[a1pulley]

I've actually had the opposite experience with Google. I'm currently negotiating a job offer at Google; my initial offer was significantly lower than my four other ones. It's TBD whether they'll end up matching, but my recruiter has been trying to systematically deconstruct the argument for working at a local competitor to make the case that 0.67 * other offer = Google offer. I'm not sure if they'll end up matching - we'll see!

TLDR: in my current experience at non-staff levels, Google comp lags behind "Big-N" comp as well as "near-IPO company" comp. Maybe they just lowball everyone though.

[cbanek]

I know it's just anecdata but Google also lowballed me very hard. They even offered me less than I was currently making at Microsoft, and when I told them that, they basically said, "well, that's how it is." I walked away, and now get an email every year asking me if I'd reconsider. Maybe it was the wrong decision, but it really left a bad taste in my mouth. As a woman in engineering, I now totally believe in the Google pay gap, especially if they are lowballing people coming in.

[yaacov]

Google lowballed the heck out of me to start, but they were willing to match absolutely any offer from any other company. Their recruiting process is rough but everyone I’ve spoken to has ended up with a competitive offer at the end. You might just have had an exceptionally incompetent recruiter

[yibg]

Same with me. Total comp offer at Google was the lowest of the bunch.

[Zaheer]

Google in particular often starts will lower compensation but will match other offers (from Big-N companies) quickly. I'd recommend getting another Big-N offer and using that to negotiate. Some great resources for negotiation: - https://teamcandor.com/salary/guide/ - https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation

[pm90]

> but will match other offers (from Big-N companies) quickly

Don't current Googlers find that depressing?

I've also heard that pay raises within a team at Google are often designed to "level out" the spread. So if you started low, then you eventually catch up. All anecdotes and internet readings though, would love it if someone with actual knowledge commented on these things.

[joshuamorton]

I've found my raises to be really good (base >10% annually, total comp closer to 25% annually). So the impact of my initial offer would have been not super impactful. Certainly it mattered (10s of thousands of dollars at the start of one's career is valuable), but it hasn't affected my raises positively or negatively, so the overall impact is limited.

As for raises, that's almost right. Given two people performing equally, one who makes more than the other, the lower paid one will get larger raises, until the salaries are approximately the same. If one performs better, they'll get larger merit increases.

This is all subject to the assumptions that the system is fair at rating performance, which I try to ignore when explaining the mechanics to people.

[a1pulley]

Thanks Zaheer! While I have your ear: my recruiter at "other company" pushed back on increasing RSU comp by saying packages were larger in the past but have decreased in size recently. If levels.fyi displayed offer date it might help validate or dispel arguments like that.

[Zaheer]

Ah interesting. One thing that might help: we collect # of Years at Company. There isn't a way to filter on the compensation page for it but you can click a row to see this info. Additionally, on the main page if you click on a level at a company > click View a few data points > chart contains a feature to filter by years at company. We're working on standardizing this display functionality across the site with better filtration / search.

[fizwhiz]

Google doesn't generally care about near-IPO companies unless they're decacorns (and still apply a discount to the competing offer's equity). Google comp only lags behind Netflix for: a) Non-staff levels b) Candidates that don't have competing offers.

It's not unusual to see a huge pay discrepancy based on your ability to negotiate. It also depends on what ladder you're applying to (i.e. you can't compare a Solutions engineer comp at Google to a SWE at some other company).

[throwaway546789]

Starting salary at Google within a given level actually doesn't matter that much, because the comp process is designed to "rubber band" your salary within the salary band for that level. In other words, you'll get larger raises if you start with a lower salary, so the difference doesn't persist very long.

In fact, when you're negotiating comp, I'd argue that an additional $1 of signing bonus or starting equity grant might be worth more to you than $1 of additional salary, because a bigger signing bonus or equity grant doesn't come at the expense of future salary raises.

However, the level you start at matters a lot. If you're an experienced industry hire who should really be an L4 and somehow get slotted as an L3, you'll spend 1-2.5 years waiting for the promo to L4. During that whole time, your peers who were hired at the correct level will be progressing towards L5. This doesn't happen frequently, but it's unfortunate when it happens. In that situation, it can actually make more sense to decline the offer and re-interview to get an L4 job offer later, since that might take less time than getting promoted internally.

[flashgordon]

Google is actually far from the most competitive when it comes to matching. There used to be a time when they used to atleast match Facebook but now given the set of scandals from FB, they are openly refusing to match an FB offer and I have known candidates who have gone to Google despite this (possibly for "ethical" brand and saner work life balance).

[quicklime]

Can anyone comment on the difference in work-life balance between Google and Facebook? Maybe $/hour (or some non-linear equivalent) would be a better metric than just total compensation.

[flashgordon]

This is pretty hard and is usually anecdotal as both companies claim a standard 40 hour week and great WLB (FB does boast about its break fast fix fast culture). I usually use the "interviewer age" as a proxy (not a great one but something). My interviewers at Google have usually been "older" people with families etc where as at FB they are usually the "energetic" ones. Interview questions reflect this too. I found Google ones are usually more testing of experience and are generally well rounded than FB ones (ok let us do leetcode problem # 35, 46 and 82 in an hour).

[UncleMeat]

Depends entirely on the team. There are teams at google with heavy on call or crunch times. There are teams where everybody works ordinary hours.

[a1pulley]

OK, I have an update. Google came within an iota of matching my "local competitor" offer. The original numbers went up just under 50% in a single round of negotiation. So I guess I've added one more supporting data point to the "get competing offers" heuristic for Google jobs.

[person_of_color]

How long did you prepare for the interview?

[a1pulley]

This was my third time doing big-N style interviews in the last few years, so I didn't have to study as much as the first time. YMMV, but my process is to solve the classic expository problems in CLRS - like lecture hall scheduling, max subarray, and rod cutting - without consulting the textbook. Of course, I fail horribly at some of the problems and end up consulting the textbook :-)

After I reread the things I forgot about - implementing things I was hazy on, like Dijkstra, on the way - I solved a handful of leetcode questions, read a few system design analyses, attended an onsite at a "practice company," and finally scheduled my big-N onsites. All told, I studied about 4 hrs per day for five days. But I think it's really important to be honest with yourself; this process seems to work well for me, but your ideal process might be different.