[bane]

I interviewed there once and made it through the entire gauntlet only to stumble on the salary. They asked me what I was looking for and talked about how the vesting of stock grants worked. At the time I was making decent, but not great, East Coast money, and I figured that the cost of living is about the same where I lived and in Seattle so I asked for about the same.

I've never seen a recruiter's eyes fall out of their head before, after a moment of stammering he said..."you realize that's more than what the senior directors, maybe some of the C-levels, earn?"

It seemed kind of a bizarre statement, because I knew a couple SDEs at Amazon and their total compensation package had been far in excess of that figure, but a big piece had been due to stock grants that had, over the vesting period, exploded in size due to Amazon's stock growth. I have no doubt many of the senior management made some tiny salary, but it didn't matter because they made multiples of that every year in stock grants.

I definitely came away with a very weird feeling about the place and was kind of glad when they called back a week later and said they just couldn't do it and thanked me for coming in.

I'd much rather work for places that pay me a lot more to develop cool things using Amazon's infrastructure.

[amazonthrowaway]

Base salaries for execs top out at something like $175,000. Is that what you're defining as "decent but not great"?

[bane]

My base at the time was in that ballpark, but not that high.

My total compensation from the job I was leaving was within spitting distance, and I knew that number was under what my friends working at Amazon were making in their total package.

I live in a major metro, so it's surprising sometimes how far that doesn't go.

It worked out in the end though, that money was also tied to an incredible workload and ultra-high stress. I ended up someplace much less stressful for a few years, and now have taken a position and paycut in exchange for a much improved work/life balance at a non-profit.

My stuff is not as fancy, but I live much better, though I wonder what would have happened if I had switched coasts, moved to Seattle and settled there instead.

It also turns out all the people I knew at Amazon have all left for other places as well.

[rattray]

In NYC, that salary would probably earn "decent but not great", if that, depending on your social circle (read: social class).