I've noticed this on multiple occasions but why do people often create new accounts just to spread propaganda regarding compensation at Google? Is this a recruiting strategy executed by paid schills?
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Compensation is an intense topic for obvious reasons. There is a lot of variance in the data and it is anything but transparent. It's not surprising that people would create accounts to post sensitive information about it. I haven't seen examples of abuse in this area, but if you or anyone think you're seeing some, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate.
Posting the truth about Google compensation gets you automatic downvotes for some reason here. Google / Facebook / Netflix etc compensation helps the industry significantly by making sure that even software engineers in Pittsburgh make multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
But also, compensation is a sensitive topic. I don't know of the other posts you're speaking of, but people don't like having compensation history go with their comments.
Google doesn't want you to know that you can program websites in the middle of nowhere with very relaxed hours and have a content life that doesn't require you selling your soul to FAANG.
I haven't looked deep into it because I just don't care at this point, but 200k in Mountain View isn't the same 200k in other places.
Lots of people post exaggerations here about tech salaries that “other people they know” get. Last time I pointed this out (and shared links to salary.com and Glassdoor) I was personally attacked for it. There seems to be some strong undercurrent of motivation somewhere for maintaining this meme that entry-level engineers are making $400k and all have second homes in Monaco.
Compensation is an intense topic for obvious reasons. There is a lot of variance in the data and it is anything but transparent. It's not surprising that people would create accounts to post sensitive information about it. I haven't seen examples of abuse in this area, but if you or anyone think you're seeing some, please email hn@ycombinator.com so we can investigate.