[askafriend]

Those numbers are wrong and outdated. Every mid level engineer at Google is pulling near 250k at least in total compensation and up to $450k depending on experience and expertise. By total compensation I mean Base + Stock + Yearly Bonus + Signing Bonus. And that's not even factoring in the stock growth. Keep in mind the stock is as good as cash since it's very liquid.

Yes people make this much money. Yes they make it a couple years out of school. No I'm not lying or making this up. Yes this only represents a tiny tiny portion of engineers globally that have the privilege of working somewhere like Google and in a place like the Bay Area.

I swear, this conversation happens every single time on HN when people bring up comp numbers.

I know the salary ranges at nearly all major valley companies, have friends that work at all of these companies, and have gotten offers myself.

[zerr]

H1B data is official and updated - including this year. But for Bay Area, yes, 250K sounds realistic. I can't imagine someone wanted to move there for less.

> I know the salary ranges at nearly all major valley companies

Can you comment on Netflix? They say that they significantly outbid Google or FB... So e.g. 500-600K is the norm there?

[askafriend]

I’m not sure about H1B status or how that impacts comp.

Netflix does outbid Google and Facebook routinely in one key component: base cash salary. I think you can request a portion of this in stock but the default is cash.

So you’d get $350k handed to you straight cash versus the traditional approach of base + stock + other variable components like bonuses, performance based comp and refresher stock. The 500-600k numbers you’re suggesting are not realistic for an average mid level engineer though.

But in general, Netflix’s comp philosophy is a complete outlier in the Silicon Valley ecosystem. Might be more common in hedge fund or quant roles but I don’t know much about that world.