[montyf]

Sorry, but is this a serious post? Honest question.

> My total comp for the first year is only $145k out of undergrad with a base of $106k. My friends at places like Google, FB and Cruise are making more like $180k-$230k by comparison.

Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are.

> Im honestly terrified that the value on the resume will decline over time and i will never be able to get into a more prestigious company.

Is this a real concern? Surely you can be hired on technical merit. Google hires new grads! And people who only worked at "top-tier" companies still have to pass an interview everywhere.

> The idea of being relegated to a 2nd or third tier company has been eating at me, and comments on places like CSCQ, Blind and this AskHN nearly drove me to suicide before.

That's sick. Not to be insensitive for you, but our priorities in this industry are whack. Surely you can find a meaningful job outside of a megacorp that's bleeding the world dry. Or do you just care about money and status?

[dang]

You have some fair points but your comment crosses into personal attack, and that does more harm than the fair points do good. Could you please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not post like that here?

[leohutson]

What's the protocal for a commenter with suicidal ideation? I feel like many of the replies here are unhelpful, and you should do something about it.

[dang]

It seems to me that the only human response is to express respect and offer what support we can.

I agree with you about the unhelpful replies and am attempting to respond to them all. If you notice one I missed, it would be helpful to send a link to [e-mail].

People don't do this kind of this kind of thing intentionally, but because their interpretation of others' comments are distorted by cognitive biases that unfortunately nearly everyone is aware of. It leads to inappropriate responses, and occasionally cruel and even dangerous ones.

[shanghaiaway]

The comment you replied to is not a personal attack. I find your comment unhelpful and excessively negative. Read the HN guidelines -- assume positive intent.

[dang]

When I say a comment crosses into personal attack, that's a signal that I'm assuming positive intent because I don't think it happened on purpose.

When someone posts from a place of suicidal suffering and another user replies with "that's sick", asking if it's a joke, and using sarcasm ("heaven forbid") etc., that's brusque enough to count as personal attack in this intensely personal context. Had the original comment been about something trivial, I wouldn't have called it that, though I might have still called it uncivil.

So the answer to your objection is that I appreciate your standing up for the site guidelines but we have to adjust moderation for context and this was a special context.

[clintonb]

> Heaven forbid someone is making more money than they know what to do with than you are.

I see what you're saying; however, all things being equal, I would want compensation comparable to my peers if we were doing the same job. Why do the same job at two-thirds pay?

[montyf]

I see what you mean as well. But, I don't think this kind of thing should impact your well being. The guy said in other posts that he can't get into those better companies and is considering suicide. It sounds so odd to me that I don't know if he's serious.

[et-al]

It also stinks of tech entitlement / myopia.

I have friends in SF/Oakland who make less than six-figures getting by, working longer hours without perks, and none of them are contemplating suicide.

[kajecounterhack]

Because you probably aren't doing the same job.

Speaking as an employee of one of the big cos, the engineers who get paid $100k base vs $140 base have lower expectations of performance attached to their work.

[sadamznintern]

New grads at Amazon, FB, Google etc have about the same responsibilities. The only thing that affects pay significantly is other offers for matching, education (sometimes Masters/PhD get more) and location (+10% in more expensive areas for Amazon, slight COLA adjustments at Google. None at FB though). Otherwise the bands and responsibilities are fairly consistent.

If anything, since Amazon engineers are expected to be on call for the same things that Google hires SREs to handle, I'll be doing more.

[throwaway84742]

Nothing wrong with chasing money and status, especially in the initial stages of one’s career. If that’s what _really_ makes him/her tick, great. Money especially tends to have multiplicative effect over time, most jobs you take will necessarily pay more than the previous job. But notice the “really”. There’s 45 years of work in a lifetime, and one needs to find a deeper motivation than money and status.

[leohutson]

I don't think that there's anything wrong with expecting some money and appreciation to follow genuine achievement, but focusing on those rewards to the detriment of actually making something cool is going to be pretty unfulfilling and unsustainable career-wise, doubly so if you are overt enough that your colleagues notice.

[montyf]

Yeah, you can play whatever game you want in life. However, playing the money game is dangerous, and can easily create attachment and greed. I'm not necessarily preaching about his choice of game -- more about his lack of perspective, really.

[throwaway84742]

Not playing the money game is dangerous as well. Like it or not, money is a potent signaling mechanism. The more you’re able to charge, the better you’re treated, the easier it is to get access to “cool” jobs and projects, and the easier it is to throw in the towel on the shitty ones. I’m not even talking about things like compound interest and the peace of mind that comes with financial independence in your mid to late 30s, even just tactical considerations make it worthwhile to extract as much money as possible from the employers. After all, they do try to extract as much productivity from you as possible, so it’s only fair to reciprocate. There’s no shame in it, and pursuing meaningful work at the same time is far from mutually exclusive.

[sadamznintern]

>Surely you can be hired on technical merit.

My dozens of failed interview loops after 4 years of interview preparation have proven that I do not, in fact, have technical merit.

If I can't pass a new grad loop at Google I doubt I can pass an L3 experienced hire loop.