 days of vacation (there is a company max they can't go beyond), but you can get a lot more time.

I haven’t experienced what you claim. I’ve succeeded to the 99th percentile with wage negotiation the last 2 times I job hopped (both FAANG). The trick is you really do need to do the work to collect a poker-hand of competing offers with which to have leverage. You can then say “I won’t take your offer unless you make it (top of band, L+1, remote)” etc.

This has not backfired on me. It just takes 8 times more effort than getting hired at one place. I figured the benefit would compound.

Every company is different. Congratulations for pulling that off. It won't work everywhere though. The real trick is figuring out where they can negotiate - there is always something.

Wait so you got an offer at a FAANG for one level, and you negotiated to go up a level in pay, but not actually go up a level?

I know multiple successful wage negotiators at FAANG. Before their promotion their annual salary increase is on the order of hundreds to low thousands because they are already at the top salary for their level.

negotiation is very much a thing even at FAANG. If anything, it can help you being at the top of your assigned band. Other things can be negotiated.

Source: I am no great negotiator, but I've always negotiated my salary and got 10-15 % more than what I would have had w/o asking anything. This compounds after a few stints. And I've been a manager in startup/mid size/big tech: always negotiate.

There is also the signing bonus, which is usually available for a recruiter to sweeten things if the first offer is marginal. Google-recruiters for years claimed it was non-negotiable, all the while negotiating it for people who were willing to play the game.

Funny, my experience is engineers (at ICT level) at big companies are also really bad at politics - all they do in public setting is ask for more perks and benefits.

I see this too. An incredible amount of griping about the Wednesday cookies. Not much about how the shop across the street is giving an extra $100,000 for the same work profile.

Being successful at a startup isn't about being a good coder, either.

Especially if you're a founding member or an early hire, it often has much more to do with having good insights about where technology meets business, knowing how to tackle difficult problems using limited resources (IRL, not just in a computer), and even a sprinkle of politics if your startup happens to "disrupt" the wrong kind of industry.

If your startup has a management team that can abstract away all of that stuff so that you can just code in peace, I agree that your tenure there will probably not be worth the hassle in a resume.

That doesn't really address that the burnout/startup/hustle culture is part of the risk/reward valuation employees make to work at a startup.

If I can get the same compensation working at a FAANG with less stress, better hours and more balance/control over my life, and the resume entry may be 'more interesting' in some ways, but its hard to argue with FAANG on a resume either why wouldn't I? the choice to risk all of that for only a chance at reaching that compensation is a hard sell.

The possibility of pouring your hard work into a company from the start/early on with others equally dedicated, and if it blows up you all blow up is the selling factor.

On top of that, how many startups came from employees of previous successes that turned that wealth into more innovation? Restricting that path to wealth for many and concentrating the profits to a smaller and smaller group doesn't seem to me the best economic bet to make long-term.

This is the opposite of my experience. Big tech is far more hours and stress. And the work is much narrower and boring. The system is designed to make people into commodities and make you do work in the way that most benefits managers senior to yourself. Solve this narrow piece of a problem using this specific method alongside 5 other people doing other narrow pieces, versus a startup where you can just own the whole thing and iterate it faster.

Startups pay less and have to take what the can get. This probably causes a vicious cycle that makes the pay gap worse and worse.

IMO the stress is different. In startups you own things a lot more personally, and depending on how you handle stress that can be more challenging than the stress at big tech.

Hours can very much depend on the big tech and startup individually, but big tech is certainly moving in the wrong direction here, and in the typically big corporation/enterprisey worst way possible (increased employee monitoring, shallow and manipulable KPI's that act more as perverse incentives than actually improve anything and that increasingly show the disconnect between upper management and engineers)

> And the work is much narrower and boring. The system is designed to make people into commodities and make you do work in the way that most benefits managers senior to yourself. Solve this narrow piece of a problem using this specific method alongside 5 other people doing other narrow pieces, versus a startup where you can just own the whole thing and iterate it faster.

I agree and its my primary complaint/dislike for my job. I would love to, and probably will change to a startup or other job with a company I actually care about and a role I find valuable, but I expect the pay to be a significant drop when I do. Until then I'm leaning on the salary to reduce the amount of time I need to work overall significantly and putting in my time so to speak.

For now big tech is winning, but if startups and employee equity start having the potential payoffs they used to then it changes the balance of the above equation by quite a bit.

Some people just like the hustle culture. They can't seem to stand the boredom of a sustainable company with years of runway. So it obviously depends on your personality. For some, the thrill is worth the risk. For others, it's a huge bag of nope. I for one am clearly moving toward the latter group as I get older.

>I for one am clearly moving toward the latter group as I get older.

For me, I'm strongly moving towards the mentality that a startup I care about would at least give me outcomes I care about and an environment I can enjoy without the BS of big tech corporate and the need to prioritize stability, but its largely because I can increasingly afford to consider risks and lower income positions because my current job and income that isn't a startup.

The time/stress trade offs at big tech are increasingly diminishing vs startups (hussle culture taking over there now too), so if I'm going to have to deal with it it might as well have the least amount of BS possible... Its interesting how I prioritized stability early on in my career, and now consider less stable/risky roles that are more interesting or exciting, while you seem to be going the other direction. There are certainly a lot of different journeys through life.