Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by lostcolony 1731 days ago
Uh...what? In base maybe, but after bonus and equity you're looking at $1M+ per year even at an L8 - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

The average SWE working at a series B to series E startup is nowhere close to that. Even if the company exits successfully, it's after a few more years, further dilutions, and you might, MIGHT walk away with a million or two...which you have to amortize over the years you worked there.

Am I missing something?
2 comments
cco 1731 days ago
I'm aware of support agents at startups that are/were pulling down $300-400k/year in total comp in pre-IPO numbers. Presuming a happy path towards IPO, that total comp could end up being more like $600-800k, none of these people are Google L8 caliber but they will make money in that same ballpark.

No idea what engineers were making, but probably much more than 2x a support agent.

link
onion2k 1731 days ago
Presuming a happy path towards IPO..

That's a big presumption. There were 407 IPOs in the US in 2020. That's not in tech, but in all industries. If you're pinning your hopes of 50% of your comp coming from an IPO event then you must be very happy with risk.

link
cco 1729 days ago
Right, its a risk, but are you aware of FANGs paying $200-300k/year for technical support staff? I'm sure there are some openings, but low six figures in cash and a chance at 3 to 8x at a startup seems quite attractive.
link
throw123123123 1731 days ago
An engineer that joins a Series B startup at 500M with 100k/yr equity, and that company gets to 5B valuation, very roughly gets 1M equity yearly. Also potentially tax advantaged.

How many L8's does Google have? 100? The chances to get there are probably resemble or are even worse than startups from Series B to Exit.

link
joshuamorton 1731 days ago
You're off by a factor of probably 5-10 (and maybe more) in the number of L8s. It's a 150K employee company, with a dozen or so "S"VPs, and then VPs, and then below that are the directors. And its worth remembering that you're implicitly including stock growth in the startup valuation, but not in the big-co valuation. GOOG is up ~10x in the last 10 years and ~4x in the last 5. The 200K in stock the Google person was getting each year a decade ago is worth 2M per year now. Even the S&P 500 is up 4x in that period.
link
throw123123123 1731 days ago
I'd bet that a sr engineer that worked 2001-2005 at google has multiples of a yearly income than someone that is an L8 in 2020.
link